The Seeds of Change
Exploring the Origins of D&D 4e
One of my favorite things with D&D is digging into the history of the game. The game today is unrecognizable from the one that was released 50 years ago. By that I don’t mean that it has lost its way. I simply mean that learning the rules for Original D&D will not help you if you are trying to play 5e. They are different games that share a common theme. It is those changes over the years that I find very interesting.
Obviously, there are many who will argue that the version they latched onto is the one true version, but I am not interested in that. I am more interested in whether each version reached the goals it was aiming for.
With this in mind, I’ve started going back through the Wizards Presents books that were released in December of 20071 and January of 2008—before anyone knew what the 4e mechanics would look like. These books are an amazing glimpse into the creative process. They not only share what the designers’ intentions were, but they give a near play-by-play account of how it all came together.
Today, I am in the Races and Classes book and there are a couple things that jumped out at me.
After this message…
Support the Journal
All my new content is free for everyone. If you like this content, you can show your support for the journal by making a one-time contribution through PayPal or Ko-Fi.2
OR, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Be sure to read my About page for details.
No Limits
In stark contrast to what we see today from Wizards of the Coast, 4e was about challenging the status quo and taking chances. R&D Director Bill Slavicsek summed it up this way in the first section of the book.
We had no mandate or specific timeline for 4th Edition. What we did have was the commitment of the company to allow us to explore options and make a recommendation. We had the design tenets document that I prepared to guide us in our explorations. And we had the tenacity to see if we could make the game and play experience better than it is under 3rd Edition. If we could honestly come to the table with a better game, then I was going to recommend placing 4th Edition on the schedule.
4th edition was never intended to be a simple upgrade or tweak to 3.5e. The design team wanted to take the best parts of 3.5e and other games to create something new and exciting that would take D&D to the next level.
Right from the beginning of the design process, they talk about defining character roles to make it easier to build a party of complementary characters—if that is what you wanted to do. They knew they wanted to take the game to 30th-level with three tiers of play. They were convinced that powers for each character would be a great way for everyone to enjoy the game no matter what class you selected.
During the summer of 2005, they began the design process with a blank slate. Lead Designer Rob Heinsoo said this about the work that he, James Wyatt, and Andy Collins were doing at the time.
Our instructions were to push the mechanics down interesting avenues, not to stick too close to the safe home base of D&D v.3.5. As an R&D department, we understood 3.5; our mission was to experiment with something new.
I love this. I love the creativity. I love the initiative. I love the commitment to breaking the mold. They did not go into this exercise wondering how they could create a new game without breaking anything. They focused, first and foremost, on how they could make a great game.
After 10 years of 5e and more than 2 years of design, Wizards of the Coast just released what is basically a small tweak to 5e. This would not be the case with 4e.
You can say whatever you want about whether you like the choices they made, but I think we all need to respect the fact that they were not afraid to take chances.
The Book of Nine Swords
This might be the most interesting thing I found while looking through the beginning of this book. It turns out the seeds of 4th edition were actually planted in 3.5e.
At the same time that the design team was experimenting with ideas for 4th edition, Rich Baker was leading a team on a new 3.5e book called The Book of Nine Swords.
Part of this book included a new idea called Maneuvers and Stances which were designed to be ‘powers for fighters’—a way to give martial characters cool things to do. The Maneuvers and Stances mechanics were updated to incorporate some of what was being worked on for 4e. The result is some 3.5e content that looks, and plays, very much like 4e powers.
Here are a couple examples.
If you are wondering how these rules were received, a review of this book from RPG.net in August of 2006 says this…
The Book of Nine Swords presents a system of rules additions that allow you to incorporate the eastern-influenced, high-action combat of the source material into the D&D game. While games and supplements modeling this style of play have existed in the RPG market for the better part of the last decade, The Book of Nine Swords provides a well-done, balanced, and interesting way of featuring this brand of action in your D&D campaign.
Rather than simply presenting new feats and prestige classes, The Book of Nine Swords provides a system of martial powers that any character can develop. These powers fall into two broad categories: maneuvers and stances. Maneuvers are specific, one-shot effects, while stances provide constant benefits for an indefinite amount of time. The book makes heavy use of the rules for swift and immediate actions originally introduced in the Miniatures Handbook. After reading The Book of Nine Swords, you’ll wonder how your D&D game ever did without them.
It seems that the idea of martial powers and rules that allowed for ‘high-action combat’ in 3.5e were actually a welcome sight. It is strange how many of those same players turned their backs on 4e when it leaned into that same approach.
The story of 4th edition is very interesting. I am all of eight pages into the Races and Classes book and I am so impressed at what went into this game. It might not be everyone’s favorite, but the design team was definitely trying for something special.
I expect to have more thoughts as I get further in.
Affiliate links help to support the channel at no additional cost to you
PayPal and Ko-Fi contributions are processed via Shenanigans Media LLC
I think most people who don’t like 4e probably didn’t give it a chance & I doubt many of them cut their teeth on Basic or Advanced D&D. If you play with all the exploits, powers, feats & skills of 4e then go to AD&D (1e) it is so boring or you have to modify the rules for when somebody tries to jump across a pit or negotiate with a merchant. Yes you would “role play” that stuff and the DM would decide the outcome but you didn’t have a skill you knew you were better at than the rest of your party. You didn’t have choices in how to build your character other than race selection. All Paladins pretty much turned out the same way & while Magic Users could choose different spells most of them were pretty useless. You sort of have to have some kind of offensive spells like Magic Missile or Sleep or you are just missing with you dagger or staff in combat. Combat while longer and more complex is way more fun in 4e with lots to do. In Advanced your magic user has access to a few limited spells that were memorized for that day & fighters attack over and over with the same weapon dealing damage (usually with no other effects) until a monster is killed. A natural 20 isn’t even a critical it doesn’t do extra damage or give any advantage beyond scoring the hit.
I think if my 4e play group decided to try AD&D for a session they would be off it faster than kobold’s head when a vorpal sword is swinging around!!