Here are just a few of the creative things that happened in my long-running 4e game, 15 to 5 or so years ago.
4e D&D is not a fragile game. It won't fall over as soon as the players try and play the fiction. It makes that sort of stuff easy to adjudicate. The result is high-gonzo fantasy that's fun for everyone at the table.
* A player's character died. I asked him if he wanted to keep playing the character - he did. So I asked why he might be sent back - he answered that there was something Erathis wanted him to do - a mission! I docked a Raise Dead's worth of gp from that level's treasure parcels. The character came back to life, with knowledge of where he could find the Sceptre of Law under a stone in some Nerathi ruins. Over the course f the campaign it turned out the Sceptre of Law was the Rod of 7 Parts.
* When the PCs had killed a great multi-headed red dragon, a different player had the idea of coalescing all the chaotic energy flowing out of the dragon and imbuing it into a horn, turning it into a Fire Horn.
* At much higher levels, the same player had the idea of his PC sealing the Abyss, by using his various magical abilities (a zone of energy that teleports away anyone who enters it; Stretch Spell to make it bigger, etc) amplified by his own Primordial nature.
* When fighting a beholder in a cave, a PC invoker/wizard used one of his forced movement abilities to impale the beholder on a stalactite.
* The same character, in Torog's Soul Abattoir, used his mastery of rituals to divert the flow of souls from Torog to the Raven Queen, betraying Vecna in the process.
* When the PCs were going to confront a purple worm, they took a sack of lime with them to reduce the damage from being swallowed, by partially neutralising the worm's stomach acid.
* When the PCs had killed a great multi-headed red dragon, a different player had the idea of coalescing all the chaotic energy flowing out of the dragon and imbuing it into a horn, turning it into a Fire Horn.
* At much higher levels, the same player had the idea of his PC sealing the Abyss, by using his various magical abilities (a zone of energy that teleports away anyone who enters it; Stretch Spell to make it bigger, etc) amplified by his own Primordial nature.
* When fighting a beholder in a cave, a PC invoker/wizard used one of his forced movement abilities to impale the beholder on a stalactite.
* The same character, in Torog's Soul Abattoir, used his mastery of rituals to divert the flow of souls from Torog to the Raven Queen, betraying Vecna in the process.
* When the PCs were going to confront a purple worm, they took a sack of lime with them to reduce the damage from being swallowed, by partially neutralising the worm's stomach acid.
4e D&D is not a fragile game. It won't fall over as soon as the players try and play the fiction. It makes that sort of stuff easy to adjudicate. The result is high-gonzo fantasy that's fun for everyone at the table.