If you had to choose one edition of D&D....

[Dammit Victor]

Speaking as somone who really doesn't like 4e... I gotta stick up for Sommerjon here: most of the reasons that most people give for disliking the game are absolutely ridiculous-- especially coming, as they usually did, from diehard fans who had only played the previous version of the game.

I mean, real talk? You try designing a game that does not materially resemble its own imitators. The overwhelming focus on setpiece combats? That's what their customers, fans of 3.X, told them they wanted. The... samey-feeling balance? That's a reaction to what years of forum posts told them was wrong with 3.X. The Weeaboo Fightan Magic? Just because stuff kinda looks like Book of Nine Swords doesn't mean it works anything like Bo9S; Fighters and Rogues have been firmly put back in their place with the other Guys at the Gym.

I honestly don't think that most of the people still arguing about 4e twelve years later have ever actually played it. If someone wants to point out that this doesn't strike them as entirely being in good faith, I think they might have a point.

 

[Baulderstone]

Speaking as somone who really doesn't like 4e... I gotta stick up for Sommerjon here: most of the reasons that most people give for disliking the game are absolutely ridiculous-- especially coming, as they usually did, from diehard fans who had only played the previous version of the game.

I mean, real talk? You try designing a game that does not materially resemble its own imitators. The overwhelming focus on setpiece combats? That's what their customers, fans of 3.X, told them they wanted. The... samey-feeling balance? That's a reaction to what years of forum posts told them was wrong with 3.X. The Weeaboo Fightan Magic? Just because stuff kinda looks like Book of Nine Swords doesn't mean it works anything like Bo9S; Fighters and Rogues have been firmly put back in their place with the other Guys at the Gym.

I honestly don't think that most of the people still arguing about 4e twelve years later have ever actually played it. If someone wants to point out that this doesn't strike them as entirely being in good faith, I think they might have a point.

I get what you are saying, but in my case, 4E came out at the point that I couldn't stand to look at 3E anymore. I'd already moved back to B/X and was happy with it.

I think you are getting at something when you say it was made to be what die-hard fans of 3E wanted. The issue they ran into was that in trying to court die-hard fans of 3E with the new edition, they were courting the people who were happy with what they had. When Pathfinder opened a door to them staying with that edition, that is what they did. And 4E didn't suit the people that left 3E to form what would become the OSR.

 

[Raleel]

Speaking as somone who really doesn't like 4e... I gotta stick up for Sommerjon here: most of the reasons that most people give for disliking the game are absolutely ridiculous-- especially coming, as they usually did, from diehard fans who had only played the previous version of the game.

I mean, real talk? You try designing a game that does not materially resemble its own imitators. The overwhelming focus on setpiece combats? That's what their customers, fans of 3.X, told them they wanted. The... samey-feeling balance? That's a reaction to what years of forum posts told them was wrong with 3.X. The Weeaboo Fightan Magic? Just because stuff kinda looks like Book of Nine Swords doesn't mean it works anything like Bo9S; Fighters and Rogues have been firmly put back in their place with the other Guys at the Gym.

I honestly don't think that most of the people still arguing about 4e twelve years later have ever actually played it. If someone wants to point out that this doesn't strike them as entirely being in good faith, I think they might have a point.

let me speak for myself and my group.

there are several members of my group, including myself, who like 4e just fine.

half of the group didn't really like the campaign we ran. the combats were very long, and the amount of roleplaying we did in the middle was small. Was that our fault? some of it - the roleplaying part was. But we also played a bunch before the MM3 fixes, so we didn't get that benefit.

Now, i'm literally 10 years more experienced as a GM, and I would run things differently, and 4e would be fine. However, there are some in my group who wouldn't be for that. There are some who would really like it - I'm kind of in the middle on it.

 

[Bashere]

I didn't like 4th ed. Reading the rules really felt like they had tried to take the game and make it D&D the MMO Boardgame. And unfortunately in play it really felt like that, at least in what we tried. We felt both straight-jacketed and overwhelmed by the choices in abilities we has access to; one player literally froze because he couldn't make up his mind what he wanted to do on his action. And it didn't help each class kind of felt the same and combine with the excruciatingly long combat turns led to no one having fun.

I also didn't like 3rd either, for a number of reasons I really don't care to go into because I've been told too many times why my opinion is wrong and why I should be burning in Hell because of it. Like 4th, the rules tripped up any fun I was having. Not really tried 5th as the previous versions have pretty much killed my love of the game that got me started. Also, I have no clue what Holmes Basic, B\X or BBQOMGWTF versions are.

However, if someone enjoys any of them then rock on and keep rollin'.

 

[TristramEvans]

I honestly don't think that most of the people still arguing about 4e twelve years later have ever actually played it. If someone wants to point out that this doesn't strike them as entirely being in good faith, I think they might have a point.

I don't see how assuming bad faith on the part of another poster could make any conversation possible. It's an instant non-starter. If I think someone arguing with me is being disingenuous, that is pretty much the point where I stop responding. But I'm not going to do that based on assumptions about that person with no basis.

And I have to say, using as the basis for the assumption someone is lying about their personal preferences the age of the game seems nonsensical to me. Besides 5e, the majority of comments on this thread are about editions that came out, at the earliest, 30 years ago. Everyone regularly discusses games on this forum from 3 to 4 decades ago. I discovered recently that several posters still have incredibly strong opinions on THAC0, for God's sake. And for some reason having an opinion on the most recent but one edition of D&D is unbelievable? I can't wrap my head around that.

Is it very possible that some posters made up their opinion on 4e without playing it? Absolutely. But even then, that doesn't mean that is entirely unjustified. 4E, regardless of whether you like it, hate it, or have no strong opinions at all, made a number of very blatant "mistakes" that even it's staunchest diehard defender has to acknowledge, starting before it even came out with the most ill-conceived marketing campaign that has ever graced this Hobby (yeah, I'm even including that hilari-bad Shadowrun promo video). Essentially, WoTC shat on older editions and fans of those editions before rolling out their new game. And if anyone who did happen to love those games was turned off by that, and did not give 4E a "fair and objective" try because of that - well, that's entirely on WoTC's head.

What 4E then presented was a game system that, without any subjective notion of "good" or "bad" applied, was such a departure from previous editions that it was D&D in name only. Granted, that's not uncommon these days. To go back to Shadowrun, I got off the bandwagon for that game when 3rd edition came out and it was an entirely different game. That is apparently a thing now - a ne3w edition of any game more often than not is an entirely new system with the same title. Every time this happens, it's always going to alienate a percentage of fans of the system that's been discontinued. To give a personal example, Marvel SAGA is a perfectly fine game. I'd say the system is clever, the supplements that I read were generally high quality (I still have a copy of the exceptional Reed Richard's Guide...), and I completely understand when I 've heard numerous people claim it's their favourite of the Marvel games. And yet, honestly....I kind of hate it. Not for any objective reason, but simply because it's not FASERIP. Because I love FASERIP..

And D&D has been around a lot longer, with a LOT more editions than FASERIP, before 4e came along. So some hatred should be, at the very least understandable. It's all subjective opinion, but subjective opinion =/= dishonesty.

Of course confirmation bias is a thing. If a person doesn't want to like a game, they can latch on to any minor often-voicerd around the web criticism of any minor aspect of the game to justify that dislike. And I can see someone defending a game system they like as seeing that as a disingenuous approach, but I would only agree insofar as one could actually prove those criticisms are actually false. If the criticism is valid, it remains valid regardless of how the person voicing the criticism arrived at it, or whatever motivations underlying their voicing of it. It's only disingenuous if a person is repeating falsehoods that they would know were falsehoods if they actually played the game. And I'm sure that happens, often. But these are very easily dismissed and contradicted by anyone who does have knowledge of the game.

This post is starting to get a bit unweildy - I hadn't planned to rant on like this, but sometimes I start a reply and thoughts just pour out. I'm aware however, when I do go on at length like this, it might appear as if I'm really reaming out a poster. I went OCD on Dumarest a while back about the Satanic Panic and his conspiracy theories regarding 2nd edition, and kinda felt bad afterwards to be honest. Because I think there's a point where it could start to feel personal. So before I go on, I want to say 1) I appreciate the intent of going to bat for Sommerjon, especially as you admittedly don't like 4E itself, and 2) I'm genuinely not trying to tear you a new one, specifically, so please don't take this as me raining down my wrath upon you, this is simply just the way my mind works. I have a lot of thoughts that twist in multitudes of tangential paths, and sometimes the only way I feel like I can properly express my PoV is just to regurgitate everything in one mass of text at once.

And for the rercord, I don't have strong opinions on 4e. I've read it, I've played it, I don't like it. It doesn't fit my gaming sensibilities at all. Whatever audience it's aimed at, as a system, it's pretty much the opposite of me. But I don't begrudge it that, probably largely because I don't really like D&D as a system in general, in any iteration. Honestly, I could go on an EPIC rant about everything I dislike about D&D from White Box all the way up to 5th edition. I don't because there's this metaphorical scale in my head that on one side has how little I care, and the other is weighed against, in all honesty, how happy I am that other people are happy with D&D, in whatever iteration of the game that may be. I'm glad 4E exists for those people who really enjoy it. One of my players GM'ed 4E hardcore, she actually was like an official GM for Wizards at conventions for a while, from what I understand. She loves the system. I can tell how much she liked it whenever she would talk about it. I remember in particular her once going on about how the system had this perfect way of modelling fights where players will struggle and almost fail and at the last minute snatch victory, and the way she described it sounded very cinematic, in a way she obviously found incredibly personally satisfying as a DM. And even though the whole time she was describing this aspect of the system (*which I'm probably even butchering just in paraphrasing, because it was a few years ago) I was thinking to myself "that sounds nothing like what I want from a combat system in an RPG", I in that moment sorta loved 4E just because of how much she loved it. Because I want people to find their own happiness, in RPGs, in life, in cereal brands, and there's no part of me that needs or wants what makes other people happy to be the same as me.

Yet at the same time I totally empathize with those that despise 4E, and get equal enjoyment of reading scathing online reviews and even some degree of schadenfreude from how much of a 180 Wizards did with 5th edition in response to Pathfinder and the OSR ciphering off a huge amount of their potential market when 4E was extant. Ultimately, the hobby spoke, and for enough of a majority for it to matter, 4E wasn't what D&D fans wanted.

I'm now reminded of a quote by Whitman:
"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself;
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

Let me try to steer this back to my point, though. I think when Sommerjon responded to a criticism about 4E with the accusation of "ingeniousness", it poisoned the well, as it were. Looking back at the exchange up to and immediately proceeding that, I saw posters politely disagreeing, up to and including acceding that individual tastes and experiences vary. I think it was taken as a "slap in the face",. It's not enough to disagree, I'm going to softly accuse those disagreeing with me of being liars.

Now, granted, no one whose been on RPG forums for any length of time should be the least bit surprised by any person who is a fan of 4E having a degree of bitterness, especially to arguments they've had a nigh-infinite number of times over the past decade and some change. But understanding is not the same as an excuse. Accusing another poster of being disingenuous is not an argument against their opinion, it's an argument against their character. It turns the conversation from "I think you are wrong, here's why" to "I think you are a liar", and I think that ends the possibility of any further communication. And while I again can understand why, after years of that, it's easy to make that assumption, at this point what we are talking about is prejudice. It's a judgement based on nothing to do with what any individual poster in the here and now has said, rather it's dismissing them by lumping them in with a bunch of other posters from different places and times. Or, to put it another way, it's dehumanizing.

Now, maybe, maybe, the person feels that's entirely justified based on their experiences. I'm not willing to accept it's justified simply based on the timespan, that's just simply too easy to debunk in a group that regularly enthusiastically discusses everything from BX to Flashing Blades to MSH to DC Heroes to Ghostbusters. But regardless of whether one thinks it's justified for whatever reason, I think it's simply a bad approach to anyone who is treating their fellow posters on the Pub with a degree of respect. Just the basic respect of allowing people to have differing opinions, even just allowing them to be wrong, without the implication of malice or dishonesty. And I advocate strongly for this, not because I'm a Mod, or I have an altruistic need for everyone to get a long, or even because I think we should all be friendly all the time. Rather because I think conversations have value. Debates have value. Differences of opinion and viewpoints have value. And when ad-hominem fallacies, accusations of bad faith, or in general making something personal instead of about a game or other superfluous subject are injected, they remove that value.

 

[Stevethulhu]

Everyone regularly discusses games on this forum from 3 to 4 decades ago. I discovered recently that several posters still have incredibly strong opinions on THAC0, for God's sake. And for some reason having an opinion on the most recent but one edition of D&D is unbelievable? I can't wrap my head around that.

I think most of it is internet hyperbole.

People have this weird urge to take a molehill and make a mountain out of it. Even more so on RPG forums. Some people won't let you have different taste, because that's somehow wrong. And by wrong, I don't mean wrong in the sense that it's factually incorrect. I mean in the sense that it's a blasphemous choice that somehow goes against all that is good in the world.

THAC0 brings that out a lot. So does DnD4 for some reason.

Personally, I think when people start trotting out phrases like objectively better then they start to lose any sort of credibility. I prefer is a much better term. It's not like one version of rolling a dice and checking a number is objectively better than any other variation on the same. It's not like new is better than old, or old is better than new.

And so the Edition Wars, long though to be over, flared up once again.

 

[EmperorNorton]

I think one of the problems is that people do the "It's a skirmish minis game" which comes very close to saying "Its not an rpg" whether they mean to or not. Which as I commented on in another thread, is one of my pet peeves in the RPG community, because trying to classify something as not an RPG has had a long history of being used as a cudgel to invalidate games.

I like 4e OK. I prefer 5e and 2e (even with ThAC0, and people know how I feel about that), but honestly I still prefer 4e to the mess that is 3.x.

I will say there is some truth to the fact that if you learned it well enough, and had decisive players, battles were MUCH faster, so there is that.

Also, I still like the Gamma World version of 4e and have everything for it (even a full set of the booster cards), and I think that would piss off even more people than saying you like 4e itself .

 

[Stevethulhu]

I think one of the problems is that people do the "It's a skirmish minis game" which comes very close to saying "Its not an rpg" whether they mean to or not. Which as I commented on in another thread, is one of my pet peeves in the RPG community, because trying to classify something as not an RPG has had a long history of being used as a cudgel to invalidate games.

I like 4e OK. I prefer 5e and 2e (even with ThAC0, and people know how I feel about that), but honestly I still prefer 4e to the mess that is 3.x.

I will say there is some truth to the fact that if you learned it well enough, and had decisive players, battles were MUCH faster, so there is that.

Also, I still like the Gamma World version of 4e and have everything for it (even a full set of the booster cards), and I think that would piss off even more people than saying you like 4e itself .

I didn't like 4e because it was too heavily skewed towards minis. Needing maps for just about every encounter of note is a hassle to me. But I'm lazy when it comes to setup.

That said, I did like Star Wars Saga Edition, which was kind of the bridge between 3 and 4.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Yeah, I'm not against people disliking it, I'm just saying that people can get really prickly about a game they like being defined as something other than an RPG, and there is understandable background reasons for that. Especially if they came from RPGSite, which I seem to remember Sommerjon being from there.

(Also Saga Edition is like top 2 Star Wars RPG for me).

 

[TristramEvans]

I think one of the problems is that people do the "It's a skirmish minis game" which comes very close to saying "Its not an rpg" whether they mean to or not. Which as I commented on in another thread, is one of my pet peeves in the RPG community, because trying to classify something as not an RPG has had a long history of being used as a cudgel to invalidate games.

Yeah, I completely understand that, I still rankle when I see people talking about WFRP 3rd as a "boardgame"

 

[EmperorNorton]

Honestly, its really annoying that there is just baggage attached to some words. I understood what he meant about it being a good skirmish minis game, he was talking about for himself, he didn't like it for roleplaying but thought the combat was neat, it just took too long and interfered with the non-combat for his group. I don't think he was saying it wasn't an RPG.

But there just is that baggage for a lot of us, and its easy to get our hackles up when people start using that language.

 

[Stevethulhu]

Yeah, I'm not against people disliking it, I'm just saying that people can get really prickly about a game they like being defined as something other than an RPG, and there is understandable background reasons for that. Especially if they came from RPGSite, which I seem to remember Sommerjon being from there.

(Also Saga Edition is like top 2 Star Wars RPG for me).

Some sites do encourage different attitudes. A bolshy and confrontational approach is a popular one. And one that can be hard to let go of. The Pub has helped me with losing that, but not completely cured me. Yet.

What is and isn't an RPG is way too big a question for my tiny little mind. As far as I can tell, if you play a role in a game made for people to play a role rather than just a piece, it fits all the criteria for being a role playing game.

Past that, it starts getting fuzzy.

 

[opaopajr]

I keep saying 4e should have been labeled D&D Tactics.

I LOVE tactical rpgs, from Shining Force-esque video games to kit-bashed Necromunda as an adventure campaign. But those games are admittedly slower and definitely focused on a structured combat (grids, minis, etc.). Further, from my time playing 4e in its evolving life, it's... more fussy and cluttered than others who already do the same thing.

It doesn't need all that AEDU, let alone Surges, let alone ever-scaling math and so many tiers and treadmill with minions, let alone umpteen marks and status effects, let alone grid-encouraged pinball movement, let alone... You get the picture.

I should have been the market for 4e. But I'm not. Because too much of what I liked that was "messy and unfocused" in D&D (like unoptimized magic item surprises, or rolled stat surprises, or dungeon/wilderness exploring, or discrete subsystems tangential to regular play -- like surpise, morale, punching & wrestling, weird weapon tricks like saps and lassos and caltrops, etc.), that was explorational fun for me!, was mostly edited out. And why? Because it had to make room for complicating a single facet, combat, with what I found to be "messy and unfocused" cruft in actual play.

It threw out the baby with the bathwater... and then asked me to have fun re-enamelling the wash basin (oh, and after you're done with that, there's a few more sinks and toilets to fix up for when you get good at re-enamelling). Do Not Want.

It felt like work, didn't relate to what I liked before with D&D, and for me basically lost the plot of not only traditional RPGs but also tactical RPGs. It's everything I don't want in a sub-genre I would have adored. And yet I like it better than 3e, but that's not saying much.

But hey, people can like whatever they want.

 

[Mankcam]

 

[Raleel]

comes very close to saying "Its not an rpg" whether they mean to or not

This is a fair criticism of my original statement, and likely what set Sommerjon off. I did say that, though my wording was quite inelegant, not accurate, and quickly typed without time spent in consideration.

We did not play it as a roleplaying game with a strong story very well for a good chunk of it, and there are some issues with long combats that exacerbated it. The story, such as we had it, was unmemorable.

Was that our fault? Maybe - I don’t even remember if we were playing a home brew or published adventures. We played intensively, every two weeks for many hours without fail. We still have 3 players who fondly remember their characters, including myself, and it helped define the kind of character I like.

On the other side, still use 4e as the benchmark for long drawn out combats. Hindsight has shown me a combination of mechanical issues that got fixes and I might have seen had I more experience, and GM issues I would have seen nowadays and have specifically avoided for the most part.

However, I will stick by my statements were not disingenuous, people in my group have straight up said it is a fine tactical game. Hanlon’s Razor is a useful tool and all

I’ll stop here before I wall of text it up ;)

 

[EmperorNorton]

Yeah, I didn't think that is what you meant, just that it is what it can sound like . Just trying to defuse the situation cause I think everyone was talking passed each other a bit. (Which happens to me often enough that I can notice it when others are doing it.)

 

[Stevethulhu]

We did not play it as a roleplaying game with a strong story very well for a good chunk of it, and there are some issues with long combats that exacerbated it. The story, such as we had it, was unmemorable.

In my experience, the majority of RPG stories are fairly derivative and not very memorable. Where things that happen and situations people find themselves in, can be very memorable.

Of course, other people might have different ideas, but I found that once I stopped worrying about stories and paying more attention to situations, things felt a lot less forced and I got a lot less annoyed at players.

Long combats is one htat people keep bringing up about 4th ed. I'm guessing that by long combat, what people mean is endless grind? GURPS can have long combats, too. but they can get quite tense as you're waiting for someone to make a roll that screws things up for one or the other combatant. And it has rules for long combats tiring out the people that are fighting, which also makes a difference.

 

[Raleel]

In my experience, the majority of RPG stories are fairly derivative and not very memorable. Where things that happen and situations people find themselves in, can be very memorable.

Of course, other people might have different ideas, but I found that once I stopped worrying about stories and paying more attention to situations, things felt a lot less forced and I got a lot less annoyed at players.

Long combats is one htat people keep bringing up about 4th ed. I'm guessing that by long combat, what people mean is endless grind? GURPS can have long combats, too. but they can get quite tense as you're waiting for someone to make a roll that screws things up for one or the other combatant. And it has rules for long combats tiring out the people that are fighting, which also makes a difference.

And there are effects in the middle of the hit points that have an impact. In d&d, you are at full effectiveness until at 0. 4e, pre mm3 where they doubled the damage and halved the hit points effectively, got like that. We seriously had 6 hour combats. Hindsight says we were idiots.

Now, we’ve had memorable stories. Even good d&d ones. But we’ve had bad ones too that were unmemorable.

 

[Gabriel]

View attachment 10221

I doubt this really matters, but I wanted to explain why I reacted to this with a frowny.

Not only have I been the short guy hugging the book, but I've also been the guy in the black tee. I've experienced this exchange far too often.

I'm ashamed of being that guy in the black tee.

 

[Baulderstone]

I doubt this really matters, but I wanted to explain why I reacted to this with a frowny.

Not only have I been the short guy hugging the book, but I've also been the guy in the black tee. I've experienced this exchange far too often.

I'm ashamed of being that guy in the black tee.

I'd be willing to be that most of us have been the guy in the black tee at times. I know I have.

 

[Raleel]

I'd be willing to be that most of us have been the guy in the black tee at times. I know I have.

yep, guilty.

 

[Ladybird]

I didn't like 4th ed. Reading the rules really felt like they had tried to take the game and make it D&D the MMO Boardgame. And unfortunately in play it really felt like that, at least in what we tried. We felt both straight-jacketed and overwhelmed by the choices in abilities we has access to; one player literally froze because he couldn't make up his mind what he wanted to do on his action. And it didn't help each class kind of felt the same and combine with the excruciatingly long combat turns led to no one having fun.

I get the feeling, in retrospect, that WotC write a game and then spend an edition writing for the game they think they have wrote, realise what game they have actually wrote, put out a tidied-up corebook, and spend an edition writing for that.

We'll see if 6e starts the cycle again.

Yeah, I completely understand that, I still rankle when I see people talking about WFRP 3rd as a "boardgame"

A guy at our club once had a total meltdown at me over that. He was raging at me just because I thought 3e sounded pretty good.

I keep saying 4e should have been labeled D&D Tactics.

If they had got a license to do an official Guild Wars tabletop game...

(There was a D&D Tactics. It came out on PSP around the same time as 4e, and used the 3.5 mechanics. It kinda sucked.)

 

[Sommerjon]

It's only disingenuous if a person is repeating falsehoods that they would know were falsehoods if they actually played the game. And I'm sure that happens, often. But these are very easily dismissed and contradicted by anyone who does have knowledge of the game.

IDK TE lets take a gander at what was said.

4th is just a computer game in print

Is this a disingenuous?

For bog-standard D&D, 4e would be the last of all possible options. For Wraith Recon, however, or X-Crawl or as the system for a virtual MMO within Shadowrun, it’s awesome.

Is this disingenuous?

I am glad to see others agree with me about 4e. I think it is the worst edition to run a traditional D&D game but 4e does a damn good job as a miniatures skirmish game.

Is this disingenuous?

I didn't like 4th ed. Reading the rules really felt like they had tried to take the game and make it D&D the MMO Boardgame. And unfortunately in play it really felt like that, at least in what we tried. We felt both straight-jacketed and overwhelmed by the choices in abilities we has access to; one player literally froze because he couldn't make up his mind what he wanted to do on his action.

Is this disingenuous?


Or are they all opinion?
It's disingenuous of a person saying falsehoods that they know are falsehoods.

Looking at the "roleplaying parts" of every previous edition of D&D, strangely enough 4e has more written about the "roleplaying parts" then the previous editions.

This is me dismissing the comments by others spreading falsehoods that they know are falsehoods.

 

[Endless Flight]

D&D 4e is an RPG by every definition.

I don’t see what the argument is otherwise.

 

[Raleel]

well, this thread is over.

 

[Brock Savage]

Hi there @ S Sommerjon if it makes you feel any better I'd rather play 4e than 3.x or Pathfinder. I've played enough 3x to never want to play it again but I would give 4e another chance if someone gave me a good elevator pitch. My primary objection to 4e is that the long combats are a bad fit for the pacing and tension I try to maintain in a dungeon crawl. My secondary objection is that 4e does not seem to lend itself well to hacking and tinkering (please correct me if I am wrong here).

My opinion is based off of reading the three corebooks and playing several games so I will be the first to admit that I am not an expert by any means.

 

[CRKrueger]

IDK TE lets take a gander at what was said.

Is this a disingenuous?
Is this disingenuous?
Is this disingenuous?
Is this disingenuous?


Or are they all opinion?
It's disingenuous of a person saying falsehoods that they know are falsehoods.


This is me dismissing the comments by others spreading falsehoods that they know are falsehoods.

Jesus Wept, dude. You’re wailing and gnashing your teeth because people don’t tack IMO onto the end of everything? The 90’s called, they want their Internet Meanie Complaint back.

 

[tenbones]

It's funny. Because I actually didn't find any of those things as "disingenuous". I didn't take them necessarily literally. But I could totally see where they were coming from.

It only wounds you if you think somehow that a given edition is somehow sacrosanct... get over it.

4e is in the same boat as the previous editions: the hands of people that love them.

For the same reasons they're not around anymore: not enough people loved them enough; or when they did, it wasn't enough for WotC to make "enough" money on.

Rinse/repeat. And we'll see the same shitstorm brewing when 6e rears its head.

 

[EmperorNorton]

S Sommerjon Man, I really tried to give you an out, based on assuming that no one here is malicious and I don't think you are either, but you just had to double down...

 

[Gabriel]

I liked D&D4e. For me, it turned out to not be the best option for the gameplay experience it was delivering at the time.

In retrospect, a lot of that was due to how WotC was trying to present it as a dungeon delving game. It didn't suit my preferences for that kind of game. However, if I had just used it for my normal preferred mode of play, episodic adventures with one or two big setpiece battles, then it probably would have been amazing for me.

Sadly, I sold all my 4e stuff. It wasn't due to any dislike of the game. It was just that I felt like it just wasn't working for me. It's definitely an RPG, not a boardgame. It can certainly be played as a skirmish game, but it's a RPG. I can play Mekton and The Fantasy Trip as skirmish games. It doesn't mean they're not RPGs.

If I knew someone I liked who wanted to run 4e, I certainly wouldn't mind playing.

I think the adage is like the one about pizza. Sex is like pizza, even when it's bad it's pretty good. D&D is like pizza. Even the editions you don't necessarily call your favorite are still pretty OK.

 

[Endless Flight]

Sex is like pizza, even when it's bad it's pretty good.

 

[TristramEvans]

well, this thread is over.

It had a good run, not counting the last two pages I can't think of another thread on the various editions that remained so civil and in good spirits.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Man I could use some pizza.

 

[TristramEvans]

 

[dokel]

So pizza with pineapple is presumably like kinky sex?

Edit: By which I mean it's kinda fun at the time but you feel a little dirty afterwards

 

[Picaroon Jack]

Things that have been seen cannot be unseen.

 

[AsenRG]

IDK TE lets take a gander at what was said.

Let me express the common, I think, sentiment...
Cue the sound of gloves being taken off.

Is this a disingenuous?
Is this disingenuous?
Is this disingenuous?
Is this disingenuous?

No. No. No. And no.

Or are they all opinion?

What else do you think thouse four posters you quoted could possibly write? The New And Improved Holy Writ?
You have heard of hyperbole, I'd presume?

It's disingenuous of a person saying falsehoods that they know are falsehoods.

BS, man.
Lots of people hold to opinions that reject things that your probably consider as self-evident. Doesn't make them disingenuous...they might simply be wrong.
Or, you know, you might be the one who is wrong.
So, since I assume you know that basic fact about people...you calling them disingenuous is clearly you stating something that you know has a high likelihood to be a falsehood. Why are you being disingenuous, man?

This is me dismissing the comments by others spreading falsehoods that they know are falsehoods.

No, that's you holding to the self-evidently mistaken opinion that the amount of text on roleplaying in a book can compensate for the same game's basic structure simply not leaving time for roleplaying.
Why are you being disingenuous, again?

Also: whether the people were right or wrong to dislike your favourite edition, they did dislike it. Get over it already, because you moping and calling foul play to people not having the same preferences as you ain't going to change shit!
At most, it can make other people think less* of your favourite edition, but I presume you're not after that particular result!

*Case in point: me. You're almost making me sorry for ever buying 13th Age, which has a lot of 4e DNA. And originally, my opinion of 4e was "it does a lot of stuff that I like, just not in a way that I find fun". You're now managing to worsen that almost single-handedly. Congrats, I guess?

 

[Raleel]

It had a good run, not counting the last two pages I can't think of another thread on the various editions that remained so civil and in good spirits.

I agree, and I'm sad about it too.

 

[Voros]

I think the adage is like the one about pizza. Sex is like pizza, even when it's bad it's pretty good. D&D is like pizza. Even the editions you don't necessarily call your favorite are still pretty OK.

I think that's actually just a variation on this classic line from Love and Death: 'Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.'

 

[Mankcam]

I doubt this really matters, but I wanted to explain why I reacted to this with a frowny.

Not only have I been the short guy hugging the book, but I've also been the guy in the black tee. I've experienced this exchange far too often.

I'm ashamed of being that guy in the black tee.

It's amazing that Art can be such a good mirror to encapsulate so much in so little space.

Yes, I knew that comic would resonate with many of us. Most of us, as some stage, have views on both sides of the fence.

I think the best thing about that comic is that it also shows that often the most central concept (in this case, game enjoyment) can get consumed by the rhetoric surrounding it.

An important insight that goes far beyond the perimeters of the comic.

Many real-life wars have been ignited, often as the result of sleights and rhetoric. Often at the cost of the basic central truth, such as 'No One Wants To Die'.

Yep, that comic is more profound than it initially seems. I'm glad that some have noticed it