The complexity was the turn-off for the players
But for the moment, my feeling is; it's just intertia that must be overcome. You just have to get your players into the habit of roleplaying and they'll do it.
Present them problems that can't be solved by fighting. That's probably the biggest thing. If you're not putting situations, preferably involving people (people are more interested than things) that can't be solved by fighting, then your players will default to using their powers.
This is very good advice, and it is something that I have tried to accomplish in both the 3.x and 4e games which I have run. There isn't any reason why players
can't engage in the same kind of roleplaying and problem-solving that they do in old-school D&D. When your character sheet has just your name, class, level, basic ability scores, saving throws, and equipment it puts you in a very different mindset than when your character sheet has all of that plus lists of skills, feats, situational modifiers, attack powers, utility powers, etc. Just glancing at the Basic D&D character sheet gives a different impression as to what the game is about than glancing at the standard 3.x or 4e sheet. A stack of power cards draws attention away from the actual character sheet during combat and (in my games) have sometimes come to exclusively define "what you can do in combat." Obviously, this isn't an objective truth and is entirely about the players' approach to the game, but I've seen it come up fairly often.
The funny thing is that some of my players found that their characters had an overwhelming number of options available to them in 4e and had trouble deciding what to do. But in the Basic D&D game, without an explicit "menu" of in-game actions, they were coming up with all kinds of things to try out. So the game that, on the surface, features far more options for players ended up being far more restrictive than the game that is considered by many to be too restrictive in terms of player choice.
That's the similar hunch that I have. So often I see 4E players look too much at their powers and they hamstring themselves into thinking that is all they are allowed to do. Or they look at their skill numbers and think they must roll whenever they interact. My group's struggling with roleplaying lately and I'm convinced we need to re-learn how to roleplay.
Running a one-shot Basic D&D adventure (or short series of sessions) is a pretty great way to re-learn how to roleplay. Or at least, I'm re-discovering that it is.
Keldryn,
Now that your players know they can approach an obstacle without considering their skills, feats, or powers, do you think you'll try to play 4E again with that mindset incorporated into it? I'd be interested to learn if a session or two of a rules light system would be a refreshing reminder to the players that they're really just limited by their imaginations or if they would devolve back into playing only from their character sheets.
I'm not sure yet if we'll try to play 4e again.
The fact that players were engaging in more creative problem-solving and in less looking up numbers on their sheets was really just a side benefit to the whole Basic D&D experience. That wasn't even on my mind when I suggested that we try a one-shot session of Basic. It was the overall complexity of 4e play -- and how half of my players were struggling with it -- that prompted my suggestion.
Since I made the original post, my wife admitted to me that this game was the first one that she actually enjoyed playing. She enjoyed the social aspect when we were playing the 4e game, but she didn't really enjoy playing the game itself. She thought that it was too complicated and that there were too many rules to remember. She said to me that it felt like the game was all about the rules, but the Basic game felt like it was actually about the gameplay. She felt far more relaxed in the Basic game, as she didn't feel overwhelmed by options and wasn't afraid of doing the wrong thing. My sister's boyfriend thought that his Slayer in the 4e game was too complicated (which isn't something I read very often on this board), with two at-will stances, three encounter powers (power attack, human versatility, second wind), and action points to worry about. So the Basic D&D Fighter is much more his style.
Players normally love leveling up, but for these two players, their joy was short-lived, as they found out that they needed to pick a feat and a utility power when they hit 2nd level. I suggested feats that just gave a flat bonus to something (Expertise), but neither was thrilled about having yet another power to consider.
I think that part of the problem, especially for my novice players, is that 1st level 4e characters play much more like 5th level characters in earlier versions, in terms of the number of abilities that they have. Most classes have two at-will powers, one encounter power, and one daily power. All characters have second wind as an encounter power, and most races have an encounter power. Many classes have a feature which acts much like an at-will or encounter power (majestic word, hunter's quarry, etc). So it isn't uncommon for a 1st-level character to have 6 or 7 different powers to understand and learn how to use effectively, and that's actually a really big barrier to learning the game. I think that if I were to do it over again, I'd try starting with just basic attacks and encounter powers for the first session, and then gradually introduce at-will powers (basic attack with a little extra), daily powers, and action points one at a time.
To be honest, as the DM I've been struggling with 4e's complexity as well.
For example, an encounter against a goblin patrol in 4e is more interesting than an encounter against a group of 1-7 hp goblins in Basic, at least on paper. However, I also need to remember that:
- All goblins can shift one square which is triggered by a missed melee attack (which is similar to but not the same as the kobold's Shifty ability)
- Goblin Warriors do extra damage with ranged attacks when they move 4 or more squares.
- Several types of goblins (but not all) do extra damage when they have combat advantage, and others do more damage when bloodied.
- The Hexer has one at-will hex, a roll-to-recharge hex, and an encounter hex that all have different effects plus they have an ability which is triggered when an ally's Goblin Tactics ability is triggered.
- The Acolyte of Maglubiyet has an at-will that makes it invisible to its target until the ned of its next turn, an at-will that can slide the target or immobilize the target (until the end of the Acolyte's next turn), and an aura 2 that prevents creatures within from regaining hit points.
Yes, I looked up all of that in the Compendium as I was typing this, as I don't remember the bulk of that even though I used them when running The Slaying Stone. No, I don't have to use all of those different types of goblins in one encounter (which I didn't), and if I have trouble remembering all of the fiddly powers, I can just use simpler goblins that don't have them. However, in that case, you often end up with a monster with virtually no interesting abilities and a whole lot of hit points.
I appreciate the design ideas that went into making all of the monster stat blocks self-contained, rather than requring the DM to look up spell-like abilities in a different book. This might be another one of those things that I like better in theory than in practice. I can quite easily wrap my head around a patrol of 5 goblins (1-1 HD) led by a 2nd-level goblin Fighter (2d8 hp) and a 3rd-level goblin Magic-User (3d4 hp, with magic missle, shield, and web memorized). More esoteric spells or spell-like abilities will likely need to be looked up, but if they are the same spells that the players use then I can ask the Elf's player to look up details on a spell if I need it. With each monster potentially having a list of unique abilities, we end up with a proliferation of abilities which are often similar enough to cause confusion but still different enough to want to make sure I get the details right. If a monster has a ranged magical attack that is very accurate, just make it a
magic missile, because I know what that does.
So two of the four players found Basic D&D far more enjoyable, and I enjoyed DMing it far more than I did the 4e sessions. My wife said that I seemed a lot more relaxed and that the adventure flowed more smoothly (even though I was less well-prepared than when running the 4e games). The other two players said they had a lot of fun and that it didn't matter to them whether we continued with 4e or Basic D&D. My wife and I both thought that they seemed like they had more fun with Basic as well, but we could just be seeking confirmation of how we felt.
If we go back to 4e, I will certainly try to run it more like a Basic D&D game. However, I find that when I DM a 3.x or 4e game, I inevitably forget about a lot of story elements and slack off on the descriptive narration because I need all of that "brain space" to focus on the rules and game mechanics. I'm sure that truly great 3.x and 4e DMs have the rules down so well that it's effortless and they can focus their attention on the story aspects, but I'm either not experienced enough with those rulesets or I just have a limited capability to juggle rules and story in my head at the same time. It definitely feels more like the latter, as I haven't played Basic D&D in over 20 years nor have I played AD&D for over 10 years, yet DMing a Basic D&D game felt natural as can be.
