Quote from: Opaopajr on September 21, 2023, 10:22:05 AM
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.

  Which SAGA--the card-based rules set from TSR or the d20 variant used for their last iteration of Star Wars? I actually have played both and prefer both of them not only to 5E, but to 4E, 3E, and most other versions of D&D.

IMO, the best alternative to 5E is... 5E.

The problem with 5E isn't the core system, which is good, it's all the power-creep and bloat that came after it. The best way to enjoy 5E is probably 5E Basic: No feats, no multiclassing, no weird non-Tolkienian classes or races. If you want to expand from there, go slowly, with options from the PHB (and just the PHB; don't let anyone talk you into using the crap from Tasha's or Xanathar's).

Of course, the trouble with playing 5E nowadays is that all the players feel entitled to the player options from any official source. Even if you try to select against this, you will inevitably have one player begging for off-theme player options after 3-4 sessions. That was always my problem. "Hey, I know we're playing in a human-centric fantasy world based on European medieval history, but can my next character be an Elephant-person Hex Blade / Horizon Walker multiclass with spells from Splatbooks X, Y, and Z?" Sigh...

Quote from: Horace on September 21, 2023, 01:18:54 PM
IMO, the best alternative to 5E is... 5E.

The problem with 5E isn't the core system, which is good, it's all the power-creep and bloat that came after it. The best way to enjoy 5E is probably 5E Basic: No feats, no multiclassing, no weird non-Tolkienian classes or races. If you want to expand from there, go slowly, with options from the PHB (and just the PHB; don't let anyone talk you into using the crap from Tasha's or Xanathar's).

Of course, the trouble with playing 5E nowadays is that all the players feel entitled to the player options from any official source. Even if you try to select against this, you will inevitably have one player begging for off-theme player options after 3-4 sessions. That was always my problem. "Hey, I know we're playing in a human-centric fantasy world based on European medieval history, but can my next character be an Elephant-person Hex Blade / Horizon Walker multiclass with spells from Splatbooks X, Y, and Z?" Sigh...

Every group has at least one player that does that crap. I believe the rule for official Adventurer league play was that characters can be made from PHB and ONE splatbook. Multiple splatbook buffet style character building is how 3.5 got so ridiculous. I believe the designers even stated that the reason for the 1 splatbook rule was that all of the content wasn't playtested together.

Quote from: Horace on September 21, 2023, 01:18:54 PM
IMO, the best alternative to 5E is... 5E.

The problem with 5E isn't the core system, which is good,

No, it's still geared to snowflakes and children.  No real D&D flavor.

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.

Both 4E and 5E cause Erectile Dysfunction.
4E comes with a side order of Syphilis.

Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on September 21, 2023, 08:40:29 AM
What's the problem with Tasha's ?

Please understand, these are my reasons for disliking it.  But I didn't like the power creep of the classes (especially the sorcerer subclasses and the peace domain cleric).  I am not a fan of the custom lineages and the race changes.  I'm trying to remember what else...honestly, it has been so long since I've looked at it, I am having a hard time remembering.  Those stick out in my mind, though as changes I didn't like.  Thinking back, it was (to me) a big step in the power creep of 5e.  Not that it wasn't already there, but Tasha's was when it was blatantly, and terribly, noticeable to me.

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.

I guess I'm a moron or a newbie, because I enjoyed 4th ed when I played it. I played in a "standard" campaign, and ran a Dark Sun campaign myself concurrently for about a year.

Now, I will say that 4th is a different beast than all the other editions of D&D. There are some valid complaints about it, re it being more of a board game, the sloggy nature of combat, and most importantly, the reason why I prefer other editions to 4th, is that it doesn't "feel" like D&D, and doesn't scratch the D&D itch. I wouldn't use it as a replacement for 5th. I'm a 2nd ed man, myself.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 21, 2023, 05:22:14 PM

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.

I guess I'm a moron or a newbie, because I enjoyed 4th ed when I played it. I played in a "standard" campaign, and ran a Dark Sun campaign myself concurrently for about a year.

Now, I will say that 4th is a different beast than all the other editions of D&D. There are some valid complaints about it, re it being more of a board game, the sloggy nature of combat, and most importantly, the reason why I prefer other editions to 4th, is that it doesn't "feel" like D&D, and doesn't scratch the D&D itch. I wouldn't use it as a replacement for 5th. I'm a 2nd ed man, myself.

Yeah, that's more or less how I view 4e as well. It was alright when I played it and read through it. Not spectacular, but hardly a train wreck. I get the big criticism about it that it was such a departure from previous editions that 4e probably should not have been marketed as a D&D edition and instead might have done better as a spin-off. Regardless, I don't really get the animosity I see towards it. Granted, I only ever did one-shots or short forays into it so maybe 4e doesn't work as well in long-term games.

Quote from: Hzilong on September 21, 2023, 07:57:54 PM
Yeah, that's more or less how I view 4e as well. It was alright when I played it and read through it. Not spectacular, but hardly a train wreck. I get the big criticism about it that it was such a departure from previous editions that 4e probably should not have been marketed as a D&D edition and instead might have done better as a spin-off. Regardless, I don't really get the animosity I see towards it. Granted, I only ever did one-shots or short forays into it so maybe 4e doesn't work as well in long-term games.

I've said this many times. If 4e had been released as a miniatures skirmish game without the D&D branding my gaming group and I probably would have liked it.

As a D&D game I hate it.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on September 21, 2023, 08:14:58 PM

Quote from: Hzilong on September 21, 2023, 07:57:54 PM
Yeah, that's more or less how I view 4e as well. It was alright when I played it and read through it. Not spectacular, but hardly a train wreck. I get the big criticism about it that it was such a departure from previous editions that 4e probably should not have been marketed as a D&D edition and instead might have done better as a spin-off. Regardless, I don't really get the animosity I see towards it. Granted, I only ever did one-shots or short forays into it so maybe 4e doesn't work as well in long-term games.

I've said this many times. If 4e had been released as a miniatures skirmish game without the D&D branding my gaming group and I probably would have liked it.

As a D&D game I hate it.

Though I suspect with everything we are hearing about 6th edition (they're not fooling anyone, it is 6th edition) it is going to be far, far worse than 4th.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on September 21, 2023, 08:14:58 PM
I've said this many times. If 4e had been released as a miniatures skirmish game without the D&D branding my gaming group and I probably would have liked it.

As a D&D game I hate it.

Basically what everyone I played with at the time said.  An ok game.  A HORRIBLE D&D

Quote from: Thor's Nads on September 21, 2023, 08:14:58 PM

I've said this many times. If 4e had been released as a miniatures skirmish game without the D&D branding my gaming group and I probably would have liked it.

As a D&D game I hate it.

Agreed.

It was not was I was looking for in a new D&D edition and the power creep given to PCs was too much. Damn, I played 3.5 with as few books as possible to avoid munchkins builds and seeing it codified in the core rules was a little bit too much for my taste.

Maybe I should read it again sometimes and try play it as a skirmish game, since everybody is suggesting it is nice for that.

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.

I can actually somewhat understand it. From the perspective of people who come in from Video Games or otherwise want a very rigid and tactical experience similar to video games like Fire Emblem and X-Com. Those people do exist. But often they are too ignorant to understand what they want is anathema to RPGs and they'd be much happier playing wargames like Warhammer or X-Wing. You even see this mentality in other released games like Lancer (which I maintain was made by people who've never played an RPG in their life). And debatably Mechwarrior AToW (allthough that's more from being an RPG spin off that still uses BT rules as a base.)

An odd thing happened to me though, where I really wanted to do a WEG Star Wars D6 campaign as a 1:1 time scale with patron play game. I got some people interested but they were hesitant  and had never played an RPG before. They were completely unfamiliar with it. They said they used to play Warhammer as kids. So I decided to start off our 1:1 game as a wargame campaign using WEGs SWD6 Wargame rules. Which are actually really good. Better than Star Wars Legion by miles. And now I'm gradually getting them to make RPG characters to go off on "missions" that affect the campaign. It's interesting and I'm not sure where it's going but we're all having fun. And it might be a good way to get people otherwise uninterested in RPGs to give them a go.

I actually really want to talk about my experiences with this campaign more but I will make a seperate thread so as not to drag this one down.

4e doesn't have woke politics to nearly the same degree and is still relatively easy to pick up and play. Perhaps even moreso than 5e. It was even well balanced compared to say 3e or even 5e. So I understand some of the appeal. That said, 4e has a lot of flaws and mechanically I'd say 5e and 3e outclass it solidly. To say nothing of the OSR. It lost a lot of D&D's heart and vancian feel. While being overly combat focused and arguably starting the 5e superheroics trend. To the point of basically being a squad skirmish game. And I say that as somebody who started with 4e.

It also depends a lot on what part of 4E you're using.

Give players only the Essentials Heroes of the Fallen Kingdom and you have only Humans, Dwarves, High Elves, Wood Elves and Halflings as races and only Fighter (Knight, Slayer), Thief, Wizard and Cleric as classes.

The fighters and thief use only stances/special moves and "power attack/backstab" with no daily resources other than hit points to track, while the wizard gets a spell prep feature for its spells (ex. a wizard might have 4 encounter and 3 daily spell slots, but have a dozen each of encounter and daily spells in their spellbook) and the cleric's spell list was heavily based on which god they chose to serve.

In other words the classes weren't even built in the same ways (fighters would switch between  stances to gain particular advantages, thieves used the special move actions to set up their sneak attacks and backstabbing, wizards had to choose when best to unleash the daily spells they had prepared for the day, etc.

Basically it leaned much more towards earlier takes on D&D if that's what you were using for 4E.

Similarly, the monsters, especially in Essentials 4E were pretty widely praised (particularly Monster Vault Threats to the Nentir Vale which had gobs of lore with each critter (many of them unique). By the second year the monster math had been straightened out and the "padded sumo" of the early material was a thing of the past as monsters were tweaked to have fewer hit points, but hit a lot harder.

With healing surges functioning as a LIMIT on healing (it doesn't matter how many healing word spells the cleric can use... if you have seven healing surges you can only recover a bit over 175% of your max hit points in a day.

Starting with 24 hit points may feel like a lot without context, but when a level 1 "Lowtown Urchin" has 28 hp and deals 2d4+4 on a hit (and 2d6 extra on the first hit after it drops to 1/2 hit points) starting 4E PC's are actually really squishy and drop in 2-3 hits and can only get about a total of 42 hit points back during an entire adventure (healing potions also burn one of those surges so even finding a stash of those might only add a bit on the margins (each surge gets an extra 1d6 back instead of just a quarter of their max hit points).

And it's not like that doubles at every level either. Hit points go up only 4-6 per level (depending on class). So a level 3 PC might only have 34 hit points and won't have double their starting hit points until level 6).

Basically, it's super easy to run an old-school anyone can die type adventure in 4E with limited class and race options. Its a toolkit and like all editions it's early rough edges got smoothed out I'd say within the first year and started to singe by the second year (Dark Sun 4E was definitely the high point of pre-Essentials 4E) and the layout shifting to more focus on the fluff surrounding the mechanics and towards adding more outside of combat options.

Particularly for newer players who never stewed in the toxic vitriol of hatred for 4E I can see the appeal (the last new product for it was 11 years ago and Essentials was 13, so anyone younger than their mid-20's has only second-hand accounts by "old people" telling them it was bad, not first hand experience).