D&D 4E My First 4E Game: Disappointing. Yours? (UPDATED with player feedback)

[fnwc]

...even the best game of all time (Monopoly.)

You lost me here .

 

[Gundark]

Well I would have hated to have played in the game you described. This has happened to me too (not 4e) and like others have pointed out it's not a 4e thing (for me it was Savage Worlds). I don't think you are a bad DM or anything. Trying to get a bunch of people to like a game that they have already made their mind up on is frustrating at best. To be honest if it was me I would have kicked them out, not because they didn't like 4e, but because (or at least my interpretation of how you worded it) they were acting like a bunch of jerks.

The constant WoW comparisons would have pissed me off in a major way.

I find that the 4e D&D = WoW banner is flown (generaly) by people who have never played WoW. Are there a lot similiarites? yep. But having been a long time WoW player I'd say that the differences are stronger than the similiarities. I'm not saying that there are more differences than similarites, just that the differences are more significant when compared.

It's rare that I find a WoW player call 4e MMORPGish, of course now I've said that there will be somebody who will be hitting the quote button about that

 

[Wolfspider]

Well, at least your group actually tried the game, albeit reluctantly.

My group took one look at the character sheets and decided that they wanted nothing to do with D&D 4e.

None of them are WoW players. All of them said that the way that the defenses worked and the nature of the powers just seemed wrong to them. One of the players, who absolutely loves tieflings, was horrified at the way the race was portrayed in 4e.

Ahh, well.

 

[Voss]

While I'm still on the fence on 4e, I largely enjoyed the playtest I ran (other than the dragon, who was sad and lame), there is still quite a bit I don't like about 4e. But even as a confirmed doubter, I don't get the stuff about WoW (which I played for about 6 months). I'm trying and failing to think of similarities, because the feel seemed very different to me, to the point that I rather suspect your 'players' (i use the term loosely because thats just poor manners), did the typical gamer thing of taking a joke, running with it, and kept running long after they drove it right into the ground.

 

[Voss]

As a note - this felt - in terms of pacing and fun - nothing like Star Wars Saga. I know that mechanically they are pretty close, but the basic elements of play were fixed at extremely different levels and I find SWSaga very unsatisfying by comparison.

Do you know that this is one of the most reassuring things anyone has said about 4e, ever?

 

[FadedC]

I'm still boggling over the silly things they were complaining about. Skeletal warriors getting bonuses an attacks of opportunity.....how does that make any less sense then skeletons having improved initiative in 3.x? And as others have said there really is no parallel to being bloodied in WoW. Sounds like they were just determined to look for things to complain about.

 

[Shimrath]

First off, thanks to CleverNickName for the straight-forward review of his first playtest.

I have run three 4E "Demos" so far. In my case, "Demo" means a single encounter to show off the combat mechanics of the new edition. Right up front i let every player know that the whole purpose of the thing was to explore how a 4E combat runs. I didn't try to create an adventure at all, i simply told them that they had been hired to follow a simple map to the lair of some nasty creatures and destroy the threat to a nearby town.

I've run the Demo for 10 different people. There have been several comments about parallels to WoW (i cannot be specific on these, as i have never played WoW). I have yet to have a player leave in disgust. The players that gave feedback were all positive. The player that had the biggest reservations about 4E has turned out to be the most excited after playing the Demo (He's IM'd me each day for the last three days about it. DAY 1: "I want some more 4E", DAY 2: "I've got the shakes, need more 4E", and DAY 3: "When does 4E come out?").

Much of the positivity probably has to do with the fact that i sent out a blanket invitation to the Demo, so those that showed up to play in it were likely the ones that already had an inclination to embrace the new rules. I'm sure that if i forced the Demo upon those friends that haven't come over willingly, i would probably get less positive results.

To CleverNickName: Don't give up, try it again with some folks who seem more positive or at least unaligned.

 

[Henry]

With all the Wow talk, and breaking out the laptops without even telling you they were bringing them, it sounds like they were more interested in some computer gaming for that night than in RPG'ing, anyway.

 

[Darkthorne]

You have my sympathies. I ran Raiders (one of the earlier versions) with just one person playing multiple PC's and me being both the DM and running other pc's with the disclaimer that this was merely a dungeon crawl nothing more, to get the feel of things. He doesn't care to play 3.5 due to creating a character beyond low levels taking longer than his liking. He did like a good amount of what he saw, didn't like one thing but that turned out to be a oversight on both our parts. I do believe you are correct in your POV about you being the only one having an open mind about it. It doesn't appear that anyone wanted to give it a fair shake, as you stated people had brought along their laptops w/o any mention of it to you. Also the fact it was done midgame to me that's beyond rude. I have tried more RPG's than I care to imagine and a good amount of them were only one shot deals, but tried them anyhow. I could be completely off target but if you sat and asked yourself was more effort put into picking apart the game & rules as opposed to taking it for what it was and giving it a chance then I think you can see what your main issue is. I hope you get a chance to try it again with people that want to give it a real shot.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

I just want to thank you for your honest and unbiased post on the matter.

The details inspire more fear in places I was already fearful, and more hope in places I was already hopeful.