Put me in the group with others that experienced D&D as advertised for the first time with 4e. No surprise, really, when the game was giving XP for gold and encouraged methodical 10' pole investigation of corridors back in the day. I like that kind of game myself on occasion, but 4e delivered the "fantasy novel" kind of play.
It fixed a lot of things we didn't like but had previously just accepted about D&D, some we were aware of, some we weren't (at least consciously). Play was so much more exciting; DMing was made easier; interesting bells and whistles for all classes, both in combat and out; skill challenges (once they got cleaned up) were great (we did a whole courtroom scene using them!); Monster design was so practical; the tight math of the system meant that one needn't optimize for combat, so one could take more personality-defining feats.
I wish the early mods had been better (though Thunderspire Labyrinth and Demon Queen's Enclave were pretty good), but eventually we got to Madness at Gardmore Abbey which was oodles of fun, and a better adventure for the system.
Loved the new classes introduced to the game: Warlord, Seeker, Vampire, Invoker, and especially Avenger.
Like others have mentioned, the game slowed down too much with the sheer number of interrupts and so forth. They are such a great idea, but when everyone in a party of 5 has multiple...
4e definitely got bogged down with options that didn't "speak well" to each other (reminded me a bit of 2e in that regard): the cleric in our group had 4 different effects kick in with healing word, some until the target was attacked, some until the end of his turn, etc. If we could have limited things to just some core books, that particular aspect might have improved.
I wish I had been more active on boards to see the solutions people offered for some of the slog that combats can become. I ran a couple of groups to 18th level, and fights could take quite a while, enough so that I basically scheduled 1/session to make sure there was plenty of time for rping (of which there was a lot). Like another poster above, it was the first edition that players in my group felt they could DM for, and being a player was just so much fun.
We play on VTT (maptool, with custom frameworks and macros) and have figured some things out for tracking bonuses, so it's tempting to try again...but we are having so much fun with 13th Age right now that it seems unlikely.
Other than the nostalgia-filled memories of playing 2e as teens, it's our golden age of D&D. It had its problems, but they were outweighed by the neat new ideas and clean-ups it brought.
It fixed a lot of things we didn't like but had previously just accepted about D&D, some we were aware of, some we weren't (at least consciously). Play was so much more exciting; DMing was made easier; interesting bells and whistles for all classes, both in combat and out; skill challenges (once they got cleaned up) were great (we did a whole courtroom scene using them!); Monster design was so practical; the tight math of the system meant that one needn't optimize for combat, so one could take more personality-defining feats.
I wish the early mods had been better (though Thunderspire Labyrinth and Demon Queen's Enclave were pretty good), but eventually we got to Madness at Gardmore Abbey which was oodles of fun, and a better adventure for the system.
Loved the new classes introduced to the game: Warlord, Seeker, Vampire, Invoker, and especially Avenger.
Like others have mentioned, the game slowed down too much with the sheer number of interrupts and so forth. They are such a great idea, but when everyone in a party of 5 has multiple...
4e definitely got bogged down with options that didn't "speak well" to each other (reminded me a bit of 2e in that regard): the cleric in our group had 4 different effects kick in with healing word, some until the target was attacked, some until the end of his turn, etc. If we could have limited things to just some core books, that particular aspect might have improved.
I wish I had been more active on boards to see the solutions people offered for some of the slog that combats can become. I ran a couple of groups to 18th level, and fights could take quite a while, enough so that I basically scheduled 1/session to make sure there was plenty of time for rping (of which there was a lot). Like another poster above, it was the first edition that players in my group felt they could DM for, and being a player was just so much fun.
We play on VTT (maptool, with custom frameworks and macros) and have figured some things out for tracking bonuses, so it's tempting to try again...but we are having so much fun with 13th Age right now that it seems unlikely.
Other than the nostalgia-filled memories of playing 2e as teens, it's our golden age of D&D. It had its problems, but they were outweighed by the neat new ideas and clean-ups it brought.