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I don't want to get into an edition discussion, but I want to say this. Last weekend I was at our local shop and three different D&D games were going on that afternoon. One was a 4E group of high schoolers/early college kids, the other two were adult groups playing 3.5 (one appeared to be transition to PF.) All of these people were having fun, and I think that is what D&D really is. Whatever gets you and your buddies sitting at a table, killing orcs and taking their stuff is D&D, regardless of what rules you are using to do it.
This really, at the end of the day no matter which edition you play they all contain the phrase: "The orcs notice you, roll for initiative"
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Thoughts of the Arch Chancellor - My weblog on EN World - containing game related material, like: house rules, design theories, reviews, play reports, adventure ideas
Secret Member of <Think we would just hide our secret with a spoiler tag, eh?>
No need to have anyone here affirm your preferences. Not every game is for every player. Find the game that suits you, not the other way around. I'm happily running 4e for my dungeon-bashy D&D game, and Call of Cthulhu for my roleplay-heavy rules-light game. It works out well!!
First off, cool. I hope you find the right tool to build your next campaign with. Now with that out of the way...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Soraios
* The rules are in the background. The rules are not constantly superimposing themselves on my in-game experience. Example: 4e marking.
You didn't feel that all the bookkeeping required by mid-to-high level 3.5e was intrusive? I sure did, then again, I was running a campaign that ended up with 4 full-progression spellcasters. We couldn't avoid a lot rules talk during heated battles.
Quote:
* High level of player creativity in character design.
Have you tried Mutants and Masterminds 2e for a fantasy campaign? It's a classless point-buy d20 variant (in case you didn't know). Which means it has the most flexible character generation system of any d20 game. Any character you can make using 3.5e/Pathfinder can be made using M&M2e, plus a metric ton of ones that simply can't/won't work under 3.5e.
Plus, the game itself ends up being much easier to run that 3.5e.
Quote:
...if my first exposure to D&D was 4e I'd probably say to myself after a few sessions, "why not play WoW instead?" IMO, Wizards forgot why people play D&D in the first place.
Heh, our 4e games are nothing like a MMORPG, they're like more like a sloppy blend of Terry Pratchett and China Mieville's novels and Quentin Tarrantino's films, only with a lot of the quality removed.
Also, another way to look at it is that Wizards rightly understood that most of the reasons people play D&D can't be found in the rule books, which explains why they provided a robust set of combat resolution tools, a loose framework for conflict resolution, and basically left the rest to the individuals playing.
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For these reasons, I'm starting a pathfinder campaign.
Again, good luck, and have you considered M&M2e? There's a new source book out now for it called Warriors and Warlocks, which is full of advice/fluff for running a pulp fantasy game.
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
Always go with what you like. Life's too short for bad gaming. Good for you.
Now, might I suggest, if you want a system where the rules don't intrude too much, there's this thing called Savage World's Explorer's Edition. Might be right up your alley.
I know I'm loving it so far.
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
What I get from your post is that you played 4e and didn't learn a thing about it. You likely went in to playing it wanting it to suck and making it suck by effort on your part.
Quite honestly, if person can't have fun playing 4e, there is something seriously wrong with them.
The only reason that you didn't have fun is because you were determined not to. Which seems to be the case with every "we tried it, but didn't like it" thread.
And for the record, the "roles" have always been there and aren't anything new. Which you would know if you had put any real effort in learning the game and having fun, which you obviously didn't.
Also, I don't care what you play. Play what you like. But coming online and making threads like this just incites the edition wars and is compleatly uneeded.
Admin here. Folks, this is a great example of how not to respond when someone writes something that offends you. Responding with antagonism, blanket statements, insults and the "truth" about what the other person must be thinking are all something that should be avoided. It's okay if not everyone likes the same game you do, and they may play it differently than you; that's okay as well. No one has the right to lecture people on what they should be playing.
If this is in the least bit unclear, feel free to PM me. ~ PCat
Last edited by Piratecat; 8th September 2009 at 04:26 PM..
Quite honestly, if person can't have fun playing 4e, there is something seriously wrong with them.
The only reason that you didn't have fun is because you were determined not to. Which seems to be the case with every "we tried it, but didn't like it" thread.
Also, I don't care what you play. Play what you like. But coming online and making threads like this just incites the edition wars and is compleatly uneeded.
Practice what you preach and the world will be a happier place.
No need to have anyone here affirm your preferences. Not every game is for every player. Find the game that suits you, not the other way around. I'm happily running 4e for my dungeon-bashy D&D game, and Call of Cthulhu for my roleplay-heavy rules-light game. It works out well!!
-O
I couldn't agree more. I'm running two 4e games and loving them, and I'm playing in a 3.5 game and loving that as well. On the edges I'm playing or running great games of Skulduggery, MnM, and 1e AD&D. Never feel you have to justify your choice, just play what you find fun.
The danger in these sorts of threads is that your experiences are surely very different than other peoples'. Generalizing will always cause people who haven't experienced your problems to disagree with you.
I do agree with one thing mentioned above. Whether it's 4e, 3e or something else, I'm of the opinion that playing a game you're determined to dislike usually makes it intrinsically harder to enjoy. I ran into that with Vampire: the Masquerade when I first played it. It took me some time before I appreciated the game on its own merits.
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Quite honestly, if you can't understand that each person's fun is his own matter, there is something seriously wrong with you
It's been dealt with by moderators. Let it lie, please.
__________________ - Piratecat, EN World Admin
Currently editing the 4e War of the Burning Sky adventure path. Support EN Publishing, get excellent modules!
I couldn't agree more. I'm running two 4e games and loving them, and I'm playing in a 3.5 game and loving that as well. On the edges I'm playing or running great games of Skulduggery, MnM, and 1e AD&D. Never feel you have to justify your choice, just play what you find fun.
/snip
You get to play in 3 games at once?
I hate you.
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
The danger in these sorts of threads is that your experiences are surely very different than other peoples'. Generalizing will always cause people who haven't experienced your problems to disagree with you.
I also think that folks who post on RPG messageboards - whether it's a result of fan culture, the interwebs, or human nature - have a problem categorizing something as "A good thing that's well-made, and which others may enjoy for legitimate reasons, but which does not fit my tastes."
Even worse, there's sometimes a tendency to extrapolate a bit too far - to claim there's something wrong with a person who likes or dislikes something. That somehow a person's preference of a game system (or movie, or series of books) puts their deep-seated character flaws on display. (Like, say, enjoying minions means that you're such a failure and so impotent in real life that you need your character to be enormously badass to compensate. Or that enjoying rules-light games means you're just not smart enough to play with the big kids in a rules-heavy game.) It's a crummy line of argument, which turns what could be a nice discussion about the merits and flaws of a game system into an ad-hominem discussion of the merits and flaws of a person.
I've been a player in a 4e campaign since the release of the edition. Prior to that, I DM'd and played extensively in a series of 3.x campaigns. I have tried to adapt to the new system (for the sake of my friend who DMs it), but I can't keep playing 4e; the game itself is driving me crazy.
I don't think 3.x is perfect. High-level encounters, for instance, can be very complicated. But 3.x is superior to 4e in these ways:
* The rules are in the background. The rules are not constantly superimposing themselves on my in-game experience. Example: 4e marking.
* High level of player creativity in character design. This only increased as new 3.x materials were released. 4e suffers from "sameyness" from the PHB onward.
* Vancian magic. I prefer it. It's part of D&D's core identity. 3e honors it (while giving some options for other paths); 4e pays lip service to it (for wizards, anyway) but essentially reinvents the magic system, to its detriment.
* 4e has a very artificial feel. The labels/roles are a big part of that; striker, artillery, leader, minion ... where is the mystery and wonder? The rules encourage metagame thinking and take me out of the game-world and into wargamer mode.
Unfortunately, I don't see how I can ignore these problems. With 3.x's bloat issues (particularly for prestige classes), the solution was simply to exercise DM control and exclude the material you didn't want. 4e's problems are inherent. You can't play 4e without being smacked in the face with design issues every single session.
As a side comment, while I agree that 4e is certainly easier for a newbie to grasp due to its simplicity, if my first exposure to D&D was 4e I'd probably say to myself after a few sessions, "why not play WoW instead?" IMO, Wizards forgot why people play D&D in the first place.
I want to play a game of D&D that emphasizes a blend of role-playing, story-telling, exploration, adventure, and yes, exciting combat. I would venture a guess that most of the folks on this forum want the same, though arguably in different proportions. So I want a game system that allows me to do that with minimal intrusiveness. I don't want to feel like I'm playing a boardgame or MMO. For these reasons, I'm starting a pathfinder campaign.
Good for you. You aren't the first to become disillusioned with 4E and switch to something you like better, and you most certainly won't be the last.
Not to be too critical Soraios, but is there anything in general you want to discuss about your change of rules, or did you just want to announce it?
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All we want to do is eat your brains
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We’ll all come inside and eat your brains
The D&D brand name has been applied to games so different that someone can easily be enthusiastic about one and find others thoroughly disappointing. It's sort of strange to me that some people should have stuck with 2e and 3e when 4e is the kind of game they really like -- but I'm sure there's plenty of strangeness from each perspective.
Some things are matters of degree, so that a really old hand might say of 3e some of what a 3e fan says of 4e. It's a matter not just of "the trees" but of "the forest". Talk about the new games is strange and stranger to my ears because it's increasingly devoted to concerns, and in jargon, that have more in common with computer games.
What "detailed tactical combat rules" meant back when FRP was a spin-off from historical gaming might seem as bizarre to the video-game set as their concept does to "grognards". Ditto a lot of other things.
I don't know about WoW, but 4e definitely does not feel to me like The Fantasy Trip: Melee, or DragonQuest. It's not just a matter of squares instead of hexes -- the whole fundamental set of premises is different. Nor does it feel to me like any other RPG of which I can think offhand in terms of character generation. The amount of attention to combat factors reminds me most of Champions, which however has the context of a lot of rules for all sorts of things.
Those games came out almost 30 years ago. They were popular about the same time as Chaosium's RuneQuest, which I think at least one designer of 3e mentioned as an influence. The game certainly evoked for me a sense of "flashback" to a 1980s ethos -- but at least as much a GURPS or a Hero System (4th ed.) as an AD&D one. What I've seen of the late 2e Players Option books seems like a precursor.
From what I gather of stagnation of salaries in the field, my guess is that younger folks -- with a different set of formative adventure-game experiences -- led the design and development of 4e.
Not every game is for every player. Find the game that suits you, not the other way around. I'm happily running 4e for my dungeon-bashy D&D game, and Call of Cthulhu for my roleplay-heavy rules-light game. It works out well!!
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