Just How Dead, is D & D 4th Edition?

Rhedyn · September 04, 2019, 07:59:20 PM

Quote from: Mistwell;1102408Yeah from the data I've seen (and you posted some of that) 4e still have more players than M&M, GURPS, 13th Age, Traveller, etc..

I do not think online gaming is the majority of gaming.

4e has a lot of passionate fans. 13th age only attracts that really small minority of RPGers that play "Not D&D".

Chris24601 · September 04, 2019, 08:24:50 PM

Quote from: Itachi;1102419Don't know if this Orr Report is a good indicator of popularity. But if it is, then D&D4 is in a bad spot right now. I couldn't even find it on the list:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.roll20.net/post/186546450860/the-orr-group-industry-report-q2-2019-back-and/amp

Ummm... it's literally right under DungeonWorld on the long list towards the end of the article. As I mentioned previously in referencing that list, D&D 4E scores better than every version of TSR and OSR D&D and almost better than all of them (official and OSR retroclones) put together.

nope · September 04, 2019, 08:24:51 PM

It's dead enough I rarely have to hear or read people bitching about it anymore. Good enough for me.

Spinachcat · September 04, 2019, 11:34:58 PM

I don't understand hating a game. I don't like 3e or 5e. Neither are fun for me, but hate should be saved for worthy targets, like your fellow human beings, not games.

Quote from: Omega;1102389What I heard as well but have never seen 13th Age to tell if that would be viable?

Check out the free 13th Age SRD. It will give you enough of an overview to determine if it works for you.
https://www.13thagesrd.com/

Quote from: Shasarak;1102391Doesnt 13th Age have even less players then 4e?

Of course because the publishers were morons who didn't maximize their marketing during the year when there was no D&D on the market and the 4e fanbase felt abandoned by WotC. Zweihander may be a mega-asshole, but he worked hard to get the word out to WFRP 2e fans that he heard them and write a game specifically for them.

Such a shame too.

Daztur · September 04, 2019, 11:55:16 PM

Quote from: Mistwell;1102407It's definitely still alive, and gets plenty of posts at EnWorld from people playing it still.

I'd say some of the later adventures are only now being discovered by some. And that makes sense, as the later adventures were quite good and yet were assumed to be bad because so many earlier adventures were lacking. For example, Madness at Gardmore Abbey is excellent...but few at the time were aware of it as that was near the very end of 4e./

4ed, whatever its flaws was very badly served by Keep on the Shadowfell. A lot of people want to use a premade adventure when just learning a system for the first time and if the only available adventure is utter garbage it'll impact people's first impressions badly.

What is really comes down to is that 4ed is utter trash at running a traditional D&D attrition-based dungeon crawl. It's good for other stuff though (big smashy action scenes) it's just that the developers didn't really teach people how to do that.

Robyo · September 05, 2019, 02:47:23 AM

I would happily play in a 4e game again if I found one. 13th Age too, for that matter. But everyone's in love with 5e around here.

I converted Reavers of Harkenwold to 5e and have run it for a few different groups. It's a great module!

Omega · September 05, 2019, 02:48:18 AM

How bad is Keep on Shadowfell? Ive heard people hate it and people like it but never seen it myself?

Spinachcat · September 05, 2019, 04:26:16 AM

Quote from: Daztur;1102477What is really comes down to is that 4ed is utter trash at running a traditional D&D attrition-based dungeon crawl. It's good for other stuff though (big smashy action scenes) it's just that the developers didn't really teach people how to do that.

This is very true. 4e does "set pieces" very well and those can be anywhere. Definitely, the traditional dungeoncrawl doesn't work as well, which is yet another reason WotC should have kept 3.5 and launched the DragonSword minis skirmish RPG (aka 4e) and championed what DragonSword does extremely well. Nothing hurt 4e more than the D&D on the front cover.

Daztur · September 05, 2019, 05:59:17 AM

Quote from: Spinachcat;1102509This is very true. 4e does "set pieces" very well and those can be anywhere. Definitely, the traditional dungeoncrawl doesn't work as well, which is yet another reason WotC should have kept 3.5 and launched the DragonSword minis skirmish RPG (aka 4e) and championed what DragonSword does extremely well. Nothing hurt 4e more than the D&D on the front cover.

The thing is I don't think they had a good understanding of what worked well for 4ed and what didn't, otherwise they'd never have release KotSF.

Quote from: Omega;1102495How bad is Keep on Shadowfell? Ive heard people hate it and people like it but never seen it myself?

It's basically a mediocre 3.5ed adventure translated directly into 4ed which results in a horrible grindfest since 4ed combat takes longer by default and takes a LOT longer if the party is all newbies. TSR-D&D works fine with the party getting slowly ground down by a bunch of small skirmishes, this only kinda sorta works for 3.5ed or 5ed and REALLY doesn't work in 4ed. Gotta pace 4ed like an action movie in which each fight is BIG and MEANS something. Otherwise it's horrible eye-grinding torture. If you play it right it's fine.

Omega · September 05, 2019, 07:56:31 AM

So play it with the Gamma World rules instead... got it. :cool:

Rhedyn · September 05, 2019, 08:25:14 AM

Quote from: Daztur;1102477What is really comes down to is that 4ed is utter trash at running a traditional D&D attrition-based dungeon crawl. It's good for other stuff though (big smashy action scenes) it's just that the developers didn't really teach people how to do that.

I disagree, but all of your foes in such a situation need to be minions except for like named boss monsters.

A bunch of full health creatures would just take way too long.

Steven Mitchell · September 05, 2019, 09:09:29 AM

Quote from: Daztur;11024774ed, whatever its flaws was very badly served by Keep on the Shadowfell. A lot of people want to use a premade adventure when just learning a system for the first time and if the only available adventure is utter garbage it'll impact people's first impressions badly.

What is really comes down to is that 4ed is utter trash at running a traditional D&D attrition-based dungeon crawl. It's good for other stuff though (big smashy action scenes) it's just that the developers didn't really teach people how to do that.

Given that at least half the developers didn't know what 4E could and couldn't do, that's not surprising. When you've got people writing advice in the DMG that is exactly counter to running a good 4E game, and also undermines the effort of other advice in the same damn book, you've got problems. It's almost as if they rushed it out the door without significant play testing or even content editing. Oh, wait, that's exactly what they did.

S'mon · September 05, 2019, 09:56:21 AM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1102530Given that at least half the developers didn't know what 4E could and couldn't do, that's not surprising. When you've got people writing advice in the DMG that is exactly counter to running a good 4E game, and also undermines the effort of other advice in the same damn book, you've got problems. It's almost as if they rushed it out the door without significant play testing or even content editing. Oh, wait, that's exactly what they did.

It was definitely a shambolic rush job on the PHB-DMG-MM. A big contrast to both the preview books (Worlds & Monsters, Races & Classes) and the very late era material from 2011, when it was too late.

BarefootGaijin · September 05, 2019, 12:38:46 PM

Might be dead, but I've bought up loads of Essentials stuff. All of it bar the red box actually. Might use it for skirmish games, or something with my kid. I've got the D&D I want (AD&D 2E), so this is just there to be something different. The monster vault box is nice to have and I can probably use the tokens across a number of systems.

Doom · September 05, 2019, 01:39:02 PM

Quote from: Omega;1102495How bad is Keep on Shadowfell? Ive heard people hate it and people like it but never seen it myself?

Been a few years but...it's adequate. The main issue was it was so very different than a D&D adventure, just a collection of set piece battles, not much in the way of exploring.

This ultimately was the problem with 4e: no great adventures. I haven't heard anyone say any 4e adventures were impressive (I have several, a few are downright unplayable). Much as a great game can make a console, 4e needed a great adventure to make it worthwhile...and that adventure never came.