D&D 4E Who's still playing 4E

[Tony Vargas]

I think you're right, they were trying an experiment, "what if we just simplified it to 10 levels." I'm just not sure it was a good idea...

Did you ever try out the last version of Gamma World? It was 4e-ish, but with a 10-level +1/level everything progression, and weapons/armor that were just categories that the player chose, then described as he liked (worked great for GW whackiness).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Did you ever try out the last version of Gamma World? It was 4e-ish, but with a 10-level +1/level everything progression, and weapons/armor that were just categories that the player chose, then described as he liked (worked great for GW whackiness).

Yeah, GW works well that way. I mean traditional GW really lacked much in the way of advancement. It was more of a kind of silly wacky beer-n-pretzels sort of experience. There WAS an XP system (I'm talking about the first edition of it, I never played the later ones) but it didn't do much. The 4e version obviously has a lot steeper advancement curve, but the PCs capabilities don't actually change much. They're heavily front-loaded, and progression is pretty much hit points and bonuses from there. So it almost doesn't matter how many levels GW has, if it used the half-level system of 4e half the levels would just be utterly meaningless instead of just making your PC a bit tougher. Its just not a game where you really change much over levels, what equipment you pick up is more important than that, really.

13a OTOH has a LOT of advancement in many different dimensions. It feels crammed into 10 levels, stuffed in really.

 

[MoutonRustique]

13a OTOH has a LOT of advancement in many different dimensions. It feels crammed into 10 levels, stuffed in really.

It's a different paradigm (I love that word. I'm really sad that so many have seen it abused and come to hate it. It's such a useful word to have!) with regards to what level means.

As an example in D&D, 3rd or 4th level don't mean very different things. As whole, characters of similar levels have a similar "power meaning" - of course there are key turning points, but those are not that abundant.

In 13th Age, the idea is that each level really means a good deal more... and also less. If you don't use the partial progression, gaining a level is a significant increase in everything. On the flip side, if you use partial progression, then the level is sort of the bell that rings when you cross the line: you're just one step further than you were, but somehow that step mattered more than the ones before it. In a way, it's sort of a milestone marker; not that important really, but, in a way, essential.

Granted, it may not feel that way to you - and their's precious little to do on a forum to change how you feel about a complex context - but when I changed my glasses from "ok, I get about 3 levels' worth of stuff" to "my character was this, and is now that... ok, these levels are a big deal" it kind of clicked for me.

But then again, I'm not seeing 13th Age as 4e's successor. It's more like Arcana Evolved vs 3e - it's sort of going sideways from the original branch. (But then again, not really, since I consider AE to be the superior game in all ways... hum... I've got work on my analogies...)

Ok, it's like having a developer of 4e get with a friend and develop something that takes mechanics where they like them, shapes them for the kind of game they want to play and, at the time, they were in "4e state of mind" and thus it feels like a lot of 4e went into the system. From my perspective, a good deal of 4e went into the system - it's just that, as many, many polls have shown, 4e is a massive universe and many people see it as many different things. What the developers answered on the poll "what is 4e" isn't what you feel is 4e.

Or something... man... this is way to zen and introspective - I'm out. Need some bro-dude something to balance all this out.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's a different paradigm (I love that word. I'm really sad that so many have seen it abused and come to hate it. It's such a useful word to have!) with regards to what level means.

As an example in D&D, 3rd or 4th level don't mean very different things. As whole, characters of similar levels have a similar "power meaning" - of course there are key turning points, but those are not that abundant.

In 13th Age, the idea is that each level really means a good deal more... and also less. If you don't use the partial progression, gaining a level is a significant increase in everything. On the flip side, if you use partial progression, then the level is sort of the bell that rings when you cross the line: you're just one step further than you were, but somehow that step mattered more than the ones before it. In a way, it's sort of a milestone marker; not that important really, but, in a way, essential.

Yeah, I think I like 4e's "try each new thing" feel. There ARE some levels where you get a bunch of stuff at once, no doubt, like level 11, but mostly you get one new thing per level. Hit level 3, you get a new encounter power. You kinda get to test out each new thing for a level, and levels can happen pretty often. Heck, you should probably advance a level every other week if you really want the campaign to move along.

Obviously the whole 13a 'incremental advance' thing can be seen as pretty much the same thing, but then why not put a level on it? I mean if 2 PCs are really significantly different in advancement, then shouldn't some mechanic summarize that? Isn't that what level is FOR?!

Of course I'm not criticizing other people's choices of games either. I played some 13a and it was OK. Frankly I'm not really one of those people that has huge issues with games anyway. It's a well-written game, you can't really complain about anything beyond execution, the rest is all taste. That's a lot of what pissed me off about so many h4ters. They just can't get that through their heads.

 

[tyrlaan]

Sums up my experience as well.

I moved to Missouri almost 3 years ago, and I've yet to see a single posting/advert for a 4e game at my FLGS; it's almost all Pathfinder and some 3e.

<snip>

To not dwell or simply commiserate, <snip>.

Okay, full on gripe/commiserating this time.

I took the plunge and registered on Pen & Paper Games to try to find a face-to-face game. I've yet to post anything, so I'm just lurking so far. I've gotten 6 PMs in 5 days. Sounds great, right?

Yeah, well, 5 out of the 6 are asking me if I want to play Pathfinder. -_-

(the 6th is Marvel or Shadowrun AND further than I'm willing to drive)

Seriously, do I live in a Pathfinder nexus or something??

 

[MoutonRustique]

Okay, full on gripe/commiserating this time.

I took the plunge and registered on Pen & Paper Games to try to find a face-to-face game. I've yet to post anything, so I'm just lurking so far. I've gotten 6 PMs in 5 days. Sounds great, right?

Yeah, well, 5 out of the 6 are asking me if I want to play Pathfinder. -_-

(the 6th is Marvel or Shadowrun AND further than I'm willing to drive)

Seriously, do I live in a Pathfinder nexus or something??

Go Forth My Child!

It Is Of You To Speak Of The 4th Truth And Make The Ranks Grow And Swell!

Allélouya!*

*to be read in your best "preacher" voice with lots of melodramatic pauses and volume modulation.

Also

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Go Fourth My Child!

Fixed that for you

Seriously, do I live in a Pathfinder nexus or something??

I feel you, man. Tequila Sunrise has given me my first chance to play a 4e game in 3, maybe 4 years--and the two campaigns before that didn't make it beyond (I think) five sesions total (four in a neat Dark Sun campaign, one at the start of WotBS).

 

[Manbearcat]

Just a quick FYI for any 4e-starved folks out there. I don't remotely have the time to string together consecutive hours for a game via skype or something (or whatever-the-hell platforms people use). However, I could easily run a couple people through a 4e PBP on here if people have an itch they want to scratch. Given the game is scene-based, non-combat resolution is pretty trivially handled. And an MSPaint map with an X-Y axis and a key takes care of combat easily enough. I don't think I'd want to entertain more than a few folks (and maybe a companion character run by one or both of those folks) though (primarily due to off-turn actions). My home games (in all systems) are 3 PCs (or less sometimes) and that is about the upper limit of my interests anymore.

 

[D'karr]

Our group is playing again this Saturday. I had a chance to play 13th Age this past Saturday and had a blast with it. Some quirky annoyances (mook tracking), but overall a heck of a lot of fun.

 

[fjw70]

Okay, full on gripe/commiserating this time.

I took the plunge and registered on Pen & Paper Games to try to find a face-to-face game. I've yet to post anything, so I'm just lurking so far. I've gotten 6 PMs in 5 days. Sounds great, right?

Yeah, well, 5 out of the 6 are asking me if I want to play Pathfinder. -_-

(the 6th is Marvel or Shadowrun AND further than I'm willing to drive)

Seriously, do I live in a Pathfinder nexus or something??

I feel your pain. Pathfinder/3.x is a very popular version of the D&D. It's not my cup of tea wither and I really don't understand it but it is what it is.

I ended my last 4e game about 16-17 months ago and started playing 5e. I like 5e. It's a nice game but I am starting to get the 4e itch again and I am afraid I won't be able to find any players for it. I will try however.