I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
So, I have been playing 4e more or less since it's launch. Here are a few things I've picked up, that I hope the team keeps in mind going into 5e. Please share your own, too!
I'm interested in what other 4e players have learned from their experience, and I'm sure WotC is, too!
- I don't care about the Encounter, I care about the Adventure. 3e started the trend of making the encounter the central part of the game, and 4e solidified it. The thing is, I don't care about the individual encounter. I don't care about one fight with goblins, or one talk with the guards. What I care about is the context it is embedded in, the multi-day struggle to survive the dungeon, or to journey to the far-away land. It's not killing monsters that makes me feel heroic - it is the context for killing them that matters to me.
- I want to do more than fight things. Specifically, there are three things that I'd like to do, in addition to combat: Exploration, Discovery, and Interaction. 4e's minis combat system is peerless, but that's not how I want to solve all my problems. I want robust subsystems for plumbing dungeons (including resource management!), unearthing secrets (including knowledge rolls!), and dealing with NPC's (including skill rolls!), systems that every player at my table might contribute to in some way. I don't want you to worry about balancing classes so tightly on combat roles, but to rather see them in the context of adventure roles.
- I want combat to move faster, and be more cinematic. 4e combat lasts way too long and is way too concerned with the minutae of opportunity attacks, squares, cover, and BLAH BLAH BLAH for my fun. I don't want to have to bust out the minis. I don't want to have to bust out the grid. I want to be able to put thoughts in my players' heads without requiring little plastic toys for the deed. I want more danger, more swinginess, more chaos.
- I don't want 500 powers for each class. I think I'd like power sources to be where powers are -- all martial powers come from the same source, and all martial characters draw on the same power pool, even if the Thief and the Fighter take it in different directions.
- I don't want any role to be "necessary". The baseline for balance should be set low enough that any character can clear it. No one should have to play the leader or the defender or the controller (or the Face or the Sage or the Explorer), if they don't want to.
- I want treasure that is more fun. I do not want to fill out a shopping list. I want to roll on a table, get things that are potentially a little unbalancing (but a lot of fun!), and always be entertained with the quirks.
- I want monsters to be more fun. I do not want to plunk down a stat block on a minis grid and wait for it to die. I want to populate my world with interesting and fascinating creatures waiting to be discovered around the next bend in the river.
I'm interested in what other 4e players have learned from their experience, and I'm sure WotC is, too!