Falling off the 4ed bandwagon

[weem]

@ Merc

My brother is in the exact same position. I told him what others here have mentioned - try something else. Specifically, he had the best time playing 3.5 so I told him to go back to that for a while - I also recommended he check out Pathfinder - anything really, just try some other stuff for a bit. There's so much good (and some of it, free) stuff out there.

 

[Filcher]

Similarly, magic items aren't less exciting than they were in the last edition - the problem is mainly that they look that way when presented without much background, alongside dozens of similar items.

Hey, hey, c'mon now. A +1 sword was way cooler in AD&D.

Seriously though, I miss the "magic" of earlier editions. A part of me wonders if that isn't nostalgia though. I can still remember stumbling upon my first cloak ... of ... elvenkind. WOW!

 

[nedjer]

I understand your pain. I, too, was excited by 4e for a good long while. Matter of fact, I picked up the Player's Guide and then, shortly thereafter, the other two books as well. I loved the little details, the smoothing over of the entire game, the way that suddenly everything made sense and fit into the game world, unlike that unholy abomination 3e, where the basic game world didn't make sense and it tried to have a flavor that didn't fit the game rules, and all of that niceness.

The thing I didn't like, though, was that I play rules-light games where I make things up and use DM Fiat like it's going out of style. I make up enemies off the top of my head and also magic items and enemies, and it actually felt like 4e was against that sort of thing.

My solution, honestly, was to get into retro-clone gaming. It takes a modern sensibility and applies it to the fast-and-loose rules of the earlier era. Most people that I play, for example, Labyrinth Lord with like the fact that there are so few rules and special abilities and all of this crazy-ass stat-tracking that we can sit down, whip up a character in fifteen minutes, and have slain a dungeon full of orcs and stirges and zombies where we spent a good two hours making characters in 3e and 4e.

In a nutshell- if you like homebrewing, sandbox play, and the old-school feel go for a retroclone. I did, and I don't regret it.

Snap! I got into Traveller to go rules light/ homebrew. It wasn't that we couldn't roleplay in AD&D but that had to fit in on top of the long combats, checking rules and the time turns took to come round. From there I've gone mechanics/ crunch light on fantasy too. Players have options but not hundreds of them, turns are way faster and it's easier to find more players.

4e is a good 'off the shelf' game if you've committed players and want pre-made campaigns. But it just seems very rules heavy nowadays.

 

[Piratecat]

Yes, agreed. Hey, you're in Boston, right? That's just an hour and a half away--maybe I'll have to come to one of your game days (is it you that has the game days?).

You'd certainly be welcome! I need to schedule the next one.

MrMyth has the right idea regarding magic items, by the way. If you aren't already, take the basic item, leave its mechanics unchanged and customize the flavor. For instance, my game has a cursed sword dedicated to Sklar, the God of unchecked wilderness, which has brambles growing out of the hilt; hit with it hard enough and it feeds on your blood to grow particularly painful thorns along its blade. It's a bloodclaw weapon, of course, but it's got its own unique feel.

Or the cape of the mountebank, which teleports you out of danger when struck. You could use the fluff that it moves you through the feywild or the shadowfell in order to shift you, both of which let you use cool descriptions of what the PC sees every time it functions. ("The sword blade strikes you and suddenly you fall through a barrier you didn't even know was there. You seem to be in an elven bath house, up to your waist in warm soapy water and surrounded by naked fey. "What the..?" one of them starts to say, and then you're falling back into the world again fifteen feet from where you started. You're still dripping bath water.")

Similarly, the Prison of Salzacas (from AV2) is essentially a continual unseen servant. I skinned it as a servile and unctuous spirit bound into an orb who sucked up to its master, was rude to everyone else, and dispensed historical plot clues when I thought it'd be handy. It went from a random magic item to something that was really fun for me to roleplay, with no change in game stats.

I think my point is that a lack of pre-written fluff text shouldn't inherently make a magic item boring. Make it your own, and make it memorable or cinematic, and it should work okay.

 

[weem]

For instance, you mentioned that people are feeling locked in by their powers. One thing working well to help us avoid "power railroading" is that I had everyone make up a card that says "Do something cool." It's a constant reminder that the player can completely ignore their powers and try a stunt to gain some other result; I just adjudicate damage and effect on the fly (repeatability means less damage, as does a particularly effective special effect like blindness. I raise damage the first couple of times people try this to encourage its use.)

We instituted Aspects from FATE with fate points etc - we have Fate Point cards that have the various uses printed on them, but they can also be used to, as you said, do something cool. Having them there in the mix with the other cards makes a big difference so I agree, this is a cool idea.

Or the cape of the mountebank, which teleports you out of danger when struck. You could use the fluff that it moves you through the feywild or the shadowfell in order to shift you, both of which let you use cool descriptions of what the PC sees every time it functions. ("The sword blade strikes you and suddenly you fall through a barrier you didn't even know was there. You seem to be in an elven bath house, up to your waist in warm soapy water and surrounded by naked fey. "What the..?" one of them starts to say, and then you're falling back into the world again fifteen feet from where you started. You're still dripping bath water.")

I love this item (the cape), but more importantly I love this idea, haha. We have added various bits of our own fluff to (some) items, but I think I need to do more of this myself (as the DM). Very cool

 

[Dausuul]

Mercurius, I share your feelings pretty much down to the last detail. I was hugely excited about 4E at first, and I still like it much better than 3E, but more and more I find myself looking back with nostalgia to the days of 2E and BECMI.

What I intend to do about it: For starters, I may wrap up my current campaign earlier than expected. I was originally going to take it all the way to 30, but I'm thinking about cutting out the epic arc and stopping at 20. It's pretty much a by-the-book game, which was great for learning the ins and outs of 4E, but now I know the ins and outs, and there are some things that are in that I want to see out and vice versa.

I intend to do the following for my next campaign:

• Institute the DMG2 rules for removing +X items from the game, so that I don't have to worry about keeping the PCs' enhancement bonuses up to spec.
• Pick a small list of races available. No more fantasy kitchen sink. I might even go humans-only.
• Pick a medium-sized list of classes available.
• Make a list of the rituals that exist in my world, and add new ones as necessary. Reprice them to fit my needs.
• Institute a new system for item creation which relies on relics taken from defeated foes. With this and the changes to rituals, I will no longer have to deal with 4E's ludicrous economy.
• Adopt PirateCat's idea of putting "Do Something Cool" on everyone's power list.
• Adopt MrMyth's idea of fluffing up 4E's flavorless magic items. With the changes to the magic item system, I'll no longer have to hand out scads of the things just to keep the PCs up to par, so I can lavish some more attention on the ones I do provide.
• Import 2E's Secondary Skills system as a set of backgrounds.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Perram has a great point. Try new stuff and play whatever is the most fun, and don't feel bad about it. Doesn't matter whether it's Pathfinder, D&D of any edition, or a completely different game like Savage Worlds; just keep playing and having fun.

One of the things I love about gaming is that it's so easy to try new systems. Just off the top of my head, I've run or played one-shots in over 40 different game systems -- and the ones we've liked best we play more regularly. Find what works best and embrace it.

The one thing I will add to this is to not be afraid to adapt subsystems. Use what you like, ignore the rest. Use the system that best works with your gaming style. Don't feel like you have to use a system because it's the latest "ooh, shiny", the best-known system, or the new kid on the block.

When 3.5 was the big thing, I felt a bit constrained by the rules. I didn't feel like I could adapt like I wanted, since so many rules were tied together. I started looking at C&C, and it fit my style a LOT better. I enjoyed those games more. Yet at the same time, I felt a little unfulfilled missing the options of 3.5. So I tried house-ruling C&C with some subsystems from 3.5 to try to hit the feel I was going for. My downfall in all of this was a combination of self-doubt and too much of a desire to tinker.

Also take into consideration that the DM sets the tone of the game. Rules affect this some, but the DM sets the mood overall. If the rules get in the way of having a good time, then scrap them and get something that works better for you. Rules are there as a tool for conflict resolution. The adventure itself comes from the DM.

 

[Hjorimir]

We instituted Aspects from FATE with fate points etc - we have Fate Point cards that have the various uses printed on them, but they can also be used to, as you said, do something cool. Having them there in the mix with the other cards makes a big difference so I agree, this is a cool idea.

Weem, I'd love to hear the specifics on how you do this. Do you have a document with the cards that you can share? Details, man! Details!

I lub me some FATE.

 

[Darrin Drader]

The best advice I can give is to find a game that does what you want it to do from a mechanical perspective and play it. Trying to retrofit a game to suit your preferences seems silly when there are so many good games out there that would probably work for you as written. If rules light interests you but you like the advances found in the core mechanics of D20, I'd suggest looking at Castles and Crusades. C&C also has the added benefit of being mostly compatible with adventures from every version of D&D that has been released to date, including 4E, and the gameplay moves along at a good clip. I also like the whole Basic Roleplay model, which you'll find in Call of Cthulhu and Runequest. WEG's D6 system is another fun one, and there's a decent amount of material out there for it that would allow you to play in any genre. Of course there's also GURPS and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - both of which I've heard excellent things about, but I have no direct experience with either. Personally, I've been playing Pathfinder and Traveller for the past year or so and I'm extremely happy with both.

 

[weem]

Weem, I'd love to hear the specifics on how you do this. Do you have a document with the cards that you can share? Details, man! Details!

I lub me some FATE.

Someone somewhere (I don't think here at ENW, but I could be wrong) had a system drawn up of ways to spend the fate points in 4e. We tweaked them a bit, and a friend put them on a card he made - then he set up a 3x3 sheet of them to print and cut - I just asked him about it but it's at home otherwise i would post it.

Anyway, some of the options for using one include getting a +3 to attack for your daily, +2 to attack an encounter, +1 anything else (all AFTER having rolled). There were a few more things on there (not coming to mind atm)... maybe a re-roll... and possibly an extra action. To hideout was ever discussed before that, I just kind of wanted one all of a sudden... he could have denied me, but he also may have then given me another one. If you know the Aspect/Fate system you already have an idea of how it works, etc.

But, what it primarily get's used for is to do something cool - we kind of explain what we want to do in exchange for the fate point - DM decides whether or not to, or modifies the idea, "well, sure, but just this part of it... and you have to roll an Athletics check to land without falling prone" etc. As a DM I will accept one to auto-succeed just about any skill roll, and I am willing to break rules for cool effects. When players get excited about doing something cool and are willing to spend one, I'm pretty much down for whatever.

In my game, you get one 1 per session. They don't last to the next session if used, and you can get an additional 1 during the game for cool RP-ing or ideas, etc.

---edit---

As a player, I make sure I use one each game.

EX: We busted out of an Inn we rescued someone from. I play a goblin rogue, and knew the city best. We didn't know where to go, so I offered up the DM my fate point card and said, "I know JUST the place to hide! My little hideout!"... DM smiled and said, "yes you do" taking the card. I didn't have a hideout before that, it was never discussed - and he could have said, "no, that was in the other city" etc, but he also may have given me another FP for the idea then. I'm sure you understand that part of the system though (the bartering) - much fun