Quote from: Doom;1102577Been 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.

I've said it and will say it again: Madness at Gardmore Abbey is a great adventure. However, because it was the end of the 4e life cycle, few bought it to find that out.

I gave 4e a chance when it first came out, but quickly realized it wasn't for me. So from my point of view it wasn't ever really alive. (Not that this matters to what "the market" or "the industry" as a whole did or is currently doing.)

As a side-comment, I'd be cautious about taking stuff like Roll20 statistics as indicators of what is alive/dead/played-the-most/etc. The most you could reasonably say is those numbers reflect what is alive/dead/played-the-most on Roll20 (or whatever). For my part, I can count the number of times I've played "online" on one hand. The vast, vast majority of my RPG play time is spent face-to-face around a table. Again, just FWIW.

Quote from: Mistwell;1102580I've said it and will say it again: Madness at Gardmore Abbey is a great adventure. However, because it was the end of the 4e life cycle, few bought it to find that out.

That was true of us in spades.  It was the best published adventure we did in 4E, but we gave out on the system while we in the middle of it.  Fortunately, most of my players have bad memories for adventures like it.  So eventually I'll recycle it for some other game.

There actually is a computer game for 4e called Neverwinter. I haven't played in a few years but it looks like they are still releasing expansions for it. It has microtransactions so the compulsive might want to avoid it, nonetheless it was a fun game to putter around in. It doesn't have all the classes and races but the 4e roles and power structure are both there.

Quote from: Doom;1102577Been 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.

Madness at Gardmore Abbey is excellent. Reavers of Harkenwold is very good. The two setting books of Hammerfast and Vor Rukoth are very cool - they have almost no rules content, and the latter could easily pass for an OSR sword and sorcery sandbox. It's a strange irony that the best 4E material came out in the last year of so its run.

Even Thunderspire Labyrinth is an awesome adventure setting - a vast minotaur ruin that plays out like the AD&D D-series. It just goes to show how much expectations and packaging shape opinion. Convert Thunderpsire Labyrinth to an OSR system, give it metal 80s artwork, and release it with an indie publisher, and grognards would be blowing their load all over it.

Thunderspire was great until the Well of Demons.

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Quote from: Doom;1102577Been 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.

That was in a way hoe they handled the intro adventure for Gamma World too. It is more a set of board game encounters to move your pogs around on the board.

I think once you distanced yourself from the adventurers and just DIYed stuff or overhauled what was there. You had a serviceable RPG rather than a board game.

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.

Same with Gamma World. You have one designer wanting to do slapstick comedy. One wanting to do an actual Gamma World setting, and one wanting to do deformed circus freak horrors.
This is how you end up with a patchwork of a game that may end up conflicting with itself. This crazyquilt approach to game design seemed to be a design mandate.

Quote from: Conanist;1102617There actually is a computer game for 4e called Neverwinter. I haven't played in a few years but it looks like they are still releasing expansions for it. It has microtransactions so the compulsive might want to avoid it, nonetheless it was a fun game to putter around in. It doesn't have all the classes and races but the 4e roles and power structure are both there.

Neverwinter Online. An MMO. It actually doesnt have microtransactions in the normal negative sense. Instead you can purchase an in game currency to buy stuff from shops, or buy VIP which grants you some small perks and a few conveniences. But... You can actually earn the currency in game if you so want to and never spend a real dime.

Systemwise it is only superficially D&D. Its actually a percentile system and seems to be using some the same basic system as their Champions MMO, which is based on the Champions RPG. But more importantly NWO is a VERY item driven system which even 4e was not so locked in to. Everything revolves around your equipment stats. Your equipment stats directly impact your skills,

But you can see the elements of the MMO in 4e in places and that may have been intentional. When PW did the Champions MMO the RPG got overhauled to more mirror the MMO.

Quote from: Omega;1102694Neverwinter Online. An MMO. It actually doesnt have microtransactions in the normal negative sense. Instead you can purchase an in game currency to buy stuff from shops, or buy VIP which grants you some small perks and a few conveniences. But... You can actually earn the currency in game if you so want to and never spend a real dime.

Systemwise it is only superficially D&D. Its actually a percentile system and seems to be using some the same basic system as their Champions MMO, which is based on the Champions RPG. But more importantly NWO is a VERY item driven system which even 4e was not so locked in to. Everything revolves around your equipment stats. Your equipment stats directly impact your skills,

But you can see the elements of the MMO in 4e in places and that may have been intentional. When PW did the Champions MMO the RPG got overhauled to more mirror the MMO.

Huh, I recall frequently getting chests as loot drops, to the point you'd have dozens of them. You had to buy a key for $1 worth of their currency to open it and get the treasure. And if someone got something good it would be broadcast to the entire server "Dingleberry jr has acquired the Apparatus of Kwalish!". Maybe they changed it.

Quote from: Conanist;1102767Huh, I recall frequently getting chests as loot drops, to the point you'd have dozens of them. You had to buy a key for $1 worth of their currency to open it and get the treasure. And if someone got something good it would be broadcast to the entire server "Dingleberry jr has acquired the Apparatus of Kwalish!". Maybe they changed it.

heh, that part hasnt changed. Thought Id mentioned the lootboxes. But apparently not. Getting a VIP account allows you to collect a key a day. So even there you technically dont have to buy them. And as noted, can get them without spending real money. You just have to put some effort into it. The announcements of epic rank items isnt as onerous as on some other MMOs. Pretty sure you can even toggle it off.

Back on topic. Considering the changes to Champions. I have a strong suspicion that the changes to 4e may have been because of the MMO. According to one of my players who played the early release apparently the two were fairly simmilar in some ways. Divergent in others.

You have the at will powers, the encounter powers and the daily powers. Though in the MMO I'd guess they refresh alot faster. I really need to look at 4e core more and puzzle it out.

Not Dead Enough.

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See #67