4th Edition was Ahead of its Time

 

At least in one respect. Let me back track a bit. Among other topics, I discussed the various editions of Dungeons and Dragons with a reporter last week and the topic of the generally vilification of 4^th edition. I can find people who wax nostalgically over their 1^st edition half elf fighters (myself included), who still seek out and want to play in 2^nd edition campaigns, who avidly purchase any 3^rd and 3.5 handbooks on which they can lay their hands and, of course, 5^th edition has sold fantastically since it released last decade. 4^th edition, meanwhile, gets very little love as most of our customers refer to it disparagingly as WotC’s attempt to migrate video game concepts into a table top RPG and failing spectacularly.

I never had quite the distain for 4^th edition that a lot of my customers did. I found it an interesting attempt to merge boardgame concepts with tabletop RPGS, though running the published modules proved problematical as whomever designed them opted to drop the linear progression of most published modules and instead separate encounters likely to involve combat into their own section of the book, meaning extra flipping back and forth for the DM. Still, I found the published adventures playable.  Creating homebrewed adventures proved more problematical.

However, there is one concept that 4^th edition introduced that was far ahead of its time and that was the idea of Dungeons and Dragons as a spectator event. Granted, people had watched other people play D&D in the past for generally not for very long, just until a spot opened up for them. Setting up games for one group of people to play while another watches has come into its own with streaming programs such as Dimension 20, Dungeons and Daddies and, of course, Critical Role.

However, in 2011, D&D 4^th edition and the Wizards Play Network introduced the concept of the Lair Assault. The WPN positioned the seven Lair Assault scenarios and extremely challenging adventures designed for 2-4 players to finish in a couple of hours. However, the idea behind Lair Assault was that the scenarios, while short, were designed to be so difficult to complete that those players would have to attempt them multiple times, leaning from each attempt, before completing them. However, it was the concept of encourage non-players to come watch that, locking back, I found unique. The focus on RPG play, to that time, has always been on participation. The  WPN, in its directions for Lair Assault, encouraged stores to recruit their best local players to participate and invite other local players to come watch top-tier players attempt an extremely challenging adventure, in effect having one small group playing through the adventure while another group got the opportunity to watch a master class in RPG play. I am not sure how other stores did with the program. I would assume not well, since it only lasted for two years and we found it quite difficult to recruit the same players to come multiple times to play through and complete the adventure and I only remember one person coming in to watch the game, but still the basic concept, though flawed, was there. It just took the advent of the Web and the development of podcasting techniques which made it relatively easy for anyone who wants to put their own gaming sessions online.