D&D General Nobody likes an edition warrior.

[Zardnaar]

Yea, the general thing that got me during the Edition Wars was when people didn't understand something, not that they disagreed with my preferences. Like, if you assert you don't like Fortune in the Middle mechanics in 4e powers because they break your immersion, that's totally cool. I don't agree, but totally valid preference.

But if you don't know what a FitM mechanic is, or can't understand how it works even when explained via example, and it's an inability to grasp something that causes the dislike, then I get a little annoyed.

A lot if people weren't good at articulating why they didn't like 4E. A lot of 4E purists jumped in this in order to prove people wrong.

You can't prove emotions wrong though just doesn't work.

In most cases it came down to powers in general and the 4E class design. Whether it was AEDU, powers in general, martial healing etc it was usually powers in general applied across the board.

No one cares about Warlock for example in 5E as it's 4Eisms are opt in not forced.

Throw in a mod enforced bubble,groupthink and you weren't allowed to disagree with the narrative of 4E being a smash hit the 5E playtest announcement was hilarious.

I

 

[TheAlkaizer]

A lot if people weren't good at articulating why they didn't like 4E. A lot of 4E purists jumped in this in order to prove people wrong.

You can't prove emotions wrong though just doesn't work.

In most cases it came down to powers in general and the 4E class design. Whether it was AEDU, powers in general, martial healing etc it was usually powers in general applied across the board.

No one cares about Warlock for example in 5E as it's 4Eisms are opt in not forced.

Throw in a mod enforced bubble,groupthink and you weren't allowed to disagree with the narrative of 4E being a smash hit the 5E playtest announcement was hilarious.

I

The most common criticism of 4E that I heard or read was that it was too combat-focused and didn't leave enough opportunities for roleplay. I strongly disagree. It didn't have any less opportunities for roleplay than any other edition. Roleplaying doesn't come from rulesets. However, I think I know why they felt that way.

A crushing majority of powers and abilities in 4E were combat focused. There was a few utility powers, but most had use that were only relevant to combat. Only editions have a ton of spells that are good for exploring the wilds, safely taking a long rest, opening doors, creating food, etc. This, I think, helps close the gap between combat and non-combat. It makes their list of abilities feel like one package that's used in all aspects of the game. It's also one of my criticism of 4E.

I think if there was more utility spells, exploration features and abilities to be used outside of combat, not as many people would have felt that the edition was limited when it came to roleplay.

 

[ccs]

But if you don't know what a FitM mechanic is, or can't understand how it works even when explained via example, and it's an inability to grasp something that causes the dislike, then I get a little annoyed.

Your annoyed that people dislike playing games with mechanics they don't understand....
Well that's mighty dickish of you.

It shouldn't be any surprise that if you don't understand the mechanics that your enjoyment of the game would suffer. Logically leading to "I don't like to play ______."

 

[Alzrius]

I think I'd rather have a dub/sub war, myself.

 

[Zardnaar]

The most common criticism of 4E that I heard or read was that it was too combat-focused and didn't leave enough opportunities for roleplay. I strongly disagree. It didn't have any less opportunities for roleplay than any other edition. Roleplaying doesn't come from rulesets. However, I think I know why they felt that way.

A crushing majority of powers and abilities in 4E were combat focused. There was a few utility powers, but most had use that were only relevant to combat. Only editions have a ton of spells that are good for exploring the wilds, safely taking a long rest, opening doors, creating food, etc. This, I think, helps close the gap between combat and non-combat. It makes their list of abilities feel like one package that's used in all aspects of the game. It's also one of my criticism of 4E.

I think if there was more utility spells, exploration features and abilities to be used outside of combat, not as many people would have felt that the edition was limited when it came to roleplay.

Length of combat irl meant less time for RPing, world building etc.

You could compensate I suppose with more time irl but if you wanted 3-4 encounters plus to plus world building in a session you couldn't do it. Well depending on how long the session is.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

Length of combat irl meant less time for RPing, world building etc.

You could compensate I suppose with more time irl but if you wanted 3-4 encounters plus to plus world building in a session you couldn't do it. Well depending on how long the session is.

Encounters were long in 4E. That's true. But I never ran multiple encounters in one session.

There's often a big disconnect between how the designers think people play the game and how people actually play it.

I don't remember by heart, but I know that 5E has like a target or average number of encounters in between long rest, and it's so, so, so far from my experience at any table ever. I have never ran, nor knew any DM that ran that many encounters.

 

[Emerikol]

My only complaint was that when I said I didn't like dissociative mechanics, which I renamed to keep tempers calm to a variety of other names, I was besieged with people who didn't want to disagree with my preference but wanted to prove my preference didn't even exist. I think over the course of a year I probably wrote a book trying to provide ever more fine grained answers to ever more ridiculous objections. It became tiresome. I know what I know and even to this day I can spot a dissociative mechanic almost instantly.

 

[Zardnaar]

Encounters were long in 4E. That's true. But I never ran multiple encounters in one session.

There's often a big disconnect between how the designers think people play the game and how people actually play it.

I don't remember by heart, but I know that 5E has like a target or average number of encounters in between long rest, and it's so, so, so far from my experience at any table ever. I have never ran, nor knew any DM that ran that many encounters.

Yeah no one uses the 6-8 encounter. I think they surveyed how many encounters people like.

I think we managed around 3 encounters for 4E. Sessions were longer back then probably 4-5 hours.

 

[Oofta]

Encounters were long in 4E. That's true. But I never ran multiple encounters in one session.

There's often a big disconnect between how the designers think people play the game and how people actually play it.

I don't remember by heart, but I know that 5E has like a target or average number of encounters in between long rest, and it's so, so, so far from my experience at any table ever. I have never ran, nor knew any DM that ran that many encounters.

While 4E didn't kill RP for you*, I have no problem getting 5-10 encounters between long rests.

My point is that your personal experience has little or no impact on my personal experience and vice versa.

Same way that my opinion - that 4E turned everyone into a version of Vancian casters and that (until essentials) every class was explicitly supernatural no matter what the label said - doesn't mean that what I felt was right or wrong. It just isn't a version of the game I would care to play any more.

There are good aspects and bad to every edition I've played but it's (almost) all personal preference.

*It did for me; combats took far too long and too many DMs took what could have been RP scenarios and turned them into strict skill challenges.

 

[Emerikol]

I don't know about 5e but I will say that in 1e I might run ten or twenty encounters in a session without breaking a sweat. Obviously some of those were not major big battles.