Has the horse left the barn?

[lin_fusan]

I haven't had a chance to give the edition a good try. When the game first came out, we played a few sessions of Keep on the Shadowfell, but everyone lost interest.

Ironically, I was initially skeptical, but now I'm cautiously interested. However, no one in my gaming group is interested in picking it up again.

 

[Henry]

I'll agree with Umbran - if Kevin was running the "Candyland" RPG... I'd saddle up and play.

I've tried this before -- when the characters had to turn to cannibalism to survive, it just wasn't pretty.

 

[Stormonu]

I notice several other people mentioning that they'd consider playing, but not DMing - but no elaboration. What is it, exactly, about DMing 4E that turns others off?

(Note: I'm in the same boat; I'd be more open to play than DM, but I'm curious what others opinions on this are)

 

[Kafen]

I notice several other people mentioning that they'd consider playing, but not DMing - but no elaboration. What is it, exactly, about DMing 4E that turns others off?

(Note: I'm in the same boat; I'd be more open to play than DM, but I'm curious what others opinions on this are)

Player disappointment in rule mechanics... The players at my game table all have doubts that range from fighters not being able to wear heavy armor to small fighter weapon issues. "This sucks" is a rough point of origin for a campaign. Even as a player, the cleric saying... "Let me help you heal yourself." ... at level 1 is not much fun. Mind you, I am not trying to open the edition wars box. It is relative to game groups. I am sure some people love the same rules that my group hates.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I notice several other people mentioning that they'd consider playing, but not DMing - but no elaboration. What is it, exactly, about DMing 4E that turns others off?

For me, its this simple: I'll play just about any game a buddy of mine offers to GM, but I only GM games I like.

So, when I was gaming at "Henchworld" in Austin, I wound up playing in a LOT of campaigns in a LOT of different systems. GURPS was one of the more popular ones- several campaigns were run in it, which is how I discovered my dislike of GURPS.

But I still played. I played because my friends were playing.

For me, 4Ed is in the same category of RPGs as GURPS. Its a quality game, but I don't like most of the design decisions. If a good buddy decided to run a GURPS game, I'd play.

However, there is almost no way I'd run either GURPS or 4Ed- there is just too much about those games I don't like for me to put myself through that.

 

[jasonbostwick]

The horse is on its way out of the barn for me.

I've been DMing 4E since release and having a good time of it, but some facets of the system are starting to grate on me.
The tactical nature of the combat is fun for myself and the seasoned miniature wargamers of my main group, but several of the players in my other group aren't very comfortable with complex rules and get a major case of options-paralysis.

The same players are also pretty casual - they have a lot of fun on game night and will talk about cool scenes from an adventure later, but won't do much 'work' relating to the game outside the session. This means that if I want to have power cards at the table so that combat goes faster, I need to be the one to print them out.

I love actually DMing 4E - monsters are fun and easy to make, tasks are simple to adjudicate, and I've managed to figure out how to bend the skill challenge system enough that it works evocatively. What I hate is how much complexity has been foisted onto the player's side of the screen.

As it is now, I'm likely going to switch to WFRP3 this spring when my current campaign ends.

If the Essentials Line is done right it might be able to bring me back. One of the major things that 4e lacks right now is a 'basic' class that people who don't want to think too hard about tactics can play, like the fighter or barbarian in any other edition of D&D.

My fingers are crossed that the new builds featured for the classes in the Essentials line will be less complex while being 'balanced' with the classes from the PHB.

 

[Sammael]

The horse got out of the barn, was ambushed by kobolds, and ended up in a cookpot.

4E is not the kind of game I want to DM. I will play it, under the right circumstances. In fact, I got invited to a 4E game a couple of days ago, and I'm inclined to accept since the DM is well known for his storytelling and creativity.

However, I've since started working on my own revision (coming up nicely, but having a couple of developers to work on the crunch would be great - it's taking me forever), have 2 playtest groups, and recently got the biggest possible compliment from one of the players - he said he was anxiously waiting for me to finish my revision so he could use it to run his own games.

I was open for a revision of 3.5. I liked Star Wars SAGA a lot, and hoped 4E would be similar (an evolutionary change). Instead, they opted to make 4E a revolutionary system, and we all know revolutions rarely end up being peaceful...

 

[Perram]

I notice several other people mentioning that they'd consider playing, but not DMing - but no elaboration. What is it, exactly, about DMing 4E that turns others off?

(Note: I'm in the same boat; I'd be more open to play than DM, but I'm curious what others opinions on this are)

The DM really has to believe in the system and world he's presenting. While everyone at the table is responsible for the fun of the game, if the DM isn't enjoying it, then the whole game is rot.

Plus the DM is usually the one who spends the most time on a campaign. When not playing, they have to prep the sessions, read the books, go over the characters and think activiely about the game far more than a player needs to.

And finally its a financial decision: The DM usually has to spend the most money, and if the DM isn't standing behind the game, then thats a whole lot of wasted money or money that could be funneled towards the DMs prefered system.

If someone is willing to do the work to DM a game, any game, and there isn't a reason that I would NOT want to play with them, I'll play! Playing is pretty much similar no matter which system it i. Sure there are some tactical and character building differences, but the core of RP doesn't change all that much except in some corner cases.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The DM really has to believe in the system and world he's presenting. While everyone at the table is responsible for the fun of the game, if the DM isn't enjoying it, then the whole game is rot.

Plus the DM is usually the one who spends the most time on a campaign. When not playing, they have to prep the sessions, read the books, go over the characters and think activiely about the game far more than a player needs to.

And finally its a financial decision: The DM usually has to spend the most money, and if the DM isn't standing behind the game, then thats a whole lot of wasted money or money that could be funneled towards the DMs prefered system.

You know...that's a pretty damn rational way of looking at it.

 

[aboyd]

I notice several other people mentioning that they'd consider playing, but not DMing - but no elaboration. What is it, exactly, about DMing 4E that turns others off?

For me, I just don't like what happened with 4th edition, so I'm keeping my distance. What that amounts to is that I'll play but not invest myself to the level of DMing. And in fact I mostly don't even play either. I live in Silicon Valley -- homeland of the geek. There are 30 3.5 edition games running on any given week that I can play. So I really don't even need to play 4th at any point. But I will if my friends are doing it.

I was open for a revision of 3.5. I liked Star Wars SAGA a lot, and hoped 4E would be similar (an evolutionary change).

Wow, that's almost exactly me. I was a cheerleader of 4th before it came out. I was hoping that SAGA would be codified as the new D&D, basically. And then it wasn't, not even close. And then I saw that stupid gnome video. And then I cracked open the PHB and saw all this talk about blasters and controllers and I realized that I didn't even want to know the definition of those new terms. Every time I read them I thought about family members that are strung out on WoW and I just couldn't bring myself to invest in it.

So I forced myself to read what I could, forced myself through a few 4th edition games, and found I was just generally forcing myself to enjoy what I naturally didn't. Eventually when some 20 year-olds at Yahoo (where I used to work) told me that 3.5 was for "old people" and that they would rather roll up some dragonborn, I was surprised to note that my inner dialogue was basically, "I'd like to find the old folks!"

I also like the twisty maze of character building in 3.5 edition. I like that a bad build is possible, and that if I'm willing to read up before a game, I might unearth some gem of a spell or item that could surprise everyone. I like a game where pun-pun is possible (though I house-ruled it away) and where locate-town-bombs are possible (though I house-ruled it away). I like that there are unexpectedly good combinations. While I avoid the too-good, world-ending ones, I appreciate the rest.

I love that a rogue in my game was facing near-death, trapped in a keep, but had a level up between games, and so he came back into the game with a level in wizard to get the Abrupt Jaunt, and he teleported away to everyone's amazement. I love that my NPC with an anti-magic field was able to find tons of stuff that would enable him to keep up with a traditional party -- healing feats for a guy who can't drink healing potions, awesome non-magical but still powerful weapons, extraordinary abilities that function in an anti-magic field, and so on. Lots of things that were probably never intended for my situation, but which enabled me to make quite a villain, so long as I was willing to explore all those little nuggets hidden in the books. And I was.

So, done deal. The horse is out of the barn. I won't be picking up the PHB 3, and I won't be trying the basic rules, won't try the multiclassing, and I won't buy in to any other revisions of 4th. However, I'm up for 5th edition, assuming it's still a few years off. If 5th finds a way to be what SAGA or Pathfinder or even the SRD has been, then I'll consider it.

Oh! I also have a rule, a test of whether I will buy a game. I have to be able to play it fully or near-fully without any battlemat at all. No minis. For D&D 3.5 I basically lost AOO and 5-foot steps. Everything else seemed to work just using our imaginations. For 4th, I didn't even know where to start when it came to how I much stuff I would have to rip out or revise in order to play without minis. So 5th will need to find a way to make the battlemat fun but optional again.