Convincing 4th Edition players to consider 5th Edition

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is probably off-topic, but can you expand on this a bit?

I've approached 4e pretty much like I approached all the other RPGs I DMed, and I always started with the "story". I put that in quotes because I find the story is actually when the PCs are doing things, but encounters were always there as part of the "story" that the PCs could interact with.

From the perspective you are talking about, what did you find you had to work on the story side?

Well, lets imagine a 1e game. You can throw a few orcs against the party, maybe they're just a random encounter, maybe they're just 1 in a series of encounters in some orc lair. There's no real embellishment you HAVE to provide. This kind of encounter is both potentially dangerous and at the same time very casual, the orcs won't do anything weird or exciting, everyone knows they're orcs. It may take a few rounds to kill them, but you can run through it pretty quickly. There are no exciting tactics that are going to make any real difference. It is basically a throwaway encounter.

4e encounters are almost never throw aways. You can DO that, but it is going to be a trivial encounter in that there will be no real danger (or at most does anyone have to spend a surge afterwards) if you make it say 5 minion orcs. The game just isn't designed around that sort of thing. You can stick 5 regular orcs in a room and 4e will handle it, and you'll have a boring 30 minutes of hacking.

What you really want is something more. In fact what you NEED is something more. Some goal, some purpose that exists within the plot of whatever the adventure is beyond "get past this room". At LEAST you need the encounter itself to be an interesting story in a self-contained fashion (IE with some sort of terrain and/or whatever). The focus on the overall story should always be there, or some drama or interest inherent in the situation that drives things and makes it truly interesting.

At least for me the old AD&D style encounters were fun for a while but we wanted more and needed more, and at least for me I found the stuff beyond the basic mechanics of having a fight was better enabled by 4e. It isn't REALLY as easy a game to get everything out of, OTOH there is more there to get out IMHO. More flexibility and easier to access it, but also more demand to do so (maybe because of that).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Sounds also like a good description why so many D&D adventures from WotC were bad- too many filler encounters. Full XP budget, but no story relevance, really.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It is my contention that WotC has very little understanding of 4e, ironically. Their 4e adventures read mostly like AD&D adventures. In all fairness the first few of mine back in '08 were along somewhat similar lines. I just rapidly looked at what worked and tinkered and added things and subtracted things and pretty soon things were humming along reasonably well. I'm still getting better at it though.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Well, lets imagine a 1e game.

the orcs won't do anything weird or exciting, everyone knows they're orcs.

I DMed an enjoyable encounter with an Orc Fighter (had class levels ) in a 1st Ed campaign who definitely did weird/exciting things.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sure, and you could make up homebrew monsters of all sorts in 1e of course too. It just wasn't typically a game that focused much on that. Nor did monsters tend to have a lot of synergy, etc. Of course there were some much more elaborate monsters, but in general your average 1e basic fight was pretty basic. The virtue was that those fights could be handled pretty quickly and the game was swingy enough that "oops the rogue died" was a common result of a garden variety run-in with a couple stock orcs ('virtue' in this case being as much vice as virtue...). It was a two-edged sword. You didn't have to put a lot of work into it for something like that to work well enough to be tolerable. OTOH it didn't always deliver a lot either.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Sure, and you could make up homebrew monsters of all sorts in 1e of course too. It just wasn't typically a game that focused much on that. Nor did monsters tend to have a lot of synergy, etc. Of course there were some much more elaborate monsters, but in general your average 1e basic fight was pretty basic. The virtue was that those fights could be handled pretty quickly and the game was swingy enough that "oops the rogue died" was a common result of a garden variety run-in with a couple stock orcs ('virtue' in this case being as much vice as virtue...). It was a two-edged sword. You didn't have to put a lot of work into it for something like that to work well enough to be tolerable. OTOH it didn't always deliver a lot either.

My experiences are at odds with all of that, but hey, we have just had different D&D lives.

So many fascinating adventures/campaigns/encounters etc since 1986, if you've had otherwise, I'm bummed for you.

 

[The Little Raven]

I can run great 4e games, but the way encounters are structured means oddly you HAVE to work the story side of it. The mechanics are easy, but ironically it is probably a tougher game to run than AD&D in other ways.

I find it the opposite. Since I don't have to worry about mechanics in 4e, I have more time and brainspace to spend on story.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think I have to disagree with you, a lot of 3.x is simpler than in 4e (comparing PHB/DMG), especially melee classes and magic items.

While there certainly were bits in 3e that were individually simpler than the corresponding bit in 4e, there's just no comparison when it comes to the complexity of the whole. In part, precisely because 3e did use different sub-systems or structures to make some things simplistic and others complex - doing so adds to overall complexity.

5e is heading the same way. Overall, it's modular approach is a recipe for levels of complexity D&D has never before seen. But, given a DM with mastery of that complexity, a given campaign could be paired down to a very simple sub-set of that complexity.

Some of the base mechanics of 4e are more stream lined than it is in 3.x, like the attacker always rolling to-hit against one of four defences. I don't think that makes 4e simpler, but more stream lined.

I'm not sure that's a big distinction, but OK, if you prefer 'more streamlined,' that's fine.

For 5e I hope they keep some of the stream lined parts of the game from 4e and remove most of the attack/defence scaling and much of the magic item scaling from 4e.

That 'streamlining' of common mechanics and consistent structure was certainly gone from the playtest, and would seem to be at odds with the modular approach, but bounded accuracy is obviously going to try to deliver on the scaling issue (which was largely illusory, the 4e 'treadmill' being rather transparent, anyway).

Simplicity is appealing on a number of levels. Personal preference, ease of DMing, shallow learning curve, faster play, etc, etc... Varied complexity within a system delivers some of them, like personal preference, player-by-player, but not others. Modular complexity, likewise, it gives the DM a lot to master and a lot to do, but if he puts in the effort, he can deliver a simpler experience (or a more tailored level of complexity) to his players.

I think a critical thing that 5e isn't focused on is that simplicity is much more important to the new player than the experienced one. Experienced players may or may not like complexity, but they can deal with it, new players can be put off by the steep learning curve. 5e isn't really targeting new players, though, in it's attempt to re-unite the existing fan-base.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

4E was all about elegant complexity. Where it was complex, it was also clear, intuitive and user-friendly. Complexity in earlier editions was generally none of those things.

 

[Steely_Dan]

4E was all about elegant complexity. Where it was complex, it was also clear, intuitive and user-friendly. Complexity in earlier editions was generally none of those things.

No matter how many times you convince yourself, does not mean it's right.

I have had plenty of complex, clear, intuitive and user-friendly pre-4th Ed experiences.