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Okay, well, it is. But it's also more of a lamentation thread. I've been playing 4E since it's inception, and I've played every edition before that, right back to the Holmes rulebook. In the time I have had to experience 4E, I've made a few observations that I'd like to open for civilized discussion. If I'm wrong, then offer me a dissenting opinion, just do it politely, please.

1) D&D meets WoW
This is probably my biggest complaint about 4E. It feels like a tabletop video game. I have a character that has powers that can be used once per turn, once per encounter, and once per day. Not unlike having powers in a videogame that have to have time to regenerate. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy video games, but I don't like the feel that the current edition has that feels more like a videogame than an RPG.

2) Magic Items
My second biggest gripe. I'm an old-school gamer. I recall the days when your characters found a magical sword and everyone spent the entire evening wondering what properties it might have. In 4E, anyone with the Arcana skill can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the weapon in ten minutes. To me, that sucks some of the fun out of the game. It also precludes the possibilities of things like cursed weapons (remember those?).

On a similar note, I also dislike the idea that the players can build a "shopping list" which they give to the GM to be sown into the adventures. It reduces finding magical goodies to a case of, "Oh, boots of the eladrin. Didn't the rogue want those?" Remember when there was dicing to see who would ge the magical cloak and you didn't even know what it did yet?

Then there's the fact that it is expected that the characters will have a certain amount of treasure by a certain level, and if they don't then they are underpowered. This makes it difficult to hide treasures and magical items, because if they are overlooked, then the characters miss out on something they should have received to keep the game balanced. If, for example, the orcs are using the staff of fire as a spit for roasting their suckling pig, it could easily be overlooked when searching the lair.

And whose idea was it to give magic items daily uses? Did the One Ring only allow Frodo to be invisible for ten minutes between each extended rest? (Okay, it was an artifact, and the rules are different for them.) But really, it just adds to the videogame feeling that I mentioned earlier.

Lastly (on this subject), magical items in my campaigns have always been rare and wondrous things. If a character got a +1 sword, it meant something! That sword was manufactured by someone for someone or some specific purpose. It had a history and a reason for existing. In 4E, there are magical sweatshops full of wizards cranking out hundreds of magical goodies each day. Magic has become disposable. Doubtless somewhere in the Realms, there is a huge landfill brimming with old +1 weapons.

3) Encounter-driven Expeditions
Again, I'm an old school gamer. I remember extended underground expeditions where characters would be so long out of the sunlight that it hurt when they came back to the surface. While such is certainly possible in 4E, the game isn't designed for it. On average, characters should go up a level every 8-12 encounters. Can you imagine trying to play through the Caves of Chaos? They would overshoot the upper limit of the adventure in the first three caverns! Oh, but it can be done. After all, Wizards did it with the Encounters program. True, but how much did they have to write out of that in order to make it fit within the format? Why are rations and water even a concern in the new rules? In a typical adventure, characters will be home in time for dinner at the local tavern.

4) Roleplaying Diminished
This is going to start an argument, I know it, but I'm putting it in here anyway. When cries of, "The fighter rushes the group of orcs shouting, 'Die, pig-faces!'" are replaced with cries of "Move me up 3 squares. I charge and make a basic melee attack against the lead orc while spending a minor action to blast the second rank with dragon's breath," something is wrong. The game has become more like a board game than a role-playing game, with the use of miniatures almost mandatory. What happened to using your imagination? It's just that the game seems more... mechanical... to me now.

5) Power Struggles
To me, there seems to be some disparity between the classes. I run two different groups. One of them has a psion that is a continual thorn in my side. He only has one offensive power, but he can augment it to the point of ridiculousness. Worse still, he has a feat or something that allows him to slide creatures as a free action, at will! He continually throws my monsters up against walls and one another and wants them to take damage from the impact (which is not covered in the rules).

6) Powers That Don't Add Up
Here's another one from a real-life example: Both groups have a bard in them. The bards makes good use of Viscious Mockery. But how does this power work against mindless undead? Or unintelligent creatures? Or beings that can't understand the language of the bard? And there are other powers that don't make sense when applied to certain circumstances, either. Timely Distraction comes to mind. If a zombie likely to turn and look because you pretend to spot an owlbear? It seems unlikely to me.

Don't misunderstand me. While I feel that there are several problems with 4E, there are also things I like, such as skill challenges, the loss of the Vancian magic system, and the broadened possibilities of race and class combinations. But there has to be a happy medium somewhere. I just can't seem to find it.

My players are similarly divided. Some find 4E enjoyable, but not D&D. Some want to switch to Pathfinder. One wants to go back to 2E! One (a rules lawyer by nature) is a die-hard fantical fan of 4E. I just want something that has the old-school feel with rules that work and don't feel like a mathematics exam.

Yeah, I see a lot of stuff that just seems head-scratchingly wrong too. But, he joined in 2002, so...he's not a troll or sockpuppet.... 

No, I'm not a troll or a sockpuppet, and if it's wrong, then offer a counterargument. I'd REALLY love to hear from one of the Wizards folks.

The plural of anecdote is not data.