Those that work in the creative arts have an impossible task. If they make something that is too familiar, then they are accused of making derivative works. If they try to push the boundaries, then fans claim they lost a sense of who they are.
I have read more than a few Dan Brown books in my life. They are fine. Most of them I find engaging and they keep me turning the page. They all follow the same basic premise. Someone discovers something of importance. Someone else wants to prevent it from being revealed to the public. A series of chases ensue as each side races to get ahead. Eventually, the hero prevails. In most cases the thing being revealed is something that makes me respond with, “Oh. Ok. Whatever.” But it was the journey that is fun.
When The Divinci Code came out, it was all the rage. He was the next James Patterson and all that. Let’s forget about the fact that The Divinci Code was the second book in the series.
While his subsequent books have been well reviewed, most received the dreaded label of being formulaic. And they are. But that is not necessarily bad. They are comfort food. You know what you are going to get and you enjoy it. But he is criticized for not stretching the boundaries.
Bu then we have films like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Obviously, Raiders of the Lost Ark was a phenomenal success. Everyone was clamoring for a sequel. When a sequel was announced, the buzz was tremendous.
And what we got was not what we were expecting. The time period was wrong. The setting was wrong. The adventure was wrong. This was not the Indiana Jones that we had come to know. In short, they changed too much. As with Dan Brown’s books, The Temple of Doom did very well, but it was not without its detractors.
And such is the plight of creators. People want stuff that is both the same as what they have seen before while at the same time being something new and different. It is an impossible task.
Well…almost. I mean The Empire Strikes Back nailed it, but that seems to be the exception.
Okay. You’ve hung in there through all this preamble—and I appreciate that. How does all this relate to D&D?
Well. 16-years-ago this week, Wizards of the Coast released the D&D 4e preview book, “Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters”. This book was a glimpse of how they wanted to adapt the D&D worlds and monsters that we were familiar with into something new and exciting. A month earlier, they had done the same with “Wizards Presents: Races and Classes.”
Back when I was just getting started on my YouTube channel, I did page through videos of both Races and Classes and Worlds and Monsters. They are both great books and I might revisit them again.
These books contained no rules. They focused only on the process that they went through as they put D&D 4e together. Why were they doing it? What tough decisions did they have to make? What did they want to accomplish?
Both books are really interesting and I recommend them for anyone that is a fan of D&D. Not just 4e, but of D&D in general.
The main takeaway is that no matter what you think of 4e as a game, it is clear from these books that they had all the best intentions. These were creative people striving to create something special. They didn’t want an iterative change. It was not just a way to get more money by putting a new paint job on the existing rules. This was much more than what D&D 2024 is advertised to be. They wanted to push the boundaries and create something new. They wanted to revolutionize how we play the game.
They took chances.
And, unfortunately, it didn’t work. Not because the rules were bad. The rules are amazing and accomplished exactly what they set out to achieve. But the community was not ready.
Most of the reasons that people give for not likely D&D 4e boil down to, it was simply too different from what they liked.
And that is fine. Not everyone will like everything.
But I, for one, appreciate the effort. I like the fact that they were not afraid to take those chances. They had a direction they wanted to take the game and all the creative people put their hearts and souls into making it happen. I think it turned out great.
But. people didn’t like it because it was too much of a change. It wasn’t “D&D”.
As a result, just six years later, we got 5e. Basically a step back to something similar to what we had with 3e.
And here we find ourselves ten years down the road. It is time for a new edition, but the experience with 4e has made them scared to push the limits. So instead of a new release, we are getting a “fully-compatible” game with some updates. And now people are complaining that it will be too much like 5e.
The community, it seems, is never happy. Somewhere there is a sweet spot between pushing the boundaries too far and being formulaic, but it is clear that the response to D&D 4e scared Wizards into a place where they are afraid to push those boundaries.
Reading through these 4e preview books makes me long for the days when the creative forces at Wizards of the Coast were not afraid to take those chances.
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DriveThruRPG is having a sale on a ton of starter sets and other content.
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