I know this was a dead horse a decade ago, but I feel it's worth revisiting

I know this was a dead horse a decade ago, but I feel it's worth revisiting.

People complain that DnD4e was too much like a video game. However, what if the issue was that it was too much like a roleplaying game? 4e should never have been the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, but it's own product entirely. It could have kept the DnD name, but just been a side product instead.

Take out the out of combat stuff like rituals, skill checks, and money, and you are left with a pretty streamlined, super easy to pick up, 1 vs Many wargame with extremely robust character customization and a level of persistence between games that is normally exclusive to roleplaying games. It blurs the line between RPG, wargame, and boardgame in a way that would be pretty unique and definitely have a comfortable niche in the industry.

So, if that was how it was released, just as some kind of side game like "Dungeons and Dragons: Tactics" would you enjoy the mechanics of 4th edition more?

Possibly. I know I'd play the fuck of a decent dungeon crawler that doesn't try to be something it's not.

I agree that I always felt that 4th edition D&D felt like a WoW encounter system. It had a lot in common with games like Super Dungeon Explore and Descent, which is to say it was almost an episodic combat grinder. To be fair, though, D&D is often at it's best wiht how it handles good old fashioned axe-to-face gameplay. It doesn't struggle per say in other aspects, but compared to other role playing systems, D&D has always felt, to me, like one of the most video-game-y systems, even back to AD&D in retrospect (though, with a lack of other good, accessible products at the time, it was hard to think of D&D as videogame like).

Ultimately, compared to many systems, D&D has always relied havily on the GM to make non-combat encounters fun and worthwhile, while the system itself is pretty comfortable ignoring them as they often had little in the way of rewards (experience or otherwise) or always had built in, turbo complicated and or specific solutions, often requiring a combination of very specific spells, only furthering the 'video game' feel.

The ways to push away from videogame feel is to provide a truly interactive, open and real experience, as videogames often have limiters and rules that can't be reasoned with or altered easily like a GM can. A puzzle might have multiple clever solutions, but a video game might only accept one or two of them where a GM might accept any of them or more, or surprise you with new elements.

TL;DR: all TTRPG's will feel like vidya if your DM is strict/by the book/inflexible and even shitty combat systems like D&D4 can feel like magical immersive experiences with a good group.

>People complain that DnD4e was too much like a video game. However, what if the issue was that it was too much like a roleplaying game? 4e should never have been the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, but it's own product entirely. It could have kept the DnD name, but just been a side product instead.

How did it have any less 'Roleplaying game' than any other edition?

It would have been even less successful, since it wouldn't have the draw of being a mainline D&D, with the marketing machine of WotC behind it.

True, it wouldn't have "alienated" previous audiences, but that's because it wouldn't have had a previous audience to alienate.

It'd have also been a less complete product, and it would have ensured that 5e is even more 3.5 "inspired" than it is.

4e is fine as it is, and if anything, it should have butchered more sacred cows. Every time it did, the game turned out better for it.

It didn't, people just couldn't wrap their heads around it and focused soley on the combat , also the adventure books weren't that good

>So, if that was how it was released, just as some kind of side game like "Dungeons and Dragons: Tactics" would you enjoy the mechanics of 4th edition more?

They did this. It was a series of D&D board games. Legend of Drizzt and Ravenloft were two of them.

Honestly, they were a much better use of the 4e system than trying to use 4e as a roleplaying game.

>Honestly, they were a much better use of the 4e system than trying to use 4e as a roleplaying game.

Why is that?

>Uh....um....well....4e was just....not as good as 3.5 or any of the other editions so...FUCK OF 4URRY!!!

This is actually a genuinely interesting idea and I'm sorry that it's going to degenerate into autistic shitposting.

To be honest, at that point it kind of reminds me of Inquisitor (one of the old Specialist Games), but with a Party vs Hordes aesthetic instead. I wonder if the game's balanced enough to do a full-on Inquisitor-esque Party vs Party 'wargame'? The munchkins can fuck off and put together some super-optimized bullshit restricted to, say, 5 level 10 characters with X amount of gold to spend on each, and they can just go at it - while narrative players can just put together what they think is cool.

Honestly, if it wasn't for the problems that come with heavy character customization in wargames (read as: not everyone can convert minis), this would be a super cool idea.

I disagree. It lacked any customization of the characters, was extremely limited in the number of scenarios it could run, not having a GM made the game very easy to exploit, and it offered no persistence between games.

Wrath of Ashardalon had a 3 game campaign that was... decent. But overall it seemed to work better as an intro to DnD than as a substitution.

That said the system it used for its procedurally generated board was amazing, and the tiles were fantastic.

>I wonder if the game's balanced enough to do a full-on Inquisitor-esque Party vs Party 'wargame'?

Oh hell no. PCs and Monsters are built on entirely different frameworks. PCs are built for over the course of the day resource drain while monsters are all for a single battle.

Making it a single fight means that dailies are just stronger encounter powers.

>branding 4e as a 1 vs many wargame, only related to DnD by setting and general tone/'feel'
>doesn't have an existing market share
Why not split the difference?

Chainmail Second Edition.

What is/was the market share of Chainmail?

I'd argue it was basically just as nothing.

Besides, OD&Dfags generally seemed to like/tolerate 4e (no wonder, it's a return to the top-down design of OD&D, even if it has a different focus), so it's not like calling it Chainmail would have improved the sales.

Oh, right, for some reason I forgot that Dailies were a thing. Nevermind then.

The encounters shouldn't be solitary. If the combats didn't take nearly as long, a match could be a full dungeon. Just 5 back to back encounters, with players having three options between each encounter.

>No Rest
Encounter powers don't refresh and no healing. Gain action points and extra rewards.
>Short Rest
Encounter powers refresh, regain hit points. This is basically the default option.
>Long Rest
Short rest, but Healing Surges and Daily Powers refresh as well. However the monsters get some kind of bonus, and the final reward decreases.

Not sure what the reward would actually be. Gold and EXP decreasing would throw off the balance of a "campaign" long term assuming Monsters increased at a steady rate, and if they are based on player level than it would just lead to both sides being stuck at lower levels for longer.

Maybe the last 2 or 3 encounters would have a few generic monster templates making them stronger, with no rests decreasing the strength of the template or removing it entirely, while long rests add more templates to the monsters without an increase to rewards?

Funnily enough, Chainmail actually had three editions, so either way Fourth Edition would still be known as Fourth Edition.

>People complain that DnD4e was too much like a video game.
I fail to see the problem. There is no reason to use a rules-heavy system like DnD if the rules aren't consistent and clear-cut enough like they were in 4e.
If you want to roleplay without focusing on combat mechanics, you might as well take a rules-lite system, a setting sourcebook and just enjoy your time.

The other DnD editions fall into the same pitfalls as they did before - they focus too much rules on combat, and then claim that roleplaying is more important than combat.
If roleplaying is more important than combat, why not dedicate more rules to it in the system?
If combat is more important than roleplaying, why complain about?
Pick one or another, but don't try to sit on both chairs at once.

Maybe do it puzzle fighter style.

There are normal encounters and Boss encounters. You can only fully rest after boss encounters (so if you just keep doing normal encounters you'll die, sooner or later). Finishing a boss encounter sends an extra hard random encounter to the other team, but finishing that extra encounter and the boss after it sends back an even stronger extra encounter at the first team etc.

>Finishing a boss encounter sends an extra hard random encounter to the other team,*

* based on the number of encounter you had before.

That's an interesting premise. Blending wargames, dungeon crawl and 4e. With large, interactive dungeon models. You could do it Pathfinder Society- esque where your team gains experience and gold at the end of each adventure, you keep your team for a full year, and at the end when it's time to reset or make a new team, you could have access to additional materials and content based on how many events you attended.

You'd still have to start each year on tin same level and baseline as everyone else, though. Otherwise, you'd have the LARP problem of new players not being able to break into the upper echelon. Could be interesting.

Pathfinder Cardgame Society has a good way they handle it. They release "Class decks" which give more options to a specific class, giving them a ton of new items, spells, and prestige classes geared for that class but usable by anyone, that can just be added to any copy of the PF card game to expanded it.

However with the actual PFCG Society games, you are REQUIRED to have a class deck, and any items/spells/whatever you pick up during the game has to be replaced by a card from your class deck. It acts as a list of character progression options, and makes it very easy to join mid season because you just get a list of what card types of what rank you are allowed to build your character from.

In this case, if we were treating 4e more like a wargame, we could basically treat each class like it's own Codex. Tons of character advancement options for a single character, which can be used like a splash book in a normal RPG campaign, or used as an the sole character creation book when playing in standardized play.

I actually love 4e as a dungeon crawler. I mean it's perfect. It was literally designed to be a dungeon crawler, and so that's how I've been running it. Basically it feels likes Descent 2e got with DnD and had a baby