this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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Dungeons and Dragons

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Dungeons & Dragons Publisher Denies Selling Game To Chinese Firm: Here’s What To Know [was: Hasbro Seeks to Sell IP “DND” and Has Had Preliminary Contact with Tencent] (pandaily.com)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by flumph to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

4e was D&D for people who would rather be playing WoW.

5e is a watered-down anemic shadow of 3.5.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

That's a common way of putting down 4e, but it's not so. I have no interest whatsoever in WoW but I really liked 4e. 4e's approach was to build a very consistent and rigorously-defined framework for the game, and then build its various elements (classes, monsters, abilities, etc.) strictly within that framework. I think it actually hit a very nice sweet spot; the framework was sufficiently flexible that a huge amount of interesting and distinctive content could be made, but it was also well-defined enough and simple enough to understand and apply that everything "just worked." You could play as a fighter for a whole bunch of levels and then pick up a completely different character sheet for a wizard and you'd find that most of the mechanics worked the same. Combat was very positional, with lots of abilities that allowed you to set other players up for success, which encouraged teamwork and player interaction.

It annoys me greatly that WotC tried to set the system up to be dependent on their online tools, failed, and then tore the tools down to leave the wreckage largely unplayable. I can still play a 3.5e campaign just as easily as I did back in the day but it'd be rather hard to play 4e as easily even though I still have the books. The best tools were WotC-owned and they don't allow third parties to fill the void they left when they decided to transition to 5e - presumably to avoid another Pathfinder situation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I actually quite like the 5th edition, since it simplifies some of the most convoluted/boring areas of the 3rd edition.

Also coming after the 4th edition might have helped quite a bit in the perception

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

You say simplified, I say dumbed down.

But yeah 4e didn't say an especially high bar.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Pretty unfair take of 5e. Though I will say 5e has a high-level problem. Once you get to like level 11 or 12 there isn’t a whole lot to do until you’re 18 or 19. 3.5 I felt suffered the same issue though.

4 and 5 I think did a a lot to make the game more intuitive and not take 2hrs to resolve a round of combat, 4 just also had a lot of bad mechanics. You call that dumbing it down and anemic but I don’t think that’s a very fair assessment, but to each their own I guess. I for one I’m glad to see a lot of the changes and ideas they brought to the table, in particular 5e. I feel it caters more to RP which I value.