Troy's 4th Edition Discussion

[TheDM]

Some of you may wonder why I am so PRO 4th Edition... so much so that I will not DM in any other version going forward... (not that you guys would find me not DMing again a problem... LOL )

I was recently looking at a forum discussing 4th Edition pros/cons and came across this post, to which I find I am of a similar opinion because my experience has been very close to his... So I post this here to hopefully shed some light as to why I like 4E so much...

EDIT I've also added this website to a review of 4E that also epitomizes how I'm feeling about 4th Edition. HERE http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35776

___________
I've played D&D for 25 years, and DMed most of those years. I like something about every edition, but 4e flows better for me, and the game system gets "out of my way" for roleplay's sake when necessary, but runs smoothly when I want the crunchy mechanics of encounters--including dice rolls, if I want them, for a lot more than combat using skill challenges. Now, I've tried many online games, and they don't keep my interest. I've tried WoW, because most of my friends play it...but it's not D&D and it never has been, nor will it ever be.

Does D&D use some genre, races, trope, and this and that of fantasy, sorcery, swords, magic... all elements which are in Warhammer, or WoW, or Rolemaster, or Earthdawn... Did D&D "steal from" or "copy" these? Perhaps, there is nothing much completely new under the sun, but all of these instead interface, and share, interact, evolve... So no, 4e does not play like WoW because one is an online million-player game with a finite number of choices, and one is a smaller social tabletop pen-n-paper [okay, and now DDI] event, in which imagination is the only limit.

Could D&D 4e pick a few ideas from WoW, or just use it as a modern "dictionary of jargon" to create a new frame of reference, and then use that as a hook of sorts? For instance, "roles" is not unique to WoW or MMO's... I think, oh, the Battletech boardgame used that idea... we've always had these ideas in war, knights, archers, pikemen, catapults... those pieces have "roles"--does that make them WoW?

4e just did some clean, dynamic rethinking about presenting classic elements in...let's call it a modern frame of reference. Maybe I've just been waiting for this version of D&D, for level 1 characters to be interesting and heroic and not be so fragile, and for monsters to run on a different design mechanic to serve their short guest star role as effectively as possible. Maybe I got tired of statting out a monster for 4 hours which was going to die in 30 minutes or less.

If printing and game aids had not evolved, I don't think the wargames/minis/boardgame comparison would hold water either. Ever since the first metal, and then plastic D&D minis were available, I used them. Ever since gridded maps, boards, Chessex mats, old Warhhammer or Talisman tiles, Steve Jackson cardboard heroes... we've all looked for something, even glass Pente beads or something. I never ever once read a rule for playing D&D skirmish minis, nor did I collect them for value, except as I needed them as a DM. I've bought thousands of plastic D&D minis and tons of cardboard D&D Dungeon Tiles because that's how I like to run a game, and I've done that since 3.0, before, and after. 4e just finally makes that board come alive with terrain, movement abilities, clean combat mechanics, and simplifies a few things which were redundant. Much easier and swifter to count in squares, instead of feet and then convert in your head. I don't do fast math, but I can count squares (and diagonal moves!) sooo easily.

I've run 4e since June, and my games are just as roleplay heavy as they have always been, but now, there are more encounters, more traps, and monster packs are mixed so I get to DM little hordes which were so hard to do before... I'm having more fun in all my years DMing than I ever had before. No joke. It used to be work, which I was willing to do so my friends would have fun, but it was sometimes such long homework. Now, I prep so fast, and if you as DM know the new system and guide, teach, and suggest to players in combat, they learn it, and the combats fly... or if they are a little long, they are so much more intricate and cool and memorable.

All I know about "why" is on the designer forums and podcasts, for the first time I can playtest new material, I have an online tool that works great, I have new material than has yet to break my game or allow power gaming to break my game, each piece fits and interacts within the whole. Th foundation holds. I give and receive feedback and the company and designers listen. I've had at least 8 personal answers from writers, editors, designers, authors at WotC, listening to me as a player and interacting. That alone is totally awesome.

4e D&D is 4e D&D. Immerse yourself into it and play it for a while, and that is when it reveals itself, past those assumptions made at non-parallel comparisons. Don't just skim it or even just read it. Try it, a bunch of classes, races, powers, combats, skills, vs monsters... give it some dedicated effort and you just might be surprised.

I appreciate what has come before, but I am playing 4e and I have no desire to go back. We're having a blast![url][/url][url][/url]

[Theylan]

Well, I think this has been posted long enough for everyone to give it a read, and therefore I think it is worthy of discussion and I believe everyone needs to chime in. So I’ll go first. I’ve done some research on the rule set, granted I haven’t played it yet, nor witnessed it being played. I have read blogs, I’ve read the rules, I’ve spoken with Troy on several occasions about 4e and I’ve listened to Joel a little. That is the extent of my knowledge.

First, I think we need to look at this in the context of its aim and purpose. I view DnD as FUN, and the intent is for us as friends to get together to have FUN and PLAY a GAME. Second, I believe that we have fun to the degree that we are engaged in what is occurring, like the kid in the playground who is left out, he isn’t having fun, in my opinion. FUN is hard to quantify, since it is subjective and relative to the individual. I have fun trying new things, having new characters, with new classes, and new abilities, and new ways to kill evil things, or cool ways of getting out of tight spots, and thinking about cool interties to the character and his environment (story, and background story). So as a player the more I can fit all of those into one evening, the more fun I have. Hence, it is important to me as a player, in game terms, to level up quickly (new abilities), and to progress through an adventure quickly enough that I feel the story is moving. In the event, that does not happen I tend to kill off characters so that I can try something new. (I get bored easily)

Now that you understand my psychosomatic crap I would like to layout how our current system, diminishes my fun. Please let it be known however, that I do have fun.

3.5 is broken in a few ways for me.

1. I call this the combat powerban- which is simply a wizard at first level sucks, whereas a fighter at 1st level is tough enough and the only thing that tends to survive an encounter. However, as a party we know that come 10th level we are going to need that wizard so that we all don’t die. So the sweet spot for a fighter, and most warrior classes, in my mind is 1st through 10th level. After that there effectiveness diminishes and creates a sense of disengagement because Lorin has usually destroyed almost ever thing by the time the warrior can reach it. The powerban includes everything from abilities, hp, saves, AC, to damage dealing ability, or environment control.
a. Arcane Users sweet spot is 6th level – 20th level, again in my mind.
b. Rogues, (beguiler, scout, spell thief). 4th – 15th
c. Duskblade 1st – 20th Wotc got this one right.
d. Cleric, Druid 1st -20th, Druid maybe 5th on.
e. Monk 6th – 20th, This is the one warrior class I think actually increases in power as it progresses. Because of it’s speed, and increased damage dealing capacity.
f. Bard- never, completely broken.

2. Combat in general
a. It takes too much time
i. Because of tracking of effects (DmGenie fixes most of these in my mind)
ii. The number of rolls and the math of HP and bonuses (DmGenie fixes most of these for me again, there are short cuts that I don’t think we knew about early on which I find speed things up.)
iii. Turned based system (no fix I don’t care what game system you play) everybody has to wait until it’s their turn and waiting means being disengaged in my mind.
b. Critical hits completely broken needs to be simplified. (house rule could do it)
c. Some of the movement system I think is broken. Such as the inability to move and attack and then move again/complete movement. (house rule can fix)

3. We’ve added a level of complexity and simplification in our 3.5. DmGenie. This solves the bonus tracking problem for me. Granted it takes a little time usually about 3 clicks for me as DM but it is usually Click and forget. So I like that, no more mental process is required in subsequent rounds for me do to some additional math. The problem is if we want to expand Dmgenie then it takes programming so the flexibility is lost to just throw something new into it, which means as a dm I need Lorin to script stuff or try it myself which takes a great deal of time occasionally. And it is always required for a new adventure campaign or if someone wants a new class or ability that is not part of the core books. And somebody always wants that. Granted scripting is only necessary if we want the click and forget, we can always go back to pen and paper or mental addition of bonuses. But we manage how much we want scripted.

These are the biggest problems I have with our 3.5, is it still fun, absolutely. Could it be more fun, for me Yes. Point #2 above is the biggest factor for me. If Combat in general could be cut in half, then as a player and DM I could just pack more of that fantastic goodness into an evening.

Now 4e’s answers to my 3 points above.
1. Combat powerban- by everything I’ve read this is fixed. And in some cases simplified, such as the consolidation of skills. And players can more easily stay engaged through all 30 levels because there powers increase more equally. Verdict: in favor of 4e
2. Combat in general- not quite. Granted I haven’t played it, only read the rules. But the key to this is mechanics. Analyze the number of rolls, movements/actions in a combat round and that hasn’t been diminished nor consolidated except in a couple of instances. The numbers don’t lie. Here is where I do see some consolidation which is huge when dealing with higher level characters.
a. Full attack action- more damage is dealt in a single action and the full attack isn’t necessary addition of ability damage effects has taken this out.
b. Horde control- as a DM multiple monsters is an issue but 4e makes them all dead really easily so the only thing left is the main baddy.
c. Verdict: Jury is still out on this issue for me. Would need some play testing likely to see how all rules interface better.

3. no DmGenie- so there is no click and forget. And no prescripting for game night. It all comes out by pen and paper. So having never DMed without Genie I don’t know what I think of this. It has it’s bonuses as it would be easy to insert module critters or effects, but some of the bonus stacking click and forget is imperative to me to speed things up. And if it didn’t help me as a DM I wouldn’t use it now. Verdict: in favor of 3.5 click and forget is important and although 4e eliminates the time factor of tracking the bonus or penalty factor is there and the marking system doesn’t eliminate the fact that a creature is being tracked it’s just a system of tracking.

4. Cost- going to 4e would add cost to our hobby as we would all have to make the switch. I think in terms of time to learn the new system it wouldn’t be that great since it isn’t all that different in it’s mechanics PCs would just have more abilities, which when thought of in terms of feats under 3.5 it isn’t a hard concept to learn. Wotc is notorious for not getting it right the first time around hence 3.5e, so I think a wait and see what fixes come out later would be prudent. Also, 3.5 right now has a lot of breadth which for my easily bored mind is good because there is more for me to dig into and try. 4e doesn’t have that breadth of classes yet, but I’m sure they will. Obviously the book cost would be greater. Verdict: Wait and see and perhaps try out 4e to see if the speed of the game will increase the fun factor and therefore be worth the cost. I’m skeptical since 3.5 with it’s easier system didn’t greatly increase the speed of 2e.

Overall, I think 4e is a better system but not sure if it is better enough to be worth the switching cost. Paying a dollar more for fifty cents more of fun is not my idea of worth it. It would have to be worth more than a dollar of fun for me to move. But hey maybe 4e is it, but once bitten twice shy. I think a try/test would be in order but not a switch. If we all have that much more enjoyment in it then we can switch the problem of course is switching in order to try it. We would all have to put in some cost of time to try to learn it in order to give it a test run and that was the most painful part about leaving 2e. But I’m willing to give it a shot. I like new things.

motion: everyone throw out your opinion and once everyone who wants has chimed in I say we do a poll and take the democratic approach to it, but I would say we need 5 yeas to make a complete switch and only 4 yeas to give it a test run, with a 5 yea vote after. anyone second that motion?

[Boric Glanduum]

I've been working on a response and thinking about my position ever since Troy first started this thread. Jared just beat me to the response.

Personally? I have no interest in changing to 4e. Period. If everyone else does, I probably will go along, but I don't know how happy I'll be. I wish I could be as dispassionate about it as Jared's response sounded, but there you go. I've talked with Troy extensively about this for over a year, off and on. I've talked with Joel a little, I've talked with other colleagues and friends who have played 4E extensively. I've watched some combat and gameplay (not a lot, but a bit). At the start, I will admit to having a knee-jerk reaction to it: I initially didn't want to play because I felt betrayed by WotC--it was a very non-Capitalist reaction to the whole proposal.

Then I sat down and started studying it out for myself. Reading reviews, previews, game reports, etc. As I did so, I began to formulate the real reasons behind my reluctance to change over to 4E.

I have looked into it, and I'll be honest: there are some neat ideas. However, any neat ideas could, I believe, be easily turned into house rules. There are also some neat ideas that do nothing else -- in my opinion -- but turn the game into a power gamer's heaven: for example, Paladins are no longer limited to one smite evil per day. It's now an "encounter power" or something like that, allowing him to practically smite evil at will. Wizards and clerics, etc. don't have to study to get spells. And ANYONE, including Creeg, can cast certain higher level spells through "rituals." Everything I've seen powers up combat, but does little for the actual character/role playing aspect. Yeah. That kind of power sounds EXACTLY like World of Warcraft or munchkin work for me.

I like power, but...c'mon; if all I wanted was combat I would go off and play Warhammer. A lot of the pleasure for me is IN the starting-low-and-growing-as-you-go of 2nd and 3rd edition. Yeah....mages are weak at 1st level, but it forces you to use your creativity. I'm somewhat frustrated by my Paladin right now, but I know that some creativity will allow me to grow and get XP, and with rapid XP, both the story and my character can progress quickly, and I can see what does and doesn't work in my character, and change my play accordingly.

In addition, I do not have the financial wherewithal to start buying new books. Yeah, pirated pdfs are great and all (not that I would ever actually use such a thing), but I know myself, and I would want the paper books in front of me. Then I'd have to have these other books. Then these other books look really really cool. and so on.

Furthermore, I don't have the mental and emotional energy to change over. Guys, I'm tired. I come to the office tired and go home exhausted. My weekends are crap-time any more. I'll be honest, there are days when I am so involved with career and personal crap that I don't want to even THINK about D&D, and THAT is saying something, my friends, believe me. The idea of trying to learn new things -- work-related things -- just about kills me. I cannot expend that kind of pain, anguish, and effort over something that, in the long run, really doesn't matter a hill of beans.

I have to confess to having been hit with a metaphorical hammer during General Conference. A talk was given with the topic of "What matters most." There was a call to look at your distractions, look at how you spend your "time off" and compare it to what matters most: to your values, to your eternal progression. To me, going and being around you guys and having fun is important to me. While I probably could still hang out and have fun through 4E, the fact remains that additional time, energy, effort, resources, and thought are all going to have to be expended to get to that point. And that, I'm afraid, is what it boils down to for me: What matters most. I don't mean this as a buzz-kill; far from it. I still intend to make time for D&D and for the guys' game-night every month (bi-weekly, anyone?)

That being said, I simply do not have the time in my life right now, between kids, family, church, work, other hobbies, responsibilities, etc. to spend time learning an entirely new RPG. (For that is how I see 4e--from all accounts nearly impossible to translate from 3e to 4e, because names have been changed, processes, etc. Like Jared, I've read blogs, game notes and reports. I've read through the books. I've read WotC accounts and other GM-accounts that I trust.) I've got another attorney that's been begging me for a year now to come play with his group, playing a superhero system and a Call of Cthulu system. As much fun as another game night each month sounds, I can't find the time to learn those systems, even though they're d20 based. Heck, I can hardly even find the time to DM for my kids once every 6-8 weeks, let alone once per month with the guys sometimes.

I'm satisfied with what we have. Yeah, maybe it's broken, but it's still a heck of a lot of fun for me. DMGenie helps considerably; I love rolling dice, but I don't love having to do complex mathematical formulae on paper to determine things any longer. I like the stories, I like the role-playing, even though I don't always participate heavily at the table. I like the fact that every encounter someone different may have to step up and take a leadership role or a healer role, etc. I am not convinced that our traditional party tactics could translate well to a pigeon-holed role system.

I know there are those out in the world that believe 3E is broken beyond repair; I also know there are those in the world that have sat down, played 4E and have metaphorically thrown the books in the garbage after several months. I know an entire group of these latter types personally. I have a close friend -- another attorney -- who has proselytized me since Day One to jump over; he was first in line at his local bookstore to pick up the core books. He and his group played at least once a week, sometimes more, from Day One. He called me last week to say he was done. He sold his books on e-Bay or elsewhere (as did the rest of his group) and his group was all going back to 3.5. He'd never seen DMGenie before, but liked it and was trying to buy a copy (even after I warned him about lack of support) to use in their campaign(s). This is not an isolated story, if e-lore in blog-land is to be believed.

Troy, Jared: Don't get me wrong, I'm willing to hear you out on 4E. I'm not going to completely shut off my mind. I'm willing to at least watch, if not learn/play, so long as I can find time in my schedule. Permanently though? Using Jared's terms: it would have to be worth more than $1 more fun for me to jump completely over to 4E. A heckuva lot more.

[Greylen]

Both reply's are better written than I am capable of, at this moment... but I wanted to just weigh in on the subject matter.

It's funny that Jaren mentioned the message from President Uchtdorf. When he gave his talk, I had the same reaction thinking about what I spend my time on... and some of it wasn't pleasant. There were some changes that I decided to make... but game night wasn't one of them.

Game night for me is a time to catch up, laugh with and generally make a fool of myself with good friends. There is so much going on in our lives and so little time to do much more than IM occasionally. That's why Game night is a priority for me.

It is less important WHAT we play, or what version, than that we actually get together and PLAY! That said, you'll have to put me in the category of NOT wanting to change.

Not that 4e isn't necessarily a good change, out of everyone I probably have the least amount of experience with it. I just don't want to commit the TIME to change. It's all I can do to keep up with the Journal entries... changing to a new format is counter productive for me. However, if the majority WANTS to change, then I'll muddle along and try to keep up.

I don't want this to become a sore point at our gaming sessions. Let's put it to rest either way, and get on with what we do best... enjoying each others company and teasing Scott for being 'invisible'...

One point, though, is if there truly is something that can streamline our game so it flows better, I would be in favor of adopting as a 'house-rule'. Any rule like that could be proposed and voted on using Jared's vote system.

That's my .02, or $1.00 if you account for inflation these days.

[Zanther]

I guess the short answer is nay, with reservation.

I will admit I have not been very good at keeping up on this topic lately. Other things have captured my attention and I have been putting off the research into 4e. That aside, I have read what everyone has posted and followed the link of Troy’s (read Massawyrm’s posts) (I was not impressed with his description and comments on the wonders of 4 ed., sorry), I have talked to some of you about this (usually after a game night or something) and my conclusion is that I don’t see a good reason to switch at this time.

I simply have not heard or read anything that said to me “Man I really what to change over because of this, or these thingsâ€

[Ghostwheel]

Ok. I have been playing the 3.5 with you all for a long time now. Thanks for the original invite and putting up with me for several years.

I wanted to start with my take on the rule set for 3.5 as I had to learn it as opposed to what I knew in the old days with 1e-2e.

I really had to study the books for 3.5 when I joined. There were so many new things I couldn't do it on the "fly" as I could before. DMGenie was the savior for that part as I can't imagine how long combat/character building would take without it. The DM wouldn't have any fun without DMG and would basically be a human calculator/spreadsheet. Even with DMG, I can still see the red ERROR sign going across our wonderful DMs faces when DMG has it's little fits. The character builds are somewhat excessive on time as well. There are so many things you can choose (not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing) that I couldn't see straight through to the end result most times without building the guy three or four times. Then once built, I had to stick with him until the next campaign if there was something I didn't see at a higher level which was not available now due to some small detail I missed.
DMG isn’t all good either. The buffing or effect spells that need to be put on or off don’t work so well in my opinion. Keeping track of all the +’s and –‘s is a big hassle which is a direct result of how the core rule set is written. Very complex rule set has a way of hampering the FUN level. That said, it took us a while to learn the quirks with 3.5 and we are indeed having FUN as Jared has pointed out. I can also understand the reluctance to give up what we have learned (since it is so complex) in favor of a new “untestedâ€

[Theylan]

Well, we've heard from six of the seven of us, although somewhat vicariously from Troy and not at all from Rob. So if the two of you would like to add I think that would be great.

I'm going to post the polls now. but would like everyone to hold off voting until all who want to comment have commented.

[TheDM]

The reality is that you really can't get a good feel for the dynamics and the synergy that is involved in 4E without actually playing it for awhile, as easy and fun that it is in comparison to previous editions... we are still finding some things that you don't see at first glance just by reading the rules and see how much better it is until you've actually experienced it repeatedly. Heck, it's only now that the players are figuring out that you can use up all of your encounter powers in a combat session instead of feeling like you should hoard them for a rainy day... and each new revelation is making the game even more fun to play.

I'll restate this part of my original post...
4e D&D is 4e D&D. Immerse yourself into it and play it for a while, and that is when it reveals itself, past those assumptions made at non-parallel comparisons. Don't just skim it or even just read it. Try it, a bunch of classes, races, powers, combats, skills, vs monsters... give it some dedicated effort and you just might be surprised.

So I'll second your motion Jared.... but reiterating that a couple sessions playing it, will not make a believer out of you. (It might might win over whoever DMs it though... as that is where you are impacted immediately)

I'll also make a suggestion. The next world wide game day is scheduled for May 23rd. I have the library already reserved for it and that would be a way you all could get a taste, a sampling of what 4e is all about... WotC pays me in miniatures to run the thing, this one is in honor of the Monster Manual 2 coming out and there will be pregenerated characters, and Joel might even be the one DMing it... and this without interrupting the current adventure... it is designed to run for usually up to a 3 hour block. That should give you enough advanced notice to see if you can make arrangements to participate...

You also might want to try the Character Builder (beta) out. Knowing how much customization of characters that Jared likes to fiddle with, I will have to preface that with a warning that he might get addicted to it.

I would like to take some time to address the concerns and objections that those that have responded have made, but it's late, but I will say that every one of those can be adaquetely shown to be something not to be feared.

As for the cost, I don't think there's anyone that has spent more on 3.5 books than myself in the group... so if anyone has a vested financial interest in 3.5, that would be me... and yet... I realize that this is a hobby and there are going to be costs to maintain the hobby... and I've mentioned it before, and maybe it needs mentioning again....as I don't think everyone heard me. I'm willing to buy each of you your own PHB, if it's a matter of the money outlay..or not wanting to use the pdf.

Joel and I are willing to put our money where our mouths are, so the saying goes... what are you willing to do?

[Theylan]

I don't want to assume wrongly because you know what assume starts with, but i think everybody has said their peice that wanted. If I'm wrong I apologize. So lets all throw in our votes now. 4 yeas means we try 4e as a group for a couple of sessions. and to make myself an ASSume again, I'm guessing Troy would DM if approved. on the other Poll 5 yeas means we convert as a group. If a trial isn't approved I would ASSume that you could still try it with Troy some other time. sorry buddy to put our a blanket invitation on your behalf.

[TheDM]

So... I see 4 votes for playing 4E a couple of sessions. Just let me know when you'd like to give that a try and I'll come DM it.

Speaking of DMing, Joel did a great job DMing in 4E for the first time for the DnD Game day. (Hope you had fun Jaren, for the time you got to play!)

And here's another article about 4E from the DMing perspective that I have to endorse as most of the same things he indicates here I experienced as well.

How 4th Edition Has Made Me a Better DM
Written by John Lewis 26 Comments
Last Updated:: January 5, 2009
When it comes to gaming over the past two and a half decades I’ve easily spent 97% of my gaming time behind the Dungeon Master’s screen, not in front of it. Hell, even when I attend gaming conventions I spend most of my time running games, not playing in them (I also spend a lot of time making fun of LARPers but that’s different story). The point is, over the past few years I felt that as DM my “artâ€

[Just Rob]

Sorry, I missed seeing this conversation going on (I guess because it started when I was in the hospital). My feelings on the subject mirror Jaren's in many regards, although I can see the points from the 4e camp. For me, it just doesn't seem worth making yet another switch. I was probably the biggest resister to going to 3e from 2e. I know that each edition tries to fix things "broken" in the previous edition, but I also feel that something is lost that lended a certain magical quality to the previous characteristics of the prior system. In my mind, there will never be anything like going through Gygax's 2e Tomb of Horrors. To me, it was good to have a cleric be a cleric, a mage a mage, and so forth. Making it so anyone can do anything that the other classes can do lessens the fun to me of growing the character and their abilities over time - more like choosing a career path rather than a jack-of-all-trades/anything goes path that it appears to be in 4e.

I would be willing to watch a session of 4e, but I am not very thrilled at the prospect, but will try to keep as open a mind as I can (knowing the state of mind I am in, that is really saying something! )

[TheDM]

Rob, I was unaware of you being in the hospital. I hope you are well now?

[TheDM]

[Just Rob]

[Zanther]