Monday, July 18, 2016

Alas, 4e (Part 2)

Over a year and a half ago I lamented the final loss of Fourth Edition D&D.
Whether it was the loss of the plans I had for the game, the game itself or the sizable investment I made in the rules I am not sure.

Tonight it is late, and I am working and looking across the room from my office to my game room where my Fourth Edition collection sits.


I loved the art. I loved the attention that was made to the design of the game.  Was it D&D?  I can't answer that for you.  For me it was "near D&D" just like Pathfinder was/is.  In some ways Pathfinder was more D&D 4 than D&D 4 was. They were cousins, born at the same time and whose grandparents had trouble telling apart as their favorite.

Since that post, I have been dipping every so little back into 4e.  I am not planning on getting back into it anytime soon that is for certain.  But I do wonder if someday I will.

I am also wondering about going all digital with 4e.

DrivethruRPG has a sizable collection now of Fourth Edition PDFs.  A few I have already bought.
I could simply unload a few of those books, not sure how or where, and then rebuy them on PDF.

I love that 4e was very modular in layout.  I very easily could cut up all the books and reshuffle them to have all the classes in one place, all the skills and feats in another. All the monsters, mostly alphabetic in yet another.   The organization appeals to my innate sense of order and collection (or is that OCD?).

The real question is, is it worth it?  Obviously, if I played the game more then yes.  But I only dabble. Here and there now. I like the fluff.   One day maybe I'll run the HPE Orcus vs. the Raven Queen arc in the Forgotten Realms under 4e.  But not anytime soon.

Meanwhile, till I decide it is going to sit there and stare back at me.  Taunting me.

What would you do?

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6 comments:

  1. Run 4e as a sweeping epic Wuxia campaign.

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  2. I was never the least bit tempted by 4e, since I can't offer any suggestions to you. You'll have to find your own way.

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  3. I'm with Mark on this....I ran a lot of 4E, and so I'm pretty sated on it. When the bug for that style/feel hits me, 13th Age has become my go-to system; it keeps all the stuff from 4E I loved while revamping it to handle the playstyle elements I like the most but which 4E jettisoned.

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  4. I am actually starting my third 4th Edition game (although I tend to call it Type IV) this Friday. I have run one and played in one prior to this.

    However, this is the first time I am really trying to take Type IV on its terms. Much to my surprise I'm having a blast with it. I really, really want to try to get through 30 levels of play and have a campaign backdrop story that meshes what you wrote about the Orcus campaign (without having read most of the modules) with Greyhawk Grognard's attempts to reconstruct the Gygax's ToEE to Giants to the Drow to Lolth idea layered over default 4e world (such as it is).

    I suspect that with planned semi-weekly play if we pull this off it could take three years.

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