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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6585449" data-attributes="member: 42582">4e is the only version of D&D that I have GMed since being a member of ENworld (when I joined I was GMing Rolemaster, though mostly using D&D fiction - Oriental Adventures, to be precise). I didn't migrate from earlier versions of D&D to 4e. I migrated from Rolemaster to 4e, in part because I had become increasingly aware of problems with RM relative to my RPGing desires, reading the Forge had helped me work out what some of those problems were, and 4e promised to overcome most of them.My posting on 4e has had two main strands. One has been posting about my game, comparing notes with others on approaches, techniques, episodes of play, etc. That is the standard sort of posting one expects on a hobby forum. It's a functional analogue of chatting at a games club. I would hope everyone who posts on ENworld is as passionate about their hobby as I am - if you're not enjoying your RPGing, why are you spending time doing it?!The other strand has been explaining, in various contexts and in response to a range of different posters, how 4e works as an RPG.When WotC announced the release of 4e, and started previewing its mechanics, it was pretty clear to me that it would be a "Forge-y" version of D&D. That was borne out as we saw symmetric resource suites for players, increasing the use of fortune-in-the-middle resolution (eg death saves, inspirational healing), skill challenges, etc.During this preview phase there was a lot of discussion about these things. I remember one poster who is still quite active on these boards trumpeting over <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd%2F4ex%2F20080505a" target="_blank">this preview article on skill challenges</a>, suggesting that those who had been looking forward to skill challenges as an indie-stye closed scene resolution were going to be disappointed. (In fact, skill challenges turned out to be exactly this, as was pretty clear in that preview itself.)For reasons that I only partly understand, there is a widespread view. at least among online D&D players, that games that use some of these techniques aren't really RPGs, and hence that 4e is not really an RPG. I respond fairly passionately to that too, but for different reasons - when I come online to talk about my hobby, it's frustrating to be told that I'm not really an RPGer at all but a skirmish gamer, or boardgamer, or MMOer, etc.As to why 4e resonates with me - what are its features that solve the problems I had with Rolemaster - that's been discussed at length over the years, by me and others.Here's a post of mine from Feb 2011; the post immediately underneath it is yours, so you may have read this before:And here are two more, from the following two days:Four years later I stand by all of the above: for a game that is tactical/mechanically rich in resolution, that will produce evocative fantasy flavour of the sort that D&D has always promised, and that lends itself to player-driven, "just-in-time" GMing, 4e is a terrific game.If you don't want that - to give the extreme counterpoint, if you prefer GM-driven 2nd ed-style play where the mechanics are subordinated to player immersion in the GM's world and story - then 4e is probably not the game for you.Because I really like the former, I really like 4e!</blockquote>

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