At this point it’s common wisdom that the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons is the worst. It’s certainly the most maligned edition, with a general consensus that it parrots video game mechanics, straightjackets PCs with predefined abilities, and eliminates much of what makes individual classes special.
And I love it.
Which isn’t to say I don’t have criticisms (lengthy combat and lack of support for the epic tier being two of them), but I also think there’s a lot to recommend a second look at 4e. Over the next few months I’ll be posting some of the things I think 4e got right in its changes to the fantasy RPG formula.
For instance, 4e is the edition that was made for Dungeon Masters — literally. Not a lot of people seem to remember this, but one of 4e’s explicit design goals was to make running the game as easy as possible. In the Worlds and Monsters promo, Matthew Sernett writes:
“It’s going to be a lot easier and more fun to be a Dungeon Master in 4th Edition. You’ll have to do less work to put together and run great adventures. The time that you used to spend on math can be spent on coming up with cool ideas for encounters and adventure plots instead… Making being a DM easier (and making it easier to be a good DM) is going to get more people to try running a game.”
One place this mindset is reflected is in the layout of adventure modules. Almost every encounter is laid out as a two-page spread, meaning the DM doesn’t have to flip pages back and forth while running an encounter. All the information needed is in those two pages: environmental descriptions and effects, monster stats, traps, tactical suggestions, etc. By contrast, I’m constantly flipping pages in WotC’s 5e adventures between the encounter description, the map, and the monster stats in the Monster Manual, and any spells used by the monsters in the Player’s Handbook just to run a simple encounter.
4e also featured fantastic advice in it’s 2 DMGs. The Dungeon Master’s Guide 2, in particular, is a great resource for DMs of any edition. It has advice on crafting long-term campaigns, including story structure, avoiding dead ends when PCs fail to overcome an obstacle, and integrating flashbacks, transitions, and even third-person teasers into a session. It also has great examples for creating more interesting encounters, building traps, customizing monsters, and offering alternate rewards. Anyone interested in RPG design would benefit from the DMG2’s insights.
In the end, the focus on DMs is probably one of the things that worked against 4e. Since most D&D players are, well, players, they weren’t as invested in the upgrades to running the game and didn’t see the benefits. Which is a shame. While 4e isn’t perfect, it did a lot to lift some of the burdens on DMs — a fact for which I am grateful.