Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 07, 2022, 10:53:35 AM
Vision Storm,

You can only make that argument stick for 3E if you only consider 2E as the source material.  Because 3E is not a streamlined, cleaned up D&D in general, it is a (somewhat) cleaned up, (somewhat) streamlined version of 2E (including late 2E supplements).  Like all cleaned up, streamlined efforts done by people that don't fully appreciate what they are touching, it falls short in some new ways.

5E is far closer to BEMCI/RC than 3E could ever hope to be, and that's only on a cursory examination.  If you did deep into the way the rules actually work, you'll find little pieces of BEMCI/RC stuck into 5E in strange places.  Of course, what makes it not so obvious is that 5E is doing that same lifting from 1E, 2E, 3E, 4E, and probably a bunch of their cousins as well.  It's the orbital pull of 4E mechanics and attitude that gives the other impression.  You could set all the defaults in 5E to be, say, 1E matching, and then make the corresponding optional rules for any of the 4E stuff, and you'ld get a very different impression. 

But really, the whole argument of what is and isn't D&D is silly.  Because it's more about how you run it at the table, than what the rules actually say, and what D&D is at the table varies, a lot.  When I ran 4E, it was D&D.  Doesn't matter that other people found that they couldn't run it as D&D.  At my table, it was clearly D&D.  The only real meaning in the phrase "not D&D" is more clearly, "more trouble than I want to put up with in order to run D&D at my table".  Which is a much narrower, subjective comment.

Maybe, but at least 3e resembles late stage 2e, which itself resembles 1e, which in turn resembles 0e. So there's a clear progression from one edition to the other. But by 4e all that goes out the window, and I'm not sure how 5e resembles earlier editions, aside from the specific (superficial) details I pointed out.

I also don't think that how people run the game really matters that much when it comes to judging whether the published material actually resembles earlier material. How people run the game is a matter of taste, not a defining attribute of the system.

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 07, 2022, 12:17:21 PM

Quote from: deadDMwalking on September 07, 2022, 10:45:17 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 07, 2022, 10:34:27 AM
The case could be made that 3e is also D&D in name only, but there is enough overlap between it and earlier editions for it to be a weaker case. But with 4e and 5e if you changed the stat names and called the game something else you wouldn't know it was D&D. If you did the same to 3e, it would at least be recognizable as a splinter of D&D.

But this becomes a bit of a No True Scotsman argument.  If you define D&D as 'everything that says D&D published before 1998', then obviously 3rd, 4th and 5th edition wouldn't count.  I think a more inclusive definition is good - telling someone that they're NOT playing D&D because they're playing 5th edition is probably insulting.  I think it's fair to say what you think are 'sacred cows' for D&D and which editions you think are better/best because they meet those definitions, but it isn't fair to say that other people that value different aspects aren't playing D&D. 

D&D is a brand, like Coca-Cola is a brand.  Coke and Diet Coke are both versions of Coke - it's okay that they're basically NOTHING ALIKE.  They both say Coke on the bottle and as long as you know what you're getting, that's fine.

Except that I'm not defining D&D as anything published before 1998, but anything that closely resembles those game engines, the same way that basically every single other TTRPG other than PF2 does when comparing it to earlier editions. Which as close as an objective measure as we can get. People's feelings don't figure into it. This is about whether the system resembles earlier editions or not.

Declaring that something is a thing because it says so on the label is like saying that the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea is democratic, a republic and cares what it's people think because it says so in the name. And Diet Coke is different from regular Coke, that's why it's called DIET Coke, rather than selling it to me and telling me that it's just "Coke", then crying to me about all the people who like Diet when I point out it isn't the same thing.

Okay, but where exactly are these vast differences? The attributes are the same as 3e. It made Point Buy the standard, but 3e had point buy too (insisted on it for tournament/living campaign play) and 4E also included the roll 4d6 drop lowest as an option. It used the same modifiers to attributes (score -10 divided by two, round down). It used AC, Fortitude, Reflex and Will, it just flipped who rolled for the non-AC defenses (but was still a d20 check).

It used the same d20+mod vs. DC system and separate damage roll for task resolution, included attribute based skills and had feats just like 3e had.

You built your PC by combining a race with a class just like every edition of D&D and bought starting equipment with an allotment of gold.

It used the same Standard, Move and Minor action economy for actions, humans moved the default 30' (6 squares) and could do double by spending their Standard action just like 3e. It had opportunity attacks just like 3e.

Since 3cat insists on focusing on more than just the core books, it included all the strongholds, hirelings, henchmen/companions, mass combat, and non-combat abilities one would expect of a fully fleshed out edition of D&D.

So either all of the WotC editions aren't "true" D&D or they all are... because you can easily see the connective tissue between late 3.5e (Tome of Battle, Reserve Feats, etc.) and early 4E and from late 4E into early 5e. Its NOT actually a radical departure, its just a step in a continuum.

But apparently the only thing that makes something D&D is some nebulous "feel"... making sure the books have lots of earth tones and old-parchment with plenty of Gygaxian prose interwoven with the actual mechanics needed to play. The proof in the pudding for me is how the OSR crowd swoons all over Stars/Worlds Without Number which has overall very modern design (including feats) and doesn't even use a d20 for task resolution and uses 4E's best of two stats for its Physical (Fort), Evasion (Reflex) and Mental (Will) saves. Its psychic powers effort system is basically at-will, encounter and daily powers just like 4E... but S/WWN gets a pass because it has some nebulous "feel" that makes it somehow OSR.

There's no objective standard behind excluding 4E from the "is D&D" list. Just people who are still outraged a decade later that it dared to actually try to improve things compared to 3e in a way they didn't approve of. The game has been out of print for a literal decade now (the last 4E book with any mechanics in it shipped in September of 2012) and people (some of whom never actually even played it) still can't stop hating on it.

I swear a friend of mine is right; if the OD&D and B/X boxes had shipped with live hornets in them, a non-trivial segment of the OSR crowd would insist that if you weren't going to the ER for anaphylactic shock after your first session then you weren't playing D&D right.

D&D is linear fighters and quadratic wizards.  4E moved away from that.

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 07, 2022, 12:28:14 PM

Maybe, but at least 3e resembles late stage 2e, which itself resembles 1e, which in turn resembles 0e. So there's a clear progression from one edition to the other. But by 4e all that goes out the window, and I'm not sure how 5e resembles earlier editions, aside from the specific (superficial) details I pointed out.

I also don't think that how people run the game really matters that much when it comes to judging whether the published material actually resembles earlier material. How people run the game is a matter of taste, not a defining attribute of the system.

Well, how you run it matters when judging whether playing it the way it is written replicates the experience.  In order to know that, a person has to have also played the thing being compared against.  To wit, 5E doesn't read like BEMCI/RC, at all.  When you play low-level 5E with certain options turned on to make it a little more deadly, the net effect at the table is very similar. Heck, there's even the prototype of the 5E exhaustion rules right there in the RC as an option, for example. 

Now, I'd guess that it would also be similar to 2E in that respect, but I never ran it straight as it was described in the 2E rules.  So it is only a guess.  I did play 1E straight, or at least as straight as I could based on my then understanding of the rules, and I do see some similarities there.  Also, it's not a level match.  First level 5E characters played with those options feel more like third level B/X characters.   

It's not an exact match.  You have to dial the options pretty severely in 5E to get the same kind of PC death dynamic.  There's only so far you can go with little save or die and no real level drain (though drifted exhaustion can help).  But 5E is a heck of a lot closer match to that play experience than 3E every dreamed off, with the possible exception of low-level 3E out of the gate, with certain monsters (e.g. orcs, dragons, owlbears).  About every couple of levels of advancement, 3E changes, and every time it changes, it becomes less like 1E and BEMCI/RC by leaps and bounds.  But it's not an open or shut case on it, either.  In some ways, at low levels, I even preferred its take on things.

Bah, I'm wasting too much time defending WotC products.  The company sucks.  They suck bad enough in enough ways that there's no point in nailing them for things that won't hold up to real experience with the products and the comparing products.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 07, 2022, 12:57:40 PM
Okay, but where exactly are these vast differences?

Principally, three:

1. The use of essentially the same powers system for all class abilities. You can argue it is an extension of the trend started in 3e with all classes having feats and a universal skill system, but the principle subsystems of magic and combat remained very distinct. Once every class had the same assembly of powers with a few mechanical differences around what physical focus (if any) was required and just picked from different power lists you have a significantly different game that will not meet the expectations of prior editions.

2. As I said above, I had a lot of fun with 4e but the first time I played I built my typical human fighter. This was a mistake because I tended to like to play front-line damage dealers, which fighters from 0e to 3.x could do. In fact, the feat system allowed me to do that more in 3e than AD&D thus fulfilling my expectations.

In 4e, a fighter is a defender, that is he stands in front and soaks up damage. I had more powers related to keeping others from being hurt than dealing damage. I would have been better suited as a melee ranger. In isolation that is fine, but when the system is set up so someone who always did $FOO in prior editions with method $LA winds up picking $LA and getting $FEE as their role, you've created a vast difference.

3. The combination of #1 and #2 makes avoiding #2 harder because the ability to analyze characters for roles taught by the prior condition breaks down.

Those factors do not make any statement about the quality of the different games but should lead one to suspect that players of the first game will come to the second with a certain set of expectations and be disappointed.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 07, 2022, 02:15:26 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 07, 2022, 12:28:14 PM

Maybe, but at least 3e resembles late stage 2e, which itself resembles 1e, which in turn resembles 0e. So there's a clear progression from one edition to the other. But by 4e all that goes out the window, and I'm not sure how 5e resembles earlier editions, aside from the specific (superficial) details I pointed out.

I also don't think that how people run the game really matters that much when it comes to judging whether the published material actually resembles earlier material. How people run the game is a matter of taste, not a defining attribute of the system.

Well, how you run it matters when judging whether playing it the way it is written replicates the experience.  In order to know that, a person has to have also played the thing being compared against.  To wit, 5E doesn't read like BEMCI/RC, at all.  When you play low-level 5E with certain options turned on to make it a little more deadly, the net effect at the table is very similar. Heck, there's even the prototype of the 5E exhaustion rules right there in the RC as an option, for example. 

Now, I'd guess that it would also be similar to 2E in that respect, but I never ran it straight as it was described in the 2E rules.  So it is only a guess.  I did play 1E straight, or at least as straight as I could based on my then understanding of the rules, and I do see some similarities there.  Also, it's not a level match.  First level 5E characters played with those options feel more like third level B/X characters.   

It's not an exact match.  You have to dial the options pretty severely in 5E to get the same kind of PC death dynamic.  There's only so far you can go with little save or die and no real level drain (though drifted exhaustion can help).  But 5E is a heck of a lot closer match to that play experience than 3E every dreamed off, with the possible exception of low-level 3E out of the gate, with certain monsters (e.g. orcs, dragons, owlbears).  About every couple of levels of advancement, 3E changes, and every time it changes, it becomes less like 1E and BEMCI/RC by leaps and bounds.  But it's not an open or shut case on it, either.  In some ways, at low levels, I even preferred its take on things.

Bah, I'm wasting too much time defending WotC products.  The company sucks.  They suck bad enough in enough ways that there's no point in nailing them for things that won't hold up to real experience with the products and the comparing products.

Fair enough...

My favorite D&D rules are the RC hard cover.  The various OD&D through 5e adventure modules can be mined for ideas or back-ported to RC.

The challenge is separating the plot stuff from undesired reconned lore from the mechanics. In that regard, 3e did a decent job of adhering to established lore for both GH and FR. 4e was quite the shitshow when it came to Forgotten Realms lore. 5e has so far done a shit job on lore because of wokeness (in their quest to be all-inclusive, they've continued to step on their own dicks again and again). For these reasons, I still rate 3e the best WotC Edition.

Quote from: 3catcircus on September 07, 2022, 04:02:30 PM

Fair enough...

My favorite D&D rules are the RC hard cover.  The various OD&D through 5e adventure modules can be mined for ideas or back-ported to RC.

The challenge is separating the plot stuff from undesired reconned lore from the mechanics. In that regard, 3e did a decent job of adhering to established lore for both GH and FR. 4e was quite the shitshow when it came to Forgotten Realms lore. 5e has so far done a shit job on lore because of wokeness (in their quest to be all-inclusive, they've continued to step on their own dicks again and again). For these reasons, I still rate 3e the best WotC Edition.

Well, with the possible exception of 2E specialty priests, and maybe a few niche things, I'd say every edition of the FR material is worse than the last.  Which is why if I were to run FR today, in any edition, I'd do it with some of the 1E stuff only.  That said, I agree with the Chris that, on balance, I prefer the more mythological basis of the 4E implied setting.  The conceits of that don't really fit FR.  So of course the ham-handed attempt to make them fit didn't go well.  If ever there was an edition that really needed to leave FR alone and do its own things, 4E was it.  They couldn't do that, because of the "branding" thing.

This is part of what I mean when I've said elsewhere that a big problem with all WotC editions is that they don't have the courage to follow through with where the game is clearly going.  Even with the woke stuff now, they are still trying to have it both ways.  Changed, yet not changed.  Different, yet compatible.  Same experience that you always got, but "better".  That's a strategy devised by a mob.

I'm not really a 2E fan, of either its approach to the rules or most of the settings, but I will give its designers credit for not falling into that same trap.  They clearly set out with the goal of clarifying the rules while leaving them mostly untouched, and that the place to explore was different ways to use those rules, largely expressed in the settings.  And then they did their best to run with those ideas.

I also prefer BEMCI/RC.

Quote from: PulpHerb on September 07, 2022, 03:48:31 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 07, 2022, 12:57:40 PM
Okay, but where exactly are these vast differences?

Principally, three:

1. The use of essentially the same powers system for all class abilities. You can argue it is an extension of the trend started in 3e with all classes having feats and a universal skill system, but the principle subsystems of magic and combat remained very distinct. Once every class had the same assembly of powers with a few mechanical differences around what physical focus (if any) was required and just picked from different power lists you have a significantly different game that will not meet the expectations of prior editions.

2. As I said above, I had a lot of fun with 4e but the first time I played I built my typical human fighter. This was a mistake because I tended to like to play front-line damage dealers, which fighters from 0e to 3.x could do. In fact, the feat system allowed me to do that more in 3e than AD&D thus fulfilling my expectations.

In 4e, a fighter is a defender, that is he stands in front and soaks up damage. I had more powers related to keeping others from being hurt than dealing damage. I would have been better suited as a melee ranger. In isolation that is fine, but when the system is set up so someone who always did $FOO in prior editions with method $LA winds up picking $LA and getting $FEE as their role, you've created a vast difference.

3. The combination of #1 and #2 makes avoiding #2 harder because the ability to analyze characters for roles taught by the prior condition breaks down.

Those factors do not make any statement about the quality of the different games but should lead one to suspect that players of the first game will come to the second with a certain set of expectations and be disappointed.

There's a reason I highly recommend post-Essentials only for 4E... there are two versions of the Fighter class; the Knight (Defender) and the Slayer (Striker) so if you wanted to do be the melee damage beast, you pick the Slayer version of the Fighter.

Essentially also added different mechanical schemes to the mix.

• Fighters were built around at-will stances and a "power strike" encounter power for extra damage with no daily powers at all.
• Thieves were built around at-will move action tricks and an encounter-power backstab requiring combat advantage and no daily powers at all.
• Assassins got a single-use per encounter death strike rather than multiple-use encounter powers and daily use poisons (of which they could craft any that they knew and each had an out-of-combat use).
• Rangers got a number of bonus utility powers, used mostly at-will powers with a couple of encounter power buffs. No dailies.
• Wizards had a spellbook that could hold two (three with a feat) spells per level and each day they could prepare X number of encounter and X number of daily spells from it.
• Skalds got to use any daily power they knew in their daily slots (rather than once each) and they were mostly encounter long ally buffs. Their healing ability actually ran off of other player's minor actions instead of their own with many of their encounter abilities being minor actions, interrupts or "on-hit" buffs meaning their primary attacks were basic ones with a weapon encounter abilities triggered by other actions.
• Berserkers went from being defenders to strikers the first time they used a daily power during a battle.
• Druids didn't get daily powers, but got summoning and they could summon the same critter each time if they wished.
• Monks used full-stance powers that combined a move and attack action into a single power.
• Elementalist Sorcerers were a simple spellcasting class that used a basic at-will attack that they augmented into extra damage and AoE attacks with a X/encounter boost and had no daily powers.
• Psions didn't get encounter powers at all, but instead got power points to boost their at-will powers.
• Paladins in Essentials got smites in place of encounter powers.
• Only Clerics and Warlocks retained the majority of the early 4E AEDU power structure.

As stated previously, the game got released a year early due to Hasbro demanding it and that meant a bunch of things were unfinished. Essentials launched within two years and was 100% backward compatible with the prior material (not just mostly compatible like 3-3.5) but opened up a whole slew of different options.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 07, 2022, 12:57:40 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 07, 2022, 12:17:21 PM

Quote from: deadDMwalking on September 07, 2022, 10:45:17 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 07, 2022, 10:34:27 AM
The case could be made that 3e is also D&D in name only, but there is enough overlap between it and earlier editions for it to be a weaker case. But with 4e and 5e if you changed the stat names and called the game something else you wouldn't know it was D&D. If you did the same to 3e, it would at least be recognizable as a splinter of D&D.

But this becomes a bit of a No True Scotsman argument.  If you define D&D as 'everything that says D&D published before 1998', then obviously 3rd, 4th and 5th edition wouldn't count.  I think a more inclusive definition is good - telling someone that they're NOT playing D&D because they're playing 5th edition is probably insulting.  I think it's fair to say what you think are 'sacred cows' for D&D and which editions you think are better/best because they meet those definitions, but it isn't fair to say that other people that value different aspects aren't playing D&D. 

D&D is a brand, like Coca-Cola is a brand.  Coke and Diet Coke are both versions of Coke - it's okay that they're basically NOTHING ALIKE.  They both say Coke on the bottle and as long as you know what you're getting, that's fine.

Except that I'm not defining D&D as anything published before 1998, but anything that closely resembles those game engines, the same way that basically every single other TTRPG other than PF2 does when comparing it to earlier editions. Which as close as an objective measure as we can get. People's feelings don't figure into it. This is about whether the system resembles earlier editions or not.

Declaring that something is a thing because it says so on the label is like saying that the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea is democratic, a republic and cares what it's people think because it says so in the name. And Diet Coke is different from regular Coke, that's why it's called DIET Coke, rather than selling it to me and telling me that it's just "Coke", then crying to me about all the people who like Diet when I point out it isn't the same thing.

Okay, but where exactly are these vast differences? The attributes are the same as 3e. It made Point Buy the standard, but 3e had point buy too (insisted on it for tournament/living campaign play) and 4E also included the roll 4d6 drop lowest as an option. It used the same modifiers to attributes (score -10 divided by two, round down). It used AC, Fortitude, Reflex and Will, it just flipped who rolled for the non-AC defenses (but was still a d20 check).

It used the same d20+mod vs. DC system and separate damage roll for task resolution, included attribute based skills and had feats just like 3e had.

You built your PC by combining a race with a class just like every edition of D&D and bought starting equipment with an allotment of gold.

It used the same Standard, Move and Minor action economy for actions, humans moved the default 30' (6 squares) and could do double by spending their Standard action just like 3e. It had opportunity attacks just like 3e.

Since 3cat insists on focusing on more than just the core books, it included all the strongholds, hirelings, henchmen/companions, mass combat, and non-combat abilities one would expect of a fully fleshed out edition of D&D.

So either all of the WotC editions aren't "true" D&D or they all are... because you can easily see the connective tissue between late 3.5e (Tome of Battle, Reserve Feats, etc.) and early 4E and from late 4E into early 5e. Its NOT actually a radical departure, its just a step in a continuum.

But apparently the only thing that makes something D&D is some nebulous "feel"... making sure the books have lots of earth tones and old-parchment with plenty of Gygaxian prose interwoven with the actual mechanics needed to play. The proof in the pudding for me is how the OSR crowd swoons all over Stars/Worlds Without Number which has overall very modern design (including feats) and doesn't even use a d20 for task resolution and uses 4E's best of two stats for its Physical (Fort), Evasion (Reflex) and Mental (Will) saves. Its psychic powers effort system is basically at-will, encounter and daily powers just like 4E... but S/WWN gets a pass because it has some nebulous "feel" that makes it somehow OSR.

There's no objective standard behind excluding 4E from the "is D&D" list. Just people who are still outraged a decade later that it dared to actually try to improve things compared to 3e in a way they didn't approve of. The game has been out of print for a literal decade now (the last 4E book with any mechanics in it shipped in September of 2012) and people (some of whom never actually even played it) still can't stop hating on it.

I swear a friend of mine is right; if the OD&D and B/X boxes had shipped with live hornets in them, a non-trivial segment of the OSR crowd would insist that if you weren't going to the ER for anaphylactic shock after your first session then you weren't playing D&D right.

I already covered much of this in my prior post (and you haven't addressed any of it, by the way). Attributes being mostly the same (4e does make some changes on which attribute modifiers apply to which rolls or saves, so they're not exactly the same) is largely superficial. Attributes are a tiny component of the game that just provides a modifier. They're just 3-18 range scores that grant a +1 bonus per 2 points above 10, or a -1 penalty per 2 points below 10. That's all it takes to describe them mechanically!

Plenty of games other than D&D also have some sort of Roll+Modifier vs Target Number mechanic, and use some variation of Standard, Move and Minor actions as well, and most class-based system also use Race+Class combinations. So all of that's superficial too (and utterly so in the case race+class).

The class structure and all related stats, like "To Hit"/THAC0/Attack Bonus, Saving Throw progression and Spell Casting, and what abilities they provide, are far more complex components that have a greater impact on how things actually work in the game, and they're all significantly different. 4e and 5e don't even make a distinction on different classes "To Hit" component, while different classes having different chances "To Hit" in combat was a defining characteristic in earlier editions FOR DECADES. Now mages have the same base chance to hit as warriors. The only difference is attribute modifiers, and mages often get to add their casting modifier to their attack rolls, meaning they probably get the same "to hit" chance as a warrior regardless.

And as PulpHerb pointed out, 4e made class powers that worked mostly the same a key defining feature of the system. With stuff like "at Will", "Encounter" or "Daily" powers that didn't exist in any other "edition" of the game, prior or after. They even got rid of the spellasting system and turned spells into powers. None of this stuff works like other editions of the game.

I'm also not sure why you're throwing snipes at me implying adulation of old D&D when I've gotten into multiple flame wars here for crapping on old D&D and the OSR. I was fairly specific on my reasoning in my post, and none of it included OD&D worship. All of it was about edition comparisons, and pointing out that no other systems that I'm aware of, other than PF2, change as much between editions. Editions from other games are nearly identical with minor adjustments and additions. It's only in D&D--and only WotC era at that--where we get drastically different games but are expected to regard them as the same thing.

D&D 3.0 tried to be a brand new edition, without taking a dump on everything that came before it.

3.5 was a rewrite of 3.0 and added a bunch more rules and splat books.

4.0 took D&D in a brand new direction, and pissed all over the existing lore of D&D.

5.0 tried to cash in, on peoples' yearning for the D&D of old.  It also caught a big break, with the product placement of generic D&D in the media.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 07, 2022, 05:13:36 PM

There's a reason I highly recommend post-Essentials only for 4E... there are two versions of the Fighter class; the Knight (Defender) and the Slayer (Striker) so if you wanted to do be the melee damage beast, you pick the Slayer version of the Fighter.

Essentially also added different mechanical schemes to the mix.

I'll address the key issue I have with Essentials character books below, but while you addressed #2, #1 remains and that alone is sufficient to qualify as a significant difference, one great enough to mean 4e failed the "this is what I expect from D&D" that the rest of the family tree met sufficiently for people think of them as "D&D" as opposed to "not D&D".

Think of it as inviting people to play Mage: the Ascession and running Mage: the Awakening. I love both, but they are very different games, and selling one as the other will frustrate players.  This is ironic given all M:tAs characters were Awakened by definition while M:tAw characters were much more likely to Ascend.

As I said, this is sad because it blinded people to a very fun game.

Quote
As stated previously, the game got released a year early due to Hasbro demanding it and that meant a bunch of things were unfinished. Essentials launched within two years and was 100% backward compatible with the prior material (not just mostly compatible like 3-3.5) but opened up a whole slew of different options.

This I'll agree with. What I'll disagree with is essentials was a poor fix. Essentials characters offer fewer options than the PHB ones and the two groups don't mix and match well. They're balanced, but Essentials players will get annoyed they can't mix in the more varied options of the PHB books. If Essentials had lived long enough to provide everything we'd seen in the PHB and the power source books it might have been better.

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 07, 2022, 06:44:30 PM
All of it was about edition comparisons, and pointing out that no other systems that I'm aware of, other than PF2, change as much between editions. Editions from other games are nearly identical with minor adjustments and additions. It's only in D&D--and only WotC era at that--where we get drastically different games but are expected to regard them as the same thing.

The PF2 point is a big one.

I consider PF a member of the Dungeons & Dragons family* as I do a lot of games from the late 70s/early 80s like The Complete Warlock or Palladium Fantasy 1st Edition (only).  This makes sense as 3.x is part, although about as far as you can go without leaving the family.

PF2 is changed enough I no longer consider it part of the family.

* No, it isn't branded D&D, but Linux. Coherent, Minix, and *BSDs aren't Unix either, but everyone will tell you they are part of the Unix family, branded or not. AIX, HPUX, etc are even stranger cases of licensed, but not branded Unixes probably closer to PF than the earlier named ones.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 07, 2022, 12:57:40 PM
...
But apparently the only thing that makes something D&D is some nebulous "feel"... making sure the books have lots of earth tones and old-parchment with plenty of Gygaxian prose interwoven with the actual mechanics needed to play. The proof in the pudding for me is how the OSR crowd swoons all over Stars/Worlds Without Number which has overall very modern design (including feats) and doesn't even use a d20 for task resolution and uses 4E's best of two stats for its Physical (Fort), Evasion (Reflex) and Mental (Will) saves. Its psychic powers effort system is basically at-will, encounter and daily powers just like 4E... but S/WWN gets a pass because it has some nebulous "feel" that makes it somehow OSR.

In bold: Yes, and Yes.

4e apologists need to suck it up and accept the fact that 4e split the fanbase because a whole lot of people didn't like it.

Other posters have given mechanical reasons why 4e bounced off of so many, but there is a reality that one needs to accept to truly understand why 4e screwed the pooch.

The D&D fanbase likes their D&D the way they like it. So don't touch anything. Yeah, maybe some things could use a fix; but don't change anything! Just make it like it was before; only better.

And 4e fucked it up:

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 07, 2022, 12:57:40 PM
There's no objective standard behind excluding 4E from the "is D&D" list. Just people who are still outraged a decade later that it dared to actually try to improve things compared to 3e in a way they didn't approve of. The game has been out of print for a literal decade now (the last 4E book with any mechanics in it shipped in September of 2012) and people (some of whom never actually even played it) still can't stop hating on it.
...

Again in bold: Yes, and Yes. Because the second bolded line in your quote is the only thing that really matters in this discussion at all.

And it was not just a handful of rando's on internet forums.

Half the paying D&D fanbase jumped ship for a fucking clone of the previous edition rather than play 4e.

Jumped. Ship. For. A. Clone.

And many others just stopped playing official D&D.

Whether or not 4e was objectively good as a game Doesn't Matter.

Because as an edition of D&D: 4e Fucking Sucked.

It sucked so hard that WotC killed an active edition that was probably still making them money to pivot to something that wouldn't hemorrhage market share to the past editions clone.

D&D is the 800lb. gorilla of the hobby not because it sells a little bit more than it's nearest competitor. It is the 800lb. gorilla of the hobby because it sells orders of magnitude more than its nearest competitor.

And 4e didn't do that. In fact it started to get outsold by the clone a little bit...

For D&D that's a Fucking Unacceptable Situation.

So WotC killed that hot trash faster than a Rino can cuck on his constituents.

Then correctly chased after the fan bases approval with D&DNext.

And yeah - people are gonna continue to hate on 4e. The D&D fanbase is hateful that way...

Get over it.

  So, Jam the MF, as you can see from the continuance of this topic the objectively correct answer is still 5e.  It doesn't come with all this whinging and bickering, which alone already puts it leagues ahead of WotC's first few forays.

Happy travels!

Oh 5e is the worst. I take its support from the OSR crowd as evidence thst they only care about superficial layout.