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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Argyle King" data-source="post: 9274666" data-attributes="member: 58416">Sure, I could cherry pick, but I wasn't. Those are simply examples that still stand out to me, even after not playing for years. It's less "cherry picking" and more that the 'edge cases' were the norm for the games in which I played. The Strahd example I gave was how a lot of encounters with legendary creatures went. Later monster math started to help, but later books also allowed characters to mix and match elements to become stronger. Somewhere, I have a notebook with which I was re-writing Elites, Solos, XP budgets, and Skill Challenges. The 'official' ideas were good; the execution was a mixed bag; the advice for how to run the game and subsequent changes to the mentality of the system went in what I feel was the wrong direction. I 100% agree that there was a lot of fun such as riding logs and such. Some of my own examples include a room that moved as if the PCs were inside of a rubix cube; a fight between two groups traveling on gondolas; mining carts, and etc. One of my issues with 4E was that the PCs and monsters interacted with the world around them very differently. Am I saying PCs and monsters should be built the same? No. I am not. However, comparing the PCs to the (for lack of better words) physics engine math that the in-game world was built upon highlighted that the PCs were effectively superheroes compared to the world around them. In contrast, creatures that the lore suggested should be serious threats -when comparing what they could do against the 'physics engine'- showed less proficiency than the lore would suggest. Juxtaposing the three sets of concepts for how game elements should work could (and for my group, often did) produce unusual results. As said, in time, I learned ways to improve that. That learning process included running the game very differently than WoTC suggested I should; running games that were (as you said) "gonzo" and had very little resemblance to the fantasy world(s) implied by D&D lore; and remembering to turn off certain parts of my brain. 4E was a good rpg with a lot of positive aspects; I'm just not sure it was always very good at being D&D; and it was rather poor at telling some of the stories I wanted to tell. I loved the 4E preview books and wish some more of that vibe made it into the final product. Though, all things considered, I think I generally enjoyed 4E more than I enjoy the current state of 5E.</blockquote>

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