Thoughts on 4.0 now that the fervor has died down a bit

[Erk]

4e, to me, feels like an extension of 2e, skipping the 3.x series - which to me is fantastic. I loved 2e for feel-of-play, but gave it up for non-d&d systems because it was just too hard to get new players in. 3.x did not solve that issue, but did add all kinds of imbalance and weird simulation stuff in an attempt to have the cake of a class and classless system and eat both.

 

None of my current gaming group were big on D&D after 2e, but all of them love 4e... even my fiancee. It's the first game system to get her really into things, and now she's almost as big a dork as I am. I will be a 4e fan forever just for it being the system that got my fiancee into RPGs. That said, I like the system too. If I want class-free, I'll still play BESM... if I want a solid class system, 4e is it. Followed very closely by star wars SAGA.

 

Folks claiming 4e is for children really annoy me. Our youngest player is 23, and if schedules work out our oldest new recruit is over 40. Many of us have played since the mid-80s and early 90s. We still play 4e and are having a blast. None of us like MMOs or CCGs or pokemon or anything besides RPGs, and our campaign is a gritty-feeling, realistic world with low power (gradually increasing as the players rise in level and do silly things like cause a war with the god of the undead). 4e can handle that as well as any system I've seen so far, once you get past the stigma it has for not being D&D 3.75. Now, feel free to dislike it, but please don't make accusations that indirectly insult everyone who does enjoy the game... around 50% according to the tally on here.

 

Cheers folks!

[joshuaslater]

Ho hoss!! My criticism of Hasbro's art direction, and writing of the book to draw younger people in is no criticism of the gamers. I just fondly recall the old school books being more erudite than the newer offerings.

 

I'm also not throwing rocks in a glass house. I'm a roleplayer too, 's just I'm a Savage.

 

I don't have any complaints as I got the books printed for free, so it's not like I spent money on expensive books and was disappointed.

 

I like the fact that there is the variety of games, and miniatures of course, out there.

[Erk]

Ho hoss!! My criticism of Hasbro's art direction, and writing of the book to draw younger people in is no criticism of the gamers. I just fondly recall the old school books being more erudite than the newer offerings.

 

I'm also not throwing rocks in a glass house. I'm a roleplayer too, 's just I'm a Savage.

 

I don't have any complaints as I got the books printed for free, so it's not like I spent money on expensive books and was disappointed.

 

I like the fact that there is the variety of games, and miniatures of course, out there.

Fair 'nuff. Sorry, hanging around the WotC boards makes one a tad jumpy.

 

I actually don't mind the art of 4e, or about 50% of it. Flipping through me ol' 2e books the other day, I have to say I find the new stuff generally more realistic and detailed. However, there's a fair share of lemons, from cleavage windows in otherwise heavy plate armour to pretty much everything with the new Tiefling in it. A few of the new artists (don't know any names unfortunately) are downright awesome, especially the dude that did all the warlord art in Martial Power. This guy. S/he does very wicked gritty art. Gotta find out the artist's name.

 

How could you not like this?

[joshuaslater]

Wizard of the Coast and Games Workshop, and Hasslefree Miniatures are blocked at work. Sigh. I'll check out the links when I get home.

[SIGIL]

 

 

Well that does get the nod for being cool looking and somewhat palusible, and certainly NOT cheesecake. Horses for courses though. From what i have seen there is a lot of cool stuff in teh new DnD art, but for me it does not have the same magic that the old school stuff did or still does. Maybe it is just my own nostalgia for the old days, or maybe I am just out of touch with the times. I don't know. But for me the magic of the old school stuff is in the believability of it. Most o fwhat i see in the new art seems too bright and shiny, flashy and made for flair over function. It all just leaves me cold. I think " Cool art " but not " Cool Character ". To me you should be able to see the character adventuring and fighting in their gear, not just standing there looking all important. It i seven better when you can see what they are instantly or imagine where they might have been and doen as well.

 

Anyway I did not mean to offend anyone with my comments, so you have my apologies if I have.

 

Back to lurking.

[pae]

Back to lurking.

 

Does Ron know you're posting on the forums instead of sculpting? I can hear the whip cracking from here.

[SIGIL]

heh heh just waiting to hear back from him for some instruction.

[Reaperbryan]

his last comment to me was "tell that Tre guy to sculpt faster! We *needs* us to find the preciou--- I mean, um, He needs to finish that guy. Not a Ring. Definitely not, my precious, no...."

[joshuaslater]

Tre's on frothers too, and as a customer of both Reaper and Red Box Games, I'd appreciate it if he'd shut up and get back to work. H'yah!! H'yah!! H'yah!! Keep that greenstuff rolling. Keep that greenstuff rolling. Rawhide.

 

Doesn't work, does it.

[Bruunwald]

42.85% is really still a far cry from 50%, but if it makes you feel better, why not, right? (I don't think you can count the people who chimed in with the fact that their group makes them play it, but they still don't necessarily like it, as being in the like-it camp.) In any case, 42.85% for means 57.15% against, which is a bad thing to find out about the appeal of your product to your intended niche clientel.

 

Each of us can only relate his or her own experience and tastes. My tastes? I can't stand 4e. I think it's so far removed from D&D they should have called it something else. But I've already been there and done that; I already posted to this thread long ago, and I don't think this is rocket science or the end of the world. I would prefer to live and let live.

 

Unfortunately, my experience tells me something about the maturity of 4e players in general that does not allow for easy living and let living, and which speaks to the opposite of what the more mature 4e fans here are saying. That is that though in my area they are something of a minority, they are a vocal and often rude minority, and tend towards youth. And over there on WoTC's past-editions board there are at least two posters - one of them highly guilty of this - who regularly bombard the board with "requests" for "help" "fixing" their supposedly "broken" 3.5 games, which quickly reveal themselves to be thinly-disguised petitions to convert the rest of us to 4e.

[joshuaslater]

Does 4th edition still have that five foot square business?

[sethohman]

Does 4th edition still have that five foot square business?

Replaced it with just plain squares - your move is 6, not 30 now.

 

In general, I like it better than 3.5. Talking with someone recently about their 3.5 character, who multiclassed, and could add thier diplomacy score to ther attack roll, so would power attack, remove the entire to hit bonus from level, and replace it with the +10 from diplomacy, so they were striking at precisely the same as an equivalent fighter, only with the +10 damage added on.

 

Any time a 3.5 campaign went out beyond the basic PHB, interactions were were too extreme for me. And close combat was wrong, also. A half-orc sorceror with enlarge, bull's strength, and improved close combat feat could immobilize any fighter of the same level. The fighter didn't even have a chance aginst that, actually.

 

I am glad 3.5 is gone around me.

 

And I have been with D&D for 25 years - not like I am a gaming newb.

[joshuaslater]

We've given up the squares. We don't roll like that anymore. No more classes, no more books, just the one, and fast, furious fun every session.

[Erk]

42.85% is really still a far cry from 50%, but if it makes you feel better, why not, right? (I don't think you can count the people who chimed in with the fact that their group makes them play it, but they still don't necessarily like it, as being in the like-it camp.) In any case, 42.85% for means 57.15% against, which is a bad thing to find out about the appeal of your product to your intended niche clientel.

I really don't care what the percent is, I just glanced at the numbers quickly before posting. There's all kinds of statistical arguments one could make: does someone who doesn't play D&D at all even count towards the total, for example? In the long run, though, everyone I want to play with enjoys 4e, and the FLGS tells me it's selling ridiculously well (they had several dozen cases of PHB2s ready for opening day) so I don't think it's going to die off anytime soon. That's all that's important to me.

 

Unfortunately, my experience tells me something about the maturity of 4e players in general that does not allow for easy living and let living, and which speaks to the opposite of what the more mature 4e fans here are saying. That is that though in my area they are something of a minority, they are a vocal and often rude minority, and tend towards youth. And over there on WoTC's past-editions board there are at least two posters - one of them highly guilty of this - who regularly bombard the board with "requests" for "help" "fixing" their supposedly "broken" 3.5 games, which quickly reveal themselves to be thinly-disguised petitions to convert the rest of us to 4e.

That's a common perspective from anyone liking one thing and looking at rude people in favour of another. One reason I'm avoiding the WotC 4e forums is because I am sick of the exact same thing happening with 3e players, coming into 100% 4e oriented topics and trying, with varying levels of subtlety, to turn them into examples of how broken 4e must be. Likewise, I stopped posting on GiantITP, a usually pleasant place, because any 4e posts I made were either ignored or picked at (that was a long time ago. It seems to have improved now).

 

The bottom line is there are goobers in any game system. That doesn't have anything to do with whether or not the game system is fun.

 

Does 4th edition still have that five foot square business?

Just squares, as said. We call them "2 meters give or take" and I make sure it's clear that the size of a square is an approximation.

[Bruunwald]

Does 4th edition still have that five foot square business?

Replaced it with just plain squares - your move is 6, not 30 now.

 

In general, I like it better than 3.5. Talking with someone recently about their 3.5 character, who multiclassed, and could add thier diplomacy score to ther attack roll, so would power attack, remove the entire to hit bonus from level, and replace it with the +10 from diplomacy, so they were striking at precisely the same as an equivalent fighter, only with the +10 damage added on.

 

Any time a 3.5 campaign went out beyond the basic PHB, interactions were were too extreme for me. And close combat was wrong, also. A half-orc sorceror with enlarge, bull's strength, and improved close combat feat could immobilize any fighter of the same level. The fighter didn't even have a chance aginst that, actually.

 

 

 

The loss of a realistic unit of measurement for in-game situations was probably the very first thing that turned me off about 4e. I mean, reasonable adults wouldn't want a real-world comparison, right?

 

As to the examples you give here of a supposed broken system, I am not aware of a core ability or feat that allowed adding a full Diplomacy modifier to an attack roll. Sounds like a bad third-party splat book. Likewise, what was a half-orc sorcerer doing taking so many fighter feats? If the DM were worth his salt, balance could easily have been achieved by pressing the half-orc's obvious lack of ability in his chosen class.

 

It would be naive in any case, to think that 4e will somehow be immune to similar bends and breaks and nerfs. No system is immune to tinkering, and considering WoTC's bad history of indulging the worst requests of the loudest and worst elements playing the game, I am sure that by the time 5e shows up, fans of 4e will be voicing all the same complaints about 4e they had when they were "glad" to be rid of 3.5.

 

To me, this all comes down to the quality of players you sit with. And there will always be enough bad players and unattentive DMs around to break a good game. I've been doing this for 28 years, and no previous system ever seemed so broken to us as to be unplayable or to diminish our fun. The notion of a perfect - or even just superior - system is an illusion broken the minute a single guy gets it in his head to mess with it. After that, it's a matter of flavor and taste.