Falling off the 4ed bandwagon

[MrMyth]

Hey, hey, c'mon now. A +1 sword was way cooler in AD&D.

Seriously though, I miss the "magic" of earlier editions. A part of me wonders if that isn't nostalgia though. I can still remember stumbling upon my first cloak ... of ... elvenkind. WOW!

Yeah, like I said, I think a lot of it was the context in which those items were encountered. As much as I love that 4E has classified the magic items as the player resource they should be, I think that is part of what removes the 'magic' of them. In addition to just being more plentiful in general.

A low magic campaign where bonuses are built in, and magic items are actually rare, and suddenly I think they'll start to feel just as unique as they used to.

 

[amerigoV]

I was in the same situation recently. As a player, I love 3.5 but the DMing side just too much of a grind (plus a baby on the way was going to just kill any prep time).

A group I play in remotely tried 4e. I personally liked 4e as a player and the changes to the DM looked really good, but it really did not fit our group. The system puts quite a bit of responsibility on the players to know their powers, have an idea of what others can do, and to work as a team. Sadly, the group I was in was not capable of such things at that level. The wanted to just sit down and play, not have a chess match vs. the DM (4e ups the tactics which is fine by me, but not for everyone).

I am sold on Savage Worlds these days. It seems to have the mixture of some crunch for the players (not over burden, but enough to make the PC that they want) and quick prep / low bookwork that I want as a GM. For whatever reason, it seems to bring back the 1e nostalgia but with a more coherant system. I throw it out there since it looks like your gaming demographic is pretty close to mine.

Their website
Welcome to Pinnacle's Weird Website!

A great document on the development of the game - a key reason I tried it
http://www.peginc.com/Downloads/SWEX/MakingofSW.pdf


And just a dart on the computer game thing - I have been playing Dragon Age: Origins on Xbox -- I'll put its emersion, story and roleplay up against most gaming tables any day. I get your point, but in my book it is just a different medium - books, movies, video games, PNP, writing your own stories, etc. They all bring something different to the table.

 

[Ahnehnois]

[*]Create my own version, a self-proclaimed "5th edition" (aka, "fantasy heartbreaker"). I've kind of started doing this, and it almost seems like a natural progression for many serious DMs, especially as their interest in RPGs veers from "serious" to "hardcore." But I'm very curious about the proposition of combining my favorite elements of every edition of D&D, as well as Pathfinder, Fantasy Craft, True20, Trailblazer, and maybe others--and still being able to use published books.

This is what's great about the OGL and the current RPG market. You don't have to try to find the perfect game for you. No publisher is likely to share your tastes, but you can easily find the elements to a perfect game for you scattered about and combine them into something you like. If you have the time and interest, I'd advise this approach. Sounds to me like TB in particular might have a lot to offer you, but I'd check around with everything. I run my current game with a 3.5/UA/PF/TB mishmash and I can tell you it's much better for my group than any edition was "out of the box".

 

[pawsplay]

I was fortunate in that I sensed early on that 4e would not be to my liking, but I can definitely sympathize with the OP in terms of wanting to be part of a living published game and looking to the future. Leaving 4e aside means being sidelined to some extent.

Personally, I've gone with Pathfinder, because it has 3e's modularity and is seeing current publication support. I can take 3e and Pf stuff and plug it in willy nilly. I also like Fantasy Craft, though that's on a back burner right now; it might be interesting to see what from FC I might graft on.

 

[Dausuul]

The best advice I can give is to find a game that does what you want it to do from a mechanical perspective and play it. Trying to retrofit a game to suit your preferences seems silly when there are so many good games out there that would probably work for you as written.

I have never yet seen a game that did exactly what I wanted it to do from a mechanical perspective. Heck, I could build it myself and I'd still be retrofitting and changing things with each new campaign.

What seems silly to me is going on a quest for a perfect game that probably doesn't exist, instead of finding a game that's got 90% of what I want and fixing the other 10%.

(And to be honest, I'm not sure I could ever be happy with a game that I hadn't tweaked a bit. Tinkering is a large part of the fun for me.)

 

[Imaro]

To the OP,

My situation is a little different from yours... After reading through the core books, I initially didn't like 4e. However I let people (especially on this board) convince me that I couldn't judge without playing the game. Well I played the game and found I and my group were lukewarm towards it. Again instead of going with what I felt, I listened to others, and how the future releases were addressing the things that many found wrong with the game. New and more complex classes... more magic items, new powers, etc. So for awhile I bought into it and purchased a nice little grouping of 4e books. Anyway, the result was the same and I realized that for me and my group, 4e wasn't a good fit period. I recently bought a copy of Pathfinder, as we all enjoyed 3.5 and I'm finding Pathfinder scratches our D&D itch better than the current itteration of D&D. I just wish I could trade in my 4e books for some extra copies of the Pathfinder corebook for my players.

Moral of the story is... sometimes the hype is just hype and sometimes a game that's great in one person's oppinion just doesn't work for another. Hopefully you don't spend alot of money or time on a game you ultimatley aren't enjoying... there's just to much to choose from.

 

[dvorak]

dvorak, I have no idea what "Cihys" is.

CIHYS.

This is usually meant as a gibe.

I am being sincere on this subject; I am in the market of buying Adventurer's Vault and Adventurer's Vault 2. Private message me if you are inclined to selling these two books.

One thing working well to help us avoid "power railroading" is that I had everyone make up a card that says "Do something cool."

This has been my motto (for ANY RPG!) ever since I first read it.

DM: The NPC does 3 squares of Force Movement by attempting to push you off the cliff. Dustin, make a saving throwing to see if your character catches himself or fall over the edge.

Roll: 8

DM: Lets see, that is a 40-foot drop so...

Joe the Heroic: Wait! My character still has his Action Point and happens to be in an adjacent square next to Dustin's character. I would like to use up my Action Point by diving for my comrade's hand and hopefully saving him from certain doom.

DM: mmmm Just to make it clear then, your character will be prone, unable to move from their square and unable to attack until Dustin's character has either secured a handhold along the cliff or your character is able to pull him to safety if you roll a success. If you fail, Dustin's character still falls and your character would be prone.

Joe the Heroic: Agreed.

DM: Then roll to see if you succeed.

~rolled by to respond back to Mercurius question - reading rest of thread now~

 

[Halivar]

The best advice I can give is to find a game that does what you want it to do from a mechanical perspective and play it. Trying to retrofit a game to suit your preferences seems silly when there are so many good games out there that would probably work for you as written.

No game is perfect for a group until it's houseruled. At least, that is my experience with every system I've played, including 4E.

Rule sets are like shiny pewter figures. Sometimes all you need to do is scrape off the flash. Other times, you gotta hack off a sword and replace it with a machine gun.

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, regarding 'bringing back the magic' I'll say this:
It's been mentioned several times in this thread already; that's mostly just nostalgia. It seems, you'd like to repeat the original experience, relive the feeling you had when you played D&D for the first time. The problem is you can't. It will never be as good as the games that live on in your memories. I doubt switching to a different edition of D&D will change that (though playing a vastly different system might).

As Piratecat and others mentioned most of the 'magic' is in the descriptions. There's no 'magic' in game mechanics. And if there's one thing that 4e succeeded in it's complete transparency. I have a feeling that's what makes it more difficult for the OP and his players to feel inspired about items, powers, or monsters. I.e. you have trouble coming up with good descriptions.

I'd suggest what you should try to limit using game-terms as much as possible. Even if your players are 'just' using their powers they can be awesome if you take care in describing them.

I haven't played 4e as much as the OP but so far I like it a lot. As a DM I have an easier time to come up with great adventures because it's so easy to create monsters and adjust encounters. It's also been a long time since I've seen such a degree of teamplay.
Still, it's entirely possible I'll feel the burnout after playing it for a long time.

What I still don't get, though, is the comparison with video games or even MMORPGs. Imho, those are mostly brought up by people who don't actually know these games very well. 4e mechanics aren't really very much like them, 4e just uses similar terminology (which they probably did to make it easier recognizable for those players).

Looking at the OPs thread about treasure classes A-Z, I immediately thought:
'Now what exactly was great about that? That's EXACTLY the system that games like Diablo use!'
Random treasure tables are used in every CRPG I know. So, 4e's approach is completely different in that regard. I'd like to stress, btw. that wish-lists need not be followed slavishly by a DM. You definitely can (and should) add (wondrous) items nobody thought about asking for.

 

[samursus]

Hey, hey, c'mon now. A +1 sword was way cooler in AD&D.

Seriously though, I miss the "magic" of earlier editions. A part of me wonders if that isn't nostalgia though. I can still remember stumbling upon my first cloak ... of ... elvenkind. WOW!

This.

After reading MANY threads on "Why 4e sux", "This is what they did wrong" and "This is why I am leaving 4e" I have done some pondering.

You see, many of the issues brought up, especially in thoughtful posts like the OP's, resonate with me to some degree.

I have been following 4e since information started being leaked, and have been pretty much a fanboi. I do see a lot of the issues with the system, although many of them are only indicative of different playing styles... but what is interesting to me is the extremity of how these issues affect people, including myself. I mean, its just a game. And then Filchers post kinda opened the clouds for me....

Its nostalgia (for me at least)... I am (and I suspect this may be true with others) trying to recapture the new and exciting strangeness of when we first played an RPG or D&D. That is why I believe the Retro-Clones are doing so well...

I am a thirty-something year old player who started when I was 10... I just started playing again after about a 10 year hiatus. I like 4e... its not perfect, but I like the system a lot. Some issues re: Magic Items and such kinda bother me, but I am now realizing that I can never go back...

Sure, I could start up with LL or BFRG or even break out my Rules Cyclopedia, but I now see that with what I know now, and how I can see the entirety of a rules system for what it is, I wouldn't enjoy it knowing that there are IMO better ways to do things, that other rules systems have demonstrated in the 20+ years since I first played...

Basically this is just a long-winded musing on why an older-gamer is so freaking hard to please (speaking of myself)