Why do you keep playing 4e?

Agamon · Jan 7, 2009

malraux said:
Because preparing for games is as much fun as running or playing in them.

Yeah, ditto. The game itself isn't too shabby, either. Everyone is having fun, I can't say that was the case at the end of my least campaign.

I was pretty skeptical about DDI, but it's the cat's meow.

We're taking a short break from my homebrew to play something else for a couple months, and rather go to a different game, as I originally intended, we're doing a Ravenloft adventure.

Filcher · Jan 7, 2009

Jonathan Moyer said:
Hopefully someone will post the link, but I recall a blog or post by Monte Cook where he said some feats were intentionally made bad (Toughness being one of them), and part of the "fun" of the game was figuring which feats these were. He ended the post saying he somewhat regretted doing that, IIRC.

Here:
Ivory Tower Game Design

The seminal text is here:

Monte Cook said:
Perhaps as is obvious from the name I've coined for this rules writing style, I no longer think this is entirely a good idea. I was just reading a passage from a recent book, and I found it rather obtuse. But it wasn't the writer's fault. He was just following the lead the core books offered him. Nevertheless, the whole thing would have been much better if the writer had just broken through the barrier this kind of design sets up between designer and player and just told the reader what the heck he was talking about.

To continue to use the simplistic example above, the Toughness feat could have been written to make it clear that it was for 1st-level elf wizards (where it is likely to give them a 100 percent increase in hit points). It's also handy when you know you're playing a one-shot session with 1st-level characters, like at a convention (you sure don't want to take item creation feats in such an instance, for example).

Nahat Anoj · Jan 7, 2009

Ahglock said:
I like 4e so far. I am having fun and so are the players. We like the tactical miniatures side of things.(one likes this side too much IMO) Its quick and easy to run, everyone has maneuvers, even if overpriced I really dig rituals.

But since I saw this and the legion of THIS responses, I got to ask why this? The enjoyment of designing an adventure to me comes from the story and personalities I create. The mechanics of a system are totally irrelevant to that. What does 4e give you that makes it fun to create an adventure for? Honest question, not trying to be snarky or a threadcrapper.

For me there's a certain delight in being able to predict how difficult an encounter would be, which 4e is able to do in most cases. In addiiton, there's also some level of enjoyment by thinking up the various adversaries PCs could meet and the dynamic encounters that result. An encounter with four brute monsters is fine, but if it's 2 brutes, a skirmisher, and a controller then things get really dynamic.

So it could be enjoyed purely on the tactical possibilities that can be dreamed up. But also, if the DM wants to highlight a certain quality of the monster's/NPC's character, I feel 4e's monster roles can more adequately reflect the personality and style of the monster. For example, if the NPC is a mastermind type, making him a controller monster helps guide the selection of what abilities he's likely to have. So in combat, he'll be ordering his minions around, mucking about with the PCs' plans, and so forth. I just feel 4e is able to bring this aspect to the fore in a more straightforward manner.

garyh · Jan 7, 2009

I'm playing 4e because I'm having tons of fun with it.

Filcher · Jan 7, 2009

Fudging monsters without having to fear the ton of math that had to go into good monsters ("Your fiendish minotaur barbarian/rogue is short a skill point!" Huh?)

GMforPowergamers · Jan 7, 2009

Filcher said:
Ease of DM'ing

Great 3pp support from select publishers (instead of millions of crappy 3pps)

A party has to work together to survive! (No more room for the a$ mage.)

Simplicity of ruleset

Game play reminds us of the Mentzer Box Set.

You can't ruin a PC's career by a bad feat choice at level 1

yea x2....

Rechan said:
Monte Cook said it plainly: they designed 3e with sub-par feats and other things so that players would feel rewarded by learning what the good choices are.

You could easily make a suck-tastic character, because you don't have system mastery.

Someone once said (I wish i could give proper credit) "I am sick of having to be GOOD at the game...I just want to play

Filcher said:
Fudging monsters without having to fear the ton of math that had to go into good monsters ("Your fiendish minotaur barbarian/rogue is short a skill point!" Huh?)

system mastery bad...fun and quck and simple good

fba827 · Jan 7, 2009

Hobo -- would you consider forking your conversation to a new thread? This thread is fairly fresh and discussion barely started but it seems to going off in another direction that deserves it's own thread.

As for the thread topic:
Our group may have minor issues with it, but we'd find a reason to have issues with anything. liking one edition does not exclude us from liking other editions (or games), there are things we like and dislike with anything. We're having fun, so that is why we keep playing it. I find it easy to explain to new people too, and it's not daunting to DM (the structure makes it much easier to do things, or make monsters or attacks on the fly)

Kzach · Jan 7, 2009

I honestly like everything about 4e.

It just suits a lot of my tastes. The designers are mostly all designers that I was a fan of during 3x and whom I bought 3rd-party content of or WotC publications by. So I think they built a system that gels with a lot of what I like and consider to make a good game.

In fact, 4e isn't just my favourite edition of D&D, it's my favourite game system to date. There is very little about it I would change.

Jack99 · Jan 7, 2009

I love D&D - it's the only RPG I ever wanted to play - and 4e is the best version there is. (All my reasons have been stated by others already)

LostSoul · Jan 7, 2009

Ahglock said:
But since I saw this and the legion of THIS responses, I got to ask why this? The enjoyment of designing an adventure to me comes from the story and personalities I create. The mechanics of a system are totally irrelevant to that. What does 4e give you that makes it fun to create an adventure for? Honest question, not trying to be snarky or a threadcrapper.

Well, for me, I was stuck in the mode that everything had to be statted out "correctly". If there's a magical effect, it should be based on the spells, right? The 3rd-level hedge wizard in town can't create magical rings, right? (And he can't just be a "hedge wizard", he's a 3rd-level wizard.) You can't just give a monster the hit points and feats you want, it has to be "legal"... right?

This is just plain stupidity on my part, thinking I had to run games that way, but I never was able to get over it. Well, maybe I would have but eventually I stopped caring.

So along comes 4E and it says, "Hey, you're the DM, your job is to provide a challenge with as much flavour as possible. Don't worry about Fey monsters having low hit points, feat chains, or the magical prowess of hedge wizards as compared to PCs. Just use your imagination, follow these guidelines to get the level of challenge right, and kick some ass."

In other words: When I prep for 4E, I feel like my imagination is unfettered.

Why do you keep playing 4e?

Agamon

Adventurer

Filcher

First Post

Nahat Anoj

First Post

garyh

First Post

Filcher

First Post

GMforPowergamers

Legend

fba827

Adventurer

Kzach

Banned

Jack99

Adventurer

LostSoul

Adventurer

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