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A friend invited me to a DnD game he was starting for his son. I’d never really played regularly before that. He said he invited a few other friends who reacted

A friend invited me to a DnD game he was starting for his son. I’d never really played regularly before that. He said he invited a few other friends who reacted “Oh, 4e? No thanks” I understand the dedication to 3.5 - it was years, if not decades of experience, commitment, and buy in. It can’t be helped to see the several editions since as desperate effort to get more sales from WoTC

dragontamer 4y ago
4E is very divisive. It oversimplified the game into a "turn cards sideways" simulator. Its easier to learn, but no one feels like their character is very unique anymore. Every ability became a card you could print, and you just "tapped / turned it sideways" to activate the card. It made learning characters very simple, but had very little flexibility compared to what the community was used to from 3.5. 5E and Pathfinder are the local optima. Most players say that if you want a "3.5-ish" system, you should do Pathfinder 1.0 instead. If you want a proper simplification of the system, 5E is far superior to 4E. I have friends who enjoy 4E by the way. But they are in the gross minority. Almost everyone I know who has played 4E agrees with me that it oversimplified the game. Yes, 3.5 was too complex, but 4E overcorrected. 5E found a better simplicity vs flexibility location for most players. ---------- 3.5 is fun because almost all the bonuses multiply with each other. So you can string together huge, multiplicative bonuses that stacks in convoluted manners. (Ex; Enlarge Person not only is +2 to STR, but also +2 Damage Dice, so your 2d6 greatsword becomes 3d6 damage). This multiplicatively stacks with Keen Weapon, Inspire Courage, Greater Heroism, Bull Strength, +5 Magic Weapon and more. But it also makes 3.5 very "sharp". If you fail to see the multiplicative bonuses, you feel very underpowered and fall behind the damage curve. -------- 5th Edition / Pathfinder 2.0 reduce the multiplicative bonuses, but still have hugely unique feeling classes where everyone feels like they have a role to play in the party. It really is a happier medium. As such, most players today ignore 4.0. If you want simplicity, 5e is "simple enough".
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  Reading your post it suddenly downed on me that the only good thing which might come out of Hasbro botching the OGL is that people might start playing games with actually interesting rules rather than D&D.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    But "what is interesting" ?? If you just want to perform improv-roleplay out some scenarios, then Dread is probably the best. The only action the players do is: 1. Pull piece out of the Jenga Tower 2. Roleplay the result (success == You succeeded at the current situation. Tower-falls == you die). ------------ There's better systems out there (aka: Dread) if you really just wanted simplicity. World of Darkness is probably the more mainstream "simple / roleplay heavy" game of importance. (Dread is perhaps overly simple, but that's the point of it. Its basically improv / roleplaying simulator and that alone) D&D, for all of its faults, is a fully specified battle simulator. It doesn't mean that everything makes sense (what were the grapple rules again?), but most everything has been thought out, and what "should happen" is often written down somewhere. On the other hand, many people prefer improv / rules-free systems (like Dread, or World of Darkness to a lesser extent). Anyway, there's plenty of other games. But the niche of D&D is the well specified set of rules of how magic and physical interact with each other. (This magical force field has X HP and 30 Hardness, interacting with your Adamantine sword that ignores hardness 20 and less, etc. etc.)
    - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
      Oh yeah, I realise that my opinion is far from universally valid and that I both don’t play much tabletop roleplaying and came to it from an improv background which means I’m not necessarily looking for the same things that other players are. Still I’m firmly in the camp of those thinking D&D focus a lot of attention to the insanely boring and uninteresting part of role playing - aka how a sword interacts with a magic shield in excruciatingly tedious mathematical details - and very little attention to what’s actually fun which is, well, playing a role. I think its rules, its prevalence and the fact it’s mostly played in somewhat bland heroic fantasy settings have been a major turndown for a lot of people who would actually enjoy roleplaying so in a way I guess I should celebrate anything making it less popular.
- djur 4y ago
  My main problem with 4e wasn't that it was oversimplified but that combat took forever to resolve. I was never sure exactly why.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    Combat in 3.5 averages at like, 4 rounds, even for a boss fight. With the 1st, maybe 2nd round, deciding the results of the combat. Indeed: there are spells (Phantasmal Killer, Baleful Polymorph, Dominate Person, Power Word Kill, Banishment), that ends combat in a singular turn. You're right in that 4e combat was much slower and purposeful. I'm... neutral to this. I can say that 3.5 / Pathfinder 1.0 combat is unusually brutal... to a non-intuitive degree. 3.5 / Pathfinder 1.0 heavily relies upon resurrection magic in practice due to its unusual brutality.
1123581321 4y ago
I had a strong negative reaction to 4e without having consumed any media that would have primed me to dislike it. It felt like it was designed by people who thought the kids are playing World of Warcraft instead of D&D, and tried to design a game that would appeal to them with similar party roles and a layout of cards in front of you that perhaps would remind you of a WoW inventory with all its timers. The problem with that while the same people might want to play both a table-top RPGs session and raid night, they don't like them for the same reasons. 5e's approach was much smarter: simplify a few annoying things (like level 1 damage), tweak the design and add a bunch of cool stuff, but otherwise just let D&D be D&D and lean on marketing the aesthetic/nostalgia and the ability to play without needing to find someone local to teach it to you and your friends.

dragontamer 4y ago

4E is very divisive. It oversimplified the game into a "turn cards sideways" simulator. Its easier to learn, but no one feels like their character is very unique anymore. Every ability became a card you could print, and you just "tapped / turned it sideways" to activate the card. It made learning characters very simple, but had very little flexibility compared to what the community was used to from 3.5. 5E and Pathfinder are the local optima. Most players say that if you want a "3.5-ish" system, you should do Pathfinder 1.0 instead. If you want a proper simplification of the system, 5E is far superior to 4E. I have friends who enjoy 4E by the way. But they are in the gross minority. Almost everyone I know who has played 4E agrees with me that it oversimplified the game. Yes, 3.5 was too complex, but 4E overcorrected. 5E found a better simplicity vs flexibility location for most players. ---------- 3.5 is fun because almost all the bonuses multiply with each other. So you can string together huge, multiplicative bonuses that stacks in convoluted manners. (Ex; Enlarge Person not only is +2 to STR, but also +2 Damage Dice, so your 2d6 greatsword becomes 3d6 damage). This multiplicatively stacks with Keen Weapon, Inspire Courage, Greater Heroism, Bull Strength, +5 Magic Weapon and more. But it also makes 3.5 very "sharp". If you fail to see the multiplicative bonuses, you feel very underpowered and fall behind the damage curve. -------- 5th Edition / Pathfinder 2.0 reduce the multiplicative bonuses, but still have hugely unique feeling classes where everyone feels like they have a role to play in the party. It really is a happier medium. As such, most players today ignore 4.0. If you want simplicity, 5e is "simple enough".

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
Reading your post it suddenly downed on me that the only good thing which might come out of Hasbro botching the OGL is that people might start playing games with actually interesting rules rather than D&D.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  But "what is interesting" ?? If you just want to perform improv-roleplay out some scenarios, then Dread is probably the best. The only action the players do is: 1. Pull piece out of the Jenga Tower 2. Roleplay the result (success == You succeeded at the current situation. Tower-falls == you die). ------------ There's better systems out there (aka: Dread) if you really just wanted simplicity. World of Darkness is probably the more mainstream "simple / roleplay heavy" game of importance. (Dread is perhaps overly simple, but that's the point of it. Its basically improv / roleplaying simulator and that alone) D&D, for all of its faults, is a fully specified battle simulator. It doesn't mean that everything makes sense (what were the grapple rules again?), but most everything has been thought out, and what "should happen" is often written down somewhere. On the other hand, many people prefer improv / rules-free systems (like Dread, or World of Darkness to a lesser extent). Anyway, there's plenty of other games. But the niche of D&D is the well specified set of rules of how magic and physical interact with each other. (This magical force field has X HP and 30 Hardness, interacting with your Adamantine sword that ignores hardness 20 and less, etc. etc.)
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    Oh yeah, I realise that my opinion is far from universally valid and that I both don’t play much tabletop roleplaying and came to it from an improv background which means I’m not necessarily looking for the same things that other players are. Still I’m firmly in the camp of those thinking D&D focus a lot of attention to the insanely boring and uninteresting part of role playing - aka how a sword interacts with a magic shield in excruciatingly tedious mathematical details - and very little attention to what’s actually fun which is, well, playing a role. I think its rules, its prevalence and the fact it’s mostly played in somewhat bland heroic fantasy settings have been a major turndown for a lot of people who would actually enjoy roleplaying so in a way I guess I should celebrate anything making it less popular.
djur 4y ago
My main problem with 4e wasn't that it was oversimplified but that combat took forever to resolve. I was never sure exactly why.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  Combat in 3.5 averages at like, 4 rounds, even for a boss fight. With the 1st, maybe 2nd round, deciding the results of the combat. Indeed: there are spells (Phantasmal Killer, Baleful Polymorph, Dominate Person, Power Word Kill, Banishment), that ends combat in a singular turn. You're right in that 4e combat was much slower and purposeful. I'm... neutral to this. I can say that 3.5 / Pathfinder 1.0 combat is unusually brutal... to a non-intuitive degree. 3.5 / Pathfinder 1.0 heavily relies upon resurrection magic in practice due to its unusual brutality.

1123581321 4y ago

I had a strong negative reaction to 4e without having consumed any media that would have primed me to dislike it. It felt like it was designed by people who thought the kids are playing World of Warcraft instead of D&D, and tried to design a game that would appeal to them with similar party roles and a layout of cards in front of you that perhaps would remind you of a WoW inventory with all its timers. The problem with that while the same people might want to play both a table-top RPGs session and raid night, they don't like them for the same reasons. 5e's approach was much smarter: simplify a few annoying things (like level 1 damage), tweak the design and add a bunch of cool stuff, but otherwise just let D&D be D&D and lean on marketing the aesthetic/nostalgia and the ability to play without needing to find someone local to teach it to you and your friends.