D&D 4E Just played my first 4E game

[Gundark]

6. This makes me want to bash my head into the wall. 4e is nothing like a video game. 4e uses a fair amount of DM judgment, and simplified math. A video game would use zero DM judgment, and would have no need to simplify the math so that mere humans could comprehend it. 3e was the one that played like a video game, because only a computer could calculate all the different types of bonuses you could get, and assure that you never accidentally stacked two divine ac bonuses or something.

You and me both....it's all I can do somedays. I almost ripped a strip off a friend that claimed 4e was WoW after playing it once. It's like he read it on the interwebs and went with it

 

[Dragonbait]

The whole thing plays like a video game. It seems like it's been designed to feel that way as well, to the point that while we were playing we kept asking our DM if we could 'save game' and at one point I cracked the group up when a player asked "how do I use this skill" and I answered "hold down B and press up." If I want to go play a video game, I'll go play one.

Exactly. I mean, the whole idea that you need to crawl through dungeons and to find magical items and equip them to be able to challange the monsters and survive at higher levels is SO like WoW. I mean, 90% of what you find in WoW gets sold as money. Or the idea that character CLASSES fill specific ROLES! It's ludicrous! Those DEVILS!

Now if you will excuse me, I have 4 pages of loot we just gathered that I need to sell from the last dungeon that took 3 months in our current 3.5 D&D campaign where I play a sorcerer who specialises in area of effect spells.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I think part of the reason folks "feel" the video game influences is that the game mechanics no longer makes any pretenses at modeling something that could be a "real world".

I think it's actually the way the book is written. The tone of the book looks like they expect someone to come from WoW and start in on D&D. Defining the roles they way they did, some of the terminology they use...

A lot of the PHB feels like "hey WoW players, here's how to play D&D" rather than "hey, here's how to play D&D".


(We're playing a kobold hall adventure, and one of the players is looking for dragonhide, so of course that prompted jokes about drop rate... and there were some kobold jokes too... "you no take candle!"... but otherwise we've been good! well, mostly...)

 

[Vocenoctum]

Heh.

This is the one part that I think causes most of the friction between pro-4e Supporters and those with legitimate criticisms.

What came first.

D&D and its roles or the videogames and its roles. Naturally, as a pro-4E person, my response of course, is "Um, what was 1e/2e's class breakdown then?"

We never had a "tank" that was designed to funnel all agro to him. Sure the fighter, paladin, barbarian could take more damage and was in the front line, but the role was not so tightly designed as now. "Leader" as a role? can't help you there. "Controller"? Sure a mage or cleric could do stuff with spells, but that was up to him, not something built into the class.

"Striker/DPS"? That was everyone. Everyone was trying to do as much damage as they could. Sure the mage used mass spells, but we all had a hand in fights.

So, yeah, a lot of people see the roles in the classes, but none of the guys I ever played with over the decades gave them such tightly defined roles. That's an Everquest thing, IMO.

One of the main complaints folks always directed at D&D as compared to other games was that the class system and alignement system were "confining" where roleplaying was concerned. 4e ditched alignment (basically), but actually restricted the classes even more.

 

[greensentinel7]

We never had a "tank" that was designed to funnel all agro to him. Sure the fighter, paladin, barbarian could take more damage and was in the front line, but the role was not so tightly designed as now. "Leader" as a role? can't help you there. "Controller"? Sure a mage or cleric could do stuff with spells, but that was up to him, not something built into the class.

"Striker/DPS"? That was everyone. Everyone was trying to do as much damage as they could. Sure the mage used mass spells, but we all had a hand in fights.

So, yeah, a lot of people see the roles in the classes, but none of the guys I ever played with over the decades gave them such tightly defined roles. That's an Everquest thing, IMO.

I have DM'ed 5 adventures of 4th edition so far and it really does play out exactly like what Vocenoctum stated above. While new to the boards, I have been playing D&D for 12 years, starting at the end of 2nd edition and the start of 3rd and while I enjoy the quicker combat mechanic of 4th, the class/role design irritates my players and I to no end, regardless we are continuing the campaign until the story dies because we really want to give this edition a fair chance, we really do. However, the more we play 4th, the more constricting it feels for both player and DM.

 

[Spatula]

This is where I disagree and why as a 4e fan I scratch my head. Things like Per Encounter make absolutely NO sense in terms a videogame would understand. Per encounter makes sense from a literary standpoint and is much more easily translated to the written page than to a videogame

Seriously, name a videogame that uses Healing Surges/Second wind or a PER Encounter time frame basis.

Powers that have to be recharged or have "cooldowns" are actually really, really, REALLY common in video games. Just about in any genre, but most defnitely in MMOs and RTSs. So your head scratching here makes me scratch my head.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Powers that have to be recharged or have "cooldowns" are actually really, really, REALLY common in video games. Just about in any genre, but most defnitely in MMOs and RTSs. So your head scratching here makes me scratch my head.

Cooldowns are not "per encounter powers"! An ability that has a cooldown can be used again in the same "encounter".

Healing Surges for example are a mechanic no video-game ever used, as far as I know - Why should Vidogames limit how much healing you have "per day" - no one cares about the flow of time in the world of a MMORPG. But it is important in the real world.

The "problem" with encounter or daily powers is that you have to get into a different mindset for them. And that _is_ a factual problem, since so many people don't get into it or don't like it. Not everyone likes to think as an third-person story-teller and then switch to in-character thinking, which is required for making most encounter or daily powers work. Because it is the storyteller that decides whether it's "appropriate" for the character to use the encounter or daily power in the given scene. This of course is no real problem for magical abilities - magic can work in any arbitrary way, and storyteller and character point of view are the same...

---

Magical equipment (Wands in 3.5, Potions in Diablo II) are not a common literary device to represent healing in stories. Either it's outright "patching up" from doctors or healers that often takes you out for a while, or the characters just soldier on.
The flaw is that the 4E model doesn't give us anything to create lasting injuries, which hurts "believability". Either characters die, or they are fine a few minutes or a day later. This system play well, but feels "off" thinking about it outside the game.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I'll just ditto the original poster. I went in with an open mind, wanting to like it. Had fun, liked certain elements of it, but ultimately felt that it lacked the depth that I've always enjoyed with D&D. It's kind of like going to an upscale restaurant and ordering their chicken Parmesan, getting served Chicken McNuggets, and being told by the waiter that this is the way they do it now.

 

[cdrcjsn]

The flaw is that the 4E model doesn't give us anything to create lasting injuries, which hurts "believability". Either characters die, or they are fine a few minutes or a day later. This system play well, but feels "off" thinking about it outside the game.

Not quite true. There is the disease track mechanic which you can adapt for broken bones or other lasting injuries you care to name.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Not quite true. There is the disease track mechanic which you can adapt for broken bones or other lasting injuries you care to name.

Yes, but it would be an adaption, not "core rule". For some people, what the core rules explicitly cover is what's deciding for them.

I don't really see it as a flaw for my game, since I really don't want any long-term penalties to PCs unless I deliberately "inflict" them upon them - like diseases. The show must go on, is what I think. There is little to no benefit most of the time to my games if the party has to stop 3 days or weeks to tend their wounds. At least not in the middle of an adventure.
I know I am not alone, but there are people that dislike this.