D&D 4E Edition Experience - Did/Do You Play 4th Edition D&D? How Was/Is it?

[Eric V]

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.

 

[BrokenTwin]

It's also interesting that people seem to have forgotten the Book of Nine Swords, which used to be a major topic of discussion re: 4E.

Yeah, I loved Book of Nine Swords, and it was a clear halfway point between 3.5 and 4E. Granted, I remember that the people that ended up hating 4E ALSO hated the Book of Nine Swords. Or weeaboo fightin' magic, as they called it. No gatekeeping there at all.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Don't forget as well that they had plans to make what was effectively going to be an online MMORPG with a DM running things.

Really? Can you source this or give some more details?

Or are you referring to their plans for VTTs as part of the DDI in a really oblique way?

It would be impossible for "a DM" to "run an MMORPG". You know what stands for right? Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Massively-Multiplayer being the key words. That has a specific meaning - hundreds or thousands of players online and potentially interacting together. As far as I'm aware, WotC have never planned that with D&D, and it wouldn't make sense to do so. Nor does 4E's design at all make sense for an MMO (whereas it would amazing for a tactical CRPG). In early MMORPG days, you did have "events" on a smaller scale organised for players, but even though typically quickly got out of hand and required huge numbers of staff to manage, so by the time WoW came around they were long abandoned.

Because VTTs were the only plan I was aware of. They initially wanted the whole DDI system to extend into, essentially, an official Roll20. Just like Beyond is doing with 5E right now.

 

[Ringtail]

I started playing D&D with 4e around, 2013 or 2014? I was a senior in high school and hearing some D&D stories from my friend decided to give it a go. I didn't know anything about editions so I just went to the Comic Store to buy what they had.

I wanted the Red Box Starter Set but they were sold out. The clerk mentioned a new edition but had no idea on a release date. I didn't wanna wait that long so instead I just bought the three core 4e Books per his recommendation. We LOVED it.


We botched it, as many new D&D players do but also didn't care. I got a D&D insider subscription so I could use the character builder, super easy and had tons of options. I bought several more books all at once. I remember some sticking points, like being confused that there was no "basic" attack (you should use your at wills every time) and the first time we tried to make characters being a nightmare, but we had so much fun. Though I will admit I don't think we played long enough to understand the nuances of the system.

I just started college when 5e came out and picked it up right away. Aside from the glitz and glamour of a new edition, I was taken in by the stuff grognards were saying on forums, i.e. 4e bad 5e good and abandoned 4e right away, though I knew many in college who still liked 4e. I've always wanted to go back now that I know more about the various rules. How does it compare to my memory?

 

[teitan]

It also lead to the first time in about 20 years when D&D wasn't the top-selling tabletop RPG.

Pathfinder supplanted it at the top for a while circa 2012 IIRC. The last time, and only other time, D&D wasn't the #1 selling RPG was a brief period in the 1990's when the World of Darkness books were selling better.

4e did sell a lot, on the strength of the D&D brand name and the fact that it catered well to a specific subset of D&D players (at the cost of alienating many other players), but when you compare it to the response that both 3e and 5e got, you'll see it didn't do as well.

ehhh it was after they cancelled a lot of 4e material when they achieved the short lived best selling RPG . They were usually tied before that which is a huge freaking deal anyway! But I will stand by the DDI being the reason a lot of sales got undercut either because the promised toolset never surfaced due to unforeseen tragedy or because they would make so much of the rules free in the monster and character builder. plus Paizo giving D&D3.5 fans what they wanted in a cleaned up and refreshed 3e system. People knew 3e was long in the tooth, heck about a year before the end of 3.5 is when WOTC should have done the 3.5 refresh instead of 2003. But Paizo understood what players wanted and had an inside track on that because of Dragon & Dungeon magazines. they were in an enviable position there. All around, even with 4e being a really good game, WOTC seemed to misread the market and reach for things that were either not quite there yet and eventually were better implemented in 5e as far as online play is concerned.

I was informed that WoD never outsold AD&D except when TSR was not producing anything at all. I went looking for evidence against that and it was all “how close White Wolf came”. Paizo overcame D&D and that’s huge. I have a gut instinct that P2 will grow slowly and eventually become a very strong number 2. They aren’t in the same position with 5e but presenting a more robust alternative could give them back some major ground.

 

[Umbran]

Christ. You've never played WoW, have you?

Mod Note:
Dude, I gave a warning about stridency.

You, who are writing a whole lot of words in strong defense of a game that is no longer a going concern, need to be very careful about drifting into ad hominem. Please address the logic and points of a post, not the person of the poster.

And, in general, keep in mind how much harm was done by folks who put defense of (and attack on) games before the fact that there were real people on the other end of the discussion. That was more an error of the past than any misapprehension of the factual history of the game's development.

 

[Oofta]

Really? Can you source this or give some more details?

Or are you referring to their plans for VTTs as part of the DDI in a really oblique way?

It would be impossible for "a DM" to "run an MMORPG". You know what stands for right? Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Massively-Multiplayer being the key words. That has a specific meaning - hundreds or thousands of players online and potentially interacting together. As far as I'm aware, WotC have never planned that with D&D, and it wouldn't make sense to do so. Nor does 4E's design at all make sense for an MMO (whereas it would amazing for a tactical CRPG). In early MMORPG days, you did have "events" on a smaller scale organised for players, but even though typically quickly got out of hand and required huge numbers of staff to manage, so by the time WoW came around they were long abandoned.

Because VTTs were the only plan I was aware of. They initially wanted the whole DDI system to extend into, essentially, an official Roll20. Just like Beyond is doing with 5E right now.

I was just saying what I remember. The impression I got was that they had a very aggressive VTT planned and that many people thought it was a play to get a slice of the MMO pie.

On the other hand people who said that may have been on meth. It was, like, the 2000s man.

 

[wingsandsword]

People knew 3e was long in the tooth, heck about a year before the end of 3.5 is when WOTC should have done the 3.5 refresh instead of 2003.

That's your personal opinion, not what "people" collectively thought.

I remember QUITE well the edition wars. From the moment 4e was announced at Gen Con 2007, many people were skeptical because they liked 3e and didn't see a need for a new edition. Yes, some people wanted something new or different, but those people also had other variants like retroclones they could go to. There wasn't a massive push for a new edition, people weren't leaving D&D in droves for competitors.

As compared to when 3e was announced at Gen Con 1999. . .people were excited because everyone KNEW AD&D 2e was long obsolete. There was a broad consensus in 1999 that the time of AD&D had come and gone and a massive overhaul of D&D was needed. No such consensus existed in 2007.

3.5 wasn't "long in the tooth", it was in its prime when WotC cancelled it to roll out a completely incompatible 4e, not done because the system needed an overhaul, but as a way to promote a new digital tabletop that never took off as a WoW competitor, and as a business decision to try to close down the d20 market (by ending the d20 STL, rolling out the restrictive GSL, and publishing a new version of D&D intentionally incompatible with 3.x OGL materials) they had come to see as a competitor to D&D instead of helping it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I was just saying what I remember. The impression I got was that they had a very aggressive VTT planned and that many people thought it was a play to get a slice of the MMO pie.

Ah yes now I remember, you're referring to the D&D Virtual Table.

Throughout 4E, but right from the beginning, WotC had this idea that they would make a super-amazing virtual tabletop. At one point (I think early on?) they put out this video of a fully-3D, dynamically-lit virtual tabletop, with cool tiles, and virtual minis, and so on. I haven't been able to find it, sadly, because it's name was so hopelessly generic ("D&D Virtual Table"), but maybe someone else can. I can still remember the video visually. And also being a bit skeptical but thinking it was technically possible.

This would have basically been a god-tier VTT, fully integrated into the DDI. Realistically it was never going to happen with the people they contracted for the DDI. Even ignoring the tragedy, they didn't have the sort of moderately-sized, 3D-experienced, online-experienced studio it would have taken to build this (they do now - they have multiple such studios in fact).

This article talks about it a bit: Interlude: D&D Next and the Digital Divide

It never got the standard of the demo video. They did have a beta, in 2010, but never expanded it much.

It's interesting that Beyond, the "official" 5E digital toolset initially planned no VTT, but now is very specifically working on a VTT. One suspects it will be optionally 3D, and fully-integrated into Beyond in the way dreamed of in 4E.

 

[teitan]

Welll obviously people thought it because Pathfinder took off like a rocket. And by that I meant people knew something was coming, not that it was decreasing in popularity. When supplements like the snow and sand sourcebooks came out people were actively posting here that maybe WOTC was running out of ideas and that Star Wars Saga Edition was a rest run for ideas for a possible 4e. There was a lot of speculation from about early 2006 onward to the announcement. When the licenses were pulled from Paizo & MWP.