What is your worst roleplaying game?

[Irennan]

The gods thing is, IMHO, symptomatic of a larger problem: settings tend to have a lot of information that is not very relevant to players. I don't care that Eberron had an ancient goblin empire that was wiped out by aberrations. I care that there are ruins in Darguun which have small-sized tunnels and are full of aberrations and magic items attuned to ... whatever the ancient goblins did. I think that tendency comes from the people writing setting books being fans of the setting, and hence focusing more on the nitty-gritty details (which are interesting to them) than the high level hooks (which are interesting to new players). IMHO, the setting book should focus on providing a simple look at the setting that emphasizes what adventures you can have there, not providing a deep explanation of the history or religion of the setting.

A setting book is also (mainly, I'd argue) used by DMs, and details about history and religion can make the world feel alive, can provide immersion, and make for plot hooks that are rooted in the setting. Like making up a plot about the repercussion in the present time of something that happened long time ago to that ancient goblin empire. Something hidden in its ruin that is tied to a key event of its history.

That's why player's guide books are also printed. Books that provide info mostly useful to the player, rather than providing an in-depth explanation of the setting. The recent Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is a good example of that, providing a quick update of the various aspects of the Realms to the current age, and essential lore and descriptions that both players and DMs can easily use. However, it doesn't really offer anything that goes deeper than that (and it should have been 4e's approach to the problem since the beginning IMO).

[Scots Dragon]

A setting book is also (mainly, I'd argue) used by DMs, and details about history and religion can make the world feel alive, can provide immersion, and make for plot hooks that are rooted in the setting. Like making up a plot about the repercussion in the present time of something that happened long time ago to that ancient goblin empire. Something hidden in its ruin that is tied to a key event of its history.

That's why player's guide books are also printed. Books that provide info mostly useful to the player, rather than providing an in-depth explanation of the setting. The recent Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is a good example of that, providing a quick update of the various aspects of the Realms to the current age, and essential lore and descriptions that both players and DMs can easily use. However, it doesn't really offer anything that goes deeper than that.

^ This.

With just a bit of thought it's possible to take any small part of a setting's history or information and spin it into a plot or character hook.

Let's take for example... opening my Cyclopedia of the Realms book to a random page, and pointing at a random section of that page, we get the information on the Rashemi youths undergoing the dajemma. A rite of passage into adulthood where a young Rashemi man goes on an expedition to prove himself worthy as a warrior and such. A really obvious use of that would be, say, spinning it out into the backstory of your berserker ranger with his pet miniature giant space hamster.

[LibraryOgre]

The Spellplague is what happens when someone who dislikes something is allowed to rewrite it. It generally sucks for everyone. The people who liked it before no longer like it and the people who didn't like it before don't see a real reason to like it now - they merely dislike it less.

I think this is a good point. The rewrite changed things a lot of fans liked about the setting, and didn't fix the things people disliked about the setting.

[Morty]

Could you elaborate on what you consider a competently designed game and why you think 4e is the only D&D that fits those standards?

4e has goals that it tries to achieve. The goals are often suspect, and the execution is lacking, but the process is there. I don't really see anything of the sort in other editions of D&D. 3e is an attempt to bring the old D&D experience into a "modern" framework that went off into several different directions; 5e is only concerned about being familiar to people. Pre-3e versions are a product of a different era, really. It's not my favourite system, by far, but I consider its design to be better than the other editions'.

Doing FR for people who hate FR is bad, but I do think that any setting needs some neutral outsiders to go over it from time to time and call out stuff that is excessively stupid. Particularly in terms of what goes into the book intended as an introduction for new players.

Pruning a setting and fixing parts that make no sense are all well and good, yes, but that's not what 4e's approach did.

I kind of suspect that they expected that the FR fans were so used to Realm-Shattering Events (aka RSEs) that they'd not complain terribly much.

I also suspect the anguished outcry on the part of the FR fans is what kept Eberron and Dark Sun relatively unchanged.

Maybe they did, but in this case, their expectation ended up being misguided, to say the least. Many things 4e did were overblown reactions to real problems in the older editions. Ploughing over FR could be called one of those.

[JoeJ]

You realize 4e's "per encounter' powers actually reset after a short rest, right? They aren't literally renewed when an encounter ends. Likewise daily powers are renewed after an extended rest.

Then they should have been clearer. In fact, they shouldn't have called them "powers" at all. Powers are presented in a way that made them look like some kind of magical abilities that recharge rather than skills. And instead of memorizing spells that they can pick, wizards and clerics have "powers" that recharge too. Oh, and something called a "healing surge," that isn't actually defined anywhere.

Also, there's no flavor at all. Not even the barest description of how the various races and classes fit into the world, or why I would choose one over another on any basis besides combat role. That, plus distances being always given in squares instead of real world units makes the characters seem disconnected from any kind of world.

The thing about first impressions is that you only get one. If you mess it up, you may not have a chance for a second impression. My first impression of 4e was that it wasn't D&D at all, but something more like Gauntlet: The Tabletop Edition. Maybe if I'd had friends that were really into it they could have convinced me to try playing, but I didn't. Nobody that I gamed with was playing 4e, so I saw no reason to spend any time or money delving deeper into something that had already left me cold.

If you look at my history of posting, on the rare occasions where I've said anything about 4e at all, I've always been clear that my opinion is based only on the Quick Start rules. I'm not qualified, and I don't claim to be qualified, to critique any more than that.

[obryn]

A setting book is also (mainly, I'd argue) used by DMs, and details about history and religion can make the world feel alive, can provide immersion, and make for plot hooks that are rooted in the setting. Like making up a plot about the repercussion in the present time of something that happened long time ago to that ancient goblin empire. Something hidden in its ruin that is tied to a key event of its history.

I'm pretty much the opposite when it comes to settings. I really liked FR, when it was literally just the 1e AD&D grey box. That was just about a perfect level of detail and description for the setting, while leaving all kinds of space for DMs to improvise. It's neatly digestible, and enough to both generate plot hooks and seed a DM's descriptions.

I know that this whole happy equilibrium was destroyed almost immediately with the FR series that ran from 1e to 2e, and the numerous novels. But that first grey box? That was just about right.

e: But this is probably too much of a derail. We can take this up elsewhere if anyone wants to start a thread.

[Irennan]

I'm pretty much the opposite when it comes to settings. I really liked FR, when it was literally just the 1e AD&D grey box. That was just about a perfect level of detail and description for the setting, while leaving all kinds of space for DMs to improvise. It's neatly digestible, and enough to both generate plot hooks and seed a DM's descriptions.

I know that this whole happy equilibrium was destroyed almost immediately with the FR series that ran from 1e to 2e, and the numerous novels. But that first grey box? That was just about right.

e: But this is probably too much of a derail. We can take this up elsewhere if anyone wants to start a thread.

I've already stated that, but I think that the 5e ''module'' approach works very well with settings like the Realms. When you keep your Grey Box, and then release regional books, a races book, pantheon books, etc... you are providing tools and lore for those who want it, and still keeping the core needed to play and run a game in the FR as a self-contained and independent item for those who want only it. Not only that, but it may come a day when you want some more info about a deity, or a region, and then you *can*, if you *want*, pick other sourcebooks for inspiration (or to simplify your work). It's a win for everyone IMO.

[Amaril]

Of all the systems I've played, my least favorite has to be Exalted 2e. For a game that, as I understand it, is supposed to be about having essentially ultimate power and being able to do just about anything you can imagine, it's awfully heavy and crunchy, so much that I find it gets in the way of enjoying the premise. If I were to make a system for the Exalted setting, which I love, I'd keep it much lighter.

(Yes, I know I'm bastardizing the theme of Exalted, but that's the part that's relevant to my argument.)

[Kurald Galain]

4e has goals that it tries to achieve. The goals are often suspect, and the execution is lacking, but the process is there. I don't really see anything of the sort in other editions of D&D. 3e is an attempt to bring the old D&D experience into a "modern" framework that went off into several different directions; 5e is only concerned about being familiar to people.

So you've just listed (what you perceive to be) the goals of 3E and 5E, which contradicts your point that they wouldn't have goals. Of course they have goals, pretty much every professional gaming system has goals.

The interesting point for any system or edition was never whether it has goals. The point is whether (1) you think those goals are worthwhile, and (2) it achieves those goals.

[obryn]

I've already stated that, but I think that the 5e ''module'' approach works very well with settings like the Realms. When you keep your Grey Box, and then release regional books, a races book, pantheon books, etc... you are providing tools and lore for those who want it, and still keeping the core needed to play and run a game in the FR as a self-contained and independent item for those who want only it. Not only that, but it may come a day when you want some more info about a deity, or a region, and then you *can*, if you *want*, pick other sourcebooks for inspiration (or to simplify your work). It's a win for everyone IMO.

No, I actually disagree. Pretty strongly, in fact. That's essentially the same situation that we are in right now with any bloated setting, and I find it equally unpalatable. There being a 'lore' out there creates a decision to ignore or follow said lore, along with a pressure to do that research in order to avoid contradicting it.

YMMV, of course, and like I said, I'm happy to discuss this in another thread rather than keep derailing everything.

[Morty]

So you've just listed (what you perceive to be) the goals of 3E and 5E, which contradicts your point that they wouldn't have goals. Of course they have goals, pretty much every professional gaming system has goals.

The interesting point for any system or edition was never whether it has goals. The point is whether (1) you think those goals are worthwhile, and (2) it achieves those goals.

Yes, that's fair. Let me rephrase: I think 4e has mostly well-defined goals and works towards achieving them, whereas 3e has self-contradictory goals that it flounders trying to achieve. 5e's goal I perceive as reactionary and not very worthwhile.

[Cosi]

A setting book is also (mainly, I'd argue) used by DMs, and details about history and religion can make the world feel alive, can provide immersion, and make for plot hooks that are rooted in the setting. Like making up a plot about the repercussion in the present time of something that happened long time ago to that ancient goblin empire. Something hidden in its ruin that is tied to a key event of its history.

I dunno. I think you want your introductory product to put your best foot forward in terms of introducing people to what makes the setting unique without overwhelming them with detail. I suppose it's a question of old fans versus new (or potential) fans and what you consider to be the selling point of the setting (IMHO, I don't so much care about detail as uniqueness - what does FR offer as a setting that is different from making stuff up as I go along, or using a different setting.

4e has goals that it tries to achieve. The goals are often suspect, and the execution is lacking, but the process is there.

I have difficulty understanding "has goals" as a standard for "competently designed". It's not just that every game has some goals (although that is true), it's that every version of D&D has a basic goal of "create a version of D&D that is better than other versions of D&D at telling the stories you want D&D to tell"*. 4e talks about "roles" or "tiers" or whatever, but that's just shorthand for tools to achieve that goal. The fact that a game has "strikers" and "controllers" doesn't really do anything. It's a potentially useful tool for organizing characters, but it doesn't have any inherent effect on any metric by which I could imagine judging a game.

"Have tiers" isn't a design goal, it's a way to satisfy people who want Lord of the Rings (where characters are personally weak, and an overland journey is the focus of several books) and Lord of Light (where characters are personally strong, and overland journeys can be skipped over) without major imbalances. "Skill challenges" isn't a design goal, it's a way to make non-combat stuff more interesting without separate subsystems for Diplomacy and Stealth and Logistics.

And 4e basically fails to deliver on all its goals. You don't get different powers in Paragon tier, you still deal a couple of [W]s of damage and move a guy a square. Skill challenges don't work, and they have been revised more than any other system in the history of RPGs. Well, maybe. It's certainly in contention with 3e's shape changing rules, Shadowrun's Matrix rules, and (or so I've been told) GURPS's martial arts rules.

I don't think "fails to achieve goals" can be counted as uniquely competently designed. That is, after all, the criticism one would level against 3e or 5e or any other version of D&D. In fact, it's high level enough that there's basically only one other criticism that you can level against RPGs: "goals are stupid". And given that the goals of 3e and 4e are the same (tell fantasy stories in a D&D-ish way), I don't see how you can meaningfully call 4e better than 3e.

*: Alternatively, and somewhat more cynically, the stories you think people will pay for an edition of D&D to tell.

Then they should have been clearer. In fact, they shouldn't have called them "powers" at all. Powers are presented in a way that made them look like some kind of magical abilities that recharge rather than skills.

I have no problem with the "powers" nomenclature. If you are writing a system where everyone has something that is "like spells", you should have a term for all those things and I don't really see a reason not to call them powers. I mean, you could call them abilities, but then what do you call the larger set of "things people get, including things which are not like spells"?

And instead of memorizing spells that they can pick, wizards and clerics have "powers" that recharge too.

There's not anything wrong with moving to a unified power system, really. The problem is doing that and keeping class lists. Wizard powers have all the same definitions as Cleric powers, which makes it all but impossible to justify keeping them on separate lists. The benefit of having everyone on at-will/encounter/daily is that you can get more bang for your buck by opening up the floodgates of multiclassing. If you're not going to do that, what's the point?

Of all the systems I've played, my least favorite has to be Exalted 2e.

I tried to read that, but I had a hard time getting through the introduction. It starts off explaining not "what is Exalted" but "how is Exalted different from D&D, except we won't say D&D and we're going to be snide about all the differences". I did like the media recommendations, although describing Conan as part of the source material for a game about Demigods was weird.

[Scots Dragon]

Yes, that's fair. Let me rephrase: I think 4e has mostly well-defined goals and works towards achieving them, whereas 3e has self-contradictory goals that it flounders trying to achieve. 5e's goal I perceive as reactionary and not very worthwhile.

The problem is that the goals of D&D 4e were to create a game that is radically different to anything that came before or since with regards to the general worlds and concepts of Dungeons & Dragons. Many long-standing traditions were ejected from the game, many of which had little or nothing to do with mechanics, and many other mechanical decisions were made that altered the way in which the game was played.

Regardless of your opinion on the quality of what resulted, you cannot deny that D&D 4e is a very different Dungeons & Dragons to literally any other edition before or since, with little attempt made to accomodate for players who might have preferred the older ways of doing things. In light of that, and the reaction of many fans, a reaction which ignited literally the entire concept of an edition war to begin with – on a scale that dwarfed literally any other edition-based arguments – it actually makes a lot of sense to try and go back to the basics of an older edition of Dungeons & Dragons to try and win back many of the fans who had abandoned the game in the interim. With many of them abandoning Dungeons & Dragons for games that were, essentially, clones of earlier editions with the likes of Pathfinder and the sudden sharp rise in popularity of the OSR.

Coupled with that, the upcoming 2014 was the 40th Anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons in general.

Naturally you can argue about how well they succeeded, but it would arguably have made very little sense to have made an edition that did not celebrate the past in light of the situation that Wizards of the Coast found themselves in. I personally think they succeeded in that goal; D&D 5e was created as a love-letter to the past, and many aspects of it are in-depth celebrations of everything that made Dungeons & Dragons great, but filtered through a more modern and forward thinking lens than the designers seemed to possess in 1974. It was the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons to have open acceptance of LGBT people coded in the rulebook, and had many people of colour in prominent roles throughout the artwork and character mentions.

There are aspects I wouldn't personally say make for the best edition, and I actually at times feel it lags behind the earlier AD&D rules, but it's far better than either of D&D 3.5e or D&D 4e.

[Kurald Galain]

And given that the goals of 3e and 4e are the same (tell fantasy stories in a D&D-ish way),

If you look a bit closer than the meaninglessly-broad "they're all fantasy games", it is obvious that 4E clearly has different goals than 3E or for that matter 5E. The easiest example is that earlier-edition rangers have the goal of "emulating Aragorn", whereas later edition rangers have the goal of "emulating Drizz't".

A large part of the criticism towards any of these is from people who just don't like those goals. That's aside from the question of whether the goals are achieved. Indeed, I'd say that all these editions achieve their goals well enough for their fans, and that most non-fans simply prefer different goals.

[Irennan]

I dunno. I think you want your introductory product to put your best foot forward in terms of introducing people to what makes the setting unique without overwhelming them with detail. I suppose it's a question of old fans versus new (or potential) fans and what you consider to be the selling point of the setting (IMHO, I don't so much care about detail as uniqueness - what does FR offer as a setting that is different from making stuff up as I go along, or using a different setting.

FR is indeed generic high fantasy. Its selling points are the intricate and deep history, its people and flashed out costumes and traditions, its gods (that are actually given character and are active, although this aspect has been stretched to the point of ridiculousness along the editions) and faiths, and all the vivid details that make them feel alive. A FR without its ''liveliness'', with its history being left behind (like the 100 years time jump was meant to do), or w/o its icons, is just your standard template fantasy setting. In short, FR is different because of its detail, a lot of things that together make the setting (it does have some aspects that make some elements unique to the FR, but they alone aren't enough to define the tone of the setting). That's why pruning stuff didn't work with the Realms (and I totally get that this isn't for everyone, but that's the reason why there are many settings out there).

However, I agree with you that the setting can use an introductory book (like the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide), that briefly describes the setting without giving too many details. But it has to be mostly focused on a region, because trying to cover all the regions alone is going to make the book huge. IMO, the 3e CS didn't really go overboard with the details, it offered a good amount of background on the regions, but the vastity of the setting led to such a heavy tome.

[kyoryu]

I think 4e had some pretty obvious design goals:

1) On an overall level, make a game that is more suited for "The party of adventurers on Their Epic Quest" - get rid of the Gygaxian design decisions that were made around, and optimized for, an open-table game.
2) Bring lethality to a set level, as opposed to the highly-lethal early levels and SoD rockets of higher levels
3) De-emphasize character optimization
4) Ensure that all characters have interesting mechanical options at all levels.
5) Make each fight tense on its own, while removing the need for the '15 minute workday'
6) Reinforce the idea of classes as archetypes, as opposed to being merely building blocks. "Being a Fighter" should mean something.

Unfortunately, points 3 and 6 directly opposed the preferences of many of the existing players, and there really should have been a 7th goal in there of "make a game that at least cosmetically looks like previous editions".

[obryn]

I have difficulty understanding "has goals" as a standard for "competently designed". It's not just that every game has some goals (although that is true), it's that every version of D&D has a basic goal of "create a version of D&D that is better than other versions of D&D at telling the stories you want D&D to tell"*. 4e talks about "roles" or "tiers" or whatever, but that's just shorthand for tools to achieve that goal. The fact that a game has "strikers" and "controllers" doesn't really do anything. It's a potentially useful tool for organizing characters, but it doesn't have any inherent effect on any metric by which I could imagine judging a game.

"Have tiers" isn't a design goal, it's a way to satisfy people who want Lord of the Rings (where characters are personally weak, and an overland journey is the focus of several books) and Lord of Light (where characters are personally strong, and overland journeys can be skipped over) without major imbalances. "Skill challenges" isn't a design goal, it's a way to make non-combat stuff more interesting without separate subsystems for Diplomacy and Stealth and Logistics.

And 4e basically fails to deliver on all its goals. You don't get different powers in Paragon tier, you still deal a couple of [W]s of damage and move a guy a square. Skill challenges don't work, and they have been revised more than any other system in the history of RPGs. Well, maybe. It's certainly in contention with 3e's shape changing rules, Shadowrun's Matrix rules, and (or so I've been told) GURPS's martial arts rules.

I don't think "fails to achieve goals" can be counted as uniquely competently designed. That is, after all, the criticism one would level against 3e or 5e or any other version of D&D. In fact, it's high level enough that there's basically only one other criticism that you can level against RPGs: "goals are stupid". And given that the goals of 3e and 4e are the same (tell fantasy stories in a D&D-ish way), I don't see how you can meaningfully call 4e better than 3e.

The goals of the edition were pretty clearly laid out in the preview books that came out in the lead-up to the edition. You are focusing on a much higher-level goal ("Tell D&D stories") than Morty was talking about - which are more along the line of "every character should be capable of contributing to an adventure at every level." And since I've been running the game literally since it came out... well, my view is complicated.

I'll disagree with your take on powers, since that's not at all how they work out in play, but I don't want to derail this bus more.

Skill challenges, though ... well, on the downside, the original DMG skill challenges are a terrible mishmash of bad math and poor implementation. On the upside, 4e was a living, continually-developed game, and by the Rules Compendium, they got it right. So how do you judge - on the initial releases, which I'll agree had serious problems in the specifics of some implementations, or on the final state, which was dramatically improved? If we're judging on the monster creation system, should we look at the bad math of the original MM which led to boring, grindy battles? Or the final Monster Vault math, which finally married good design and good math? And for that matter, what about the related goal of making monsters both easier to run and create with self-contained stat blocks? (At which they were broadly successful.)

Since I'm running a game, obviously the final state is a lot more interesting to me. But I also can't disagree with a negative assessment of the PHB/DMG/MM - particularly the latter two - and more critically, I think the initial design was very conflicted on the final release. I don't think the designers actually knew how the game they'd design would work. The difference from other editions is that they fixed it. It wasn't until later releases - probably as early as PHB2 - that they started to figure out their own game.

So ... TL;DR I think 4e had ambitious design goals, but the specific implementations of those ideas were hit-or-miss at the start of the edition. By the end of the edition, though, I see a lot more hits than misses.

[Kurald Galain]

3) De-emphasize character optimization

They certainly failed at that particular goal

[neonchameleon]

For games that I read but didn't play, my top pick would be Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, mainly because character creation seemed to be based on the assumption that you would only play characters from the comics and not anything you created yourself.

Or alternatively it made creation of anything you want to create easy and fun to the point that there are literally hundreds of fan-made datafiles online (this is just a sampling made in about the six months after MHRP was published). The thing about character creation in MHRP is that the character creation is a markup approach - you create the character's fiction and then turn that into numbers whatever the fiction said.

Then they should have been clearer.

And you should have actually tried looking up what encounter powers and rests were. Almost eight years after the publication of 4e your excuse for not getting basic concepts right in a system that's been argued about to hell and back is low. They were 100% clear in the rulebook whenever they did any defining at all.

In fact, they shouldn't have called them "powers" at all. Powers are presented in a way that made them look like some kind of magical abilities that recharge rather than skills. And instead of memorizing spells that they can pick, wizards and clerics have "powers" that recharge too. Oh, and something called a "healing surge," that isn't actually defined anywhere.

Also, there's no flavor at all. Not even the barest description of how the various races and classes fit into the world, or why I would choose one over another on any basis besides combat role.

So. Based on the rest of your post your problem is that there wasn't much worldbuilding in the quick start rules and that you couldn't even be bothered to read the PHB? And 4e character creation is based on the idea of "You are what you do".

Personally I find 4e has more flavour in any of its classes and in its races than prior editions or even 5e. For example the elves split in half - and the magical high elves get to teleport short distances. The gnomes are now no longer a confusing mix of dwarf and halfling so much as the weakest intelligent race in faerie. Divine boons/clerical magic is no longer almost all interchangeable; it is entirely possible that two clerics hold no spells in common because their gods and/or their relationship to those gods is so different.

The thing about first impressions is that you only get one. If you mess it up, you may not have a chance for a second impression. My first impression of 4e was

... demonstrably based on not reading the rulebook or understaning the very basic concepts of an encounter power or a short rest despite them being present in the quick start rules. Yes, you only get one chance to make a first impression - and yes the presentation of 4e was bad (and Mike Mearls' Keep on the Shadowfell might be one of the worst adventures ever). But literally every other complaint you've raised that doesn't boil down to presentation is based on a strawman because you couldn't even be bothered to understand the basics of any new concept in 4e.

JoeJ's Straw RPG is probably a terrible RPG - I do not dispute that. But it exists only inside your head. Please stop claiming that it has anything to do with the actual D&D 4e RPG other than your admittedly legitimate criticism that the initial presentation of 4e was terrible.

If you look at my history of posting, on the rare occasions where I've said anything about 4e at all, I've always been clear that my opinion is based only on the Quick Start rules. I'm not qualified, and I don't claim to be qualified, to critique any more than that.

And yet the rests are defined in the quick start rules - and based on not reading the quick start rules you felt yourself qualified to claim that something that had not changed at all made all the difference in the world.

Yes, that's fair. Let me rephrase: I think 4e has mostly well-defined goals and works towards achieving them, whereas 3e has self-contradictory goals that it flounders trying to achieve. 5e's goal I perceive as reactionary and not very worthwhile.

I'm going to disagree with you here. oD&D also has well defined goals and works towards achieving them, and so does B/X, BECMI, and the Rules Cyclopaedia. The goals are very different to those of 4e - but the zero to hero "By this axe I rule"/gritty logistics-focussed dungeoncrawler is a worthwhile goal. It's also worth pointing out that that line of games is possibly better balanced than 4e for what it does (which is not at all what 4e does).

Basically there are two games D&D has tried to be over the years. A gritty dungeon crawler where most of your character abilities were based on loot (including all the wizard's spells), player skill was considered essential, and mortaity and character generation were high - and at low to medium levels you brought a team of hirelings with you. And a larger than life action movie where the abilities of the individual characters were who they were, player skill was secondary to roleplaying, and you were playing Big Damn Heroes most of the time. oD&D/B/X/BECMI/RC were all about the first. 4e was all about the second.

As for 5e, 5e's goal is more worthwhile than I realised while they were creating it. It's to turn the clock back to 2000 and get 3.0 right. If you're going to play a game that tries to be all things to all people, at least 5e has learned - and has taken some things from 4e. I may want more invocations for the Warlock (and indeed a variant to turn it into an Elementalist Sorcerer) - but I can probably write that myself. The Rogue and Monk are actually pretty good (and learned extensively from 4e), and the spellbook collectors aren't that broken. And overall although I won't run it again I won't turn down a game of 5e on the grounds it's 5e.

[obryn]

I'll just lend my voice and agree with neonchameleon that RC D&D is probably the best-designed D&D, period, at what it's trying to do. This shouldn't be too surprising - they had about 20 years to nail it down!

There's still some stuff in there that doesn't work out right, mind you, like ... say ... the implementation of demihuman level limits and/or atttack ranks and the entire Thief class ... but it's remarkably solid and well-thought-out.

[kyoryu]

They certainly failed at that particular goal

I.... kinda disagree with that. Maybe they didn't de-emphasize it as much as some people would like, but I definitely think that it's much, much easier for a new player to come up with a reasonably effective character build than it was in 3.x.

I kind of look at five points for character effectiveness:

1) The anti-optimizer - the guy looking to make a sub-optimal character
2) The newbie - the guy coming to the system for the first time and making what looks like reasonable choices
3) Joe Average - the guy with some experience making choices based on a fairly good understanding of the system
4) The Optimizer - the guy who gains enjoyment from really making optimal choices and who is looking for non-obvious things to do
5) The Theoretical Optimizer - the guy that looks for stuff like Pun-Pun.

Now, I throw out #1 and #5, because it's useful to acknowledge their existence, but they don't impact typical gameplay. What's the range of effectiveness left between numbers 2 and 4? It's a lot narrower in 4e than in 3e.

The other thing that I look at is how counter-intuitive you have to go to go from #2 to #4. And you have to do a lot fewer counter-intuitive things to get well-optimized in 4e than you do in 3.x.

Charop is still a factor in 4e, sure, especially compared to something like Fate or AW which are almost anti-optimization. But it's less of a deal, in my experience, than it was in 3.x.

[Cosi]

A large part of the criticism towards any of these is from people who just don't like those goals. That's aside from the question of whether the goals are achieved. Indeed, I'd say that all these editions achieve their goals well enough for their fans, and that most non-fans simply prefer different goals.

You can say something fails without having to want it to succeed. I have no interest in owning a MacBook Air, but that doesn't mean I am incapable of comparing its size and weight to competing laptops to determine if it actually is "thinner and lighter" than similar computers. In the same vein, I am capable of assessing whether or not 4e successfully implemented meaningful class roles without supporting that idea.

1) On an overall level, make a game that is more suited for "The party of adventurers on Their Epic Quest" - get rid of the Gygaxian design decisions that were made around, and optimized for, an open-table game.

I don't think you've defined that well enough for something so succeed or fail at it. Consider the following "Epic Quests" characters embark on in various fantasy stories:

• In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Fellowship sets out on an overland journey to throw the One Ring into Mount Doom
• In the Prince of Thorns trilogy, Jorg spends some time wandering, some time engaged in various military or political ventures, and some time trying to defeat The Dead King.
• In Lord of Light, Sam gathers allies to fight and attempt to overthrow the gods.

Those are all "Epic Quests", and they all want different things. If you're doing LotR, teleport breaks almost the entire plot. If you're doing Prince of Thorns, teleport breaks some parts of the plot (the parts where Jorg travels the world) and not others (the parts where Jorg engages in medieval politics or defends territory). If you're doing Lord of Light, teleport does very little to effect the plot.

2) Bring lethality to a set level, as opposed to the highly-lethal early levels and SoD rockets of higher levels

I can understand this as design goal, but I don't understand the attached complaint. How can going from highly-lethal combat at low levels (where people die easily to an unlucky roll) to rocket launcher tag at high levels (where people die easily to an unlucky roll) represent a change in lethality?

As far as the success or failure of this goal, I couldn't really say. I assume hit points and damage diverge in one direction or the other at high levels, but I haven't done the math at all.

3) De-emphasize character optimization

I think the existence of the Yogi Hat Ranger alone proves this was a failure.

4) Ensure that all characters have interesting mechanical options at all levels.

I haven't delved deeply enough into 4e to say if it succeeded at this on its own merits, but I don't see any 4e options as being as interesting as the ones that came before.

5) Make each fight tense on its own, while removing the need for the '15 minute workday'

4e fights take a long enough time that they are essentially deterministic, which removes any real tension that could conceivably exist.

6) Reinforce the idea of classes as archetypes, as opposed to being merely building blocks. "Being a Fighter" should mean something.

Moving everyone to at-will/encounter/daily was the exact opposite of doing this. When Warblades recharge their powers by making attacks and Incarnates have powers which are always on whose strength can be modulated by moving essentia around, those classes feel different and being a Incarnate rather than a Warblade has real meaning. When Fighters have at-wills, Wizards have at-wills, Clerics have at-wills, and Rogues have at-wills, the classes don't feel meaningfully different.

Skill challenges, though ... well, on the downside, the original DMG skill challenges are a terrible mishmash of bad math and poor implementation. On the upside, 4e was a living, continually-developed game, and by the Rules Compendium, they got it right.

Would you mind a quick explanation of the set of skill challenge rules you think were "right"? I believe they were different, but I have very little faith that Mearls et al eventually produced something good.

So how do you judge - on the initial releases, which I'll agree had serious problems in the specifics of some implementations, or on the final state, which was dramatically improved?

I think you have to judge the product that was released. If putting more work into it was needed to make it function, that work should have been done before the game was released, not after. There was nothing that required 3e to be canceled when it was or 4e to be released when it was. If moving the timeline back would have resulted in a better product, that should have happened.

I also find the assertion that the game got better later on dubious at best, as that "later on" was the timeframe when the game was scrapped, essentials was rolled out, and then that was scrapped. Whatever math fixes were presented then were, apparently, insufficient to salvage the edition.

I'll just lend my voice and agree with neonchameleon that RC D&D is probably the best-designed D&D, period, at what it's trying to do. This shouldn't be too surprising - they had about 20 years to nail it down!

There's still some stuff in there that doesn't work out right, mind you, like ... say ... the implementation of demihuman level limits and/or atttack ranks and the entire Thief class ... but it's remarkably solid and well-thought-out.

I disagree with this fairly strongly. Older editions aren't "better", they are less examined. AD&D didn't have thousands of people hammering at it in a combined effort powered by the internet. It had individual people looking at it from the perspective of their gaming groups. There are plenty of things which are broken, but there aren't lists of them lying around on the internet until the end of time.

Frankly, once you strip away the stupid (racial level limits), the pointlessly complex (THAC0), and things that are both (class based XP charts), you're left with a game that looks a lot like 3e, except the HP curve is lower and the DM advice is aggressively bad. For example, 2e's time stop recommends that the DM take a physical stopwatch and drop the player out of time stop when a long enough period of real world time has passed.

[obryn]

Charop is still a factor in 4e, sure, especially compared to something like Fate or AW which are almost anti-optimization. But it's less of a deal, in my experience, than it was in 3.x.

Good breakdown. I agree.

The biggest 4e CharOp loopholes still remaining are with multi-tap and vulnerability exploits. The full Charge kit can be pretty crazy, too. And the Re-Breather is still a thing, I suppose. None of those approach CoDzilla, or optimized high-level 3.x Wizards, however. And a 4e vampire or binder isn't as bad off as a 3.5 monk or fighter at high levels (or Truenamer, but that's dirty pool).

You can certainly optimize in 4e, and that optimization is very noticeable. But - like I mentioned before - a lot of the most extreme abuses were scaled back due to the developers' relative comfort with patching their game.

[Kurald Galain]

Now, I throw out #1 and #5, because it's useful to acknowledge their existence, but they don't impact typical gameplay. What's the range of effectiveness left between numbers 2 and 4? It's a lot narrower in 4e than in 3e.

Well, the thing is that you're asking the wrong question.

Game balance is a primary design goal of 4E, and not of 3E. Forum vocal minorities notwithstanding, most players of 3E/PF just don't think that game balance is particularly important. So by making a game where balance is a priority, and attracting mainly players that think balance is important, 4E has put a greater emphasis on optimization. The prominence of the WOTC charop forum underlines this.

Aside from that, speaking from personal experience, it's still true that a poorly made 4E character (starting from high heroic levels) has trouble contributing in combat, to the point that he might as well be not at the table. I've seen several characters that simply had zero impact in battle.

So without going into whether this is "more so" or "less so" than other editions, 4E is a game that creates a lot of debate about optimization, and where an optimized character vastly overshadows a non-optimized, so in my view if their goal was to de-emphasize optimization, they've failed at that goal.

[Cosi]

None of those approach CoDzilla, or optimized high-level 3.x Wizards, however.

But that's because they're doing radically different things. The big cheeses in 3e are open ended or downtime spells like planar binding or wish. And those things don't exist in 4e. 4e's version of simulacrum isn't "more balanced", it is "not there". When you compare a 3e battle-mage who is doing thing like casting cloudkill or web to an optimized 4e build (I hear Rangers are good?), I think the relative imbalance is a lot closer.

If you want to compare 3e downtime options like animate dead and major creation to 4e, you need to compare characters using them to characters using rituals. Not to combat options, because they aren't combat options.

Game balance is a primary design goal of 4E, and not of 3E. Forum vocal minorities notwithstanding, most players of 3E/PF just don't think that game balance is particularly important. So by making a game where balance is a priority, and attracting mainly players that think balance is important, 4E has put a greater emphasis on optimization. The prominence of the WOTC charop forum underlines this.

What the hell? Where do you think 4e's emphasis on balance came from? Why are classes like Warblade among the most popular 3e expansion options? Could it be that people want a balanced game?

I mean, look how successful 4e and PF are for just claiming to have a balanced version of 3e. You really think that's coming from a fanbase that doesn't care about optimization?

Aside from that, speaking from personal experience, it's still true that a poorly made 4E character (starting from high heroic levels) has trouble contributing in combat, to the point that he might as well be not at the table. I've seen several characters that simply had zero impact in battle.

I think that has something to do with the smaller spread of things characters can do in 4e. There just isn't that much there, other than the combat engine, and the combat engine is fairly sharply dependent on you keeping the right numbers up. A Wizard with poor stat selection in 3e could still offer downtime spells or no-save BFC like evard's black tentacles, whereas one in 4e is basically stuck on the sidelines.

[obryn]

Would you mind a quick explanation of the set of skill challenge rules you think were "right"? I believe they were different, but I have very little faith that Mearls et al eventually produced something good.

The math was thoroughly patched, the usage was explained better, group skill challenges were acknowledged, the weird bit about rolling initiative was deleted, and there's specific advice about listing out useful skills for it.

I think you have to judge the product that was released. If putting more work into it was needed to make it function, that work should have been done before the game was released, not after. There was nothing that required 3e to be canceled when it was or 4e to be released when it was. If moving the timeline back would have resulted in a better product, that should have happened.

I also find the assertion that the game got better later on dubious at best, as that "later on" was the timeframe when the game was scrapped, essentials was rolled out, and then that was scrapped. Whatever math fixes were presented then were, apparently, insufficient to salvage the edition.

Well, there were released books. There was also released errata. Yes, there should have been more work put into the game before it was released. Yes, there should have been more playtesting. No, the errata should not have been as necessary. I don't think anyone would disagree with you, there.

But the improvements were made. Monster math was fixed. Class design was improved. Exploits and broken bits were patched, skill challenges were refined (and re-refined). Classes were rounded out and expanded so that sub-par classes were improved. Adventure design even improved, though way, way too late. (The flagship adventure line starting with Keep on the Shadowfell is just terrible, and casts a long shadow.)

You can be dubious all you want; the sad fact is that much of this improvement happened after players ran afoul of the parts that didn't work so well on release, and you never get a second chance for that first impression. Also, edition wars were pretty well entrenched at this point, so...

I disagree with this fairly strongly. Older editions aren't "better", they are less examined. AD&D didn't have thousands of people hammering at it in a combined effort powered by the internet. It had individual people looking at it from the perspective of their gaming groups. There are plenty of things which are broken, but there aren't lists of them lying around on the internet until the end of time.

Frankly, once you strip away the stupid (racial level limits), the pointlessly complex (THAC0), and things that are both (class based XP charts), you're left with a game that looks a lot like 3e, except the HP curve is lower and the DM advice is aggressively bad. For example, 2e's time stop recommends that the DM take a physical stopwatch and drop the player out of time stop when a long enough period of real world time has passed.

Hm? I don't think many games have been as thoroughly examined as the BECMI line. I'm not going to go into 2e, because that's the AD&D line, which is a different beast, entirely.

[Kurald Galain]

I can understand this as design goal, but I don't understand the attached complaint. How can going from highly-lethal combat at low levels (where people die easily to an unlucky roll) to rocket launcher tag at high levels (where people die easily to an unlucky roll) represent a change in lethality?

The fact that there's a middle part where people don't die like this, and the fact that if you die at higher levels, your party members can likely raise you the next round.

The point is, an explicit design goal of 3E is that low-level gameplay is very different from high-level gameplay, and an explicit design goal of 4E and 5E is that it's not. This is not a matter of better-or-worse, but it is clear that different players have different preferences. (FWIW, designers are on record that 4E was modeled after levels 7-12 of 3E, whereas 5E was modeled after levels 3-7 of 3E).

Would you mind a quick explanation of the set of skill challenge rules you think were "right"? I believe they were different, but I have very little faith that Mearls et al eventually produced something good.

It's worth noting that "no more skill challenges" was an explicit design goal of 5E.

I also find the assertion that the game got better later on dubious at best, as that "later on" was the timeframe when the game was scrapped, essentials was rolled out, and then that was scrapped. Whatever math fixes were presented then were, apparently, insufficient to salvage the edition.

An interesting thing is that the later books of 4E explicitly have different design principles than the earlier books. Of course, this change was controversial, and for every fan that feels the newer books fixed 4E, there is one that claims they ruined it.

But fair or not, any RPGs is mainly going to be judged on its first book.

[Cosi]

The math was thoroughly patched, the usage was explained better, group skill challenges were acknowledged, the weird bit about rolling initiative was deleted, and there's specific advice about listing out useful skills for it.

I don't think any of that fixes the core problem: counting failures is a perverse incentive. The way skill challenges are structured, the party is allowed to make skill checks until they accumulate three failures. That means that conributing with a bonus smaller than your party's largest bonus drops your chances of success. I know the DCs were mathhammered, with automatic success and automatic failure being the orders of the day at various points during the edition. I want to know if they fixed the fundamental problem with incentives.

You can be dubious all you want; the sad fact is that much of this improvement happened after players ran afoul of the parts that didn't work so well on release, and you never get a second chance for that first impression. Also, edition wars were pretty well entrenched at this point, so...

I'm sure the game improved. I just don't see how you make something good with its fundamentals. I also don't trust the design team working on it to make something good, even if that was possible.

Hm? I don't think many games have been as thoroughly examined as the BECMI line. I'm not going to go into 2e, because that's the AD&D line, which is a different beast, entirely.

To be frank, I haven't gone down that rabbit hole. But when I went down the 2e rabbit hole, the game was rife with terrible advice, pointless complexity, and baffling design decisions. And when I go down the rabbit holes of various retroclones, those things are also bad. Why should this be any different?

(FWIW, designers are on record that 4E was modeled after levels 7-12 of 3E

...I cannot imagine someone starting with that goal and producing 4e. Where is animate dead? Where is teleport? Where is literally any spell over 3rd level?

It's worth noting that "no more skill challenges" was an explicit design goal of 5E.

I think that is stupid. Skill challenges are good. Having a resolution system for things that are not combat, but more complex than a single skill check is good, and you could fix all the conceptual problems with 4e skill challenges by limiting people by rounds instead of failures.

It does certainly make it look like the designers didn't think they could fix skill challenges though.

[Kurald Galain]

But that's because they're doing radically different things. The big cheeses in 3e are open ended or downtime spells like planar binding or wish. And those things don't exist in 4e. 4e's version of simulacrum isn't "more balanced", it is "not there".

Yes, and it turns out that more players care about the presence of these options than the balance thereof.

What the hell? Where do you think 4e's emphasis on balance came from?

From vocal minorities on forums.

I think that has something to do with the smaller spread of things characters can do in 4e. There just isn't that much there, other than the combat engine, and the combat engine is fairly sharply dependent on you keeping the right numbers up. A Wizard with poor stat selection in 3e could still offer downtime spells or no-save BFC like evard's black tentacles, whereas one in 4e is basically stuck on the sidelines.

I agree. And that is what I mean by a greater emphasis on optimization.

[kyoryu]

The fact that there's a middle part where people don't die like this, and the fact that if you die at higher levels, your party members can likely raise you the next round.

Plus the fact that, at any level, *any* attack is potentially lethal to just about *any* character. For a 1-3 level character, just about any opponent can get lucky and kill you in a round or two.

At higher levels, death is much more predictable and avoidable, except from SoD spells.

The point is, an explicit design goal of 3E is that low-level gameplay is very different from high-level gameplay, and an explicit design goal of 4E and 5E is that it's not. This is not a matter of better-or-worse, but it is clear that different players have different preferences. (FWIW, designers are on record that 4E was modeled after levels 7-12 of 3E, whereas 5E was modeled after levels 3-7 of 3E).

Sure, 3e, 4e, and 5e have very different design goals. That doesn't make any of them inherently better than the others, but it certainly gives you a choice as to which lines up better with your preferences for gameplay.