4e was incredibly rigid, for instance. Most editions when you cast fireball say ‘fireball does specifically this effect, but anything cool you can think of using this effect is fair game’. While 4e was much more ‘fireball does this and only this and even if it would immersion breakingly nonsensical for it to NOT do the other thing it still won’t’.
I just looked up Fireball in 4e and 5e and while what you say isn’t technically true, what you remember kind of is and shows why so many of the changes made in 4e were not well received.
While the 4e Fireball does not in fact prohibit anything to be added, it does leave out the flavor, does not explicitly mention igniting things or going around corners in the spell’s text. Leaving out fluff does not encourage the player or GM to add fluff. Furthermore the 4e rules language uses the keyword system which imo is fantastic for quickly getting an overview. But it might also seem more restrictive that way and if the fluff is mentioned in the keyword descriptions then it can quickly be lost.
Now the 5e fireball does not explicitly mention or allow you do add flavor or fluff. But doing so itself it does make it clear immersion and fluff is a thing.
This same thing happens when talking about pf2e with 5e players a lot I have found. Because of pf2e having a very exact, well defined and all encompassing rules structure newcomers from 5e feel like they are more restricted and have to use every rule as written. Even though they would never do so when playing 5e. And even though the pf2e core rules explicitly state multiple times, for example in the very first paragraph, that you can and should change, leave out, add or ignore as many rules as you see fit because it’s your game and your table.
In that way dnd 5e has turned one of its in my opinion main weaknesses, often incomplete or outright not balanced or working rules, into a core strength. It’s modularity and adaptability is often praised when it isn’t actually more modular than most systems I have run. But it requires GMs to make up shit as they go by leaving open canvasses and gaping holes ins rules, plots etc. And since a lot of the system does only loosely work together you can fit in things easily without breaking other stuff, if you got some experience.
Other systems often require you pay some more attention as balance is more tightly knit across the rule system. But in turn you are provided with clear guidelines which allow even new GMs to get balance right the first time. While in dnd 5e many of those guidelines are not given, are outdated and wrong, or never worked in the first place (for example the encounter system, no magic item prices).
That was not one of the biggest problems of 4E at all.
I even think that, like the other answer to this comment said, leaving the fluff out of the description is not even a bad thing. It means I can add my own flavor to the spell.
I think that complaint is mostly about the kind of gamer you are. If you expect the game to provide everything for you, or if you like to add your own roleplay flavor on top of cool mechanics.
I think that 4E was doing something similar to what some games like Dungeon World do.
The description of the Fireball spell in 4E is super short. But although it doesn’t say that the spell is supposed to burn stuff, it has the “Fire” keyword, it’s described as fire damage in the “Hit” part, and the fluff description mentions a flame that explodes. So I believe that the idea is to paint a general image of what the spell does, but leaving the actual flavor and consequences up to your gaming table.
Because one of the problems with D&D (be it 3E, 5E, or some other editions) is that they try to describe everything an action can or can’t do. But they can’t possibly list every possible consequence of any action, because they have limited space.
And this kind of rules book creates a mentality (in some players) of rules lawyers saying that if something obvious isn’t described, then it doesn’t happen. And if a game does that enough, it can create DMs that are too rigid instead of interpreting what’s happening in the world.
I remember there was a spell to create bonfire (or maybe it was something else related to fire), and it said that throwing water at the fire will extinguish the flames, or something like that. Do we really need a game to say that?
4E tried having terse descriptions, and leaving the rest up to you. I really like that. So it says that Fireball creates a flame that explodes, engulfing everything in its area. If one of it’s targets is a person holding an important letter (made of paper) in their hands, it should burn, even though burning things is not explicitly described.
4e was incredibly rigid, for instance. Most editions when you cast fireball say ‘fireball does specifically this effect, but anything cool you can think of using this effect is fair game’. While 4e was much more ‘fireball does this and only this and even if it would immersion breakingly nonsensical for it to NOT do the other thing it still won’t’.
I just looked up Fireball in 4e and 5e and while what you say isn’t technically true, what you remember kind of is and shows why so many of the changes made in 4e were not well received.
While the 4e Fireball does not in fact prohibit anything to be added, it does leave out the flavor, does not explicitly mention igniting things or going around corners in the spell’s text. Leaving out fluff does not encourage the player or GM to add fluff. Furthermore the 4e rules language uses the keyword system which imo is fantastic for quickly getting an overview. But it might also seem more restrictive that way and if the fluff is mentioned in the keyword descriptions then it can quickly be lost.
Now the 5e fireball does not explicitly mention or allow you do add flavor or fluff. But doing so itself it does make it clear immersion and fluff is a thing.
This same thing happens when talking about pf2e with 5e players a lot I have found. Because of pf2e having a very exact, well defined and all encompassing rules structure newcomers from 5e feel like they are more restricted and have to use every rule as written. Even though they would never do so when playing 5e. And even though the pf2e core rules explicitly state multiple times, for example in the very first paragraph, that you can and should change, leave out, add or ignore as many rules as you see fit because it’s your game and your table.
In that way dnd 5e has turned one of its in my opinion main weaknesses, often incomplete or outright not balanced or working rules, into a core strength. It’s modularity and adaptability is often praised when it isn’t actually more modular than most systems I have run. But it requires GMs to make up shit as they go by leaving open canvasses and gaping holes ins rules, plots etc. And since a lot of the system does only loosely work together you can fit in things easily without breaking other stuff, if you got some experience.
Other systems often require you pay some more attention as balance is more tightly knit across the rule system. But in turn you are provided with clear guidelines which allow even new GMs to get balance right the first time. While in dnd 5e many of those guidelines are not given, are outdated and wrong, or never worked in the first place (for example the encounter system, no magic item prices).
That was not one of the biggest problems of 4E at all.
I even think that, like the other answer to this comment said, leaving the fluff out of the description is not even a bad thing. It means I can add my own flavor to the spell.
I think that complaint is mostly about the kind of gamer you are. If you expect the game to provide everything for you, or if you like to add your own roleplay flavor on top of cool mechanics.
Maybe I just had a very rigid DM at the time as he wouldn’t let us do anything not explicitly within the spell discription.
I think that 4E was doing something similar to what some games like Dungeon World do.
The description of the Fireball spell in 4E is super short. But although it doesn’t say that the spell is supposed to burn stuff, it has the “Fire” keyword, it’s described as fire damage in the “Hit” part, and the fluff description mentions a flame that explodes. So I believe that the idea is to paint a general image of what the spell does, but leaving the actual flavor and consequences up to your gaming table.
Because one of the problems with D&D (be it 3E, 5E, or some other editions) is that they try to describe everything an action can or can’t do. But they can’t possibly list every possible consequence of any action, because they have limited space.
And this kind of rules book creates a mentality (in some players) of rules lawyers saying that if something obvious isn’t described, then it doesn’t happen. And if a game does that enough, it can create DMs that are too rigid instead of interpreting what’s happening in the world.
I remember there was a spell to create bonfire (or maybe it was something else related to fire), and it said that throwing water at the fire will extinguish the flames, or something like that. Do we really need a game to say that?
4E tried having terse descriptions, and leaving the rest up to you. I really like that. So it says that Fireball creates a flame that explodes, engulfing everything in its area. If one of it’s targets is a person holding an important letter (made of paper) in their hands, it should burn, even though burning things is not explicitly described.