I have watched a few YT videos, over the last few months; where 4E was being hyped as an alternative, to 5E.  Surely 5E has jumped the shark, by now.

I never understood the fascination held by some in the hobby for something that was clearly a fuckup of apocalyptic size.
From the ruleset (practically a WOW tabletop ripoff, more akin to a boardgame than to a real RPG) to the shitty kill-the-third-party license move up to the change in the nature of the in-game universe, everything about that game screams "NO".
Only morons or complete newbies could look at that thing and consider it good.

I guess some people are just scraping the bottom of the barrel to find something fresh and novel to play in place of 5e.
It's buffling, given the trainwreck which was 4e at the time, that today some may even consider it actually good 

Personally I never noped a game faster than 4e after reading the first couple of chapters of the PHB, so I really cannot wrap my head on their reasoning.

Quote from: Felneth on September 21, 2023, 03:41:31 AM
I guess some people are just scraping the bottom of the barrel to find something fresh and novel to play in place of 5e.
It's buffling, given the trainwreck which was 4e at the time, that today some may even consider it actually good 

Personally I never noped a game faster than 4e after reading the first couple of chapters of the PHB, so I really cannot wrap my head on their reasoning.

The only explanations that I can find are that the modern estimators are either young, complete newbies for which "RPG" means "MMORPG" (and from that point of view, 4E gives a pretty good experience even if a bit dated) or dudes that drank heavily from the Forge kool-aid font and consider that thing a well designed gamist/simulationist product.

Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on September 21, 2023, 03:02:12 AM
I never understood the fascination held by some in the hobby for something that was clearly a fuckup of apocalyptic size.
From the ruleset (practically a WOW tabletop ripoff, more akin to a boardgame than to a real RPG) to the shitty kill-the-third-party license move up to the change in the nature of the in-game universe, everything about that game screams "NO".
Only morons or complete newbies could look at that thing and consider it good.

Quote from: Felneth on September 21, 2023, 03:41:31 AM
I guess some people are just scraping the bottom of the barrel to find something fresh and novel to play in place of 5e.
It's buffling, given the trainwreck which was 4e at the time, that today some may even consider it actually good 

Personally I never noped a game faster than 4e after reading the first couple of chapters of the PHB, so I really cannot wrap my head on their reasoning.

Not a fan of 4e during its time, and not abhorred by 5e when it was released, I can say that considering the direction 5e has gone and where it's headed with One D&D (and the terrible stuff they're playtesting), I am not surprised that people are looking at alternate versions of D&D to enjoy.  Even 4e.

As it stands currently, my interest, in order, would be (assuming these would be the only options): 5e before Tasha's, 4e, 5e in its entirety, then One D&D.  Meaning, I like 5e before Tasha's enough to play or run, if that was the group's consensus (thankfully, it's 3.5).  After that, I'd do 4e D&D.  Those last two - Tasha's and the newer rules changes, plus the One D&D initiative?  Hard pass.

It will be interesting to see that becomes the "new Pathfinder."  My money is on Tales of the Valiant.

I've never been much of a D&D guy and I bounced off it pretty hard after witnessing the glorious garbage fire that was 4e, so I'm pretty much not in the loop of the current D&D situation (OGL fuckup aside). What's the problem with Tasha's ?

Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on September 21, 2023, 04:14:40 AM

Quote from: Felneth on September 21, 2023, 03:41:31 AM
I guess some people are just scraping the bottom of the barrel to find something fresh and novel to play in place of 5e.
It's buffling, given the trainwreck which was 4e at the time, that today some may even consider it actually good 

Personally I never noped a game faster than 4e after reading the first couple of chapters of the PHB, so I really cannot wrap my head on their reasoning.

The only explanations that I can find are that the modern estimators are either young, complete newbies for which "RPG" means "MMORPG" (and from that point of view, 4E gives a pretty good experience even if a bit dated) or dudes that drank heavily from the Forge kool-aid font and consider that thing a well designed gamist/simulationist product.

I would agree that this is at least a chunk of the reason. So, so many YouTubers and such out there talk about discovering RPGs and D&D midway through 3.x, and for them 4e is not so jarring or offensive—and they are also far more comfortable with videogamey-ness than older players. Compared to the sprawling mess that 3.x became and 5e/OneD&D is becoming, 4e seems a tight game (especially if you grab the Essentials books as your core rules). I personally see 4e as an intriguing skirmish miniatures game and a horrible TTRPG, but I started playing with Holmes and don't like computer RPGs.

Thinking about it, perhaps the appeal of 4e DOES directly stem from the ability to pick up the Essentials books, a campaign setting, and go with it.

4E is not a bad game. It's kind of fun to play battles with. Beyond combat, I don't know what to say about the system because I didn't play that much of it. Looking back, I would have given the system more of a chance if WotC hadn't tried to pawn it off as Dungeons & Dragons. The appeal of 4E was precisely that it wasn't D&D, as far as I can tell. The people who liked it seemed to do so for the same reason I hated it - 4E just wasn't D&D.

3E benefit tremendously of the popularity of video games at the time. The Baldur's Gate series, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights, and others drew attention to the brand. Ultima Online, EverQuest, and other early MMORPGs were essentially trying to recreate the tabletop experience in a video game. A lot of new players came into D&D from those early MMORPGs by word of mouth. It was quite common to hear Dungeons & Dragons mentioned while playing EverQuest. Given that, it made sense to try to make a new game that would capitalize on the massive popularity of World of Warcraft.

Quote from: Corolinth on September 21, 2023, 09:09:36 AM
4E is not a bad game.

No, it's simply a horrible RPG. As a fantasy skirmish simulator is probably top notch, it's all the rest that sucks. Could have a been a very tough contender for Warhammer if it had been released with supporting miniatures, terrains and adequate marketing to support the notion that it was good at handling combat and nothing more.

Interestingly enough 5E borrows many elements from 4E except 5E simply presents in an more traditional fantasy rpg style of writing vs 4E style of trying to make much of the writing come off as an mmo to appeal to that crowd. It's still an rpg despite the subjective comments of its detractors.

It also goes to show the extreme hypocritical nature of tabletop gamers. Claiming that they would never ever play 4E again. No fool like an hypocritical tabletop rpg fool.

  Such heresy shall not stand!

Actually sounds more like someone who didn't understand the homework. WotC ticked everyone off earlier this year with attempted manipulation of OGL contract and everyone lit them up by trying to punch them in their wallet. This just sounds like that old contrarian evangelism that hated D&D before, hates it now, and will hate it in the future and so tries to find the most acrimonious outlier version to uphold as "True D&D" for MindFuck Points. If 4e didn't exist they'd be talking up SAGA without ever playing it just for the MindFuckery... I suspect TBP & Something Awful trollollollery stuck in grievance mode.

As for 4e... it's a solid skirmish game. Outside a few questionable design choices (easy layup example, Ranger Double Strike, or HP bloat) it's better balance than a lot of the other skirmish games out (e.g. Iron Kingdoms). That said it was a pain to do status accounting, dragged on even with halved HP bloat, and its non-combat substance light to the point that it really didn't interest me for a dungeon crawl let alone anything lengthy like a campaign.

If you love it, rock on. But no, 5e is a better RPG in chassis and structure and optional content for me in nearly every way -- and I have stated my issues about 5e from 2014 beginning and throughout here on this site. As for holding the line against WotC assholery, OK, whatever. Yet all previously purchased content used without buying more new stuff is a lost sale to myopic MBAs lately. If you aren't on the buying treadmill (and now it's Virtual!  ) you're a deadbeat in their eyes. So just staying still is an offense to corporate sensibilities.

A TTRPG modeled after a video game is not a good replacement.  Play an OSR or something like C&C

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 21, 2023, 12:56:05 AM
I have watched a few YT videos, over the last few months; where 4E was being hyped as an alternative, to 5E.  Surely 5E has jumped the shark, by now.

I will never understand how, this long into everyone's experience with the Internet, that they still do the "I saw this thing on the Internet so it must be both true and representative of most people!"

Quote from: Lord Dynel on September 21, 2023, 08:32:52 AM

Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on September 21, 2023, 03:02:12 AM
I never understood the fascination held by some in the hobby for something that was clearly a fuckup of apocalyptic size.
From the ruleset (practically a WOW tabletop ripoff, more akin to a boardgame than to a real RPG) to the shitty kill-the-third-party license move up to the change in the nature of the in-game universe, everything about that game screams "NO".
Only morons or complete newbies could look at that thing and consider it good.

Quote from: Felneth on September 21, 2023, 03:41:31 AM
I guess some people are just scraping the bottom of the barrel to find something fresh and novel to play in place of 5e.
It's buffling, given the trainwreck which was 4e at the time, that today some may even consider it actually good 

Personally I never noped a game faster than 4e after reading the first couple of chapters of the PHB, so I really cannot wrap my head on their reasoning.

Not a fan of 4e during its time, and not abhorred by 5e when it was released, I can say that considering the direction 5e has gone and where it's headed with One D&D (and the terrible stuff they're playtesting),

What is it you think they are playtesting at this point that's terrible?

The most common complaint is they're changing very little and discarded all the innovative changes to fall back on mostly putting common house rules into place and errata. So I am curious what it is you think is so radical?

Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on September 21, 2023, 08:40:29 AM
I've never been much of a D&D guy and I bounced off it pretty hard after witnessing the glorious garbage fire that was 4e, so I'm pretty much not in the loop of the current D&D situation (OGL fuckup aside). What's the problem with Tasha's ?

Here is my rant about the subject.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2020/11/tasha-and-d-5e-is-for-experts-and.html

I was playing 5e at the time, and have abandoned it since, so the post contains praise to 5e that I have now reconsidered.

Might be different for others for example, some people dislike the power creep.

The TLDR is: Tasha is a book for players that are both EXPERT in 5e and at the same time COMPLETE NOOBS about D&D and RPGs in general.

This is their target audience now, and I do not fit.