Why did 4e fail

Facebook is the Facebook For Gamers. Why didn't they push that in a major way? The DDI Good lord. That was another nail in 4e's coffin. Hasbro saw all this money circling the drain and couldn't do a thing to stop it. So after flipping the bird to about half their customer base, they immediately scrambled to get that base back. A week, flaccid attempt to garner "our" attention.

Then came Essentials. Put in the pink Mentzer box, and 4e rules shoehorned into 3e paradigms The already anorexic release schedule for 4e began to wither, and then I'm not kidding myself; 5e isn't going to be like Not 4e's "superhero boardgame" as put it. They get it now. APN Sr. Member Posts: It has it's own fans, topped sales charts as much as we can tell and tried to update the game completely rather than tinker with the games mechanics as previous editions did, so I'm of the opinion that the only way it 'failed' is by not sucking in previous edition players and selling a mountain more books and 'failed' by not rendering Pathfinder obsolete thus killing that game off.

I flicked through it, saw a load of terms and abbreviations I didn't understand, and put it down again. I don't think single fights last 30 mins-2 hours in any of those games either, which is another thing that put me off 4e. I have the 4e Starter set, but it's still sealed, waiting for me to unwrap and try it. I dunno. There was just something missing for me. It didn't suck me in, I had no mad desire or rush to try it, just had a flick through and thought "I'll read that and GM it.

Whether that's down to mechanics, having to learn an all new system, the sluggish come on, how long to run a fight? I'll read plenty of reviews before I decide whether to bother with 5e.

For me: Too many changes from previous editions. Too much focus on combat abilities, while seemingly ignoring everything else. I've since changed a bit about this, so if 4e came out right now, I doubt this would bother me.

Too much dependence on mats and minis. Cheap print version. Bushi D6 Samurai and D6! Bushi setting map. Hero Member E Posts: Quote from: BedrockBrendan; It's not combat and dungeon exploration only Unfortunately, Wizards of the Coast chose to restrict the third parties productions.

So we are left with below average to say the least adventures written by Wizards of the Coast. The best "official" adventures, for earlier editions, were in my opinion to be found in Dungeon. Because there were lots of different writers and styles. Dungeon doesn't seem to be as creative nowadays Rather than being creative, it seems that the adventures are there to illustrate one stereotyped vision of the system.

It seems to me that the staff at WotC develops adventures with tried and true rules. So tried and true that they produce bland settings Points of Light is as bland as possible for me. I remember listening to a session were developpers from WotC duscussed scenario writing. It was a terrible : one vision Other blunders in my opinion. The first Dungeon Master Guide was a failure in my opinion.

Badly written, and some systems skill challenges comes to mind were badly depicted. The second DMG was a pleasure to read But why did the ideas in this book never get implemented into official adventures? The Players Handbook had too few classes and races. Everyone expected to have at least as many options as in the 3. I had the feeling the adventure was only there to illustrate one vision of the new system : the worst one.

Stormonu Legend. Gardukk First Post. I started playing Fourth Edition right around the time it came out and have been playing it weekly With a few hiccups ever since. When it first came out I was ecstatic, and loved just about everything it had to offer. It's three years later and I'm not so sure it's really as perfect as I thought it was at the time.

Off the top of my head, there are a few points I can think of that have been bothering me quite a bit as of late: - Skill Challenges.

This is one of the first things that started to stick out as I played 4th Edition, and I started disliking it relatively early in my time playing the system. One of the strongest points of Tabletop RPGs is the concept of "Emergent Gameplay" - being able to solve any given problem in a potentially infinite number of ways. This can be accomplished in Tabletop RPGs And some video games, most notably Deus Ex due to the structureless nature of the problems given. You need to get across the chasm.

This is another one that seems to be a fairly common complaint in that, at least at launch, the game's math simply didn't work right. This is particularly true in the paragon and epic tiers wherein monsters become nearly unhittable because of how high their defenses get. With the release of the PHB2 this problem was solved by implementing the Weapon and Implement Expertise feats, which were more-or-less required to build a relatively effective character.

What this results in is essentially being required to take certain feats because if you don't, your character will probably not be effective, especially in later tiers. Granted, this is a bit less of the case with more recent content, but it's still something that bothers me.

This is a bit of a personal gripe, but in terms of feats, powers, and especially magic items, there's way too many options. It's a little disheartening to look at the character builder to choose magic items and see something like nine thousand choices.

This sort of applies to feats and powers, too, but it's mostly a gripe with Magic Items. This is even more of a personal issue, but I cannot stand trying to read Essentials Classes.

They had a very consistent layout for Fourth Edition classes that made looking up content incredibly easy and fast, and replaced it with the Esentials format wherein certain entries Like the "Ability Scores" section under each class are printed multiple times in a book for each class. On top of that, there's the fact that the "Core" book was split into two books, with entire chapters being reprinted between the two releases.

It all seems like a feeble attempt to pad out the page count of the books without actually providing more content. It seems like a really shifty and lazy design choice, and ultimately has discouraged me from actually giving the classes a shot. That all being said, Fourth Edition is by no means a bad system and I still love it to death.

For example, I really like the more tactical approach that they took in terms of combat, along with how much easier it is to DM than, say, Third Edition. The monster format is fantastic. I've had quite a bit of fun playing it. But what's so bad about 4e? An incidental, run of the mill combat against a bunch of kobolds should not last 40 minutes.

A minor combat to set the scene and tone for the adventure should not take more than two and a half hours out of a three-hour game session. Both of these are real examples from WotC published adventures Kobold Hall and Tomb of Horrors, respectively , and in both cases they quickly degenerated into tedious slug-fests where both sides spammed at-wills to whittle away the others hit points.

I've complained about this on other threads, and don't want to rehash it. Suffice to say, I absolutely hate it. But for me, the biggest thing that's wrong with 4e is that it was just such a missed opportunity. I was ready for 4e. I was well aware of the weaknesses with 3e, especially at high levels.

And much of what came out of WotC in the early days was really promising - an expanded 'sweet spot', a proper acknowledgement of play across all levels, a removal of a lot of excess baggage from monsters particularly minor spell-like abilities that would almost never be used , and in particular a simplification of the DM's job.

Yes, 4e should have been great. But, overall, it's just not. I've had fun playing it, yes, but I've had fun with almost every system I've played including some really bad ones. It has some really good points, but it also has some glaring weaknesses. All in all, and on balance, it's just not an improvement on core-rule-only 3.

And it could have been, and it should have been. And that's what's wrong with 4e. Talok First Post. There are many things that I have found troubling about 4E since playing it. Even low level fights seem to take forever thanks to the buckets of hit points you have to grind through. A warlord can heal by yelling at people?

Seems silly, but he does it for no other reason than he's a "leader". A paladin shooting lasers at enemies if they attack someone besides him? Laughably ridiculous, but he can do it because he's a "defender". Don't even get me started on "Come and Get It. It's really offputting how a character can go from dying to nearly full mulitple times in an encounter, and how you completely heal all damage by resting for 6 hours. Herschel Adventurer. Stop right there.

Don't waste your time with the hate. It's a good system and most of the people hating on it are just bearing a grudge. The majority of people hating on 4e don't understand it, and don't want to. To be frank, converting pathfinder adventures is not as hard as it looks, because building monsters and encounters in 4e is a lot easier than the alternative. Quickleaf Legend. Continuing the constructive criticism from active 4e gamers who do understand the system, enjoy it for what it is, and have good ideas about improving it I feel the disconnect between narrative and mechanics was a missed opportunity.

What exactly is happening when a paladin's mark takes radiant damage for attacking someone else? Why are some powers limited to daily use for martial types? Arcane types?

How can a fighter using Come and Get It provoke a creature of animal intelligence into coming closer? When a cleric is invested with divine power what does that rite entail and why is it irreversible? To a certain extent this is a player type thing, but there could be better guidance for improvising effects or more extensive examples of terrain powers and these should be slightly more attractive than class powers IMO.

I've really tweaked the system to get fights that don't eat up so much time and can be run without minis and battlemaps. It would be nice if that option was built right into the game.

Those should be supported. And for a system which is so tightly focused around combat, it sure has felt like a beta version at times. I chalk this up to sloppy playtesting or playtesting with a narrow subset of players.

I realize with a development schedule there's a press to get the product on shelves asap, but if you've got a problem with DCs, monster design, hit probabilities, I hope it would be worth it to get the game polished first. I caught on to several of these issues during my first month running 4e and changed what I could, it wasn't hard.

OTOH, as a DM I love how easy putting together my own adventures is - that has been one of 4e's strengths that I haven't seen in other tactically heavy games. FireLance Legend. Talok said:. Some of the issues have already been mentioned and I'll add in my own. Healing - I'm not a fan of externally sourced healing like a potion triggering an internal resource.

I think it's a bad concept, it also brings us right back to the lack of hit points and healing resources driving a short work day - a step backward from 3e. Sort-of dump stats - Allowing players to choose which 3 stats will drive their defenses was kind of a good idea in the sense that the defenses are no longer tied to a single stat that virtually must be maintained relatively high.

It can also synergize well with the PC's offense, usually based on a primary stat, a secondary, and maybe a tertiary. Unfortunately, I find that also leads to pretty serious dump statting since you can virtually ignore 3 stats entirely as long as you're willing to put up with a few low skill checks. But because there are still some differences in what the stats do Con and Dex particularly , not all classes can dump stat the same.

Compare the brute rogue with the artful dodger. The artful dodger can invest in Dex, Con, and Charisma and dump the other three but the brute can't. The same thing happens with characters relying on strength but needing hit points and surges. Powers - I can get behind the idea of encounter powers for martials particularly, but not dailies. A better implementation would have been to dispense with martial dailies and just include a daily level of output for each encounter power. Then, the martial character can have a consistent fighting style but produce exceptional results when he feels the narrative demands it.

I also have problems with the daily powers for spellcasters - what if I want to play someone who specializes in a particular spell as his signature? In previous editions, I could prep a single spell multiple times. Not so, as far as I can tell, in 4e.

I very much prefer the saving throw to the static defense. It works better with action points and other meta-abilities that allow a player to modify his result after he sees the roll.

Flavor - I don't like some of the changes in game lore and flavor. I didn't appreciate the shift in storm giants. I didn't appreciate the shift on unicorns. I don't see much value being added to the game in changing the lore that had existed since at least 1e, particularly when 4e purported to be the latest edition in that particular branch of the game. It became clearer as elements were previewed and once I read the initial books that 4e wasn't the game I wanted.

And I had been pretty optimistic. I think it comes down to a couple things. Firstly, I enjoy the theorycrafting side of the game. Back when I played WoW, I was constantly on forums discussing the numbers and strategies, and sharing spreadsheets and graphs I made with other people. Working through the numbers and effects with a clear goal, finding the synergies and weighing them against each other, and then going forth and using your studied mastery to great effect in-game.

I love that crap, and 5e offers none of it. And secondly, it kind of breaks my method of character creation. Usually I build the character mechanics first, personality second. That can explain a lot, I reckon. So each cleric was different based on choices in armor, weapons, spells, due to having a different personality. The addition of feats and all that sort of thing left me cold then and leaves me cold now.

I find the bit on nostalgia interesting, because it extends beyond gaming right now. American super-hero comics as filtered by Marvel and DC have variously alternated in story stunts and publication line restructurings that are geared primarily toward holding onto an aging purchaser base while giving comparatively little effort toward growing that same purchaser base. Marvel is a bit better at trying to attract new readers who might be inclined to pick up a comic after seeing one of their films, but DC frequently doubles-down on that aging purchaser base by promoting nostalgia-driven stories and interpretations of their characters over stories and interpretations that have more success on any of their film ventures.

Much like with comics, I think gaming — both video and tabletop — have the best success in breaking out of that cycle of nostalgia fueled creation when you look beyond what the broader public view as the definition of that hobby. Hmm… I think I lost my point somewhere in there. Either way, great article! Glad to see a break-down of the good and bad of 4e when most folks just focus on the bad. I am still running 4E and I intend to continue running 4E for all of my campaigns until I no longer have any players that want to play 4E.

I think that Angry touched on pretty much all of the things that I love about 4E. And he also touched on what leaves me flat on 5e. Well, needless to say, I told him that if he wanted to see how 4E was a great RPG, he needed to sit at my table. For me, the biggest thing not touched on here was the upfront cost. Because we had a DM who decided to really give the system a try. And for years, before I joined the table, he ran hit-or-miss sessions. A badly run 4e session is worse than a badly run 3.

However, a well-run 4e session is immensely cathartic. Because my players viscerally connect to every. We have a house-rule, for example, that if you attack a monster from stealth, you can treat that monster as one grade lower than what it is.

So, for example, if you attack a Standard monster with an Attack from Stealth, you treat it as a Minion… and if you attack a Minion from Stealth, you can insta-kill it with a Stealth roll without rolling an Attack as a free action.

Want to use a 12th-level monster against a 4th-level party? It will take you literally ten seconds to scale it down! The instakill from stealth actually cropped up regularly in some campaigns using 1E—without need of any monster grades. Monsters could be scaled on the fly without blinking. I know you can, but 4e makes it easier. Thank you! I love the game and also intend to run it until my players leave me or maybe we get through a end game campaign through the 20th level.

Great game, I miss it and hope players rediscover what a solid system it really was. I think you went the nostalgic road. It was nice to see you talk about the positive aspects of 4E, But I think you overlooked some things. Allow me to make a call to your previous article, the Megadungeon one. You talked about the two types of players: the Player-player and the GM-player. BUT for the players-players, 4E was a drag.

Worst of all, the Magic item system was another drag. Add potions fromoils, Wheatstone and nomcombat itens, and each player had a 9-pages sheet. And that was a huge speedbump. I believe that 5E should have borrowed more from 4E approach towards the GM. And it was. So, my toughts on 4E is that it was an marvelous game for the GM, but an exausting experience for the players, and one that made you feel more like you were runing a video-game character than role-playing I.

They felt void of life, and crunched with combat mechanics. It was possible, but not encouraged by the system. Dunno man. Pathfinder is basically a whole system of errata. It mystifies me that people can hold this up as a complaint against 4 and not 3XPF. X that system was WAY to much crunched in its late years. Nothing wrong with that. You can make up explanations for this which I personally enjoy, so this is another reason for me to like 4e but the need to do so puts in the forefront that the real world is the abstract mechanics and everything else is an afterthought to make the raw numbers more exciting.

My 4e experience improved significantly in a Roll20 game where I set up macros for each player to put the full power text on the table whenever they used a power. Dwarf inspects the masonry for defects and notices a poorly caulked joint on the other side and whispers to her to crabwalk sideways to get a handhold. I really like the 4e skill challenges. We can go hours with only skill challenge type resolutions if the characters are exploring or investigating.

First off, I let my players hatch a plan. They have to get over the town wall. I disliked the how in 4e, the designers tried to allow every skill to apply to every challenge. Nor how balanced the difficulties were across skills. It diminishes the skill challenges to have all the skills be fungible, though you can see where the designers were coming from in making this decision. They can almost always come up with something given that they also read books and watch movies and play video games.

My second gripe was that the results of most published challenges were completely inconsequential. Seems pitiful after 9 successes before 3 failures or whatever it was. I like to have real consequences. Otherwise, I just skip over the challenge or make it very easy just to bridge the narrative flow. Alternatively, my players often seem to create their own skill challenges on the fly by trying to do something unexpected to set up or avoid a conflict.

Man, 4E IS a popular topic. When I started writing, there was only one comment. Now there are twelve! Played a few short campaigns with it, which mostly fell apart for interpersonal logistic reasons. I can definitely see the criticisms, long fights, some straining of suspension of disbelief, etc.

But for me it accomplished what it set out to do. And good points about the quality of the implied setting as well. You need to have that empathy for your players that comes from being in their shoes, and you need to see what good GMing looks like and what bad GMing looks like before you can develop your own style. My secret is that I run one group, and play in another. Kind of like how therapists need their own therapists, GMs need their own GMs.

I think that GMs that never play tend to lose the perspective of being a player. Hopefully as tabletop gaming continues to tip into the mainstream, it will be easier to find casual groups to meet up with. But then at least you know what not to do. Or you could just read a lot of Angry GM and other resources. This is why I say this is an opinion, and not even a strong one. More of a personal suggestion. I learned a shit-ton from playing in a well-run Ebberon group, and it took my GMing to the next level.

To get better as a GM you only need to see other games and what other GMs do and you can do that just by watching other tables without playing, or consuming actual play videos and podcasts. Also, not to speak for Randy, but maybe he meant that his group of friends had never played RPGs before and no one else but him would be willing to try being the GM?

The biggest problem IMO with 4E was that it kind of failed on most fronts. It was trying to be very tactical and strategic. Basically your class told you exactly how to play the game, and there was no variance there. Part of the blame there came with how your powers worked, because you were basically stuck running one style of play.

The cleric is always the healer and the bow ranger fires off shots with his bow until the heat death of the universe. So they basically had to remove game changers from the game entirely. My other main problem with 4E was the combat length. Relatively boring powers could maybe work, if combats were fast.

The problem is that 4E did all it could to prolong the length of combats. The biggest issue was the combat healing: there was just way, way too much of it. Now, as you might imagine, that takes a ton of rounds, so the 4E designers, instead of nerfing the hell out of combat healing, decided to buff monster HP to compensate.

No matter how dead they looked, they were coming back into the fight, often multiple times. The problem is that in 4E and 13A, this is every PCs most remarkable schtick that sticks out in the campaign world. Every single PC in every game everywhere.

Combats are a silly game of whack-a-mole, as PCs are constantly popping back up after getting knocked out. Coup de graces are actually easier for the monsters to pull off in 4e, due to the expectation of there being several per encounter.

Usually the mobs react by just trying to KO the healer. I am of the belief that fighting an intelligent, tactically skilled enemy should be much more dangerous than fighting mere beasts. I never use smart enemies for random encounters. In your monster building articles you said 5e had good or consistent logic in its monster design. Do you find it consistent enough that you use the rules you spoke of in monster building to create a world were lore and game play inform each other like in your love of 4e?

As a DM I will always love 4e, as a player it will always disgust me. I love fifth as a player….. What do you find so hard about DMing 5E? If anything I found it one of the easier editions to DM. I always got confused remembering what creatures had what conditions and when those conditions ended. For me, its building encounters.

Also, spellcaster monsters are a bear to run in 5E combat as the DM, especially if you have more than one of them. People would rattle off a list of complaints about it, but when questioned further they usually admitted to never actually playing it. Yeah, tons. But at least it was a step forward.

I showed one new player in particular the 3. It saddens me greatly that Wizards has been forced to prematurely abandon a good game that was basically a diamond in the rough.

One of my players is having the same experience with 3. Everything about 3. Intersting take. I see them as just a slightly more abstract version of the kind of limiting mechanic you mention with fatigue penalties or saving throws or what have you.