This saddens me a bit to realize and put into words...
Let me start by saying that I supported 4E since the day it came out. I played the Hell out of it. I DMd several 4E groups at my FLGS. I took part in the GSL and released a lot of original material for 4E. I was one of the staunchest supporters of the new edition. I fought in the depths of the Edition Wars month after month. I brought dozens of new players to D&D via 4E. So, before I'm crucified as an average 4E-hater, take a minute and consider my position.
What I feared would happen finally did...it became boring. It became more about the maps and minis than the role-playing. I'd spend countless hours making maps and writing deep adventures just to have the players zip through with little regard for RP. Whenever a thought-provoking storyline would be introduced, the players grew bored. They were simply waiting for the next map to be put on the table and for initiative to be rolled. They hated Skill Challenges. When I would gently force RP on them, they'd lose interest. I don't know how many times I had to hear, "When do start fighting?", only to get into a fight and have to hear, "My God, will this fight ever end?". As a DM since the mid '80s, I didn't like what I was seeing. So, I did something drastic...I went back to 1E/2E.
I never liked 3E to begin with, so that was just out of the question. After playing 4E since it came out, I had been having this unexplicable urge to bring out some of the older material and play AD&D again, so I did. I've seen many who say that felt that pull of nostalgia while playing 4E, and I felt it right along with them. I finally just did something about it. I sold all of my 4E material (which was everything released to that point), stopped my FLGS games (much to the disdain of the players and the establishment owner), and dug up all of my AD&D stuff...536 books, to be exact, and started playing that again. I must admit, I'm not sure I had this much fun with AD&D when it was still the new thing. It honestly revitalized D&D for me, and for those I DM for.
I'm not going to say that 4E is bad. I spent too much time and money on it to make a silly claim like that. What I will say, though, is that...in the end...it just wasn't what I was looking for in D&D. It's a fantastic tactical minis game, that's for sure. It has a great backbone of rules in which to build from. It's a balanced, well thought-out game. But sometimes...just sometimes...I care more about fun than perfect balance. I missed the randomness of AD&D. I hate to say it, but I missed SoDs. I missed THAC0. I missed having huge battles without pulling out one mini or map. If I did have a map, it was a sheet of graph paper with a few doodles on it. I missed all of that, so I went back to it.
I do wish 4E and WotC the best...they have made a great product...but this old-timer is just too much of a grognard, I suppose.
I don't think there's any shame in leaving 4e to play AD&D. I'd quite happily play in a game of AD&D (or 4e, 3.5e, OD&D, or almost anything else!) Sometimes a change is as good as a rest, and who knows, you might come back to 4e in a while.
What I find confusing about your post, however, are the reasons you give. You say that the big frustration was that you wanted an RP-heavy game, but your players just wanted hack n' slash. How is that a fault of the system? Then you justify your change of system by saying you wanted a less balanced mechanic and wanted more random elements. How does this connect to your frustration with your player's play-style? RP-heavy/hack n'slash are play styles that can be easily supported by any version of D&D I've come across.
Anyway, I hope you get back the fun you want from a your Fantasy RPG. At the end of the day, it's a social outlet and a game - so aim for fun, whether in AD&D, or 4e, or Pathfinder, or Runequest, or Traveller, or TORG, or Bridge, Chess, Monopoly, WoW, Twister......
Yet another rant how its just a minis game FAIL. If it became a minis game it was the group not the game. 4E has just as much if not more potential for rp than any previous edition ever, still have fun trying to find someone to play the older material. Me I would maybe play a heavily house ruled 2e game, but that would be it other than 4e.
What I find confusing about your post, however, are the reasons you give. You say that the big frustration was that you wanted an RP-heavy game, but your players just wanted hack n' slash. How is that a fault of the system? Then you justify your change of system by saying you wanted a less balanced mechanic and wanted more random elements. How does this connect to your frustration with your player's play-style? RP-heavy/hack n'slash are play styles that can be easily supported by any version of D&D I've come across.
Perhaps I worded it a bit oddly. With 4E, I had to keep a pile of gridded paper and minis on-hand to whip out for my players' constant need to hack-n-slash everywhere they went. Fault of the system? Perhaps...they put so much emphasis on PC positioning that free-styling comabt without maps or minis did two things: 1) stretched combats out even longer then they already were, and 2) made for good argument territory (I was there...no you were over here...No, I was here, HE was over there...). With all the combat rules specifically designed to be played on maps with minis, it became a huge hassle to keep up with. I literally have boxes upon boxes of old maps that were made for 4E. I keep them all just in case the PCs end up in a place where I can re-use one without having to make a new one. The expense was getting out of hand, and the amount of time it took to prepare was as well.
At first, I loved adventure-making for 4E. I loved the ease of altering monsters. I loved the ease of creating new monsters. By making alterations/new creations easy to do, it left tons of time for storyline...and map-making. With AD&D, alterations/new creations were just as easy, but I didn't have to devote time to looking for/making new maps and securing enough minis for the night's game. All of my time could be put into storyline.
A strange thing happened to my players when we switched back to AD&D...they lost the hack-n-slash mentality. With 4E, the sheer number of powers/abilities almost made you want to get to battle faster so you could try out the new ability you just got. Not that there's anything wrong with that....there are some awesome powers and abilties in 4E. I couldn't really blame them for wanting to rush things along so they could try them all out. It made for some pretty crappy RP, though. Storyline took a back-seat to rushing into combat. Fault of the system? That's debatable, at best. It's just as much a fault of the system as it is a fault of the players. The system offers these multitudes of powers, so the players, naturally, want to try them all out.
What I find confusing about your post, however, are the reasons you give. You say that the big frustration was that you wanted an RP-heavy game, but your players just wanted hack n' slash. How is that a fault of the system? Then you justify your change of system by saying you wanted a less balanced mechanic and wanted more random elements. How does this connect to your frustration with your player's play-style?
Well, as a fellow old-timer, I would look to the old combat rules, basically agree that they were terrible, and that is the point. You cannot enjoy combat in 1E/2E the same way as you can in 4E. So you have to find other elements of the game to up the fun.
In a weird way, by making the combat system so good, WotC has exposed groups to differences between RP fun and combat fun. For some groups this might be a problem. In other words, the group can either have faltering attempts at RP (and some people confuse RP with acting which is a very hard skill to master to a level where it is entertaining), or can play by comparison a very streamlined and well-described skirmish game. I expect (but do not have first-hand experience) that some groups find a comfort zone in RP-light skirmishing. I'm reading the OP's description partly as frustration as that is where his group(s) ended up - and to jostle them out of this zone, the shiny combat toys need to be taken away.
Wow, I'm surprised, you were a very staunch defender of 4e (and easily one of the rational ones), not to mention you DMed 4e at your FLGS quite frequently. But, it looks like you found the right D&D game for you and your group and that's what counts.
Happy gaming.
-I got ran over my a squirrel the other day. -I'm going to steal my own idea. -My fruits of labor are not fruits... *sniff* they're vegetables. *sobs*
Good luck to you man. Maybe when the players get used to roleplaying in an older system, they will be more accepting of rp in 4e. I myself havnt had this issue yet and I hope to avoid it.
Although I do notice that the mini's side of the game seems to take priority, but only when I'm not the DM.
Long Live Dragonlance and the Nexus! I still want an athasian nightmare beast and a warforged dragon mini! "Look, Meat, I'll tear your face off, rip your throat out and eat what's left-because that's what I do to food like you." ~Thrikreen Intimidation Tactic. My Custom 4th edition Content (New Content:2)Show
* My Personal 4e Darksun Material found below: Updated Weapon Options. (critical impact, repair, salvage) http://www.4shared.com/document/bMZK2PNy/Updated_Optional_Darksun_Weapo.html 4th edition Athasian Sloth v1.2 (includes three monster write ups and a new disease) http://www.4shared.com/document/lj561SRh/4th_edition_Athasian_Sloth_v10.html 4th edition Athasian Flailer v1.0 http://www.4shared.com/document/JGi9PqSe/4th_edition__Athasian_Flailer_.html
Well, as a fellow old-timer, I would look to the old combat rules, basically agree that they were terrible, and that is the point. You cannot enjoy combat in 1E/2E the same way as you can in 4E. So you have to find other elements of the game to up the fun.
In a weird way, by making the combat system so good, WotC has exposed groups to differences between RP fun and combat fun. For some groups this might be a problem. In other words, the group can either have faltering attempts at RP (and some people confuse RP with acting which is a very hard skill to master to a level where it is entertaining), or can play by comparison a very streamlined and well-described skirmish game. I expect (but do not have first-hand experience) that some groups find a comfort zone in RP-light skirmishing. I'm reading the OP's description partly as frustration as that is where his group(s) ended up - and to jostle them out of this zone, the shiny combat toys need to be taken away.
While we might disagree about the AD&D combat rules being terrible, I think you hit the issue on the head pretty well.
Combat is absolutely the primary focus of 4E. A quick look at all the revisions, errata, and subsequent magazine articles trying to fix Skill Challenges is proof of that. They made the combat of 4E awesome. It's deep, descriptive, and has oodles of options for every class (almost to the point of making them a bit too interchangeable). Comabt in 4E is what you do. Combat is AD&D is what you could do.
They made 4E combat so intense and fun, that other aspects seemed to take a back seat. Every time I would make a combat-light or combat-free adventure, it never went well. There was always a lot of goofing-off, not paying attention, etc. They were so itching to try out New Power X, that they grew bored with RP. As a long-time DM, that didn't set well with me at all. I've always been about making it fun for the players, so I tried to gear it toward their combat-focused mindsets...but that became simply too much work for me.
Since I was the primary DM since 4E came out, I decided to try it from the other side of the screen for a while...and found myself doing the same thing, to a degree. I had this pile of cool powers that I was chomping at the bit to try, and let my love for RP take a back seat to it. That was the last straw for me. I always looked at D&D as an RPG first, and a combat game second. Combat was what you did after trying other things first. 4E just seemed to go the opposite way for me and my groups. After the game, instead of sitting around talking about the different cool things they came across/conversations they had/RP experiences, they just talked about "Did you see how much damage I did with X?", or, "I wated three hours to use Power X, just to have it miss....and it was a Daily!"
Take the premade adventures, for example. You could simply pull out all of the combat scenarios, put them back to back, and you end up with Dungeon Delve. Little to no RP, and tons of fighting. That might be perfect for many players, but I love RP, and hated that every time I tried to push RP on the players, they grew bored. I finally told them that their playstyle was too different from my own, and that someone else could DM 4E for them. I was going back to AD&D. Much to my surprise, many of them came along with me.
The thing about people is they like good options. The combat of 4e is very well designed. Very well designed.
The combat of 2e on the other hand is utter crap (I love 2e, but it is what it is and combat it ain't) so naturally they'll avoid the pitfalls of the system.
4e's pitfalls are utterly dependent upon it's Dm. Where as 2e on the other hand Combat is to be avoided like the Black Death because it's boring as hell. The outcome -is- certain in 2e combat once you hit level 5 and that's the Pcs will win. At least that was my experience with it.
(don't get me started on 3rd and it's notorious Autowins)
Skill Challenges unfortunately stumbled out of the gate, because I think the game was released a little too soon. (Another six months of polish or so would have done wonders... Open Grave did a bang up job on rectifying many of the Skill Challenge problems)
The trick with 4e and to have successful games is to stop trying to treat Combat and Rp as seperate entitites. I'm serious. previous Es, they were seperate because the combat was that dodgy and terribad. (particular 3rd. 2nd and 1st to lesser extents)
I've noticed markably higher success with my campaigns once I had that epiphany. Which is something that is going to be coming up in a new Dms guide article by the way that I'm writing.
Once you treat the game as a cohesive whole, and they blend together it works. And works fantastically. The problem is when you try to seperate the two too much. Yes there should be time between encounters, but that should be kept as a minimum.
Also, your players are the stereotypical D&Ders. :P It's not the systems fault really. They grew up on kill it, skin it and loot it.
I could Dm 2e but I'd never be caught dead playing it again. And you'd never catch me alive willingly unless I literally have no other choice in gaming to be on either side of the screen with 3e. 4e for me is the first time that I would willingly be on either side of the screen. Unfortunately I'm the last 4e Dm in my area. (One is doing Savage world.. maybe some day.. yeah right, and one is wanting to make his own game system or do a song of ice and fire) So, my days as a player in D&D are over for the forseeable future.
Anyways best of luck Hocus. Don't be a stranger.
http://guild.medialoungeca.com/index.php?action=forum The Guild I'm apart of. We're in WOW, STO, Rift and soon Star Wars feel free to register and hang out. http://sparkster11.deviantart.com/ my deviantart Wheelman of the House of Trolls, "I love it when you watch" Carrier of Section 2, 3 and 6 cargo. Resident Driver Stud God of Transportation and Lust.
Sounds like you've found that perfect niche everyone looks for.
I enjoy 4E, I really do. I GM for several groups of people, including a gig for the local school where I come into one of their Drama classes once a week and spend the entire day doing nothing but playing D&D4E until their school session is over. Then I usually hang around and play with some of the interested teachers. 4E is a great game, but it's not my preferred cup of tea as far as D&D goes.
I prefer 3.5E if I want to enjoy every aspect of the outrageous, over-the-top Heroics/Villainy of D&D that I can, and I play SWSAGA if I want to enjoy everything about a roleplaying game. If I feel like playing a more open-scenario, gritty/tough, and luck based RPG, I go play one of the White Wolf games. I play D&D4E if I want to enjoy the simplicity of the D&D world, where fighting is the primary feature, and engaging in tactical/strategy based warfare with heavy role-playing elements is what calls too me in that moment.
4E is great, and I hope that 5E is just as good (and improved/better!), and I'll keep playing 4E for years to come. But it's neither my favorite game, nor my preferred Edition/System/Whatever. Cheers!
