D&D 4E Am I crazy? I've just gotten a hankering to play 4e again...

[atanakar]

No you are not crazy. 4e is my wife's favorite edition (as a player). There some rules of 4e that I quite enjoyed. I'll reserve my comments for next week's D&D Edition Survey.

 

[Dausuul]

I think the biggest weakness was bad adventure design. In particular the H1-E3 adventure series (which I did try to run in the past year) was a big downfall. It was written with the design paradigms of previous editions - a bunch of meaningless fights designed to chip away at party resources. This is fine in editions in which combats are over in a matter of minutes, but when a combat can take 1-2 hours (or longer in the case of paragon or epic tiers), you can't reasonably make it through the adventures.

Yup, same experience here. My group was fortunate that our first foray into 4E was a homebrew campaign (that I ran), and my campaigns tend toward fewer harder combats anyway, so it fit like a glove. When one of the guys tried running a prefab adventure, it was a grindy, tedious train wreck, but by that point we knew it could be better so we didn't give up on it.

Overall, I like 5E better and I wouldn't go back, but there were certain areas where 4E absolutely shone and no other edition matches it. The one thing I really miss is the encounter-centric resource model, which liberates the DM from having to plan adventures around attrition or devise house rules for resting. If you just want one big fight for the whole day, then that's what you do, and you don't have to worry that the wizard is going to outshine the fighter because the wizard's resources are per-day limited and the fighter's are not.

 

[DammitVictor]

4e has never been my cup of tea. I didn't like it when I read it, I played one game that didn't change my mind, and I'll probably never run it myself or play it ever again.

But it's still a pretty decent game, there are still good reasons to like it, and by no means is there any other version of D&D that's hands down better than it is for all purposes.

I don't want to get into a regular habit of bashing 5e or its fans, but I'm already really sick of the prevalent attitude that it's the pinnacle of good D&D game design and the One D&D to reunite all of the Edition Warriors. It's not that good. No matter how good some people think it is, it's not that good.

You're not crazy. If 4e is the game you want to play-- even if it's only the game you want to play right now-- what's crazy is talking yourself into playing anything else.

 

[atanakar]

I don't want to get into a regular habit of bashing 5e or its fans, but I'm already really sick of the prevalent attitude that it's the pinnacle of good D&D game design and the One D&D to reunite all of the Edition Warriors. It's not that good. No matter how good some people think it is, it's not that good.

I don't see that here. On the contrary. Many threads in the recent month about 5e are complaints on how something is badly designed, sucks, needs to be changed or calls for a 6e. Sure some people defend it tooth & nail because the love it (just like other people defend OD&D) but it's not a prevalent attitude.

 

[DammitVictor]

I don't see that here. On the contrary. Many threads in the recent month about 5e are complaints on how something is badly designed, sucks, needs to be changed or calls for a 6e. Sure some people defend it tooth & nail because the love it (just like other people defend OD&D) but it's not a prevalent attitude.

That's a comfort. I was burned recently-- not here-- and all the D&D servers I can find on Discord are almost purely 5e servers, so it's really starting to feel like I'm the only person who doesn't like it.

 

[MwaO]

That's a comfort. I was burned recently-- not here-- and all the D&D servers I can find on Discord are almost purely 5e servers, so it's really starting to feel like I'm the only person who doesn't like it.

4e server on Discord with almost 1000 people:

Discord - A New Way to Chat with Friends & Communities

Discord is the easiest way to communicate over voice, video, and text. Chat, hang out, and stay close with your friends and communities.

discord.gg

 

[Mistwell]

I would say with games played exclusively online right now, 4e can easily fit that model well. Indeed, initially it was being built with an online play component in mind until horrible things behind the scene happened. So yes, 4e is a good game and these times may fit it well.

 

[TwoSix]

4e server on Discord with almost 1000 people:

Discord - A New Way to Chat with Friends & Communities

Discord is the easiest way to communicate over voice, video, and text. Chat, hang out, and stay close with your friends and communities.

discord.gg

Oh man, that's great! Thanks!

 

[Eyes of Nine]

4e server on Discord with almost 1000 people:

Discord - A New Way to Chat with Friends & Communities

Discord is the easiest way to communicate over voice, video, and text. Chat, hang out, and stay close with your friends and communities.

discord.gg

Thanks for sharing. Will join. Although Discord chat? Bleh.

 

[MwaO]

Thanks for sharing. Will join. Although Discord chat? Bleh.

There's also a server for a roll20 4e 'Living Campaign' style game accessible from there, run with Discord voice+roll20 grids. Usually about 1-2 4e games per day on average with concentrated on weekends.