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

[phil500]

this player who said that was a Wicca.
Well, he past the entire gaming saying things like "you know, this is NOT the way magic works" and so on.

i think this is absolutely laughable.

someone who believes in a BS version of magic that claims it is real calling BS on a version of magic that makes no such claims.

 

[DandD]

(What I am curious about is how many people who are happy with the 'simplicity' and 'openness' of this demo will feel like when the full 600+ pages of rules shows up in June and the supplements begin churning out like clockwork soon after...)

Then we shall bitch and moan, till the game developers will bring out D&D 5.0.
Or worse, D&D 4.5.
But I rather hope for D&D 5.0 in like 8-9 years, 7 at earliest, instead of D&D 4.5 in 3 years.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I doubt that the OP's experience is as rare as people might thing. I'd never have opened a new thread to discuss my own negative 4e experience on ENWorld myself and I'm frankly hesitant to even post about it now.

Maybe we should create a club of "Anonymous 4E dislikers/bad-experience-havers"?

"Hello, I am Toryx, and I have really tried to like the game."
"Hello Toryx!"



Just because we 4E-fanbois are vicious in our quest to prove everyone that 4E is the best thing since sliced bread doesn't mean you should feel intimidated.

My experiences with 4e are pretty similar. The only difference is that the same effect occurs whether the players are interested in 4e or not. Any time I play with a group that has high expectations toward roleplay, the game ends with disappointment. The key cause for this is that the game does have an aspect where everything is geared toward combat and dice rolling. The new skill encounter rules as well seem geared much more toward roll and fail/ succeed than roleplay. There's definitely a sense of fight, pause, fight, pause in every 4e session I've been in. Generally that leads to my groups concluding that they can see how this appeals to people, but it doesn't appeal to them.

Most 4E games I have heard so far concentrated on the crunchy bits. Apparently, some still managed to roleplay a lot, others have their problems. I am not sure if it has anything to do with the rules, or with the way people approach testing game rules.

From what I understand, 3E skill systems works on the base of "roll and fail" (roll Diplomacy against DC 30 to convince the King to lend you his troops for the assault on the Orc Hordes"), while 4E skill encounter have a little more interaction.
"I try to point out the last succesful results when the kings army attacked the Orcs." *Wizard player rolls History*.

"The kings advisor reminds the king of situations where the kings army failed or had to retreat" *DM rolls advisors History check.

"Remember what we were also able to stop the bandit raids at the kingdom southern borders. If anyone is qualified to lead such a task, we are!" *Paladin player rolls Diplomacy*.
"There are also several indications that your archnemisis, the King of Düsterburg, might be behind the attack. We might find hard evidence on this in the orc camp!" *Rogue rolls bluff check*

"I explain that Bahamut would support such an assault to defend the order of the kingdom" *Cleric player rolls Religion*

"May I remeind your Lord of the incredible cost for launching such an assault. We might need to increase taxes, and this usually causes an uprising among the people!" *DM rolls Intimidate for Advisor*

"Off course, if it seemed to the kingdoms neighbors that the current king of Gutreich is weak and unable to fight off simple orcs, they might see this as an opportunity and make their own move!" *fighter rolls intimidate*

(absent of actual game rules, this is more or less a "guesstimation" of how the system might work. I am not sure how much "counter-rolling" is allowed for NPCs in social encounters, for example.)

Off course, it's not always easy to come up with such encounters, depending on how much you have fleshed out, or how good you are in making such stuff up on the fly.

The Warcraft allusion comes up a lot.

But what is the point of it? (This is rhetorical. I think I knew the point, I just happen to despise this kind of argumentation. But for the sake of it
"What, D&D is like that computer game that everyone keeps playing! It must be really good, because that's one of the must succesful games these days."
"Oh noes! I don't want to play a mainstream game! D&D is serious business, it shouldn't be fun. If I wanted to have fun, I'd play WoW already!"

Whether this will be changed when everyone has the books in their hands is yet to be seen, but in my rather large circle of gamers, no one would call them a 4e supporter thus far.

Let's hope getting the books won't be for naught and you'll like it in the end.

 

[Darkwolf71]

People like your players are the kind of people who have still never tried a curry.

They are still using hissing videos that the auto tracking keeps going around and around and around before chewing the tape up. They have to spend half an hour going backwards and forwards trying to find their place. They complain that a scratch on a DVD makes it unusable (stop throwing it around like a frisby then.)

They are the people that say CDs don't sound as real life as vynl. I have seen bands in real life and I don't remember an invasive constant hiss and lots of pops and crackles loud enough to make jump out of my own arse.

These people are pegged for the death list. They have to die so the rest of the world can move on and progress. They say things like new fangled. I am getting old but I am keeping well and truely off that list.

Hate much?

 

[Arnwyn]

Anyone who doesn't want to have fun will not have fun. It's no secret. They didn't want to play 4e.

Yep, that's what it sounds like to me.

That's also the number one reason why 4e is dead in the water for my group - my players couldn't be less interested. Doesn't matter what system... it would be dead from day one if the attitudes of the players aren't all that positive.

 

[Wystan]

I stopped reading here.

I stopped reading here. Why post at all?



Edit: Forgot Smiley....

 

[Emirikol]

I could definitely tell that 4E is a whole new game, with a completely different mood and hotter, higher-action combat. It also felt very cold between battles, like everyone (DM included) was just sitting around waiting for the chance to start shooting at something again.

This was the most telling thing for the playtests I've conducted too. My players are just waiting to hit the "FIRE" button again.

Well, once the shoot-the-asteroids portion of the game calms down for groups, we'll see what the game is truly made of. Non-stop battles is fun for a while...then what? What does the REST of the game hold?

We shall see.

Jay H
Interventional Pain Management

 

[CleverNickName]

Got Some Feedback

CleverNickName, I just want to ask you if you talked with the players after that session? I don't know if they're actual friends or just gaming acquaintances, but did speak to them about it afterwards, didn't you?

Well, sort of. I haven't spoken to them, but I've e-mailed and heard back from them. After the game, and after I had given myself a chance to cool down about it (you know, gotten some sleep, had a good breakfast, that sort of thing), I hammered out an e-mail and sent it BCC to the guys. It went something like this:

"So about last night. Diablo2 was awesome as always, but I was really in the mood for some tabletop gaming. I got the feeling that you weren't really getting into the game I had prepared, though. I'm still a bit of a newcomer to this gaming group, and I've only been DMing with you guys for three games now...I'd love to get some feedback.

And if you ever pull out your laptop at my game table again, I will CUT you."

(Okay, I really didn't include that last line. I typed it, but I backspaced over it before I clicked "send.")

The first guy (let's call him Lock) replied, "you were doing fine and it was an interesting adventure setup and all but it just started to feel old you know? it would have been fine i guess if we had used our own characters instead of some sample ones but i know that they might not have worked with the new game you wanted to try. maybe next time we can roll up our own characters using the new rules it might be more fun that way." (Sorry, but Lock is apparently allergic to capitalization.)

The second guy (Stock, we shall call him) wrote, "It wasn't you, man, I think it was just the new game you brought. I had worked all day on my research paper, and I didn't feel much like having to learn something ELSE when I was trying to relax lol. I just didn't want to have to think that much. It was just a lot easier to just turn on diablo and click some goblins to death. will we get back to our regular game next week? I really like the stormlord prestige class in complete divine, do you think I can build one?"

Barrel (the third guy) didn't reply until late last night. "Yeah, sorry about that. You are doign fine as a dm and everyone looks forward to the games, which is something that hasn't happened in more than a year. Our last dm wasn't nearly as much of a hard ass as you are about attacks of opportunity (j/k) but he was always late and never really put any time into his adventures either. I think we were all just bummed that we wouldn't be continuing the game we started a few weeks ago and the new game felt like cheap imitation. Totally not your fault. I have a question, can we use some of the feats in Complete Warrior?" (he goes on to ask about certain feats for his elf monk.)

So that's that. From what I can tell, they weren't personally offended by 4E on principle; they were just in the mood for something different. I don't know what that means for the 4E rules system as a whole, or its appeal to your average gaming group, but there it is.

 

[Verys Arkon]

This is something I've had to think a lot about while compiling the Pre-release Rules Compilation from the promotional and preview materials....is such a compilation going to be the bases on which someone chooses to like or dislike 4e? Is it helping or hurting the 4e community? I've tried to make it clear to people that what we have seen so far is only a fraction of the game, and to reserve judgment until they see the full rules. It is really 'designed' (and I use the term loosely) to be used by the 'fanboi' who would have tried to run 4e anyway with the tidbits that were available. It is poorly equipped to introduce new players, or to explain to the undecided the advantages of 4e vs 3.5e.

The PrRC is indeed unofficial but based on WotC's released material, has a certain amount of speculation (though I do think what is in it is pretty close), and is woefully incomplete. Its like a fan-made trailer for Lord of the Rings that doesn't show anything but Samwise walking endlessly. The only advantage of using the PrRC instead of the available tidbits that go in to making it directly is that they are found in one place, and that it has some 'peer-review' process so that at least the current consensus is used. It also gives those interested in discussing what we know so far a common baseline to start from, and many changes to PrRC have been made because of those discussions.

I think when your players crack open their new PHBs, see the full range of choices available to them to make their own characters they can become invested in, see the art, and read complete professionally written rules they will have a different opinion about the game. I can only hope this experience hasn't soured them to trying the 'real deal'.

Verys.

 

[DandD]

I stopped reading here. Why post at all?



Edit: Forgot Smiley....

I don't get this posting. Is this meant to critisize/mock jeremy_dnd, or what?

If it is mocking, adding smilies won't be helpful.