Why I'm done with 4e

[Votan]

becmi?

Basic D&D and the systems that followed it (expert et al) that was later combined into the D&D Rules Cyclopedia. Back inthe day it was the alternative to AD&D (advanced dungeons and dragons). By the era of 3rd edition of AD&D, we were back to calling AD&D as D&D as the basic D7D line had ceased bing published.

 

[Soraios]

I want to thank many of you for making my points better than I did. Seriously.

The interesting part of this is that I think I'm alone in my opinion in the game group. Many of them are D&D Miniatures players and they really love the 'gamist' bits.

I agree that learning 3.x is no easy chore, especially for a newbie. However, once we knew the system, it receded into the background as we played the game. I guess my feeling on 4e was that it's "artificialness" kept intruding on my gameplay experience. But others at the table were apparently fine with it.

I have other beefs too ... the relative lack of content in the PHB compared to 3.5 PHB ... the difficulty of actually hitting with your encounter/daily powers unless you min-maxed the character ... the list goes on. But I am glad that there are those besides my table-mates that enjoy it.

 

[Ravellion]

just like any video game that trys to emulate a tabletop game will fall short.

Can I be the first to disagree with this (and its counterpart)? The examples of good D&D computer games that stay close to the spirit and somtimes even the letter of the rules are numerous to say the least.

In fact, WoW and Everquest, and Ultima Online (to trace back the pedigree) are in a way derived by the cultural stamp D&D put on fantasy in general, IMO.

 

[delericho]

* Poor modules... Two really bad examples? Probably. Bad enough that I felt 4e crippled two fairly good module writers? Yup. I can't see how the same companies that put out Red Hand of Doom and Cage of Delerium could release such poor work like this one edition later.

I'm not familiar with "Cage of Delerium", but "Red Hand of Doom" was really the outstanding adventure from WotC in recent years (rivalled only by "The Sinister Spire" IMO). A lot of their other efforts were fairly lacklustre, and some very poor indeed. So, perhaps it's not that the 4e modules are especially poor, but rather that you've remembered only the best of what has gone before?

With modules in particular, I do think it is important to look not just at the company responsible, but also the particular author. "Red Hand of Doom" was written by Richard Baker (who is usually good value) and James Jacobs (who has a long and impressive record with Paizo, and who at the time was helming a Dungeon magazine that was in something of a golden age). I think it's also possible that WotC just haven't had their 'big guns' write the adventures thus far.

(Of course, "Red Hand of Doom" was also one of the last modules produced before WotC switched to the 'Delve Format'. It may well be that this format constrains authors enough to knock some off their games. Although I rate "The Sinister Spire" very highly, and that uses that format, so maybe not.)

 

[delericho]

Wait. You like 3E's rule system better because it's easier to ignore the rules system?

That's not what he said. There's a difference between dealing with bloat by not permitting a whole bunch of Prestige Classes, and dealing with rules issues by ignoring the rules on Grappling (for example). What he said resembled the former rather than the latter.

That said...

Because I've played 3E and its problems are just as inherent.

You're right about this. 3e has problems at high levels that are a feature of the system and are very difficult to get around (complex math, too many buffs and debuffs, turns taking forever to resolve... I think we know them by now).

Honestly, I'm not sure it's meaningful to say "3e is better than 4e" or "4e is better than 3e". They're just very different games. Each has strengths and weaknesses, and some will prefer one, others the other. (Of course, one could say, "Xe is better than Ye for me".)

 

[I'm A Banana]

I appreciate all the responses. My intent was not to inflame the Edition Wars so much as to see what others' experience was after playing 4e for awhile.

After playing 4e almost since it came out, I can only (still) give a conflicted opinion.

A lot of what people are raving about in 4e, I could care less about, or find that 3e does better. Tactical combats? Whoop-dee-doodle-doo, I still hate counting squares, and I find the roles and the powers systems absolutely dull. Free-form DMing? I am more comfortable with a system that handles everything neutrally like 3e than I am with 4e's constant hassle to make stuff up. Ease of monster design? Dude, reskinning and fiddling with numbers is as old as the d20, I don't need 4e to tell me to do that. The suspension of disbelief is in many ways kiboshed, and the sense of the world existing independent of the game has been reduced to an irrelevancy.

For me, combats always were an important part of D&D, but they weren't the entirety of the game by any measure, and 4e's weakening of many non-combat aspects into mostly "everyone does the same thing all the time and no one cares, you don't need rules for roleplay!" blah is not appreciated by me.

That said, it does a lot of things right. I appreciate a system that fixes the math, that tries to get rid of accidental suck (overpower I'm less concerned with). The combats are smooth and work absolutely as advertised. The rewards system in 4e is leaps and bounds better than 3e's "Big Six." A lot of the sacred cows of D&D that were truly useless (iterative attacks? slot-based magic?) have been deservedly thrown to the moon never to return. A lot of these things might not sound like much, but they make it VERY hard to go to Pathfinder for me, which improves in many ways, but retains a lot of narm-worthy elements in the name of backwards compatability.

I'm kind of the philosophy that we need more than Pathfinder can give us, but probably not as big of a change as 4e gave us. I liked 3e, and from my perspective, there's a lot of stuff that can stand to be changed, but there's also things that I wouldn't change for the sake of changing. 4e is mostly a totally different beast, and it's good at what it does, what it does just isn't the only reason I play D&D. 4e is probably also easier to add stuff onto because it's much more modular than 3e, while 3e was more fun to fiddle with because it didn't have that modularity (a change like "dwarves are small-sized" is significant in 3e, but is mostly fluff in 4e).

4e is solid enough that I don't want to give it up, but I miss a lot of what 3e could do, and I'm trying to find ways to meld the two better. I think 4e can stomach a lot of additions to make it play more like the game I want -- better than 3e can stomach the changes, anyway.

 

[LostSoul]

I appreciate all the responses. My intent was not to inflame the Edition Wars so much as to see what others' experience was after playing 4e for awhile.

I like 4E, but I have one major complaint. I call it "Power Fixation", and that is when people stop thinking about the game world and focus on their powers. They don't think of a character interacting with a fictional world, they think about the number of mechanical choices the game offers them.

I think that's one of the reasons combats last so long - players have so many choices to make. If the choices were fiction-based, the "right" one may be more obvious to any given player.

I think that attitude can extend out of combat as well.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Maybe we could just have a meta-thread, "Edition War", and merge all these threads into it? A thousand pages of pointless arguing over whose edition sucks the most. It would probably become self-aware by this time next year.

COuld we do this? Please? It seems edition wars will never die* so the administration might as well give the people what they want.


*they just get more boring.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I'm a newcomer to ENworld and have doubtless underestimated the volume of posts on this subject. I was merely expressing my opinion based on my experience. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, and I was curious to hear from those who tried 4e and switched back, or not, after a year of playing the new system.

Oh you'll probably draw some 'heat' as it were for this thread but don't let that keep you from posting more often. Some people (well gamers *ick* ) are unusually sensitive about the edition they play it seems. Myself I play, and enjoy, most editions of D&D and am going to start trying to get my groups to play some different games in the future. Believe it or not all D&D all the time (regardless of edition) gets a little boring after 25 years

 

[Imaro]

I like 4E, but I have one major complaint. I call it "Power Fixation", and that is when people stop thinking about the game world and focus on their powers. They don't think of a character interacting with a fictional world, they think about the number of mechanical choices the game offers them.

I think that's one of the reasons combats last so long - players have so many choices to make. If the choices were fiction-based, the "right" one may be more obvious to any given player.

I think that attitude can extend out of combat as well.

I also think "power fixation" in 4e is, in part (actually a major part), caused by the fact that most of your powers will be based on your highest attribute (along with your weapon/implement/etc. bonus) and thus maximized better than most things ad-hoc'd you come up with based on any other attribute. Also tactically it is better to go with the bonus I know is good as opposed to the bonus that might be as good or better from the DM.

I honestly think this is one of the pitfalls of having the Power structure in a game that has a large part of it's play devoted to tactical combat.

I also have noticed that IMO, the "team" dynamics in 4e really preclude those who may for, in-character reasons or whatever, want to roleplay their character in a sub-optimal fashion in certain situations (such as a character role-playing their fear of snakes, in a combat involving snakes). Instead their actions can have a much more pronounced effect upon the success or failure of their team as a whole in 4e than in other editions and thus I think it pushes (if not outright forces) everyone to play to their tactical as opposed to narrative or simulationist best. YMMV of course