What went wrong?

>not a roleplaying game
>3.PFags will never stop needing rules to tell them how to roleplay
LOVING
EVERY
LAUGH

Fucked around to much with the SRD, and put Paizo in a situation where they had to put out Pathfinder or they'd go out of business.

They wanted spells that did everything automatically.

3.5-fags just got really upset that 4e fixed their broken shit system.

Can you name something about 4E that wasn't present in 3.5?

What makes 3.5 and 5E "roleplaying" games, but not 4E?

Rules and math obfuscated by "natural language".

It's not a roleplaying because there's no room for players to be creative with their character's fighting style. Everything is handed to them on a platter in the form of "powers".

It's a fucking miniature wargame version of WoW.

There's a reason why Wizards wants to bury 4e and pretend it never happend: it was very badly received and for the first time in history, D&D now has an actual competitor in the Fantasy RPG market: Pathfinder.

4e is directly responsible for this. It was a terrible mistake on Wizards' part.

>put Paizo in a situation where they had to put out Pathfinder or they'd go out of business
?
then why the positive reaction to 5th?

The fact that you cannot play 4e without a battlegrid and miniatures should be enough.

>opinions
They're factually wrong, though.

Why, OP? Why would you do this?

>It's not a roleplaying because there's no room for players to be creative with their character's fighting style.

As opposed to... just the Attack action? Really? That's your contention?

>There's a reason why Wizards wants to bury 4e and pretend it never happend:
Because they completely botched handling it and went back on their design halfway through and re-released the game products shortly into it's life-cycle creating two distinct versions of the same edition under one name?

>It's not a roleplaying because there's no room for players to be creative with their character's fighting style.

Ahahaha....AHAHAHAHAHA

This in comparision to fucking 5e with its champion fighters and eldritch blast all day erryday warlocks?

3.5, where literally every single martial strategy was stand still and full attack (or, if you allowed Lion totem barb, charge and full attack)?

>Because they completely botched handling it and went back on their design halfway through and re-released the game products shortly into it's life-cycle creating two distinct versions of the same edition under one name?

No. Because it was shit. Like, objectively shit. Nothing could have salvaged it.

It almost killed the franchise.

Except They were selling official battlegrids and minis, and every adventure was published with grid-included maps in 3.5. Not to mention every spell and ability in 3.5 is still described in terms of 5' increments anyway. Hell, the entire AoO system is entirely predicated on using a grid, as it's impossible to adjudicate without one.

>No. Because it was shit. Like, objectively shit. Nothing could have salvaged it.
See, what I said was an actual description of events that happened.

What you said, however, is an opinion that adds nothing to the discussion. You have to explain WHY you think it's shit for anyone to take you seriously.

Disregarding the fact that few people by 2e used theater of the mind for the game, your statement has very little weight.
TSR heavily pushed minis, dungeon maps and the like, but of course, you were too young to remember this.

It took a long time for them to put out 4e equivalent of the OGL, and it was much more restrictive. They also pulled the plug on Dragon and Dungeon magazine which Paizo had been publishing under license from them. Wizards basically forced them to become their biggest competitor.

>it almost killed the franchise

I have no reaction image for this.

Claiming that 4e is a roleplaying game because you have the option to give the miniature that represents your character a backstory is like claiming that chess is a roleplaying game because you can roleplay a general leading his army into battle.

It's not a roleplaying game. It's a miniature wargame with a bit of storytelling on the side.

So what you're saying is that it took D&D back to its roots?

The only edition of D&D that sold better than 4e is 5e.

This is true for all D&D tho.

>It's a miniature wargame with a bit of storytelling on the side.

Welcome to every edition of D&D, ever.

Can we have a moment to mourn the loss of the Compendium?

>All-digital rules repository
>Fully searchable by keywords and filters
>A built-in API that lets you actually source data right from it to populate statblocks and HTML5 character sheets on the internet
>All the magazine content included
>AND THEY FUCKING PUT IT BEHIND A PAYWALL AND STOPPED SUPPORTING IT

Yeah but you didn't NEED them to play the game. They were always optional.

Also I started playing D&D during 2e.

I believe I already have. If you like it then by all means feel free to keep playing it.

And what about this sentence doesn't refer to every single D&D edition?

>Yeah but you didn't NEED them to play the game. They were always optional.

According to the rules, you do.

Unless you want to tell me how you adjudicate cone spells, radii, and AoOs without a grid.

Thanks for reminding me why I don't play D&D again, guys.

I'm dead serious.

Honestly it just wasn't what I wanted or what a lot of other people wanted. People bitch about 3.5e's balance but for people like me who just run beer and pretzels D&D and have players who don't min-max, the balance wasn't a problem.

That's why the playerbase fractured so hard into 4e and PF. Pathfinder was what I really wanted from WotC: an incremental upgrade to 3.5e. 4e didn't feel like the next edition of D&D, it felt like D&D 8e or something. So much changed so fast (too much, too fast in my opinion).

That's part of why I like 5e, it feels like a good next step from D&D 3.5e. Small fixes, simplifications (retaining 4e's trimmed skill list and no ranks / training, (dis)advantage instead of lots of fiddly modifiers), and some cool new ideas like preventing AC and modifiers from scaling into the stratosphere (so a horde of goblins can still stab high level adventurers to death).

>4e doesn't let me roleplay like 3.PF can
>"Ok, what are some ways 3.PF lets you roleplay?"
>insert huge list of mechanics that let you roll dice in place of roleplaying

Every time

The thing was, 3.5e needed a hell of a lot more than a step.

This is the Tumblr fanbase WotC sells things to now.

Same way you did in every other edition.

The DM decides that kind of stuff.

You might draw a diagram on a piece of paper if there are lots of enemies but you don't need to bring a briefcase full of minis and gridmaps to play D&D.

It was a cashgrab pure and simple. Wizards just wanted to sell you some plastic dolls and maps and you fell for the meme.

I've played since 2e and never used minis except for a few rare instances. In 4e they are absolutely mandatory.

The fanbase.

>Same way you did in every other edition.
So, a grid?

>They were always optional.
So they were always optional, but always used from 2e onwards.
Like I said, little weight. When the expectation is a grid of some sort, like it has been since 2e onwards, crying that it was optional means nothing at all.
Also, .
>So much changed so fast (too much, too fast in my opinion).
Rather than a redone 3,5, they put out a redone 2e, and that is what I wanted. I was 20 when 3e came out, and was disgusted at how much Wizards disregarded everything that preceded them, and then my worst fears came true when their "new, modern" D&D was literally a pile of shit from the ground up, and unlike 3.5, people found that out very quickly and didn't say shit like "BEER AND PRETZELS!" (which 4e does better anyway with faster chargen and less surprises).
By using a grid, since only Basic and 1e w/ variations really supported ToM play.

If thats how you handeled every non-4e edition, sure.

Some of us can, and have, played 4e just fine gridless.

>In 4e they are absolutely mandatory.

They are as mandatory as in 3.5 at least.

5e a bit less so, as it removed any point of positioning.

>You might draw a diagram on a piece of paper if there are lots of enemies but you don't need to bring a briefcase full of minis and gridmaps to play D&D

Wait, wait, wait...

You actually think that in order for 4E to be played AT ALL, you need ACTUAL PHYSICAL MINIS?

Have you never fucking heard of graph paper and a pencil?

>Wizards just wanted to sell you some plastic dolls and maps and you fell for the meme.
Now I know you're trolling. Nigga, people have been using a whiteboard and market or a piece of graph paper for combat SINCE FUCKING OD&D.

>I've played since 2e and never used minis except for a few rare instances. In 4e they are absolutely mandatory.
But you did use them. Which means you fell for the meme, right?

This.
I used a dry erase board, markers, and a variety of coins/dice/tokens/wargame minis I already owned. I never board boards or minis, except a 3e set I found packed at a yard sale for a buck.
I refuse to believe this wasn't the case with most people, and all the posters howling about having to buy minis/maps are trolls of the most banal sort.

I used Roll20.

Surprise, didn't have to buy anything and it ran perfectly well. Exactly the same as every 3.5 or 5E game I run on the site too.

I think it's fair to say having a grid and tokens / minis / whatever-the-fuck is a bit more mandatory in 4e because there are more powers that push, slide, and otherwise re-position characters.

This whole line of discussion is pants-on-head retarded anyway. You can play with 4e without a grid, though I don't know why you would want to, and you can play 3.5e and 5e with grids. Who honestly believes that having a grid makes a game less of an RPG? And we're discussing a series of RPGs descended from a literal wargame anyway.

To be honest, while I use roll20 now, I found 3.x harder to run without minis than 4e.

3.x placement is drastically more punishing than 4e. Forced movement definitely triggers AoOs (some monster descriptions specifically say they will use it just to trigger AoOs), threatening reach is EVERYWHERE, spell ranges and spell areas are wobbly and weird, ranged chars are FUCKED if they're trying to fire at people in melee, etc. And of course, full attack/pounce makes a whole big deal.

I find 4e way easier to abstract than 3e.

>all these "4e didn't have muh roleplaying!" faggots
>implying DnD wasn't always about "how much creativity we can replace with hardcoded mechanics"
>implying it isn't true for EVERY SINGLE EDITION of DnD
Never fails to make me laugh.

Rules-heavy "roleplaying" roll-playing, not even once.

t. rules-light cultist

Did you have your pink-dyed fringe haircut before or after you went rules-lite?

Be upfront, user, until 3e, the only thing the rules came down on in combat and magic spells, as magic wasn't a open system and rigidly defined.
Social situations, combat options outside the (fairly few) listed, everything else were adjudicated by the gm, as well as much of the setting unless you were working in a prepublished one.

>But it's not a roleplaying game and it's definitely not D&D.
>D&D
>roleplaying

I'm actually going to argue that RPGs do need games for Roleplaying, otherwise they are just Tactical Combat System. At least, something that rewards you roleplaying rather than just choosing the best available option at all times.

Now, 3.5 and 4e don't do this, nor does any edition except maybe 5th but even then barely. I actually like 4e but still feel like rules for roleplay actually are kind of important to a Role Playing Game.

>3 Players Handbooks
>2 Dungeon Master Guides
>3 Monster Manuals
People also didn't like that it looked like a skirmish tactics board game despite combat being the biggest part of D&D 3.5.

>At least, something that rewards you roleplaying rather than just choosing the best available option at all times.

Picking the thing which rewards you isn't just choosing the best available option at all times? Are you dumb?

Meme all you want, but people need to learn - the more you restrict yourself with rules, the less place you have for DM adjudication.

Stricter rules - more videogame-y and more rollplaying.
Laxer rules - less videogame-y and more roleplaying.
Not exactly rocket surgery.

You want an example? Look at Fiasco, or Paranoia, or literally anything that isn't Shadowrun/DnD/GURPS etc. level of rule-autism.
Those games are made to have pure unadulterated and unrestricted fun.

A lot of RULEbooks are almost always best used as SOURCEbooks instead, adapting the content to another, lighter system that captures the essence of the game, without overly hindering it with superficial bullshit.
Any system that tries to be both "generic and all-encompassing" AND "authentic and original" fails at both.

That doesn't mean that rule-autistic games can't be fun.
But you have to go into them expecting to play a game first and roleplay second, not vice versa.

Look at the amount of autism that goes into Shadowrun builds - and it's fun, but only because people expect to go into it to play a rules-heavy game first and roleplay second.
DnD, on the other hand, misleads people, by promising them a "you can do anything you want" experience, and then dropping a shitload of poorly-balanced rules on top of said promise.

At least 4e was upfront about itself. I can't say the same about other editions of DnD.

I somewhat agree, but it fucking irks me to no end that some people are unable to have fun unless someone holds their hand the entire way through. Like, holy shit.

>3.5
>2 PHBs
>2 DMGs
>9 MMs
>4+ books in the Complete series, considered the most necessary books to round out pc options
Lolwut?

Players Handbooks
Dungeon Master Guides
Monster Manuals
Are you talking about 3.5?

Remember:
D&D STARTED as a miniatures game. It's in its fucking DNA.

Anyone who tries to seriously roleplay in D&D is a delusional neckbeard.

All of these squabbling infantile idiots in this threads are like ants arguing about which individual in the colony is the most powerful.
How about you shitgiggles let suitable systems handle this stuff instead of playing pretend that your system of play pretend murderhobo is allowing you to play pretend anything but murderhobo and autism competently?

>I somewhat agree
You agree you are a autismal, hyperbole using faggot.
There is more than one way to have fun in pnp games, and fuck you and your heavy handed assumption your way is the best. I don't even count D&D as my favorite game, but faggots like you make an entire segment of pnp gamers look like cunts.

So what games actually do this? Because the mechanical part of roleplaying in most games boil down to having some social skills and rolling against a target number.

>You want an example? Look at Fiasco, or Paranoia, or literally anything that isn't Shadowrun/DnD/GURPS etc. level of rule-autism.
You just suck at reading comprehension.

Make a grade-school reading course before bitching about systems with moderate amount of rules.

WoD is the perfect example of a rules-heavy system where the rules actually work in favor of the experience.

Didn't know 3.5 had that many books. Glossed over that edition entirely, started with 4e, moved to retroclones after a while.

Nigger literally what?

Its THE roleplaying game

The game all other roleplaying games copied

How the fuck is it not a roleplaying game in your mind?

>Didn't know 3.5 had that many books
Dude, 3.5 had, with the setting books, at least 60 books in it's entire line, not including Dungeon/Dragon Mag material.

White Wolf fans have been saying it for decades, and recently the rules-lite people have started joining in.

Being the first doesn't make you good at it user.

That's because for 12 years, WW and D&D were each others biggest competitors, with the most devout fanbases.
That died out when NWoD became a strong property.

And coming after the first and not living up to expectations or learning from the first's mistakes makes you even shittier.

>Its THE roleplaying game
Only in America, fuckhead. The land where D&D correlates with autism and plays into the retarded nerd/jock divide.

That is pretty much DnD user.

Nothing. They just didn't appeal to the audience that they had.

4e works fine, does exactly what it set out to do, and does it very well, but it was such a huge departure from 3.5 that it was doomed to be a financial failure from the start, and that right there is the real tragedy here.

>financial failure
>best selling D&D just behind 5e
>lasted 7-8 years, just like 3.5, longer than 3e
>every book topped the charts
>PF only beat it in sales at the literal end of it's lifespan when they released 1 book in a year

>People have no idea how well 4e selled
>They don't know it only really tanked come essentials
>They don't know Essentials was an inside job by mearls to force an edition change

>Also people think that 4e isn't a roleplaying game because it has rules oh my god

>I want to do ___ in combat!
>Okay, roll ____ and see how you do
There, problem solved.

>>implying DnD wasn't always about "how much creativity we can replace with hardcoded mechanics"

wait, what? did you ever play pre WotC D&D faggort?

Good thing 4e also has rewards for creativity in combat.

Grognardism and bad community management

It lasted 6 years which is the shortest lifespan of any D&D edition.

Seriously guys, if 4e was good why is
Wizards desperately tyring to revert all the changes it made in an effort to win back the fanbase?

I don't know why Veeky Forums defends this poor excuse for an RPG so hard. I don't even see anyone play it outside of Veeky Forums.

>People bitch about 3.5e's balance but for people like me who just run beer and pretzels D&D and have players who don't min-max, the balance wasn't a problem.
Bad balance is MORE of a problem for casual players, not less. It's really, really easy in 3.5 to create a character who's completely broken - be it in the "can't carry out their intended role" definition of the term, or the "obsoletes the rest of the party" one.
Source: I was an accidental CoDzilla in my first 3E campaign.

>At least, something that rewards you roleplaying rather than just choosing the best available option at all times.

You're not only wrong, but you're also hypocritical.

1. Let me get the obvious out of the way: Then you're still choosing the best available option at all times, you insufferable cunt.
2. Repeat after me: roleplaying a character is its own reward. "Good roleplaying rewards" are the biggest crock of shit. Roleplaying isn't "better" if it pleaseth the GM. All that sort of rule accomplishes is encourages everyone to wangst, drama whore, overdescribe, and overact EVERYTHING.

>I actually like 4e but still feel like rules for roleplay actually are kind of important to a Role Playing Game.

This attitude kills the "role playing" element in an RPG.

It's not like 3.5E fags would recognize quality if they saw it, and that's not meant to be a defense of 4E.

>Repeat after me: roleplaying a character is its own reward. "Good roleplaying rewards" are the biggest crock of shit
That's just, like, your opinion, man.

Why do you hate 3.5?

the big three failings of 4e

>The online component getting fucked over hard by the crazy murder/suicide
>Essentials tanking
>Killing off PDF's due to piracy

The second might be the weakest link, but to me, the first and last points are basically what really killed any major chance of it taking off successfully. The murder/suicide was a tragedy, the second was just WOTC being terrible in management.

>D&D STARTED as a miniatures game.

It did not. Are you lying, or ignorant?

D&D's COMBAT system started as one used in a miniatures game. The entire, ENTIRE point of D&D was a role playing system. The original 3LBB didn't even HAVE a working combat system.

Let that sink in for a moment. D&D was originally released without a combat system. To use it, you either have to look at what later editions did or what Chainmail did.

>Anyone who tries to seriously roleplay in D&D is a delusional neckbeard.

Nice ad hominem kiddo.

>let suitable systems handle this stuff

What is more "suitable" is wholly subjective, and generally involves cluttering up the roleplaying experience with mandatory metagame currency like fate points, honor points, humanity points, etc., making for a game that is less about roleplaying and more about "storytelling."

The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate how mechanics that force you to metagame (anything narrativium, including extra live, I mean fate points), or railroad you and punish you with points falling off (honor, humanity, etc).

And before you ask, no I'm not saying the paladin is exactly a great class, but it is an option within the rules.

You're right, other countries sometimes have shitty knockoffs.

>tfw people who need a labyrinthine set of rules and tables and dice to roleplay act like it makes them better than you.

As for the special, unique mind that complained 4e doesn't let you have your own special fighting style, ignoring the fact that 3.5, 3.PF, and 5 are all "I hit the guy with my axe" then wait fifteen minutes for your turn again...

The entire point of divorcing lore and mechanics is that things can be customized to your liking. Multiclass rogue/wizard? Take magic missile and make it magically-impelled shurikens.

You could technically do that in 3.5e too, in fact I distinctly remember a section of the original 3e DMG that talked about customizing the effects of spells to fit your unique style.

It also means the DM can easily mix and match monsters to create his own shit.

The amount of creativity and modification possible within the 4e rules is huge compared to 3.5e. Customizing monsters in 3.5 took a PHD and the rarest forms of autism.

god, I miss how fun it was to design 4e monsters. And how it had actual encounter building rules.

Dude why are you here?

Do you even like roleplaying games?

Please, add botched testplay to the list.

Your Babby's First PnP symptom is showing.

you rang, my liege?