So is it fun?

[Ruin Explorer]

I'll say this, it's a hell of a lot more fun to create characters for and write an adventure for than 3E was, particularly the latter part. I love to create unique monsters, and I love to follow the rules, and in 3.XE, this was the path to PAIN AND SUFFERING, as I spent two hours working up some beast my players would fight once, think was cool, and never see again. In 4E, I just either take an extant monster and file the serial numbers off with the DMG's clear blessing, or I use the DMG to whip together the numbers I should be looking for and then base the monster on that.

 

[NiTessine]

Maybe the better question would be, "did you have to make fun of 4e to have fun that session?"

Yeah, we did. The combat encounters in Keep on the Shadowfell got old fast, so we mocked it all and a good time was had, despite the numerous attempts of the game and the adventure to get in the way.

 

[Scribble]

Yeah, we did. The combat encounters in Keep on the Shadowfell got old fast, so we mocked it all and a good time was had, despite the numerous attempts of the game and the adventure to get in the way.

That sucks... least you had fun though.

Just too much combat for your tastes?

 

[NiTessine]

That sucks... least you had fun though.

Just too much combat for your tastes?

Pretty much, and what little else there was felt deeply embarrassing to all concerned.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

I was only saved by Ashy, who leaped into the shambling mound (athletics vs Fort check) to dump a potion down my throat. I ended the fight down 3 or 4 healing surges, with 5 hit points, and with every power expended except my utility.

It was great.

To me, this is the heart of D&D, and something that has been virtually absent from my 3.x games. 3.x got so fussy and fiddly with the existing rules that things like this almost disappeared. This situation in 3.x would have almost assuredly been resolved with grappling rules and degenerated into a boring reference-fest quicker than you can say "Polymorph".

Conversely, in 2e, this would have been handled with quick but very inelegant and probably irrelevant mechanics. 4e seems to combine the best of both worlds, using enough concrete rules foundation (3e style), with 2e style "fast and loose" game play.

It is fun. It is not D&D. But it is definitely fun.

Unfortunately, it is D&D. Sorry to break the news!

4e is so much fun. I refused to DM 3.x since around 2005 because of things that people have said so far (such as working on an encounter for 2 or more hours to have it never matter again), and I'm very happy behind the screen now. I can't wait until I get to play, though.

Long live D&D!

 

[Nyarlathotep]

My group has played two sessions of 4E now and the answer to "Is it fun?" is ... we're not sure.

From the DM perspective (me) I like it a lot more than 3E. Much simpler to create and balance encounters. The new monster stat-blocks are not too large and each monster have it's own little schtik is nice. Downside is that it's a little repetitive and frankly, I think the introductory adventure (Keep on the Shadowfell) is atrocious as an introductory adventure. On the upside, I had a TPK Saturday night (Irontooth is really mean), so I can ditch the rest of it and prep for a new campaign that couldn't help but be more interesting. There is a lot of things that annoy me, but 3.x had a lot of things that annoyed me so it all balances out.

From the player perspective, the review is much more neutral. My group found it very difficult to figure out what their characters could do and how it all worked. Obviously part of this was trying to drop the 3.x ruleset for how to resolve actions. The other part was that there seems to be a boatload of conditions that have to be kept in mind. Marking targets in particular seemed to be troublesome and many class abilities were forgotten. I suspect that some of this is due to the poor format of the pregens for KotS. A couple of the players expressed concern for the "sameness" of characters, a common question was "If I build 3 characters of the same class, are they actually going to be different?"

I haven't gotten much feedback aside from "It seems like it might have potential". We'll probably give it 8 - 10 sessions before making a final decision and what the GSL allows will probably factor into my decision as well. If there is going to be quality adventures from 3rd party publishers (something WotC has been particularly poor at, IMO) and people are having fun, one of my groups is onboard. If the GSL neuters 3PP, 4E will likely sit on my bookshelf collecting dust.