An Old School Heretic's Critical Look back at 4e...

...and why I still willingly play it!

I did not start with the 4th edition of the World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game, so my perspective is likely to differ significantly from those for whom 4e was their introduction to the hobby. I tread lightly even mentioning 4e. My hope is that this post will not be be taken as my attempt to argue the merits of one edition over another. For a variety of reasons, 4e seems to be the most "controversial" edition and it seems to be forever connected to the term "edition wars". This post is in no way an attempt to fan those flames and what follows is entirely the humble opinion of one person, me the writer, and nothing more. I write this out of sincere enthusiasm for our hobby and as an exercise in sorting through my own thoughts on the matter at hand. So if you are still curious about what my humble opinions on the matter are, keep reading. 

I will state from the beginning that I sincerely like 4e...and I also sincerely dislike 4e. For that simple reason, I am sympathetic to those who criticize this version of the game that we all enjoy, and I also understand the feelings of those who defend it. Like every other edition of the World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game, good things can be said of 4e, but 4e isn't without its flaws. The 4th edition is plagued by a volume of errata which will testify to its being far from a perfect game. Yet I find it an enormously fun game to play, provided everyone at the table is cooperative!

Powers

The publishers of 4e seem to have aspired to give us what essentially is a level-up of the game to a more "supers" feel. Characters in 4e start off at level 1 already as competent and heroic (levels 1-5 are termed the Heroic Tier of play in 4e). I will readily admit that it can be great fun to play an heroic character that feels super powerful. (I recall my surprise upon playing this edition for the first time as I saw how much damage my level-1 PC dealt out and absorbed!) Overall, my play experience with 4e satisfies a sometime desire to role-play a "superhero" and does so in a way that is harmonious with my preference for a setting that at least superficially resembles ancient or medieval times (fantasy!). This is one of the appeals of 4e for me and also one of the aspects which led me (and others) to eventually desire a more traditional FRP experience where low-level play is dangerous and it's a challenge just to survive to make level-2. I missed the feel of my old D&D.

A design goal of the 4e development team seems to have been to "standardize" the experience of playing the game by giving the DM certain tools that would make unnecessary much of the need for DM judgement calls. An attempt is made to balance character abilities across classes, balance encounters so that PCs will prevail, and to clearly spell out all mechanical procedures are however, accomplished imperfectly in the published books. Simply put, I have found DM fiat is still both necessary and desirable despite the 4e game's preference for a formulaic and standardized approach to the role of the DM. The goal of making all player experiences the same across all tables regardless of who is acting as the DM seems to have recently been somewhat abandoned post 4e even by the owners of the D&D brand as evidenced by the changes in approach to rules taken in the follow-up version, the most current 5th Edition.

Markers

As referee, I run most of my games relying on verbal description and imagination only, what we often call "theater-of-the-mind". Preference for this game style is perhaps a carry-over from my earliest days in the hobby when miniature figures representing fantastic creatures were very hard to come by. In their absence we simply made do without them. Dice would occasionally fill-in for the figures we didn't have, but we soon discovered that even such substitute representations could be dispensed with, and that the game worked perhaps even better without them. The rules in the earliest editions of the World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game accommodates the use of miniature figures and even lists game's distances in inches for ease of tabletop play, but lacking the appropriate miniature figures we seldom played this way. With the later advent of cheap, readily available plastic miniature figures, especially monster figures, and most recently the widespread use of virtual tabletops with their associated tokens, theater-of-the mind style play is becoming perhaps less common today. As time progressed, fantasy figures have become readily available and are now an industry in its own right.

Having said all of the above concerning theater-of-the-mind play, 4e practically insists that combat encounters be gamed using a tactical display or "grid" and that figures or tokens be used to represent the characters and monsters, as well as markers to represent the status of said creatures. Many of the powers and abilities of the characters and beasts are geared toward players counting squares and positioning their figures and templates. 

The 4th edition rules seem to excel when it comes to tactical play. It is a strength of the edition, but also a weakness as I see it. Moving figures, counting squares - it all takes time, not to mention player "analysis paralysis" that can accompany tactical decision making. Even smallish combats using 4e can easily take an hour or more to play to conclusion as each participant carefully considers, then positions their figures and any templates to maximum effect. Viewed solely on the basis of being a  game of tactical combat in a fantastic milieu, 4e is perhaps the ultimate gaming experience. It has become my preference for such skirmish style miniature game and even with its publisher moving forward to the next edition (5e), the core mechanics of 4e combat continues on as the basis of a series of board games which are still currently available, and which I enjoy both in group or solo play.

Combat using a tactical display (grid) can be great fun, but there are times when my desire is for a more open and free-wheeling role-playing style with occasional combats. One of the frequent complaints I hear from friends regarding 4e is that it does not encourage role-playing and places too much emphasis on combat. While combat seems to definitely dominate the rule mechanics of 4e (and honestly all other other editions of D&D), the very nature of role-playing itself, with its basis in the back-and-forth verbal exchange between players, definitely encourages, if not mechanically supports, a free dialogue between the referee/DM and players. Such verbal activity is at the heart of the hobby, at least I would argue that, and it is with that statement that I begin to express the way that I, as referee, prefer to use 4e (and really all RPGs). 

My view is that combat, even using 4e, does not always have to be epic, and it does not have to use a grid or figures. There is room for role-playing in any encounter, in any system, in fact I prefer to do just that. Sometimes a quick encounter using 4e may be played using only theater-of-the-mind, reserving the tactical display and full 4e mechanics for those important battles where tactics may decide a close outcome. Pushing through a small group of over-matched minions in order to clear the area for further exploration can be the end result of a series of verbal narrations together with a few dice rolls rather than an hour long tactical combat. 

Skill Challenges

I believe the presence of "skills" in a game inherently changes the nature of role-play. Players tend to look to their character sheet when it contains a list of skills, just to see if they can leverage any of those skills in order to roll for a success. Acting as referee I am fond of saying to such a player, "The answer is not on your character sheet. Tell me what you would like for your character to do and we will find a way to see if that works." 

My hope in such game situations is always that players will come up with some idea that will succeed with no dice involved - dice can be fickle! I like to encourage logical problem solving and creative thinking whenever possible (even outside of gaming) and see this opportunity as a strength of RPG. Reducing an important element of the game, such as creative thinking, to a series of connected dice rolls seems a loss of that opportunity to me.

On the other hand, a series of dice rolls may make sense in order to successfully navigate a number of difficult challenges as player characters strive for a successful conclusion to a complicated situation where coordination of effort and teamwork is necessary. The concept of the skill challenge is not inherently bad, but it can be poorly used, in my opinion.

The design idea behind the 4e skill challenge seems to have been to spread the opportunities for significant action during the game across all the players at the table rather than to facilitate one character who excels at one skill to dominate a given type of game situation. The idea of character "skills" harkens back to earlier editions (perhaps even borrowed from other games) and is probably here to stay for any future editions, but the idea is not among my favorite innovations.

In Summary

By picking and choosing from the available tools presented in the 4e books, I find the game can be very enjoyable. I don't worry much about errata and I frequently make referee rulings as I see the need for them - feeling no guilt in doing so. Is what I am DM-ing "by the book" 4th Edition, no, but I think it does provide some fantastic fun. The tactical miniatures game inherent in the 4e rule system is robust and it rewards clever play. In my experience combat generally runs along smoothly when players are cooperative and it really doesn't require very many referee judgement calls.

Each referee can decide how much game time they wish to devote to combat and by contrast to devote to other game related activities. Investigation, negotiation, exploration, even down-time can be as involved and time consuming as the players at the table prefer. Simply jumping from one combat encounter to the next can be a group's preferred style of play regardless of which edition they are playing, but so can playing a game emphasizing investigation or any other aspects of play.