D&D 4E 4E Dislike - a hypothesis

[Tiitha]

This is true to my current 3.5 DM. She grew up with 3.0 and 3.5, so whenever I mention 4.0 she leers at me like it killed her dog. But today I had to find some rules on a ranger having a griffon for a mount while also having a dire boar for an animal companion, and she got very annoyed that I wanted to to look up all the nitty-gritty details. Those nitty-gritty details is apparently what makes 3.5 appealing to her.

She hates 4e and everything it stands for, and that WotC wants you to pay a lot of money just to get started. This isn't any different than 3.0 converting to 3.5 and having you buy new core books to stay updated. She also hates it because it was "dumb downed", yet gets annoyed at all the little rules of 3.5 I insist to check. And another reason is because 4e changed much of the mythos from 3.5. But 3e changed a lot of story from 2e, not to mention rules were much more simplified back then.

Truth be told, she's never played 2e to know the differences between it and 3e. I think my DM is just being adamant about trying something new. Me, on the other hand, know about several changes from 2e to 3e to 4e.

 

[Psion]

Mark me down as a data point against your Hypothesis.

I started with 1e and the basic set.

I moved forward to every edition TSR/WotC offered prior to 4th. Prior to 4th, each edition seemed like a new edition. 4e, to me, seemed like a different game.

 

[wingsandsword]

I started with Basic D&D, albeit briefly in 1991. I quickly moved to 2e AD&D, while dabbling with RC Basic D&D until 3e came out.

I'm definitely one of the "4e is not D&D" types. It's not 3e, and it's not anything like 2e or Basic either. It's a completely unrelated fantasy RPG that uses similar mechanics and has the D&D branding all over it.

4e was a bold move for WotC, a gamble to try to strike it big, to replicate the huge smash hit of original 1e AD&D, or the massive infusion of fresh energy and new blood of 3e.

Now, in my admittedly anecdotal experience, we didn't get that. With 3e, we didn't have lots and lots of people clinging to 2e AD&D and not switching over. Instead, years after 4e came out we have lots of 3e/3.5e groups never planning on going to 4e. I used to think it was just our group like this, maybe. When on active duty in the Army (now in the Guard), I found lots of 3.x groups still around, and none playing 4e, and these weren't old-timers, these were often 18 and 19 year old kids. Then I get a job where there are a lot of gamers, and find that they all play 3.x. Of course, to WotC these groups don't exist, because they aren't customers that are buying new products and haven't in years, so they don't affect revenue and are irrelevant.

 

[wingsandsword]

When you line up all the sacred cows, fluffy and crunchy alike, and slaughter them wholesale, you're going to have unhappy customers who preferred live cows to hamburger. Some of us can't imagine a D&D that doesn't have hit dice, or wandering monsters, or the mage reaching 5th level and learning his first 3rd level spell. Never mind the fact that tiefling warlocks, shardmind ardents, and dragonborn warlords do not resonate archetypically with longtime players of D&D. 3e kept continuity with previous versions of the game: it had hit dice and spell levels and random encounter tables. 4e does not have these things: it has broken with the past in a very radical way -- too radical for those who profess an avowed dislike for it.

Pretty much this, saying it as well or better than I could.

BTW, WTF is a "shardmind ardent"?

 

[Abraxas]

My gaming experience provides an alternate hypothesis - the only people who like 4E have either 1) never really played an earlier edition of D&D or 2) Always adopt the new shiny - regardless of how it changes the game. YMMV, IME, IMHO, etc. etc.

My belief is that you either like it or don't like it because your gaming preferences and which of those preferences the various editions tickle.

I started in 78 with whatever edition was current then, played a lot of 1E, a lot of 2E, and a lot of 3.XE. I flat out had the most fun playing during the 2E era - mostly because 1) all the problems everyone else seems to have had with that edition never came up for my gaming group, 2) we had the most time to play then, and 3) because I could play more and DM less. 3.XE is my favorite edition because of the ruleset - I truly enjoy DMing 3.XE - at all levels of play.

The same group that gamed together for the 2E and 3.XE era didn't survive the the 3.XE to 4E change. A second group that only played 3.5E (and was comprised mostly of people that only knew the 3.5E version of the game) didn't survive the change to 4E. 4E changed the fundamentals of the way the game played to fix problems we just didn't have - and in fixing those non-existent problems got rid of the elements that we enjoyed.

I continue to play 4E with a new group composed of a DM and several players who always switch to the new shiny and players for whom 4E is their primary exposure to D&D. I can't say I enjoy the game - I enjoy the company I keep while playing. Plus we drink heavily while playing.

 

[Mercurius]

Alright, fair enough, my hypothesis--at least through a few dozen posts on EN World--has met with more negation than affirmation and may very well be wrong. I'm fine with that, or at least saying the results so far are "inconclusive pending further data."

I think what fascinates me about this topic is not whether one likes a game or not or what one's personal preferences are--as they say, there is no accounting for taste--but what makes one actually dislike a game, or have a negative charge against it. It seems I'm in the minority in that I actually like every edition of D&D; some more than others, yes, but I'd be happy to play any edition. To me what makes the game D&D is not anything specific to a particular edition, or anything excluded from a particular edition. It is a "feeling," a combination of factors, and a mentality.

This hypothesis was based upon an observation that it seems/seemed to me that many of the folks that dislike 4E were those that were especially pro-3E. It wasn't the Old Schoolers that were hating 4E, at least no more than they hated 3E. It seems that the line, of the "edition war" if you will, is drawn between 3Eists and 4Eists. Sure, there are other side skirmishes, but the major battle-zone is there.

What is it about 4E that pisses people off so much? Can I ask this question without it becoming an edition war? I am not talking about specific things, whether we're talking about martial powers or dragonborn; those are all secondary factors, details, many of which I dislike in 4E. I don't like many things, and don't use them in my game. Overall I would say that the merits of 4E far outweigh its faults, and therefore it is a highly enjoyable experience. I would say the same thing about any edition of D&D. But something about 4E inspires more aggression than any other edition; you don't have people saying, "God, I hate 2E! It is not D&D at all." You might have people saying, "What an awkward game 2E was, and may THAC0 rest in peace." But you don't get the hatred.

The dislike of 4E goes beyond mere preferences. I'm not talking about indifference, or just not being into it, but the actual negative reaction to it, "hatred" even (at least as much as one can hate a game!). You just don't see it with any other edition, at least not anywhere on the same scale.

Is it just me or is something strange here? If my original hypothesis is incorrect, or at least with only a vague amount of truth, what are some alternatives? Again, I don't buy the "It is just a matter of personal preferences" line. The negative reaction to 4E is just too strong, too prevalent.

 

[Beginning of the End]

This is just a hypothesis, mind you, but let me explain my reasoning. A common view (and I would say an ultimately fallacious one) is that D&D's biggest jump was between 3E and 4E. I would say that it was between 2E and 3E;

Speaking as someone who started with BECMI and has played OD&D, Moldvay, AD&D1, AD&D2, D&D3, and D&D4, I'd have to disagree. Prior to 4th Edition, the game that played most dissimilar from other editions was BECMI (race-as-class, etc.). (And even that wasn't a particularly radical difference.)

3rd may have standardized the math, but the core gameplay wasn't fundamentally different: It felt like a cleaned-up version of 2nd Edition with a whole bunch of new options. (Much like 2nd Edition had felt like a cleaned-up version of 1st Edition with a bunch of new options.) Remove feats and skills from the game and you're pretty much 95% of the way to making the game virtually indistinguishable from a 2nd Edition game.

4th Edition, OTOH, is built on fundamentally different chassis.

Which isn't to say that some point the options added to OD&D to make AD&D1 or the options added to AD&D2 or the options added to D&D3 aren't enough to cross somebody's line of "I don't like it any more".

 

[Abraxas]

The dislike of 4E goes beyond mere preferences. I'm not talking about indifference, or just not being into it, but the actual negative reaction to it, "hatred" even (at least as much as one can hate a game!). You just don't see it with any other edition, at least not anywhere on the same scale.

I don't believe this is true. I think there are two things going on...

1) the number of sacred cows sacrificed with 4E gives a larger number of people a reason to hate specific changes. You get a lot of people complaining about a lot of different changes - making it seem like there is more hatred for the whole system than there really is.

2) I think time has dulled peoples memories of the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes that has occurred with each edition change.

 

[prosfilaes]

This hypothesis was based upon an observation that it seems/seemed to me that many of the folks that dislike 4E were those that were especially pro-3E. It wasn't the Old Schoolers that were hating 4E, at least no more than they hated 3E. It seems that the line, of the "edition war" if you will, is drawn between 3Eists and 4Eists.

Of course. 1E and 2E have not been going concerns for a long time, and there's never really been a bunch of people mourning for 2E. But it wasn't long ago that 3Eers had it all, the output of WotC plus the mammoth wave of d20 stuff. Now WotC has started producing 4E and D20 is officially dead (and there's not a lot of new OGL material for 3.x), and 3Eers either have to go to 4E, continue using a dead RPG or find a game in print they like. If they dislike 4E, they're really, really going to dislike 4E. Gamewise, they may like 4E better than 1E or GURPS or Rolemaster, but none of those games replaced 3E. You could say that's true for older games, too, but if you're a 1Eer, you've had time to get over it.

And personally I think 3E->4E is the most dramatic change. Both in rules and in feel. Every race/class combination in 2E PHB was in 3E PHB, and every race or class except sorcerer in 3E was somewhere in 1E or 2E.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It seems I'm in the minority in that I actually like every edition of D&D; some more than others, yes, but I'd be happy to play any edition. To me what makes the game D&D is not anything specific to a particular edition, or anything excluded from a particular edition. It is a "feeling," a combination of factors, and a mentality.

Well, I like all editions enough to play them...from the player's side of things, at least. I look forward to playing Magnus Skyhammer (Dwarf Starlock) every two weeks.

But 4Ed changed too many things I really enjoyed about D&D for me to ever want to run it.

What is it about 4E that pisses people off so much? Can I ask this question without it becoming an edition war? I am not talking about specific things, whether we're talking about martial powers or dragonborn; those are all secondary factors, details, many of which I dislike in 4E. I don't like many things, and don't use them in my game. Overall I would say that the merits of 4E far outweigh its faults, and therefore it is a highly enjoyable experience. I would say the same thing about any edition of D&D. But something about 4E inspires more aggression than any other edition; you don't have people saying, "God, I hate 2E! It is not D&D at all." You might have people saying, "What an awkward game 2E was, and may THAC0 rest in peace." But you don't get the hatred.

Like I said upthread, legacy issues are a large part of it: 4Ed is not very backwards compatible.

I have PCs I created back in the early 1980s that got converted from AD&D to 2Ed to 3.X that I can't begin to model in 4Ed without RADICAL "surgery."

Another would be the game's mechanics. There were things in prior editions of D&D that were entirely mechanical that no other FRPG in the world really did, and they kept me coming back to the game. 4Ed's mechanics changed many of those things, so to me, part of D&D's uniqueness was lost. Well, traded in for a different kind of uniqueness that I don't particularly believe was better.

Then there is the feel- no way to phrase it other than "videogamey"- that some of us perceive to be present- a term with different meanings dependin upon you're talking to. Certain aspects of 4Ed remind me of games like Tekken and Mortal Kombat, etc., which is fine for an arcade game, but it changed the flavor of the game to me, and is something I've never encountered in any of the dozens of other FRPGS (and dozens of non-fantasy RPGs either). In my main game group, I have a bunch of buddies who are MMORPG fanatics and one who is a professional computer game programmer who dislike all those little conditions that powers can impose on targets because "that's the kind of stuff a computer should be tracking." IOW, they didn't like 4Ed's new kind of bookkeeping that reminded them of the MMORPGs they love so much. That kind of thing breaks the willing suspension of disbelief for us.