Who plays Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition in here?

[Ilvarin]

I started rpgs with D&D in the Fall of '76, the Greyhawk/Blackmoor/Eldritch Wizardy days (i mail ordered my first set of dice from TSR cause there weren't game stores around). I have played and/or DMed every D&D released, in most of the worlds they've released, as well as GURPS, RoleMaster, RuneQuest, Mythus, Warhammer, Burning Wheel, Pathfinder, and Riddle of Steel, to name but a few. My hands-down favorite ruleset is the D&D Cyclopedia. It takes those old rules that were so patched over that they were more about the patches and breathes new life into them, and thus into the joy and wonderment I remember. Its far from perfect, but it is fun, it works and it is fast. A lot of the other titles mentioned have so many unique and innovative systems that they collapse under their own weight. So, there is my two cents.

[Xyll]

I looked at 4th edition when it came out and I just could not do it. I prefer a bit of reality with my fantasy and those rules irritate me for some reason maybe just because of the attitude of WOTC when they created it. I am one of those old players starting with basic D&D when i was 9 and going from there. I have played so many games with so many different rules that I grew tired of buying new books. I have come to the firm belief that the only books i ever need for a game is a players book, a gm book and a monster book (sometimes). With the prices on 4th edition books and the size of them i feel that i am being robbed by them, add in the incomplete content and I have no motivation to play that game. Then again with what I just said I am not their target audiance.

[MarkusTay]

I don't play 4e, nor plan to.

I looked at the system when it came out, and I can't actually say it's bad - its just didn't feel like D&D to me (but that opinion is NOT based on playing, so make of it what you will). I'm sure with the right group I would enjoy a 4e session, but that goes right back to the people you play with and has nothing to do with rules. I, too, have played MANY games and systems over the years - too numerous to mention - but I always drifted back to D&D. I was one of the first people I know to start running 3e - I loved all the changes. I just didn't feel the same way when 4e came out.

I think a lot of it has a lot to do with the Forgotten Realms - I am a HUGE fan of that setting, and I feel they majorly deconstructed it for the 4e release, so I guess my 'hard feelings' in that regard may leave me some what less then objective.

In fact, it was making my own maps for the Realms that got me to discover this site awhile back.

Anyhow, I do not begrudge anyone their love of the new rules... they just aren't for me.

[Midgardsormr]

I have come to the firm belief that the only books i ever need for a game is a players book, a gm book and a monster book (sometimes).

I agree, which is why I never really got into any previous incarnation of D&D. Far too many books. Really, I'd even go so far as to avoid any game that requires more than one core book to play. While there's something to be said for a GM-only book with secret world info in it, like the 7th Sea Gamemaster's Guide, there's really nothing of the sort in the 4e DMG, except for the sample adventure. Plus, I've never required my players to have their own copy of the rules, anyway.

[Redrobes]

With 1st ed AD&D there was a PH and a DMG, With 2nd there was the same but they released an Unearthed Arcana which expanded the spells and magic items but was not essential for play. In fact at the time people usually stated whether their game was with or without UA. Now 3rd ed I didn't do too much of but I think there was only 1 PH and a DMG but lots of optional expansions like a fighters book and a clerics book etc. With 4e there is a PH and now a PH2 and I think they are releasing a PH3. Though its always optional what you run with I think in 4e its more important to have the extra books. I say this because I have been reading that many of the abilities that are pretty essential or powerful to play a class are in that second book. Its easier to print extra books now because whereas the old rules were more like rules. The new 4e is based on skills and exploits which are like one off attacks so all classes look more like spell casters now though they say these non magical exploits are done by drawing on ones martial power whatever that means.

In terms of monsters there was always a need to bring in monsters that the PCs did not know about so there has always been a glut of books on them or prints of stats in Dragon etc. In as much as books of monsters, dungeons, modules and maps I say the more the merrier.

But I think there should be one PH and one DMG and the PH should contain everything a player would need to know IRL and a 1st level character would know in game and at start and not much more. But this idea of having some players with some rules and others with different or extra ones is bizarre. Not so bad if round a real table where DM sets the pace but when play by post and VTT games its well odd. This I think is a 4th ed problem that was true to some small extent in 2nd too and was an even bigger issue in 3rd.

[jfrazierjr]

Ya know RR, I can see what your saying, but no matter the version of D&D you just can't have one book and have "everything" covered. This is one of the big reasons many people like systems where you have every possible thing you want available and you "buy" exactly the character archtype you want. Now, with that said, I play D&D 4E because frankly, it's faster than 3.x to run and play and is more fun IMO. Likewise,I have played since D&D (boxed sets)/AD&D onward. For quick play, the boxed sets were just fast and simple. Heck, I even played in an online one shot using pregen's and the Red box rules a few months ago via Maptool and had tons of fun... Besides being faster to run combats(no keeping track of 400 different timed durations in the initiative order.), it's just feels right being able to NOT have magic users run dry of spells and not really being able to doing much of anything afterward(other than perhaps missing every round with his crossbow!!)

[tilt]

Funny thing is that I never really thought about the number of books comming out of wizards as strange - having some time down the line played Rolemaster, I guess I had gotten used to expansion sets. I remember 2nd ed. having lots of books too, that was actually what kept me from playing that back in the days, where I only had the money I earned from my paper route and such. Today with a somewhat steady income I mostly buy a book a month (+ some novels... and textbooks for work), and since the books cost about double in the bookstores here I rejoice in the "power" of internet shopping - thanks amazon

You CAN play D&D 4e with only the 3 core books - and you never have to buy more - but in my opinion it is more fun to expand on the amount of feats/powers/classes/paragon paths/epic destinies you can have (but it isn't necessary). But I'm all with Redrobes in you can never have to many monsterbooks - and I have a few Grimtooths Traps lying somewhere too *evil grin*, I've never bought a lot of scenarios but I'm guessing I have about 20 of those - most from edition 1. I might have bought more from 4e, but I've been playing those as a player, and my own campaign "mountain realms" were good on the way when 4e came out ... plucked a scenario or two from Dungeon magazine though

oh.. a little afterthought - since all the powers and such are fitting the core system - you can actually have players with different amount of rulebooks playing in the same game - the few rule changes there are (errata) are available on the website.

[Sharpe]

I hope it's not antisocial or poor netiquette to say so in a thread about D&D, but I play GRUPS 4e.

If you're still reading, I'm surprised.

I played 1st and 2nd ed. D&D when I was a kid and loved them. Then, I found GURPS 3e and never bothered with what I call "pencil and paper video games" again. If I wanted to play something like D&D 4e, I'd play World of Warcraft online or whatever.

I'm more interested in the role-playing aspect of our table-top sessions. D&D, the system, just seems to be all about killing monsters and "gaining levels" and systematic meta gaming to me. In my opinion, it doesn't seem to represent any type of fantasy -- heroic or historical -- that I've ever read or watched on TV or in the movies very well at all. It just seems to represent a specific video game and that video game is called D&D.

I'm a full-time police officer and a part-time firefighter (was on a vehicle extraction team). I box a lot and spend a lot of time in what I'll simply call an MMA gym. I've had some pretty good training with a knife (as in, how to use one more effectively against an unarmed opponent). From my point of view, I'd say GURPS 4e does a great job representing combat and injury in a realistic yet fun way -- the best I've seen out of the dozen or so systems I've played.

GURPS' biggest problem is its staggering learning curve. At first, the system is mind boggling. But, I taught it to myself living under a rock in a vacuum (before the Internet) when I was in the eighth grade, so its steep learning peak can be summited without a teacher. Certainly not without difficulty, though.

But, whatever your group likes and has fun with is great with me. Using your mind and imagination is much better than watching TV or playing video games on the computer or console any day!

[tilt]

its not antisocial to express ones opinion (although the thread has drifted a bit from just getting to know who plays 4e *lol*) I tried GURPS a lifetime ago and didn't like the system at all - and luckily we aren't all alike so there is room for more than one system. The comment about 4e = WoW is just silly though, you can never compare a PnP game with an online game (unless you play via fantasy grounds and such - which is just PnP online). I think its fine that people don't like 4e or even D&D - I played a lot of Rolemaster a half lifetime ago before the kids and job and all that timeconsuming stuff ... loved that system even though you don't get much more complex than that. Now I like to play the simpler game mechanisms of D&D as we can focus on the roleplaying instead of lots of rules when we manage to scrounge up a gameday

And by the way - somewhere in here there is a link to a page where a guy - very scientificly - compares D&D 3 to real life and shows us that its actually very reaslistic in its simplified way - its a fun read.

[Juggernaut1981]

In my own system I'm trying to basically write "1 book that contains the rules" and "books that contain the other stuff". So one would have all the rules for play, the common items, lots of magic items and spells. Other books would hold: information on other realities, monsters, additional spells, additional magic items... none of it would be essential for play but would just allow DMs to use more stuff in their games.

As a DM at a big convention group... what gave me the royal *****s was this quasi arms-race of books in 3E. Especially between players and GMs, but also between players.