D&D 4E Edition Experience - Did/Do You Play 4th Edition D&D? How Was/Is it?

[Aldarc]

I have an open mind and I do try many RPGs I think I won't like upon reading the rules. Turns out I don't like them 99.9% of the time. Not because I try them in bad faith but because the system doesn't push the right buttons.

You have mentioned elsewhere that 4e is your wife's favorite edition. Would you mind expanding a bit about her perspective on 4e and what she liked about it?

4e is not a misunderstood edition. On the contrary. It is very well understood and many players decided to play another system instead.

Jein. Even if there are people who understood 4e and disliked it, IME, there remains a lot of misunderstandings about 4e out there, even by those who desired to play other systems instead.

 

[atanakar]

You have mentioned elsewhere that 4e is your wife's favorite edition. Would you mind expanding a bit about her perspective on 4e and what she liked about it?

In short, despite having played D&D with us since 2e she never felt part of the group because she didn't like they way rules were written. With 4e and the power cards, she had the game in front of her and it was easy to grasp and play. And I agree with her that it was one of the qualities of 4e. It was clear and upfront. She also liked 4e because her rogue was badass and delivered as much damage as other classes, which I also agree is a good thing.

My grip with 4e is that as a DM I felt I was playing a wargame against 4-5 other players. It felt more and more exhausted after games as the PCs gained levels. I have never felt so tired with another edition of D&D. I just quit.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

4e is not a misunderstood edition. On the contrary. It is very well understood and many players decided to play another system instead.

That's demonstrably untrue, I'm afraid, after agreeing with your previous point.

What would be true to say is:

"Not all players who rejected 4E misunderstood it."

That's undeniable. Plenty of people who disliked 4E did so understanding the game pretty well. But equally it is totally false to say:

"All players who rejected 4E understood it.".

That was very clearly demonstrated here and on other boards, where a lot of people who were very angry and aggressive about how "bad" 4E was, misunderstood and misrepresented very basic rules (Healing Surges being a frequent target), claimed things were true which weren't (like literally saying that Defenders worked, mechanically, the same way as Tanks in MMOs - I seriously had a guy on ENworld claiming that 4E had an "aggro" mechanic, like literally - he stopped responding when asked what that mechanic was and what page it was on - the way he was saying it, he'd clearly got it second or third hand). Claims about what abilities were "overpowered" or "obviously broken" or "just didn't work" or the like were also frequently demonstrably false. Large parts of 4E were explained in totally fantastical terms which showed zero comprehension of how they worked. Sometimes by people who claimed that they'd "read the rules".

And what was notable was how much more extreme and frequent this was than spurious claims re: other editions, which did occasionally occur. Even now, you're much more likely to trip over a spurious claim re: 4E, and a spurious claim re: 1E, despite far fewer people posting now (here or elsewhere) having played or even read 1E. Something about 4E encouraged people to just make stuff up about it, or repeat things other people told them without understanding them (creating a "telephone"-type scenario).

So if any edition of D&D is "misunderstood", it's 4E. That doesn't mean you or your group misunderstood it. It doesn't mean most people who disliked it misunderstood it.

It just means that some significant proportion of people, especially at the time, showed all evidence of misunderstanding it.

And this is without even really getting into the malicious "misunderstanding" a few people indulged in (principally not on ENworld, thankfully), where they clearly pretended not to understand stuff, and intentionally spread false information as part of some Edition Warrior stuff. Mostly that was blogs of people who are now not super-popular, at least. But some of their points did get repeated a lot - so they clearly got some traction.

 

[pemerton]

I’m also heavily indebted to @pemerton

Thanks for the shout-out!

certain elements of 13th Age

What are you using from 13A?

I used the escalation die when the PCs in my game fought Torog. The PCs were 25th level and Torog 34th - mathematically not really workable in 4e. (Not that a 34th level encounter would necessaryily be impossible, though it would be extremely challenging for a 25th level party; but the 9-level gap would risk breaking the resolution mechanics).

But the PCs had destroyed Torog's Soul Abbatoir, and hence had deprived Torog of his supply of dark spikes. And so (to quote from the post linked to above), I

told the players that Torog, deprived of dark spikes, would weaken rapidly over the course of a confrontation: to be manifested mechanically in the form of a d8 escalation die (ie a die start at 0 but then counting up by 1 each round) granting a bonus to both attacks and damage for the PCs.

In the end, Torog did not have a chance: he was killed in the round that the escalation die was showing 5. . . .

Given the use of the escalation die, for milestone and XP purposes I treated the encounter as level 30 rather than level 34.​

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But I've never felt there were too many healing surges.

Really? You didn't think a Fighter having say, 12 Healing Surges/day was a bit much? 16 CON will get you that. That's 1/4 of your HP/surge. So if that Fighter had, say, 100 HP, they could get through 400 HP in a single adventuring day before they ran out of HP and HS. Or 300 HP before they even ran out of HSes.

My experience was that, even running Long Rests, "as intended", not every session start, it was pretty much impossible to run out of HSes. The Rogue managed it once or twice in our entire run of 4E (he absolutely panicked both times, it was hysterical but still). I did once get the Fighter down to 0, but he was on full health, and the biggest boss of the entire campaign was dead on the floor in front of him, and they'd intentionally skipped a Long Rest that would actually have been fine to ensure the bad guy couldn't escape.

@atanakar Re your Rogue player, that's very interesting - we had an identical experience with a Rogue player. Previously he had always been a bit standoffish. He liked D&D, but he didn't always engage with it fully (he engaged far more with other RPGs). And he didn't always understand his characters, and made a lot of bad choices in 3E re: Feats, multiclassing and so on. In 4E, with the neat little abilities clearly stating what they did, to whom, and how much, the online character building letting him see all his options without opening three books, and so on, his characters suddenly became well-optimized (not in an excessive way). And as you say, Rogues were badasses in 5E. So he became a murder-machine (if a bit of an excessive risk-taker, see above), and really, really got into the game. He was definitely the most bummed-out by stopping playing 4E, and didn't really like 5E until he started playing a Warlock, which with the Incantations and so on, and limited spell selection, is I suspect much more like a 4E character than other 5E classes.

 

[BryonD]

Jein. Even if there are people who understood 4e and disliked it, IME, there remains a lot of misunderstandings about 4e out there, even by those who desired to play other systems instead.

I'm sure you can cherry pick some data to support this. But the fact is that 4E was extremely popular out of the gate. Yes, it was also very divisive as well, but it started with a solid fan base. And that fanbase dropped off hard.

People stopped playing it because they didn't like it enough. They understood it well. In a lot of cases they even enjoyed it, particularly at first. But the game didn't have staying power.

I've been playing 3X in some form for 20 years now (at least coming up fast...) and there are things that are cliche complaints about the system which are NEVER a problem at my table. I could clench my fists and insist that these are just absurd misunderstandings. But I totally get that other people really do have these issues, and my approach, taste, and playstyle are important factors in why they don't apply to me.

The relentless unwillingness among 4E fans to accept that this is true for people who played 4E is one stark difference.

 

[BryonD]

And this is without even really getting into the malicious "misunderstanding"

Oh yes, and let's not forget to add in the whole idea that dislike of 4E is a premeditated "malicious" thing.

There is a Hatfields and McCoys element of this. An element of the existing fanbase was turned off right away and were vocal about it. (And the internet isn't exactly know for tact or subtlety) And it got heated fast. And WotC blundered the PR a few times (including but not limited to the unofficial "we don't need them" comment and the completely official crapping on a troll cartoon).

Both sides were offended and dug in pretty quick, and as always happens with humans, both sides were quite certain that they were the offended party and were simply defending themselves from those @#$%s on the other side.

But the fact that it persists to this day (see quote) is informative.

 

[wingsandsword]

Was it really a lot, though? I feel like this something I've heard people who played 1E in the US say, but I was in the UK, where the Satanic Panic wasn't really "a thing" (outside of a few poorly-regarded tabloids and the like), and none of the many 1E grognards I played with believed this. The had a lot of mean things to say about 2E, but literally the only "oh that's because of the Satanic Panic" thing any of them ever pointed out was the re-naming of the Demons/Devils/Daemons. Which with respect were dumb names anyway, because those aren't even different things! That's like having classes called Fighter, Warrior, and Soldier! Or Cleric, Priest, and Monk (oh wait... ).

What other stuff was there? I mean, 2E definitely has a massively more upbeat and less goth-y/metal-y tone than 1E, but was that "Satanic Panic", or was that because they wanted a broader appeal and/or D&D had changed?

Besides the Demons and Devils being renamed. . .

The very idea of Clerics worshiping fictional Gods was treated as an optional rule. By 2e PHB standard, clerics just worshiped the vague concept of "Good" or "Evil", and having fictional religions or deities for a game was officially an optional rule in the PHB. . .because a big part of the Satanic Panic was to say that worshiping any deity other than the Abrahamic one was an act of Satanism, and the theological idea pretending to commit a sin or contemplating a sin is as serious as actually performing the act, so pretending to play a character who worshiped another deity is the moral equivalent of worshiping another deity, and hence Satanism (or at least according to the logic of the religious fundamentalists).

Don't forget that Assassins were removed from the core rules too, that having an explicit killer-for-hire as a character archetype was something that was WAY too easily misunderstood. Also, removing Half-Orcs as a race from the core rules, because their typical or implied backstory involved rape.

Oh, and the "Satanic Panic" was VERY much a real thing. I could tell several stories of encountering it in the 1990's, but the short version of those stories:

1. When I first expressed interest in D&D, my father freaked out because he'd heard at Church that D&D was "satanic", and it took a LOT of time to convince him otherwise. He didn't stop thinking D&D was satanic until Hasbro bought out WotC, because I got him to admit that there was no way Hasbro, a publicly traded multi-billion dollar company who lives on a wholesome reputation, would put out anything so controversial or questionable.

2. When I tried to get friends in Junior High (in the early 1990's) to play D&D with me, it lead to rumors about me being a "devil worshipper", I discovered that some people thought gaming miniatures were actually religious idols (they couldn't wrap their mind around the idea of miniatures for wargame/tactical purposes, they assumed little metal figurines of fantasy creatures HAD to be for some occult worship purpose).

3. Those rumors got me a trip to the guidance counselor, because they had mutated into rumors that I was trying to recruit classmates for some suicide pact or satanic cult, just by asking some friends if they'd like to learn to play D&D. Just that question alone got people thinking "satanic cult" and "suicide" and reporting me to the authorities.

4. When I DID actually manage to start playing several years later, in college, I was still living at home and going to Church at a Church in my hometown. I was helping out at the Church one Saturday when I was leaving to go to my weekly game. The Pastor asked why I was leaving, so I was honest. . .and when he heard I played D&D, he basically kicked me out of the Church and said that I wasn't welcome to come back unless I burned all my D&D books and publicly repented being a "satanist", and that wasn't going to let any satanic cultists infiltrate his congregation. I left and never returned.

 

[atanakar]

That's demonstrably untrue, I'm afraid, after agreeing with your previous point.

What would be true to say is:

"Not all players who rejected 4E misunderstood it."

That's undeniable. Plenty of people who disliked 4E did so understanding the game pretty well. But equally it is totally false to say:

"All players who rejected 4E understood it.".

That was very clearly demonstrated here and on other boards, where a lot of people who were very angry and aggressive about how "bad" 4E was, misunderstood and misrepresented very basic rules (Healing Surges being a frequent target), claimed things were true which weren't (like literally saying that Defenders worked, mechanically, the same way as Tanks in MMOs - I seriously had a guy on ENworld claiming that 4E had an "aggro" mechanic, like literally - he stopped responding when asked what that mechanic was and what page it was on - the way he was saying it, he'd clearly got it second or third hand). Claims about what abilities were "overpowered" or "obviously broken" or "just didn't work" or the like were also frequently demonstrably false. Large parts of 4E were explained in totally fantastical terms which showed zero comprehension of how they worked. Sometimes by people who claimed that they'd "read the rules".

And what was notable was how much more extreme and frequent this was than spurious claims re: other editions, which did occasionally occur. Even now, you're much more likely to trip over a spurious claim re: 4E, and a spurious claim re: 1E, despite far fewer people posting now (here or elsewhere) having played or even read 1E. Something about 4E encouraged people to just make stuff up about it, or repeat things other people told them without understanding them (creating a "telephone"-type scenario).

So if any edition of D&D is "misunderstood", it's 4E. That doesn't mean you or your group misunderstood it. It doesn't mean most people who disliked it misunderstood it.

It just means that some significant proportion of people, especially at the time, showed all evidence of misunderstanding it.

And this is without even really getting into the malicious "misunderstanding" a few people indulged in (principally not on ENworld, thankfully), where they clearly pretended not to understand stuff, and intentionally spread false information as part of some Edition Warrior stuff. Mostly that was blogs of people who are now not super-popular, at least. But some of their points did get repeated a lot - so they clearly got some traction.

My sentence was too short (pressed for time). What I wanted to say is the 4e is far less misunderstood that some of the 4e fans would have us believe. (that's it for me. have an excellent day everyone).

 

[billd91]

In short, despite having played D&D with us since 2e she never felt part of the group because she didn't like they way rules were written. With 4e and the power cards, she had the game in front of her and it was easy to grasp and play. And I agree with her that it was one of the qualities of 4e. It was clear and upfront. She also liked 4e because her rogue was badass and delivered as much damage as other classes, which I also agree is a good thing.

Interesting - a friend of ours had a similar gaming epiphany when 3e was released. She was always kind of put off from joining our gaming group because she was coming in late to the group, we already had a big wealth of stored up rule/game knowledge, and she'd be working up the learning curve. 3e's introduction meant that she could be on the same page with the rest of us - learning a new game. She was running the game in no time.
She did not make a transition to 4e, she was in a different group at the time when we gave it a try, I understand that she and the group she was in didn't much care for it.