A Question for 4E Players: Where to now?

[Will Doyle]

I'll be DMing a new 5E campaign, while carrying on our ongoing 4E campaign. During the playtest we've played a bunch of one-off games, but now it's time to launch a proper campaign. Both games shine in different ways, I think. I have a couple of players who'll be playing in both campaigns: I'm really looking forward to hearing their views.

 

[the Jester]

I voted both "continue as is" and "5e here I come".

What I mean is, I'll keep running my 4e game until it's done (we're mid-epic and in a likely TPK situation besides). Then we'll start up the 5e game.

 

[Sound of Azure]

I voted for continue with 4e, as I am still running Zeitgeist- and will do so for as long as the modules keep coming out. I'm putting some thought into house-ruling 4e to have slower recovery for a more grounded heroic tier 4e game in between Zeitgeist "chunks" and give my players a break from the low frequency, high-octane, high difficulty fights and investigations in Zeitgeist. I also intend to put a lot of time into the more free-form and loose Dungeon World to increase my comfort and ability to improvise.

One of the other DMs is interested in running 5e when the core books are released, so I'm happy enough to play that. I don't think the group will change over to it long term, however. There's nothing wrong with poaching the things I like from the edition, of course!

 

[Sadras]

In the group I DM we will run 5e as we migrated our main campaign group to the playtest rules anyways. I had a horrid run with 4e as a player in another group, but that was mostly due to poor Dming, fortunately I managed to extricate myself from them. That group has since moved on to Pathfinder.

 

[fanboy2000]

I just started DMing 4e game, it's not ending anytime soon. Certainly not on the account of a new edition.

But, at a minimum, I'll play 5e at encounters. However, I know my friends, they'll want a taste of 5e and I'll use that to see how they might like creating Basic characters for the Starter Set adventure.

 

[Quickleaf]

I'll be DMing a new 5E campaign, while carrying on our ongoing 4E campaign. During the playtest we've played a bunch of one-off games, but now it's time to launch a proper campaign. Both games shine in different ways, I think. I have a couple of players who'll be playing in both campaigns: I'm really looking forward to hearing their views.

That's great! It's nice to get the perspective of players who've tried several editions.

I feel a bit divided between 4e & 5e because both have different elements I really like. Right now our game is on hiatus until mid-August when we'll see what my group prefers. I'm kind of itching to try a Planescape game with 5e though.

 

[wedgeski]

I'll be switching to 5E as my focus but the reasons are complicated.

I have had two primary groups over the past four years. The one that bought heavily into 4E and loved the system fizzled and fell apart about this time last year, which was primarily my own fault due to sowing uncertainty over my future plans (lesson learned). The game was however going well and if it was still running to this day, I'm sure we would continue it in 4E.

My other group is more "traditional" and although we enjoyed quite a bit of 4E, it's obvious that most of them preferred the older systems. I think that, for those guys, 5E is going to be a welcome return to what they really want with several of the best bits of 4E thrown in. I can't see why they won't love it.

 

[Pickles JG]

That's great! It's nice to get the perspective of players who've tried several editions.

I feel a bit divided between 4e & 5e because both have different elements I really like. Right now our game is on hiatus until mid-August when we'll see what my group prefers. I'm kind of itching to try a Planescape game with 5e though.

I am itching to try Planescape with FATE.

I am playing a 4e game with my old friends which given our slow rate of play will be with us for a year or more then who knows? Half of them prefer 3.5 & are not keen on the "simplicity" of 5e. Half are reluctant to learn new systems or buy into yet more WOTC profiteering. Half would prefer a lighter game with more emphasis on making stuff up.

I have just started a new 4e game as it was what most people (allegedly) knew. Our first session would have been better run in 5e but oh well. This will I hope run to autumn when the DM is due to have a baby... It's a new group though so has a 50% fail rate I reckon. After that who knows? 4e if it's a hit I expect.

I also run a weekly google hangouts EotE game (which seems a common theme here). I think I might like to swap for 5e as it's D&D, which is easy to run, & the TotM style works rather better in hangouts than grids

I hope to play 5e in organised play. I dabble in PFS but the system winds me up & DM quality is very mixed plus there are group dynamic issues &c . Meh 5e can't sort all of those out but it may energise & unify the D&D players so I can get into groups I like....

I am pretty unsure about 5e. It de-emphasises my favourite part of 4e - tactical combat & the best received parts are things I can get in other systems like FATE which seem to do it better. But it's harder to get a game of FATE..

 

[Lalato]

My 4e DM is moving cross country in a couple weeks. I'll happily play any version of D&D... But without a DM I might have to run a game. Something I haven't done in 30 years. Gulp

 

[Bormun]

My problems with D&D are twofold:

(1) I am poor at CharOp. Better than I was, I at least now know it is a thing, but I was forever picking interesting sounding options that didn't work in practice - 'trap' options, if you will.
(2) I am truly terrible at giving feedback to the DM when I'm not having fun. Better than I was, but still a bit of a wall-flower, and more to the point, I have far too much empathy for the difficulties of the DM. I don't want to make a fuss. I don't want to be that guy who always whines at the DM.

So, back in the day, I'd pick a sub-par class, or sub-par options, be useless and ineffectual, get bored (at best) and frustrated (eventually) and give up. The DM wouldn't help me by making house rules because:
(1) I would fail to tell them I wasn't having fun.
(2) I don't know if you have noticed, but most DMs - myself included! - fall in love with their own 'funky' house rules, and fail to notice that: [a] it often wasn't needed, if it was needed, then it often failed to work, and [c] they almost always had horrible side effects. It turns out that most DMs are not up to professional game design.

And then I found 4E.
This has helped me a lot, for three reasons:
(1) It is so well balanced, that it is very hard to take trap options that will really screw me over.
(2) Its balance means fewer DM house rules, which in my experience have always caused more problems than they have solved.
(3) It explained itself - what the rules were trying to do, and why it is a good idea to do those things.