There are lots of people that run D&D with plenty of experience with other RPGs and love it. May I suggest finding and playing with one of them before you set your opinion in stone. Yes, D&D *can* be played as a tactical minis game, and combat more or less require a grid and minis.

But it is still an RPG as long as you have a DM willing to run it as one.

Linnaeus’s last blog post..Race for the Galaxy Strategy – Game Changers

Allow me to tell a brief story…

I was at a boardgaming convention a few weeks back. There was a really nice setup for 4e with tons of minis, character builder on laptop hooked up to printer, and so forth. There was a bunch of guys playing all weekend with different DMs. Now, these are guys who hadn’t played D&D for a long time, and 4e had gotten them back into it, but basically, they were boardgamers.

Some of the other DMs just ran chapters out of the Dungeon Delve and they were the miniatures wargame or whatever you want to call it with a touch of us experienced players bringing in some character stuff on every turn.

But then I got to run them in a game. There was an investigation (using a skill challenge). There were NPCs to question. There was an angry mob being agitated by an old dwarf who had to be calmed (using a skill challenge) that turned out to provide a vital clue. There was a battle against a tentacled mass that was chewing on townspeople who needed to be rescued. There was a break-in that they intercepted, and interrogation. And at the end? A freakin’ Mind Flayer. (All this, by the way, was from a published adventure in Dungeon. Granted, I hacked a lot out of it for time).

By the end, the boardgamers were totally into it, and said it totally changed the way they looked at the game. They just hadn’t had that experience before of taking the game beyond that basic level.

So my point is thus: that’s not necessarily what D&D is now. In fact, that may not even be what those players really want, they just haven’t seen anything else. It may not be your system of choice for that kind of thing (which is totally cool) but I’m going to keep playing with those types of players and show them in 4e what the game can really do.

Sounds like they are promoting more roll playing vs. role playing with the new version. Not for me.

Larry Bullock’s last blog post..Idea for Amazon

This has been my experience with the game too — what both Berin and Giddoen have said.

That isn’t to say that I hate the game, but I think it gives far, far fewer tools to GMs who want to “include” roleplaying and story than any previous version of D&D ever has, including the very earliest versions of the game.

There’s a lot of frustration that comes from trying to buck the system, and to play the type of D&D that Berin, Giddoen, and I prefer, you have to do a lot of bucking.

Which makes you wonder if it’s really worth it, when you can pick up any other RPG (even WMHS!) and have a better experience without as much struggle.

Kynn’s last blog post..Hmmm…

That’s a solid assessment, very honest and balanced. Personally I’d like to see Wizards offer a second game as well designed with the more traditional tabletop RP experience in mind. A lot of my frustration with 4e stems from the fact that D&D is really the game everyone knows and brings in new gamers, it’s a fact, and when D&D promotes this kind of board gaming style it is training a particular kind of gamer. That makes it hard for me because I don’t want to play with that particular kind of gamer because I don’t run that kind of game and so trying to introduce a player who grew up on D&D 4e to the sorts of games I run means that player has to unlearn everything he’s known about Role Playing.

Toe Knee’s last blog post..Rifts and Exalted

I have to agree with Dave the game above; it all has to do with who is at the table with you. In my very limited experience with pick up games at hobby shops… they all want something that starts and finishes in a short time. The total immersion style campaigns we look for from older editions of the game are, in my experience, a result of the environment we played in: people living rooms, dining rooms, dorm rooms, etc. At a bare bones fold up table in the middle of a store, its hard for most people to “get into character” — thus, the type of people that play 4E in those settings are mostly looking for board games, just with a 4E skin on it. I guess what I’m trying to say is: don’t decide just yet. I would strongly suggest you try a 2 or 3 session long 4E game at home, with gamers you know, and see if the _system_ really does (for you) kill the experience at the table. Is it still a board game when you play it at home? For my group, so long as we keep a focus on the story, it doesn’t feel that way. The combat mechanics are … just that: mechanics. IMHO – 4E puts the roleplaying back into the hands of the players and out of the rule books.

jonathan’s last blog post..Portraits of a Villain – Sir Mordred

There. Done. I figure 500 plus is running long for a comment.

I have to say the sort of “everyone’s doing it” sexual euphemism is starting to creep me out a bit. Why not “save yourself” for a better and more meaningful and lower maintenance game?

Dr. Checkmate the Privateer’s last blog post..4bstinence

Part of me wishes that when White Wolf swooped in to help WotC, that WW pressed a bit harder to get D&D. White Wolf’s D&D 4e? Now that would have been awesome.

I hope this isn’t a bad question here but who did your blog theme? Looks good.

@ DR CHECKMATE – what I mean is there are far less mechanics in 4E that _support_ so-called “non-combat encounters” than in previous editions. They reduced the number of non-combat skills significantly, as well as the number of non-combat feats, “powers” (class abilities), etc. As a DM, I actually really like this because I’m not faced with as many players who say stuff like “BUT my character would _know that_ already… see? I have this cool feat that says I know XYZ”. This is a completely unscientific opinion, but this is why I think — outside of combat — 4E is the new Old School. Rules for characters (combat, in-game mechanics), not players (play acting, roleplaying).

jonathan’s last blog post..Portraits of a Villain – Sir Mordred

>”It took a whiz on the carpet (which really tied the room together)”

ohgodmysideshurt. Thanks, Ryan. I needed that.

@Jonathan: AH! Now your words make complete sense. AND, I want to agree with the new old school sentiment, but I’ll have to play it. Alas, I know not one single person playing it (in meatspace near me).

I’ve never once had the “but my character knows that” problem in all my years. Not once. I don’t think I’ve even been at the same table playing when it happened. Weird.

Dr. Checkmate’s last blog post..4bstinence

“Actually, I’ll find out in a few weeks. But, my 3.5 addicted buddies hated it and the Story-games hippies like it, hmm.”

I know several Story-Game hippies (like me!) who don’t.

@Thomas – I’m in your camp. However, in my experience, a lot of story gamers like 4E because it’s such a change from the “mechanics linked to story” approach that many indie RPGs use – e.g., Dogs in the Vineyard’s mechanics work hand in hand with the roleplay. 4E has none of that and so it itches a very different scratch for them. Most of them haven’t gone near D&D in years, so they’re coming from a very different perspective than people who have played earlier editions of D&D.

@Jonathan – Thanks for the clarification. I have a better understanding now of what you (& maybe others?) mean by 4E is the “new old school” although I still don’t like the phrase because it suggests something other than that the system gets out of the way for roleplaying. I just don’t see any real overlap between 4E and 1E other than they both use polyhedral dice and have the same terms for attributes. It also feels like it’s another attempt to try to defend 4E’s style by trying to liken it to something else rather than letting it stand on its own merits.

Ultimately I think it’s kind of pointless to try and sell anyone on the game: Either you like it or you don’t. I was skeptical about 4E and tried it: I liked it at first but it got old fast and left me longing for something different. My main gaming group won’t go near it with a 10′ pole (they also won’t play 3.5 either). The kids I run it for like it for the action but even they have said that they don’t want to play it next year. My online group I’ve run it for like the game but we have largely pushed the system to the side for big portions of the game after getting tired of the grind and sameness of combat. The best experiences we’ve had all involve a few skill checks (not skill challenges) and the roleplaying surrounding them. The single shots I’ve run of it have worked well. I think I’d like to play a few games but the whole system doesn’t really spark my imagination to create a cool, story-driven character – instead I always end up looking through powers to find a good mixture that have combat potential.

My gaming group is running 4e right now, and I hate it. I really just hate everything about it… hell, I have considered quitting the group because of 4e. I understand why other people like it, I get it, it just represents something I can’t stand. If it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t get to see those friends outside of gaming, 4e would have driven me right out of the group, and away from D&D. It isn’t because of the tactical mini thing, it is because of the powers. The whole mindset that the powers come from really. The idea that everything should be play balanced, that all characters should be equal *IN COMBAT* really just makes me not want to play at all. A fighter should not be equal to a magic user in combat. Early in their career a fighter should destroy a magic user in combat, later on it should shift. A rogue should be great at stealth and the like, but be poorly suited to hack and slash. A role playing game should be about taking a character and forcing them to manage as well as they can in a situation despite not being a great fighter or warrior, not about making everyone have shiny, glowy powers that let them stand on the battlefield and throw down.
In the end, play balance removes what I like about an RPG and I really just don’t care for it at all. I really wish my play group wasn’t so dedicated to the idea of 4e. For me, Talisman is as much an RPG as 4e.

Traverse Davies’s last blog post..Toy Gear