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

[pawsplay]

You have made judgments about an entire rules system based on quick play rules from a con.

Ok, so we're no longer touching the elephant's butt. What's the new metaphor? Smallish sized elephant wearing a hat or something?

 

[LordArchaon]

I'm fascinated by this "automatic process" of indisposition towards 4e with always the same argument of "it's like WoW".
You know why? Because it's a SHAME that all the people who say this are actually WoW players.
I even feel stupid writing "WoW", because I actually understood what that abbreviation meant only few weeks ago, when I started to read about 4e critics. And it was not easy however.
Because I've NEVER BEEN INTERESTED in WoW or any MORPG (is that the right abbreviation?).
If these people know so much about them, I can see why they don't like 4e. And I pretty much think they'll not like any other table-top RPG.
They like 3e because they started playing it BEFORE WoW. Only because of that. If 3e, just as is, would have come out now, these people wouldn't like it at all.
To end my rant, I think those WoW-4e comparators are always attacking 4e because they see in it the "image" of WoW which is surely something they love and hate at the same time: because they pretty surely are addicted to it.
So their critics are of the most irrational species one could find among critics in general.

I don't buy this argument. I suspect that when most critics say they don't like the WoW feel they find in 4E, it is because they don't want their tabletop Fantasy Role Playing game to be (or feel to them) too much like the computer game. It's that simple. It doesn't mean they are irrational. I can like peanuts and chocolate, but put the two of them together, and I don't like the result. It's a matter of taste. And if the new edition tastes wrong to many people, they have every right to not eat it without being labeled as irrational. Same as those who like chocolate covered peanuts have every right to like them even I personally have a problem with the combination.

Welcome to EN World!

You're relatively new here, so allow me to remind you of some of our posting rules - we ask you to keep things civil. As an extension of that - speaking as if you can read minds, such that you know what other people's thought processes are without them telling you, is generally considered massively rude in these parts.

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I'm sorry, my post wasn't intended as it sounded.
Apologizing for the resulted effect, I would like to correct it so that it may be understood for what it was meant to say...
I didn't want to say that some people here was irrational, and didn't want to label as irrational the matters of taste that Zil correctly points out.
When I wrote "those WoW-4e comparators" I was implicitly referring to people who is "MORPG dependent" (because I already had in mind what I was going to write next, about loving-hating the game for being "addicted to it"), without referring to anyone in particular, and I didn't even wanted to state that there are people like that.
I just wanted to emphasize that if someone has "a thing for WoW", the larger this "thing" is, the larger is the probability that his/her judgments on related subjects, like 4e-WoW similarities may become irrational. But I didn't even intend irrational as a bad thing. I intended it more as a "personal taste-driven non objectiveness", which can manifest in pretty much anyone in good and bad ways alike. I, for example, could become "irrational" when speaking of multi-class VS single-class characters, because I'm so fond of multiclassing, seen as a way to come up with more realistic, well-round, fun, and even more fantasy characters, that I may completely forget to look at any advantage or "better feel" a single-class character could have.
Much more clearer example, my post had a good tad of irrationality (and in this case, bad irrationality, since it ended bad, as written) because my personal opinion (that people who intensely plays MORPGs may not be good judges of tabletop RPGs) "drove me" too much. Or maybe because I was too sleepy when I wrote it...

 

[hong]

This.

I stopped reading here.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

I

QFT

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What exactly is antagonistic?

Well,

That said, they'll make the switch to 4e, because I'm the GM, and I will invite them to upgrade or leave -- but still.

Sounds a lot like an ultimatum- "Play 4Ed or go home."- no mention made of considering how your players might feel about it at all.

Perhaps that isn't how you meant it- goodness knows I've typed some things on this board that didn't come out exactly how I meant either.

I still can't imagine running a game if even a significant minority of my fellow players weren't into it.

Here's a hint as to where I'm coming from on this:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=203693

 

[pawsplay]

I still can't imagine running a game if even a significant minority of my fellow players weren't into it.

That's where the "go home" part comes in. GMing is not a charitable pursuit.

 

[Cirex]

Well,



Sounds a lot like an ultimatum- "Play 4Ed or go home."- no mention made of considering how your players might feel about it at all.

Perhaps that isn't how you meant it- goodness knows I've typed some things on this board that didn't come out exactly how I meant either.

I still can't imagine running a game if even a significant minority of my fellow players weren't into it.

Here's a hint as to where I'm coming from on this:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=203693

I can understand his feelings though. I feel identified with him. I DM a lot, I put a lot of effort so I can get games going, because the full year I was totally unable to write any games or anything, we played a total of five games (between two DMs) during the whole year, while if I'm active as DM, I guarantee two a month. In my case, if I'm the main DM, I think it's fair I can choose which game to DM. We're friends, we can talk about it and if all of them refuse, well, I got no other option, but I think that if I sacrifice a bit of my time to DM, I guess they can sacrifice a bit, adapt and play 4e (or whwatever).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

GMing is not a charitable pursuit.

And well I know it. However, its not a dictatorship, either.

Roleplaying is a cooperative hobby. What kind of buddy tells his friends to do something they don't like? For long periods of time?

Love the hobby though I do, having been in situations where I have players who hate a particular system, I don't relish being in that position again. Given the choice between playing RPGs with a fraction of my gaming buddies (having laid down the law over a particular RPG) and turning the reins over to someone else- or even not gaming for significant periods of time- I'll avoid the first choice if I can.

We're friends, we can talk about it and if all of them refuse, well, I got no other option, but I think that if I sacrifice a bit of my time to DM, I guess they can sacrifice a bit, adapt and play 4e (or whwatever).

I currently game with a few groups numbering about 15 gamers total. 2 of the groups have players who ONLY play D&D. You can't even get them to consider other D20 based FRPGs. Some of the people simply have such time pressures (job, family, etc.) that they don't really have the time to devote to learning new games.

Do I force them to play other games? No- I find people who want to play what I want to.

Like I said in that other thread- if its just 1 or 2 people who don't want in- so be it. But if a sizable chunk of the group is anti-"whatever," I don't see the point in forcing the issue.

Life is too short and friends too few.