Farewell to thee D&D

[Filcher]

Celtavian,

I vehemently disagree with most (if not all) of your statements, but I respect your right to have and give voice to an opinion. Best of luck with whatever games you decide to play.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

To the OP: I know exactly how you feel. I felt exactly the same.

About 1 year ago.

The woman I loved had become so high maintenance. She wanted endless hours of my time to create a challenge that was neither a calkwalk or a TPK. She went behind my back and told all my friends that their characters and my monsters deserved to be treated equally, even though all the effort only provided a few rounds of gratification. I thought about leaving her for good, when I started to hear about this new girl. I stuck with her through the end of a long divorce, which finally wrapped up just this past June. Now I couldn't be happier.

 

[BronzeDragon]

If you need that dragon to take a mile long breath against that minion army of Hobgoblins and do 500 HP of damage, then do it. Because in the end it has absolutely no relevance to the players. But if you want the Dragon to breath on the PC's then the breath will be X squares wide and do NdX + Y damage.

Once again because combat rules are designed for PC vs. Creature combat and not for Creature vs. Creature simulation.

And you don't find that even a little bit grating to the suspension of disbelief?

I haven't played pure D&D in a while (I run A Conan D20 game once a month and a Call of Cthulhu BRP whenever I can) so perhaps I'm not in a position to argue for or against 4E.

But I still disliked most of the things I read about, so I'll likely stay far, far away...

 

[Aus_Snow]

Whoever it was that mentioned third party products. . . hear hear! And, if you like new stuff to actually be well, new (like, minty fresh) - hop onto the Pathfinder train, indeed!

Some of the 3pp is truly excellent, and worth looking into, if you want to expand 3e in some of the normal kinds of ways, or OTOH, take it in entirely different directions, the likes of which WotC could never - and will never - have the requisite freedom to support.

Ah, OGL. Faithful for ever.

Anyway, I hope you find what you're looking for - most importantly, good people to game with (be they familiar or no.)

Best of luck!

 

[The Little Raven]

And you don't find that even a little bit grating to the suspension of disbelief?

No more than sitting around a table rolling dice in order to represent the actions of my hero grates on my suspension of disbelief.

 

[Crothian]

Yep. I own all 3.5. I owned all the 2nd edition books and most of the boxed sets before I moved on to 3E.

I imagine when you mean all you just mean all of Wizards books and not the 5000+ 3pp ones as well. There is plenty out there even some like me hasn't seen.

3ed is not dead you know. I walked out of Gen Con with a few new books for it. Heck, I walked out of that convention with three new 1e books as well.

 

[BronzeDragon]

No more than sitting around a table rolling dice in order to represent the actions of my hero grates on my suspension of disbelief.

Interesting.

In my mind it's a cumulative thing. I have to go through several steps to actually experience the fantasy worlds I create. First I have to read about it, then imagine things and people in it interacting, which is already a reach. After that comes the ritual of coming together with friends to, as you said, roll dice and represent the actions, which does affect suspension of disbelief.

But every time I must make up an excuse as to why this or that is different for the players it makes it even worse. I imagine the whole encounter powers thingy would likely make it even harder for me.

I'd rather not add steps to the already complicated process...

 

[ExploderWizard]

I think one of my friends will stay with 3E or the new Pathfinder.

That is another thing. My group has moved to 4E. Most of them like it. I don't want to be a disruption to them since they don't like it. So I may have to find a new gaming group, something I haven't done for 10 years or more. It is going to be strange to see all my friends move onto the new edition while I try to get something going with the old one.

I think this is the biggest cause of your frustration and not so much the lack of new material. You can't enjoy gaming with friends that you have been hanging out with for 10+ years because of a new ruleset? I'm not very happy with 4E myself but a friend is running it and I am playing. Ultimately its spending time with friends thats really important and not so much the rules. I won't run 4E but that doesn't stop me from playing. Do you hang out with your friends outside of the game?

 

[D'karr]

And you don't find that even a little bit grating to the suspension of disbelief?

I haven't played pure D&D in a while (I run A Conan D20 game once a month and a Call of Cthulhu BRP whenever I can) so perhaps I'm not in a position to argue for or against 4E.

But I still disliked most of the things I read about, so I'll likely stay far, far away...

Not one bit. It makes no sense, to me, to go to an inordinate amount of work to represent the actions of Creature on Creature combat. The players don't care about it as it does not affect them one bit. So if the only reason to have it is to satisfy my sense of "simulation" I'd rather spend my time creating things that do matter and actually have consequence. So in the end, why bother?

4e has been a huge blessing in that respect.

 

[BronzeDragon]

Not one bit. It makes no sense, to me, to go to an inordinate amount of work to represent the actions of Creature on Creature combat. The players don't care about it as it does not affect them one bit. So if the only reason to have it is to satisfy my sense of "simulation" I'd rather spend my time creating things that do matter and actually have consequence. So in the end, why bother?

4e has been a huge blessing in that respect.

So let me get this straight.

Your players don't care about anything that doesn't affect them directly?

Then your players truly are of a different breed than mine. And I guess that really makes a difference in the discussion.