What is playing 4e like for you?

[Lord Ernie]

What level are you?
We've just reached level 5, starting from level 1.

How long do you play for?
Usually 4-5 hours, about once every three weeks. I try to get to once every 2 weeks, but my players all have busy schedules.

How many combats do you play?
That really depends on the session in question, but on average, I'd say 2 combats per session.

How long do they take?
At first longer, about 1.5-2 hours, but now that my players (not to mention I) get more experienced, something over an hour each. We started 4E with two DM's new to the system (experienced in 3.5), 2 players experienced in 3.5, and 2 that never played any kind of P&P game before, which might explain the long battles.

How many players do you play with?
As mentioned up there, 5 players, 1 DM. The DM's (me being one of them) switch between playing and DM'ing every few weeks.

How long do you roelplay for outside of combat?
It really depends on each session, but I'd say that since combat has started to speed up, the majority of the session. I've done regular checkups with my players, and even the ones that were a bit iffy about 4E have to admit that combat is fun and fluid, and the system does not block their ability to RP, which they were worried about.

Does it sometimes feel like playing a boardgame?
In combat, I guess, yes, but that's not exactly new for me where RPG's are concerned (i.e. 3.5 D&D). I've played a couple of RP's (both online and face-to-face) where this was not the case, but that always felt... off. A boardgame tends to be fair and follow certain rules, other systems leave much more to DM fiat.

Do you change any of the rules?
Not much. I replaced the expertise feats with a free +1 to all attacks at levels 5, 15 and 25. If necessary, I'd juggle HP and damage around to reduce grind, but my monsters have never had trouble dealing good damage, and they go down fast enough. Strikers in particular are capable of killing an enemy in a short time, as one would expect. (I've seen a few go down in a single round with AP spending).

 

[kevtar]

-What level are you?
13th lvl.

-How long do you play for?
Usually 5-6 hours

-How many combats do you play?
It depends. At first we were only doing one or two encounters with roleplaying and wasting time. Now we can do two or three – maybe 4 - with roleplaying and wasting time.

-How long do they take?
Combats were taking a LONG time, but then I realized two things (a) I didn’t modify the encounters when we were missing players. I made them smaller in number, but that wasn’t the right approach. Sometimes I planned on having two defenders at the table when none of them showed up and I had a leader, a controller, and a couple of strikers. They couldn't hit the soldiers. (b) I had under-geared my players. Once I started fixing treasure distribution, the combats went by more quickly. If we do three encounters we are in combat 3/6 hours of game play.

-How many players do you play with?
4 to 5

-How long do you roleplay for outside of combat?
1/6 hours

-Does it sometimes feel like playing a boardgame?
No.

-Do you change any of the rules?
It depends. I houseruled the expertise feats from PHII. That helped w/combat too. Our combats now are something like this: both sides hit hard and both sides hit often. The players are never walking through an encounter, but the encounters are long-hard slogs.

 

[Scribble]

In a session:

-What level are you?

I am the DM, but my players are 7th level.

-How long do you play for?

3-4 hours usually.

-How many combats do you play?

Ranges, sometimes 3-4 sometimes 1

-How long do they take?

Also varies. I've had short ones that last about 15 minutes, and long ones that go over an hour.

-How many players do you play with?

4 plus myself.

-How long do you roelplay for outside of combat?

Varies, no set time. I've had sessions so far that were 95% rp, and some that had only combat. Just depends on what's going on, and where the characters are.

-Does it sometimes feel like playing a boardgame?

No more so then any other RPG does.

-Do you change any of the rules?

Yes, I change/add rules, sometimes subtract rules, or modify what rules can do.

We've been playing around 9 months. We're 8th level. Combat is fun but with 5 players, even using power cards, seems to take around an hour per combat. It seems when we play 1 combat, it's way too easy. We have so many healing surges and all our dailies. But when we play 3 combats, 4e seems to really shine with action points, milestones, dailies and by the 3rd encounter things feel really dramatic like they can go either way. But with a 4 hour session, that leaves very little room for roleplaying.

Does your DM vary the encounter difficulty? If not, he should. I've noticed easy encounters are still fun, and soak up some of the players resources, but are quick.

Additionally, with the tactics so focused on teamwork (which I think is very cool) there is a pressure not to mess around. It might be funny to act in character and do something dramatic but non-tactical but if that means screwing up what the team is trying to do, it feels like you are hurting everyone.

This is an interesting one because it's part of the whole role playing game thing. I think it makes combat more "real" to me. In a real fight, anyone who was smart and spends their time wandering dungeons and fighting crazy monsters would go ion with a team that works together, and uses good tactics, etc... Like a military unit. They do what they do, and are trained to do it well. Anything else is suicidal.

But in an RPG you might choose to play someone not quite s ell trained, or someone who just doesn't care. As a result you, the player, might know something is the right tactic, but your character might not or maybe doesn't care- whatever. Good role playing would dictate you play your character despite it being bad for the group. That's the character you chose to play, so play him , and deal with the repercussions. That's just part of the fun. (And part of what makes it different from other games.)

We've thought about many ways to hack the game to make combats run faster and have it be fun with only 1-2 combats. Cut Monster hit points down, up their damage, lower PC healing surges and so on. But before messing with the rules, I wanted to see what playing 4e was like for all of you, especially if you are playing 4e without hacks.

Thanks everyone!
-John

In the end if you want to hack the rules, I say go for it... But there are other ways to achieve what you want I think.

I also want to ask- Are all of your fights to the death? I thinka lot of people just get into a habit (I do to) of making every fight to the death, despite how unrealistic this is.

If someone is getting their buts kicked, they're most likely going to run away before they get killed. It's just the nature of life. That doesn't mean they won't try to come back later with a new plan, however.

"Realistic" combats should be fluid. The goblins might fight, realize they can't win, then run off, lick a few wounds, and plan another attack somewhere else down the road. They might not even heal their HP all the way (giving you a way to hack their HP total without just hacking the HP rules...)

 

[qstor]

I've been playing the RPGA LFR games at a local game store.
>
In a session:
-What level are you?
6th level typically
-How long do you play for?

5 hours

-How many combats do you play?
2 or 3.
-How long do they take?
The other night one took like an hour.

-How many players do you play with?
5.

-How long do you roelplay for outside of combat?
Not very long. The skill challenges in the mods don't seem like role play for me. IMHO. They're more like okay now its time to make some skill rolls.

-Does it sometimes feel like playing a boardgame?
Yes sometimes.

-Do you change any of the rules?
No.

Mike

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

In a session:
- I have played in 3 campaigns all of them starting from 1st level. One of them is currently 4th level, another is 5th level and the other one ended at third (I co-DM the first one, and I was the only DM in the last one)
-We average 4 hours per session
-We have 1-3 combats per session, depending on how much RP and exploration there is
-Our combats take between 40 and 60 minutes
-4-6
-Depends... we have had 4 hour sessions with a single combat
-It only feels like a boardgame when everyone is tired and stops describing our attacks and moves. When we are on top of our game, it feels like the mother of all action-adventure movies.
-We haven't yet changed any rules per se, but when I DM, I try to do the following:

1.- Use a magnetic board for initiative and monster hp/condition tracking. This one is very good, but a small whiteboard will do.

2.- Use more low-level monsters, instead of fewer higher-level ones (this has been mentioned elsewhere)

3.- When the controllers and artillery are dead, and everybody's banging on the couple of remaining soldiers or brutes, who are barely bloodied, it is ok to have them drop on the next hit or three. If done correctly, the players won't even notice the fudge.

4.- Try to have intelligent monsters flee or surrender when it becomes obvious that they don't have a chance.

However, every group is different... Some like more combat, some enjoy entire sessions of pure roleplaying... YMMV and all that...

 

[timbannock]

Additionally, with the tactics so focused on teamwork (which I think is very cool) there is a pressure not to mess around. It might be funny to act in character and do something dramatic but non-tactical but if that means screwing up what the team is trying to do, it feels like you are hurting everyone.

I get where you're coming from, but I'm not sure I understand this part. If the character has a reason to do something that doesn't benefit the group...then why not do it? If there's out-of-character pressures stopping the player, that's kind of sketchy to me. The character has some motivation going on that doesn't include the group's best chances for survival -- whether it's a riskier maneuver, or the character just doesn't care about his teammates -- but I don't see why the player can't just do that?

Other than that though, one thing I found to help improve RP during my group's 4e foray was to come up with a lot of potential "one-liners" for the villains. I did that and it helped things out, but I noticed it could be better. So I started thinking about this: "What doesn't the badguy know?" Either about the situation, the PCs, or whatever. And I started working in questions into those one-liners.

I even had specific lines keyed to events that made it interesting. For instance, once the dragon got Bloodied, he'd say "Who are you that has the power to challenge me?!" It showed that the dragon was actually starting to become afraid. Similar lines have been subtle signals to the Players that now they can use Intimidate to end the battle against lesser enemies.

Essentially, scripting some lines and using them as a cue for different conditions or effects can add a lot to the proceedings because they are a roleplaying element that specifically ties in with the rules. The right questions might reveal chinks in the badguy's plan, weaknesses, or might simply get the players talking in character.

And the more extreme you are with characterizations, the more easily the players follow your lead. I often will write down an actor or character in a movie that stands out and try to do an impression of them when running a specific NPC (all of my Dwarven bartenders are Gimli, for instance, and all of my creepy manservants are Igor from Young Frankenstein). Please note that my impressions suck, but the key is that they are consistent ;-)

Some really dumb examples that ended up creating VERY memorable interactions or characters:

- using a Micky Mouse style voice (not easy!!) to portray a faerie dragon

- playing the Seneschal of a castle as a flower-loving gay man (he was a ridiculously powerful wizard, too)

- playing a Troll street samurai in Shadowrun that worked at a toll booth on a bridge. He lived underneath the bridge during the day. When he did his night shifts at the toll booth, he got extra money for running a sex therapy hotline (he had a ridiculous specialty rating in Sex Therapy)

- a ghostly little girl that followed the characters...as she secretly grew in power, I deepened my voice slightly each time to show she was "growing up"

- I recorded myself whispering weird phrases, and then played it back during a session as background music at a much slower speed, so it was really deep and weird sounding. It was actually the chanting of some demented creatures hounding the PCs, and I would play it whenever the creatures got near (see Dungeon Magazine's adventure Meenlock Prison)

- doing my best Sean Connery impression (which isn't very good) when playing an aging assassin who'd turned good and joined the PCs

I don't know why I wrote all of that, but there you go...