Just read the OP - thanks - I'm having a lot of trouble grokking 4e, and this helps.  I think my problem is in thinking of it as 'D&D' rather than what it is.  I'm not familiar with Final Fantasy, Collectible Card Games, World of Warcraft and the other sources you cite; maybe that's why it seems so unfamiliar.

Quote from: Engine;214599Well I, for instance, don't think it's a unique objection to 4e; I think 3e is exactly as much "an exciting miniatures-based combat system," and that most of the grousing about 4e ignores this fact.

Well, I don't play 3e, so maybe the damage started then. But 4e looks like magic: the gathering played on a board, with extra videogame sauce. (I mean, come on, how is autohealing NOT the same as every video game you outgrew ten years ago?)

The OP had it right: there is one story arc in 4e, and it's "born as Big Damn Hero, destined for Demigod - fast." It's Chutes and Ladders without the Chutes. Which means it's nothing like any AD&D I ever played, or plan to.

I think what saddens me is, there will be a whole generation of "AD&D" players who have no idea what the fuss is about. After a couple years of "winning" the game - because in 4e, everyone's a winner - they will have no idea why the old players stuck with this hobby for years on end.

Quote from: Ikrast;231630Well, I don't play 3e, so maybe the damage started then.

3e is the wellspring from which all products since - from Wizards of the Coast - have sprung. There is a very clear progression through each product, culminating - thus far - in 4e. Not everyone is satisfied with the course that's been taken - I certainly have no desire to play 4e! - but many people are. To each, as it is said, their own. [I'll be playing Shadowrun 2/3 and Earthdawn 1st edition, which are both out of print, so Wizards could publish 400-page tomes full of images of human feces and it wouldn't bother me. ]

Quote from: Engine;231634I'll be playing Shadowrun 2/3 and Earthdawn 1st edition, which are both out of print, so Wizards could publish 400-page tomes full of images of human feces and it wouldn't bother me. ]

No, that book's not due for release until late next year.

I'm the lead designer on that project, btw. You'll excuse me, I'm off to eat a four pounds of beef liver and drink a gallon of tabasco mixed with Genisee beer. All in a days work.

Slapping me upside the head, and reminding me that it is a totally new gamesystem was helpful, as I am just building my first 4e character.

For an extremely-flexible, does "almost everything" gamesystem, check out Steve Jackson's (long out-of-print, but sometimes available on the Web) "The Fantasy Trip".  Three paperbound stapled rulebooks covers just about everything:  "Advanced Melee" (combat system); "Advanced Wizard" (magic system); and "In the Labyrinth" (other gamesystems, including skills).  It is more than complete enough to run a pretty good high-fantasy game, but is almost trivially easy to extend for your own campaign needs.