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

[Imaro]

You know something I'm curious about is why many 4e fans disliked Essentials. Now I'll be upfront, Essentials is the only version of 4e I'll run now and the only books I kept from my collection of 4e so I am a fan of it but not really a fan of 4e in general. What I don't get is why fans of the original 4e books tend to dislike it. I mean I've seen some fans of 4e have a real hate on for Essentials that I don't really understand since it's not a change in rules.

IMO it's just another set of options for 4e that I believe would have (if received better by either the 4e fanbase or those who didn't enjoy original 4e) probably diversified the game and drawn in more people that may not have liked some of the aesthetics and structure of the original core rules or were looking for a more classic feel... Isn't this a good thing? Isn't this what 4e fans wanted, wider acceptance? So why did some push back so hard on what amounted to optional rules for a different aesthetic (and arguably playstyle) for 4e?

 

[Nagol]

And I guess my point is that often the inability to express the exact reason(s) one didn't like 4e are used as a way for it's fans to dismiss or outright invalidate one's claim of not enjoying the game.

Heck, even when one is able to specifically articulate why, one gets told the concerns are inconsequential, wrong, and/or symptoms of underlying prejudice.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Never played it, we skipped 4e.

 

[BryonD]

That is a very edition-war-y and frankly not cool comment. No-one has said anything about "3E fans" or the like. And you use no qualifiers like "some" or "a few", so you mean "all". Which is just not fair or reasonable.

It's also really sad that you make an blanket insulting generalization about everyone who enjoyed an edition right after accepting that some people did have problems with 3E.

Seriously? You are the one who said "malicious".
You are proving my point here.
I replied to the statement "Even if there are people who understood 4e and disliked it ". This CLEARLY establishes a blanket generalization with the doubt that there is a common pool of people who both understood. I replied that THAT statement and yet you immediately challenge me for not use qualifiers like "a few". The Hatfield comment you align with gets a pass, but the McCoy comment you oppose gets distorted.

This is very disingenuous. You skipped the rest of my quote where I said that this was rare, and only a few individuals, off-ENworld, who mostly spread misinformation on their own blogs.

And you skipped the part of my post where I said 4E was well designed and outstanding for its target audience.
You repeated an idea that had been thrown out often here on ENWorld. And that idea only served to advance the edition war. That's all I'm saying.

You are acting as if I'm saying that about all people who disliked 4E. Why?

Why do you say I'm acting this way? What words implied "all" in any way. I said the malicious trope was a persistent thing that added to the Hatfields and McCoys issues. It is.

I'll repeat that 4E was extremely well designed for a target audience. I have no issue with that.
Before I ever made a statement to you I replied to a claim that challenged the notion there were any people who disliked 4E understood it. You replied to my comment and started right in with indignant complaints about me not using qualifiers. So I must assume you skipped over the context to which I replied.

Do you agree with the statement which I intially challenged? Your subsequent statements are in direct odd with it. So I assume you don't. So I'm thinking if you go back and look at my statements as a direct response to that we can get a lot closer to "to each their own". I'm good with that.

 

[Nagol]

Seriously? You are the one who said "malicious".
You are proving my point here.
I replied to the statement "Even if there are people who understood 4e and disliked it ". This CLEARLY establishes a blanket generalization with the doubt that there is a common pool of people who both understood. I replied that THAT statement and yet you immediately challenge me for not use qualifiers like "a few". The Hatfield comment you align with gets a pass, but the McCoy comment you oppose gets distorted.


And you skipped the part of my post where I said 4E was well designed and outstanding for its target audience.
You repeated an idea that had been thrown out often here on ENWorld. And that idea only served to advance the edition war. That's all I'm saying.


Why do you say I'm acting this way? What words implied "all" in any way. I said the malicious trope was a persistent thing that added to the Hatfields and McCoys issues. It is.

I'll repeat that 4E was extremely well designed for a target audience. I have no issue with that.
Before I ever made a statement to you I replied to a claim that challenged the notion there were any people who disliked 4E understood it. You replied to my comment and started right in with indignant complaints about me not using qualifiers. So I must assume you skipped over the context to which I replied.

Do you agree with the statement which I intially challenged? Your subsequent statements are in direct odd with it. So I assume you don't. So I'm thinking if you go back and look at my statements as a direct response to that we can get a lot closer to "to each their own". I'm good with that.

I would take issue with 4e being well-designed for a target audience. The original triplet is somewhat incoherent as to what and to whom is attempting to appeal. A target group was able to take the game and make it hum despite rather than because of the rigor of its design.

Later books substantially recognized and articulated a stronger design direction.

 

[Aldarc]

And I guess my point is that often the inability to express the exact reason(s) one didn't like 4e are used as a way for it's fans to dismiss or outright invalidate one's claim of not enjoying the game.

And my point is that while this may be true, there were people out there who were parroting anti-4e talking points who were flat out ignorant of the game who neither read nor played it. I can say this from own personal experience dealing with friends and acquaintances in real life. Anecdotal sure, but my experiences dealing with these people in my personal life do color my perception of things.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Yes, and no. As I said, just reading the rules of the Paranoia game did not make me want to play it (even DMing it). And yet we gave it a try and we liked it. Sometimes the presentation is not to your liking. You might have missed something that would've make you like it. Maybe you were simply not in the mood to appreciate it.

Just like the movie Dances with wolves. My first watch of the movie got me almost sleeping with disinterest. It was the worst movie ever made even though it won Oscars. I gave it an other run two years ago and I absolutely loved it. Maybe my perspective changed. Maybe it was my mood. I do not know. But sometimes, not the first try but the second will make you like something you had dismissed as bad. The same goes for RPG.

You can read about Roller Coasters all you want. You'll know everything there is to know about them. But until you try it a few times, you won't know if you like it or not.

other people are not obligated to do certain things for their opinions to matter.

 

[Nagol]

And my point is that while this may be true, there were people out there who were parroting anti-4e talking points who were flat out ignorant of the game who neither read nor played it. I can say this from own personal experience dealing with friends and acquaintances in real life. Anecdotal sure, but my experiences dealing with these people in my personal life do color my perception of things.

I kept being accused of that -- even though I was quite capable of backing my assertions up with citations as needed. I parroted nothing, but it was a common accusation.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You know something I'm curious about is why many 4e fans disliked Essentials.

I mean was that actually a thing? I know I loved Essentials. I think most of the people I talked positively about 4E with liked it.

The complaint I did see was "Ugh I have to pay money to mostly get material I already have with minor additions!".

I can't account for people who hated it, but it's worth noting that absolutely no book that does anything interesting mechanically is without its detractors.

I kept being accused of that -- even though I was quite capable of backing my assertions up with citations as needed. I parroted nothing, but it was a common accusation.

This is a general problem with debate on the internet (and to an extent real life).

The problem is, that the cold hard, undeniable reality is that an awful lot of people, in general human terms, do tend to repeat "talking points" fairly mindlessly and often without understanding them. That's humans for you.

So when you say identical things to those talking points, you get told you're repeating talking points. If you give citations etc. sometimes the discussion evolves, sometimes it doesn't.

I saw this from the other side with 3.XE. Whilst it was better acknowledged, there were people who claimed LF/QW and other issues with 3.XE were mere "talking points" and "never actually happened" and so on. It's nothing unique to 4E.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

This is a general problem with debate on the internet (and to an extent real life).

The problem is, that the cold hard, undeniable reality is that an awful lot of people, in general human terms, do tend to repeat "talking points" fairly mindlessly and often without understanding them. That's humans for you.

So when you say identical things to those talking points, you get told you're repeating talking points. If you give citations etc. sometimes the discussion evolves, sometimes it doesn't.

I saw this from the other side with 3.XE. Whilst it was better acknowledged, there were people who claimed LF/QW and other issues with 3.XE were mere "talking points" and "never actually happened" and so on. It's nothing unique to 4E.

so you decide to automatically dismiss out of hand any complaints that sound like that?

Also, because I know for a fact this is going to come up: I have no horse in this race, the only D&D edition I've played is 5e, and it's the only one I have plans of playing, because I am fairly sure there are other game systems that have evolved on both 3e and 4e. If you still think this is evidence of some sort of bias, then please tell me, this way I can ignore you.