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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GregoryOatmeal" data-source="post: 5692765" data-attributes="member: 6667661">So here's my experience which may or may not be true for you depending on a number of things, including how you approach and run 4E, what types of things you notice, your attitude about things, and the energy you give and get from your players/DM. I found all to be true for me+ You may find a lot of situations you didn't know how to resolve with rules will become clear to you. A lot of rules may stick in your head since they're easier to remember- You or your players may find the rules bland and gamey+ You may find you don't need to rely on 4E books for ideas, since many mechanics and situations from other games or even novels can be resolved easier with simple mechanics that support innovation. For example if I know Planescape 2E I could easily just run it. I'd have to reskin a few monsters but otherwise it'd be gravy. You wouldn't have to prep the translation.- You or other players may be frustrated old mechanics-heavy books from previous editions don't have much value besides ideas and pretty pictures. And I wouldn't dare try to run a combat-heavy module from older editions like Keep on the Borderlands in 4E - the bland story, constant skirmishes and narrow hallways without interactive terrain just won't work at all. This is a different beast.+ You may challenge yourself to DM in new ways and learn how to do new things because...- You may try to run 4E like previous editions and fail. Things that worked previously may not work in this environment (usually combat-related).+ You may find it easier to balance combats. This should prevent you from accidentally TPKing your party- You may run combats improperly and use five brutes, too many solos, or a monster with a much higher level and AC than your group in place of multiple monsters with the same XP value+ You may challenge yourself to make encounters more 3D and spatially interesting with pits of lava and hazards and known traps. This rocks- You may find you're spending a lot of time designing awesome encounters and subconsciously railroading players into them because you put so much effort into the battle+ PCs may be happy the group is balanced and everyone contributes nearly equally in and out of combat- Players may complain that all classes are too balanced, everything feels the same, and "fighters cast daily spells"+ You may find players and monsters use their terrain in interesting and creative ways or invent awesome narratives to describe their actions and reinterpret powers in very interesting ways- You may find players constantly narrate their turn as "I use my at-will power. I use my howling strike daily". No matter how much you try to explain that they have freedom to give their character as much flavor as they want. If the DM does this repeatedly the game is probably hopeless...+ You will spend a lot less time looking things up in books- People will probably say you play "dumbed-down" D&D because complexity is good? To hell with them.+ High level combats may be more interesting and faster than in previous editions- Low level combats may take much longer than in previous editions, possibly killing interest early+ You may become sick of the combat slog and roleplay more and fight less - You may become sick of the combat slog and roleplay more and fight less+ You may make your combats less frequent and more meaningful to the plot.- You may find random encounters to be utterly pointless slogs+ You may feel more empowered and less afraid of house cats at level one- You may feel that leveling is a predictable treadmill of watching a formula increase+ You may be very pleasently surprised to learn 4E is as much a roleplaying game as you want it to be (there's this myth that it's all about pushing chess pieces)- You may find some players just can't roleplay and make it shine, or simply won't roleplay because they think that's not what 4E is. These players are usually disgruntled you made them switch to 4E, and hey, maybe they have good reasons for that...+ Visual players may be more immersed since they see representations of the actions and have a hard time following the image in your head- You may spend a lot of time and money on managing and setting up  miniatures and knick-knacks to represent the action, or tech (projectors+ You may find players appreciate not having a "15 minute adventuring day"- You may find healing surges prolong combat into very long affairs (amongst other factors) by pushing everyone back up to full resources and removing tension from combat unless the players die. This is especially true you're a 1-combat per session type group. This for me was the greatest turn-off for me, with the exception of the next negative+ Your will to game and DM may be rejuvenated by a bunch of new possibilities and frontiers- You may find when RL gets in the way of your players playing your campaign that nobody wants to play 4E, meaning the hundreds of dollars you spent on gaming books are just going to sit on the shelf. And you start rants on enworld, and get bitter and partisan about editions. And then you decide to invest in 3.5 or PF of whatever other people know just because it isn't all about what you want.+ You may learn a lot from 4E you can apply to other games- In a public forum or amongst company that doesn't feel the need to feign politeness you probably will incite anger any time you make any kind of comparison of two editions, no matter what you say or how diplomatically you say it. These things are divisive.I hope that was fairly even-handed. I could triple this list if I wanted to.These are all things that seem to happen pretty organically when playing 4E. Many of these outcomes do seem to be tied to the nature of the system but I'm sure people have solutions to mitigate the negatives. Maybe I'm doing it wrong - I'm sure I'm not the firstI play 3.5 now because I found 4E combat to be too long, I found healing surges took the edge off, and people kept asking for 3.5. Not my favorite game, but I like it.</blockquote>

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