Why I now support 4E

We've had some pretty big discussions on the shortcomings of 4E. Thinking 4E is inferior, I crusaded at my high school to establish Pathfinder as the official game my students were to play. With 24 D&D Club members, I wanted everyone to play the same game so that the students were all buying the same materials. After I made my Pathfinder pitch, only a few students seemed interested. The vast majority wanted to stick with 4E. This confused me, but after a time I realized why.

4E is not like World of Warcraft. The relationship actually has to be looked at the other way around, given the immense history of D&D. World of Warcraft is similar to D&D. What 4E is, however, is a simpler game. I've realized that simpler is better for my students. They were daunted when I showed them the Pathfiner core rulebook, even though I explained to them it was two books in one. Pathfinder is much more complicated than 4E, and in that respect, 3.5 is more complicated than 4E.

I understand why Wizards of the Coast rewrote D&D. People, such as my students, who do not like to pour over rulebooks with the same intensity of professional lawyers (something that many of us LOVE to do, myself included) want a simple game, mechanics-wise, that still offers the rich possibilities of the imagination. 4E does this. I've been DMing 4E again for a few sessions now, and I'm seeing it more and more. Sure, firecube isn't realistic. But it's sure easier to draw quickly on the battle map. Sure, powers seem limiting, but at the same time it's the imaginative use of those powers that counts. They're options for a character to act heroic. I just had a student, playing a barbarian from PHB2, use a rage power to escape the stranglehold of vines that had been unleashed by a vine horror. Yes, the power says the target is one creature, but why not? It made the game extremely interesting, and the student absolutely loved it.

I'm actually rethinking about DMing 4E for some of you. I'm just curious to see if anyone else is interested, or have our past conversations forever tainted 4E in your mind?

I think you've lost it. Taken one to many clubbings to the head from ogres.

That does make alot of sense, especially for new players.

It makes sense for new players. It was said in our past discussions that 4E is "D&D for dummies." I'm not insulting anyone's intelligence, just saying that 4E is a much simpler system than 3.5 or Pathfinder. It was designed to get the next generation of gamers interested in the game. That being said, no one in our group is new to D&D. Pathfinder may be a lot more complex than 4E, but it also offers a lot more options for customization of characters. Imagination is involved no matter what edition you play, so that's not even a factor. 4E is fine for your students who are just learning the wonder and addiction that is fantasy roleplaying lol. I, however, have VERY little interest in going back. Pathfinder is far superior for experienced players I think.

oh gosh darned. I wrote this whole long thing in response and it didn't post.........

I had written this before, but am now trying to think of how I said it. All I remember is that through various poetic words and long lines of justification, I came down to the conclusion that:

I know it's easy to rip on 4E and Wow, and how Pathfinder is just 3.5 that has been houseruled and published, but fact of the matter is that you can't ignore that WoTC may have remade this game to get a new generation of players to join, but they've been doing this with Magic as well (just got into it, and am playing what is essentially Magic 4e). Know what, I like it, and while the older players are going, "It's nothing like it used to be, now it's all too easy and power creep ruined the balance." But will I go back and learn the older version? You bet you ass I will, why? Because as much as this version has got me interested, it is a little too simple, and I would like to see where it came from, and I believe this is true with 4E as well. I see it as a way of getting new players to come in, to learn and to enjoy. Same goes to 40k and all it's arguments.

It comes down to the people around the table and not the game they play. Whether we played AD&D, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 or PF, I still saw the same great roleplay from the players and story that comes from anyone who has Dm'ed. There are countless times when I can think of moments where someone at the table has pulled off some amazing things in game, sure the mechanics didn't fully support the reality of it being able to happen, but hey, if the rules or DM limit the imagination of the player, then are they truly getting to most out of the game? I would think not. Then again, I also think that if a DM is railroading the campaign and not giving the players a chance to expand on their personal stories/adventures there a lack of real gaming going on there and the group as a whole suffers.

Just think of d&d and all it's variants, they are combat based games where social interaction has taken a backseat. I heard this once and thought it was funny, but really thinking about it I came to see just how true it is. Sure everyone loves smashing that orc lord with a +8 whatever hammer, but look at the character sheets from all the games you played. Get a highlighter, color everything that has to do with combat or something physical in yellow, DAM, that's a whole lot of the sheet. Now go back and highlight everything that is social or noncombat based in orange, you get what? Diplomacy? Bluff? Gather Info? and feats that are skill focuses for those? If we wanted to play a game of just kill, kill, kill we would be playing HackMaster, Which as much fun as it sounds like, is a little old after awhile. Just think in 3.5, it was most common to see Quickened Spell, maybe move Regular spell, or 5ft step and full attack.

There are other games too that are simple by design,MouseGuard being one such game. It is simplified so much that it almost hurts, but hell if the availability for great sessions to come from this aren't great. Sure you play a bunch of mice, and have to fight the evil cat dragon, and deal with the apocalyptic winds and water of............ a light rain, but those words can easily be replaced with, human and lich dragon and flood and hurricane. There is also a nice independent game that has been winning awards since 2002 for it's creative way of getting characters to play the game and not play the mechanics of the game. It's called Burning Wheel and have gotten all the pdfs for it, and Mouse Guard as well, so for anyone interested I am willing to share the pdfs to these amazing games.

Like I said before, even if I have my qualms with powers and scaling ac/roll bonuses, it doesn't matter, because it comes down the the people I'm sharing the game with. I don't care if it's 3rd, 4th, and someday 8th, I only know that when it comes down to the nitty gritty parts of the game, it's the story we share that I care about. So in short, if you want to run in 4E I have no problems with that, want to change it to PF halfway through? very well then, hell transform it into a game of battleship and monopoly somehow, I'll play, not only because it's be interesting to see how it works, but because it's the adventure we share with the other players, and the stories we share when we tell about the big bad dragon and how it almost was killed by the last chance hit of a wizard using splash because he used everything else he had for the day trying to impress the queen. It's just a game, the real "role-ing" comes down to us.

[-breaks for applause-]

*Just to note I had to add these words to my spellcheck from this post; orc (not ork), nitty, and DM.

also go check out the WOTC april fool's http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4news/20100401b

After having played a few sessions of 4e with you guys, and completing DMing a low-level module with my other group, I can confidently agree with those who feel that 4e stinks.

I actually had a pretty heated debate last weekend with some inexperienced assclown about this topic. I put together a fairly strong argument for how prior editions of D&D allowed for greater character customization, use of imagination and provided a generally more robust role-playing experience.

His reply was "wait, that's bullshit...how could you even have combat without a grid to figure out range and stuff."

At that point I just turned away and hoped that he'd be hit by a bus in the near future.


Basically, I see limited potential to use 4e as a snare to bring in new players who would otherwise be intimidated by other rulesets. That's about all it's good for in my book.

I agree with Stas on the whole roleplaying aspect. It really is about the people at the table. But those people are there no matter what edition we play. The laughs and awesome stories will still be there. It's the combat aspect that 4E is lacking in. Pathfinder is a much more versatile system. I'm gonna use Stitch as an example here. That halfling would be giving us all the laughs we've come to expect from him whether we're in Pathfinder or 4E. So why not play the better combat system and let him shank a bitch? A rogue in 4E could take a flanking attack on you and do no more damage than any other character their level. You let a rogue in Pathfinder take a full flank attack on you, and your party will be notifying your next of kin. Now look at skill points. In 4E there was very little variation. A fighter would have nearly as good a bonus to opening locks as the rogue... only 5 points difference due to whether or not it's a class skill. That's crap! With Pathfinder, no 2 characters are ever the same. Same thing with power selection. In 4E, the powers were all nearly the same. Many of them had nifty little side effects, but the fighter was doing as much damage as the wizard or the rogue... sometimes more.

Eric, if you REALLY wanted to run in 4E I would play. I would play for the fun of roleplaying, the stories and just to hang out with all of you. Those things are there in any edition. But I feel that Pathfinder offers so many more options to the players than 4E. You can really create a character that's all your own.

Let me start off by saying I didn't make my intentions clear. I love Pathfinder. That's real D&D to me. However, I'm interested in possibly running a session or two of 4E just to keep abreast of what WotC is doing. I'll admit, that when we play Pathfinder I'm a little irked because it technically ISN'T D&D...it's Pathfinder. I don't want to let go of the D&D name, I guess. It should be obvious that I'm into the character customization that PF allows--Andreas has 5 different classes, for christ's sake.

I was thinking about running one or two sessions of 4E with PCs that were comfortably in their paragon paths. It'd be neat to run a skill challenge as it's outlined in the DMG2 (a much easier way to understand skill challenges, btw). I absolutely hate the rituals mechanic in 4E, because it nerfed magic hardcore. However, it's got its good qualities, like ease of use.