With all respect to the OP, I absolutely fail to see what in 4e he found so enticing, it seems to me that there were some class concepts that he liked, and so it was for me, in addition to DMing, I mostly played a Swordmage and a Warlord, which were great character concept, and well suited to the system, so it was a good mesh for me.
And as numerous folks have pointed out, 4e was a very good game inherently, in addition to many novelties and good innovation, many of which were continued in 5e, it brought balance and rigor to a game that, in particular due to 3e, had become a huge mess, extremely complex, with small principles acting upon each other sometimes in loops that made the game unplayable, in particular at high level (and this was a shame because D&D has always been designed to exploit all its levels, what is the point of having generic concepts like HP, AC and Rounds, not even mentioning the plethora of spells and powers at all levels, if it's to play low fantasy gritty mud and blood ?).
So 4e is the most technically perfect edition of D&D by far, enabling play at high level, with great new concepts. How did that went wrong TO ME (and I insist, this is just a question of preference) ?
What I came to realise after playing quite a bit of it at all levels, is that the main flaw FOR ME, is that the system was built from constraints and restraints. Honestly, after the mess that 3e became, I can completely understand that mindset from the devs. But it was clearly built with an extremely strong framework in mind, that it needed to make sure that there were no drifts, that it was fair, balanced, etc.
And it shows clearly in the design, grids, squares, everything at the same level, extremely strong and defined tiers of play, choices, but few of them and very constrained, etc. Yes, I know, after that, they strapped on a few meaningless sentences about the DM being able to adapt, but you just have to read the section about house rules to see that the strong advice is to write the rule down, playtest it to make sure that it does not hurt the core system principles, etc.
And as a result of these constraints severely expressed in game terms, the very minimal fluff that creates fiction (with the associated very flimsy excuse that if they had had to write the fluff, it would have created books that were too big, not even the way better excuse that it would be contrary to the openness of the interpretation) feels very often strapped on, contrary to logic and to the feel of the genre. But it feels constrained, and rigid, and punitive, instead of matching what (High) Fantasy and D&D have always been for my tables. Every time I take an example from books or movies, even the die hard fans of 4e find themselves unable to explain how that is implemented in the game. The framework works for them to create THEIR type of fiction, which is cool, but for me it's too constrained to match the wider genre.,
And still I have no doubt that some DMs are able to adapt or break down that framework and still create a fairly wild game around that. But...
But the thing is... Why then do you need that framework if it's to play wild games with different rules ? Why did we, at our tables, drift back to Pathfinder, despite the fact that it was becoming as uncontrolled and unplayable as 3e in particular at the epic levels that we love ?
And then came 5e, which is built from
completely different principles. It's designed to be open, flexible, interpretable by the DMs and the players, without constraints and restraints. Yes, it's not balanced, yes, it's not precise, it has all the flaws that 4e tried so hard to correct...
But it is just perfect for our style of play. Yesterday evening, 3 players and me as a DM, we had a 5 hours absolute blast with just enough of the system that the rogue was happy to sneak attack, the paladin to smite and the bladesinger to sing and investigate with rituals and cleverness. We had hours of investigations and discussions and persuading street urchins, beggars and shopkeepers to try and betray secret organisations, 4 exciting combats where the players felt at risk, plus traps and rot grubs (swarms of them), and investigation, and scaring a gnome half to death for him to still betray the group after because he was that kind of fellow (by the way, thanks
@Retreater for the Coils of Set, great setting and adventure, and perfect for my type of customisation), we had laughter and stress and comradeship and a halfling getting fat on loukoums (turkish delights for you english-speaking barbarians), etc.
And this morning, I remember that we NEVER had that in 4e. Because every time some of us felt like doing that, we had to go through the system, the DM felt like creating a skill challenge and we had to go through the formalism of looking at skills, rolling dices, counting failures and successes. And we had to create maps, with grids, not just TotM description with at best a hastily scrawled plan on velleda so that everyone can just visualise the scene, and put tokens, and count squares, and spend at least half of the evening on just one skirmish because otherwise it did not make sense for the attrition of healing surges, etc.
And I remember that we NEVER had these constraints in the past, not even in 3e who was already way more formal than all previous editions which we had played (all of them).
And I KNOW that people I really respect (although I tease them mercilessly, of course) like
@pemerton are able to weave grand tales of heroism through the 4e system, by ignoring what he wants when he wants, and if it works for him and his table, that's great.
But what I would really like, please, is that I am still allowed to say that:
- At a personal level, I don't need a complex and structured system to ignore it when I feel like it, I am way more comfortable with the simple framework and guidelines of 5e, which allow us to have blindingly fast resolution especially of fights and concentrate of what we expect of the game.
- And therefore, there are some mechanics that I appreciated in 4e and grew to dislike because they create constraints (for example minions of the level of the adventurers) and that I now feel are way better addressed in 5e for my style of play.
So, if the 4e fanboys around here could kindly understand that the fact I have different preferences about my games, the fact I also have preferences about mechanics, and that I find them
better for my games DOES NOT MEAN that I spit on 4e an find that people still playing are idiots for not seeing the holy light of 5e.
Rather the contrary, actually, I find it cool that some people like the game and make it work for them, it's just that their touchiness on the subject makes conversation really difficult. I also admit that my potential clumsiness for not being a native english speaker combined with a probably somewhat abrasive sense of humour and too much teasing (fortunately some people can still laugh about firecubes) does not help in the debate, so my apologies for that.
Finally, two related points to loop back to the beginning of the post:
- The paladin above was actually a die hard fan of 4e, so much so that he stopped playing with us when I started the first campaign around 5e. He has played with us on and off since then, but clearly yesterday, he had a blast which shows that it's all about PLAYING the game. I'm pretty sure (and I am certain I said it multiple times) that I would clearly enjoy playing in @pemerton's 4e campaign today.
- I also regret the fact that there are no warlords and swordmages in 5e, but for me, the conclusion is inevitable: If, after 8 years of 5e, no-one has yet created satisfactory versions of these, it's simply because these are the two classes that were inextricably linked to the technical 4e framework. They worked there perfectly because they meshed with the system. But you see, the problem is that the basic classes of traditional D&D, and in particular the beloved wizard and rogue, mesh well with the traditional framework and did not mesh well with 4e. And so, despite 4e's effort to create novelty, people felt lost and the freedom of these classes in the spellcasting and exploration pillar, and their capability to emulate the fantasy genre and that of D&D discouraged some people. I know that did that to me when I realised that I did not have spells anymore and that my rogue could not explore freely like he did before and does back since we are playing 5e. So I regret my warlord and especially my swordmage (because she was a tank, I love the concept of tanks, I play my 5e paladins as tanks as much as I can but 5e does not implement the concept well), but it's nothing compared to the joy of playing the game we really enjoy.
