Why do you keep playing 4e?

[Scribble]

It's a lot of fun.

yup.

 

[Herschel]

Because it's fun.

I like DMing again.

I hate number-crunching power-gaming drek.

I like flexibility/fluidity and room to have fun under, around or beside rules tables.

Have I mentioned I hate number-crunching power-gaming drek? (My Archmage has two levels of Barbarian, one Ranger, two fighter, three Cleric, four rogue and a partridge in a pear tree and uses a great sword one-handed with the monkey stomping feat that I channel a lightning bolt and flame strike through with a backstab modifier added so I need an abacus to calculate damage.)

 

[BradfordFerguson]

But since I saw this and the legion of THIS responses, I got to ask why this? The enjoyment of designing an adventure to me comes from the story and personalities I create. The mechanics of a system are totally irrelevant to that. What does 4e give you that makes it fun to create an adventure for? Honest question, not trying to be snarky or a threadcrapper.

Part of creating an adventure in 3.5 was adjusting the monsters to your groups difficulty rating. Adding/subtracting levels to monsters in 4e takes 30 seconds, in 4e you were lucky if you could do it in 10 minutes.

Creating classed monsters in 4e is very fast as well. I am probably slow, I created a 12th-level wizard in 15 minutes for 4e, in 3.5, that would take me at least an hour.

Spending a bunch of time on numbers/statblocks and not the actual creation aspect takes away from my enjoyment OF creation.

Monster Roles (artillery, brute, etc) is also great because I can just look at the role and then get an idea of what I want to mix that with. AND the fight will turn out fluid even if I just have soldiers and skirmishers (without needing to make a statblock for a spellcaster)

 

[Lurks-no-More]

Why do you keep playing 4e? It's been about 6 months since 4e was released. During that time, I'm assuming there has got to be people who have gone 4e without looking back. If so, why?

Because it's fun, fast, better balanced than 3.5, and much quicker and easier for our DM to prepare for and run.

 

[mac1504]

I agree with almost all of the previous answers. I've been DM'ing a 4e campaign since the release date (half way through Thunderspire right now) and we've been having a blast.

The one aspect I haven't seen mentioned (specifically) are monster abilities. Not only are monsters fun to create now, but they're even more fun to play. And that has made DM'ing a ton more fun for me. When I can whip out a new ability that the players haven't seen yet (or even better, did not expect) and they all say "whooaaaa"- that makes the game enjoyable for both sides of the table.

 

[Mircoles]

Duh! Cuz it's fun

I love the more tactical combat. Tactics will make or break you now.

I always felt very contrained and paralyzed in 3e combat. You couldn't do anything interesting without being punished for it because of the AOO rules. I also got bored waiting around for my turn to come up.

The biggest problem with previous editions, other than the Vancian magic system, was that they had to have house-rules to be playable.
When I buy a game,I want to play it. I don't want to have to fix it first then play it.

I like the new balanced classes. No more CoDzilla.

It's over all a very fun game to play. Skill challenges are a little quirky though, but still an interesting aspect of the game.

 

[Storminator]

I love the new cosmology. I'm reading Manual of the Planes, and actually imagining my PCs there.

I never wanted to do that with the Great Wheel. Instead, I actively discouraged planar adventures because I thought it stunk so bad.

I wish I played more often!

PS

 

[Negflar2099]

Not only am I still playing (and loving it) I'm still as excited about my campaign as I was when it started and that never happens for me. Usually I create a campaign and then lose interest gradually until it peters out but not this time. The designers said they wanted to increase the size of the "sweet spot" where the game was most fun and in my opinion that's what they've done. This game is nothing but sweet-spot.

 

[Wormwood]

I never wanted to do that with the Great Wheel. Instead, I actively discouraged planar adventures because I thought it stunk so bad.

Oh and this too.

I am pleased with how quickly and easily I was able to purge the Great Wheel from my memory.

 

[Ahglock]

For me there's a certain delight in being able to predict how difficult an encounter would be, which 4e is able to do in most cases. In addiiton, there's also some level of enjoyment by thinking up the various adversaries PCs could meet and the dynamic encounters that result. An encounter with four brute monsters is fine, but if it's 2 brutes, a skirmisher, and a controller then things get really dynamic.

So it could be enjoyed purely on the tactical possibilities that can be dreamed up. But also, if the DM wants to highlight a certain quality of the monster's/NPC's character, I feel 4e's monster roles can more adequately reflect the personality and style of the monster. For example, if the NPC is a mastermind type, making him a controller monster helps guide the selection of what abilities he's likely to have. So in combat, he'll be ordering his minions around, mucking about with the PCs' plans, and so forth. I just feel 4e is able to bring this aspect to the fore in a more straightforward manner.

Thank you. I can see how for you 4e beings this out, that area of adventure/campaign design holds little interest to me so its not benefit for me. But I'm having fun and so are the players. The true test is will we still be having fun 2 years from now. In recent years its a rare system I am not complaining about 2 years into running it.