D&D 4e was a game || Memories from an older D&D edition 

"Originally the way I got into Dungeons & Dragons was online D&D videos." The cycle continues...

Player- " can I steal the ghosts haha" Dm rolls " yes" player "what?"

When he tried to describe his introductory session to 4e i felt like i was listening to a JoJo episode

"...I came here voluntarily....I didn't have to come here...this was my SATURDAY!" hahahahahahaha, I hope 5e treats your Saturdays with more care.

Puffin: "I still... Like 4th edition." ME: "I would like to roll sense motive."

Now I know why his brother called it “The Sadness”.

Apparently falling to sleep and waking up on command is an important skill when playing Fourth Edition.

Stacking bonus and passive is really fun... in a video game... when the game system does it for you and keep track of it...

"People just hate 4e because it came at a low point in popularity..." "So, here's a half hour video about all the totally legitimate reasons people hate 4e"

"it's not a review of 4th edition" Riiiiiiiiight

4E was designed to be digital and have all that bloat be handled by the system. Unfortunately they stopped the development of it, so we just got a system designed for a different format.

Ben: I still like 4th Edition. 4e: See. SEE someone likes me Ben: *Proceeds to list all the flaws in 4e and proclaims that he doesn't like most of the rules* 4e: THIS DOES NOT HELP MY SELF ESTEEM

"Why did I buy all these books?" Because the covers are cool.

Came for Puffin recalling fond memories of playing D&D with friends. Stayed for the 22 minute PTSD flashback.

You never realize how important a books formatting is until you try to read through the shadowrun 5e core rule book

Now that I know what Tenser's disk does, this is even more disheartening. I used to assume it was some arcane buzzsaw of death. Now I know it's a cargo/corpse mover.

This explains so much. I couldnt imagine how or why Puffin got thru the Waterderp AL epic so quickly. He was forged in an environment where being quick MATTERED.

Tabletop RPGs are just home-brewed versions of _imagination_

Puffin: **Complains for 18 minutes** I... STILL LIKE.... FOURTH EDITION... Me: That's the definition of stockholm syndrome

7:12, you forgot the most powerful ability rotation: C->A->B, where you call a cab to go home because you hate 4e combat so much

The hybrid classing system sounds like the bane of Abserd.

After playing 4E for a while, I came to two conclusions: 1. It's heavily dependent on the skill and creativity of the DM. 2. It seems like it'd be a better rule-set for a sci-fi setting where the PCs are spaceships. Multiple common abilities you can use over and over, while you have a few only once an encounter and one you can use once a day? That sounds like Phasers, Torpedoes, and Polarity Reversal.

It’s like when you think back to a girl you broke up with and you’re thinking about all the good times you had; then you read your journal and letters and posts from that time and you suddenly realize WHY YOU BROKE UP IN THE FIRST PLACE. Then you have to go and eat a pint of ice cream just to get back into a good enough mood to deal with people again.

When he was going on the rent about the crazy combat at the beginning and "how is this meant to be an introductory game?" I got an add for DnD saying how easy it is to get into. Perfect timing

Puffin: "I'm here to talk about how much fun and special DND 4e was to me, I don't understand why people didn't like it>" Also Puffin: *spends the next 22 minutes complaining about how awful the game is.*

Imagine you’re in the hospital and you’re dying lying in the bed. And then the janitor walks up you and you’re like “what the hell?! I need a doctor!” And he says “I just have the highest dex soooooooorrrrrryy”

6:13 this is every character in every game in any system. You describe a thing the first couple times. Occasionally after that you’ll bring it up again to keep the imagery fresh.

I can hear Ben’s hesitation when he says he still likes it. Either he’s hesitating because he does like it and is worried about the online toxicity about it. Or he’s trying to convince himself to like it for nostalgia reasons

"Mom, can we have DnD?" "We have DnD at home." Dnd at home: *4th Edition*

So what I'm getting: "I bought it because it was cheap."

Puffin: I got into D and D through online videos. Me: Two years ago watching one of his older videos, “That looks cool” Me Now: Been DMing for my group for 6 months and everyone loves it.

Wow, I started with 4e. I guess I was lucky enough to have a DM that was running a home brew campaign, rather than a module, and must have been fudging quite a bit of the system, because I don't remember a whole lot of these flaws. I had a fantastic 18 months or so on that campaign and it really got me into D&D. I like 5e a whole lot more now, but I have fond memories of that first group.

Always wondered why everyone seemed to really like 3.5e and 5e but no one talked about what happened in between them at all.

“Really when you stop and think about it: isn’t every system just a home-brewed version of every other system?” Beautiful...absolutely beautiful.

If for nothing else, fourth edition had and still has my favorite class: Warlord. I didn't know how much I wanted to play a support fighter/cleric that didn't actually have magic nor any kind of deity baggage. Even now, I haven't found a way to simulate Warlord in 5th edition that felt half as good at it did in 4th edition.

Puffin: "I like 4th edition. I'm going to talk about it for a while, and I'm going to try not to be negative because I know a lot of people don't like 4th edition for some reason, and I don't want to feed into that." Puffin by the end of the (almost completely negative) video: "I re-read the book. I understand why a lot of people don't like 4th edition." Puffin, I think you also may not like 4th edition. And this is coming from someone who also started with 4th, was sad that there was no multiclassing, the powers were repetitive, and combat would take us hours and hours, sometimes multiple sessions, and every time I had what I thought was a really cool idea I'd ask the DM "Can I do X?" and he'd say "No! But you could in 3.5!" And he was not a good DM so he'd always say it like a snide asshole like "Yea but 3.5 is old so no one is playing that anymore." But I didn't care about the way he said it. 5 or 6 "You could have in 3.5!"'s later, I left that 4e game and found at least 3 different groups of people still playing 3.5 and played that for a decade until 5e came out.

"Apparently no one wanted them..." Wonder why...

New player: So what's the most powerful epic spell in the game? 3e player: What do you mean by powerful? 5e player: What do you mean by epic? 4e player: wHat iS sPell?

Something I have to say about 4e: it may sound like an overly complicated system, but it gave me the story that actually made me interested in D&D

From everything I've heard about 4th edition, it sounds like it'd make a really good turn based strategy game. On a computer. Not so much on paper.

Puffin: Oh, I remember 4th Ed. It was my first system. Oh, the nostalgia... Rando: Does it mean you like it? Puffin: FKKKK no!

Puffin: “I don’t wanna feed any arguments on if it’s good or bad” *Looks down at comment section* welp then

"i wish to speak to the leader of your party!" "sorry dude he has to go fifth you get me"

I have so many good memories with 4e. It was so good when I was really young because all I wanted was cool powers and hordes of monsters.

Ben: I still like 4th Edition. Ben, this is a safe space. You can admit this was a relationship was going no where. You don't have to suffer anymore.

I got into DnD at 5th edition. This makes me appreciate what I have holy cow

There's nostalgia, and then there's nostagony.

We all have memories that will last a long time, like the time one shows the DM the info on a Celestial Warlock, and he just freezes. That was a fun moment, as prior to that, he mainly stuck to the Core rulebooks, and then I came in with Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Then there was the time we (the group) were trying to figure out what to make my mother, who had decided to join the group, and we realized that we didn't have a monk, and this other player was like "Tabaxi Monk!" and the DM was like "Tabaxi?" and I go "Volo's" and get that book out and show it to him, and thus, Tabbitha the Way of the Open Hand Tabaxi Monk came to be, and my mother loves being the crazy cat lady of the group. (Can't wait until the DM gives the "Go Ahead" and we can play again.)

I get stressed out running encounters in 5e, I can't imagine DMing for 4th. My brain hurts just hearing you talk about it.

Yeah, when you were all like "OMG! It was terrible!" in the Dingo and Jackdaw video, I was like "Well, it sounds like your GM didn't know what they were doing..." And then you went over everything in this video and I was like, "Oh yeah... I remember now, we edited all that garbage out when we played it... heh heh... err...."

Funny, part of the reason I started playing D&D in general, and 5e specifically, was because I was looking for inspiration for my stories. Of course, didn't want to spend $50+ for a game I wasn't into - funny how that turned out - got $300+ worth of books (got all the player-related ones up to Theros), and a lot of dice (like $100 for just that, along with $40 for the Crown Royal Regal Apple - wanted the green bag, but the whiskey was good when mixed with apple juice, and was useful for "medicinal" purposes - lol!). Anyways, there's a guy I go horseback riding with, and he too likes D&D, being a veteran of 3.5e, although he's trying to get into 5e. Turns out, he has the 3.5PHB, and he let me borrow it. Been a little bit, and perhaps it was because the type was smaller, but I had issues with it. One issue I had was how everyone had some sort of racial penalty (don't get that much in 5e, and with the revised Volo's, no one gets it), with certain weapons meant for specific races (I can understand racial Martial Training as a culture thing, to have the ability to use certain armor/weapons regardless of class) and how certain races "should" be "certain" classes and not others (granted, given that certain races have bonuses to certain stats, still got a mild bit of that, but there's no real issue making "sub-optimal" race/class combos), and I might even argue about rolling for stats without an alternative stat array for those who just want to make a character real quick (but I know that's just Tradition). Of course, I like to talk to him about the different races and their abilities. For instance, I mentioned the Aarakocra and Winged Tiefling, who can be above the main action. He was like, "Sounds a bit unfair to the DM." I point out, "Yes, goblins can't use melee weapons against flying PCs, but every creature tends to have access to some sort of ranged weapon, and since goblins are at least smart enough to recognize a flying threat to be dangerous, some leader will go 'You two, use bows. Bring down bird-lady. She taste good!' so a good DM will will set at least one or two dedicated to such foes." I also point this out about any other PCs that might just run over an encounter, like using a minor fiend to mess up a Yuan-Ti Paladin or a good Bruiser-type to mess with a satyr (I know how to work around magic resistance.)

Yeah, I think you covered the what I remember about 4E. People I played with would say over and over again, "it's still a new system, just wait til a few more books come out and it'll get better."

Ah, the most fabled, intricate, evocative buff in the game, the almighty aura of... . . . +6

4E had a ton of brilliant ideas that were executed horribly. I've found that the best use for 4E is to mine it for ideas that you then fix and patch into other systems.

A lot of the issues Puffin brings up are things that still happen in 5e as well, and are issues that occur because of a bad DM. Players forgetting bonuses, realized they had certain abilities, etc. I've played 5e for years, and have gotten into 4e recently as well, and it's actually a lot of fun. You could have 5 characters of the same class that all have drastically different styles, and your fighter is going to feel just as cool as your wizard. Combat is very straight forward, you have 4 action types. Movement, Standard, Minor, and Free. -Move Action. Well you move. -Standard is gonna be your abilities, (ie; weapon attacks and spells) -minor are certain abilities that are easier, akin to bonus actions. Sheathing/Drawing a weapon, applying poisons -Free actions are things like talking, certain abilities, just things that take little to no effort or time. You can standard and move actions can go down, so you can take 3 minor actions, or 2 minor and a standard/movement. Combat is only boring if your DM makes it boring. I've never once found 5e combat fun aside from when my DM throws in so much homebrew mechanics it's barely recognizable as 5th edition. In standard play at LOW levels, sure there's not much to track player side, but at high levels, there is tons of spells, magic items, abilities, auras, etc to track player side. Then not to mention DM side is hell in 5e. I've played quite a few sessions of 4e now, around 10, having several combats, and it's all riveting. Each action is meaningful, and you plan and strategize around it. When you know a fight is coming, you scout ahead and gather info on your enemies to know what they do so you can counter them effectively. Enemies actually have tactics and goals in a fight. The things to keep track of are your powers, which are worded very well. Combat is not an issue in 4th edition, and it is much more fun than 5th edition in my opinion. Skill bonuses are a bit of a non issue as 4e was meant to be digitized, but that received backlash from the community, which I agree with. They get crazy high at some points, but in 5th edition, you have so many spells, abilities, and bonuses as well. The amount of times I've had a rogue in my games roll a 30+ on stealth, or a barbarian roll a 30+ on athletics, or other stuff is insane. I had a rogue get a 54 on a stealth check. She got a nat 20, had +14 stealth, PWT, and a few other buffs from magic items. These are not things that 5th edition resolved. For those few of you who see this 3 years after this video, don't discount 4th edition based off of the words of people who didn't know how to play it. Not to mention, if the DM was bad, then that can ruin any game from AD&D, to Call of Cthulhu, to Zweihander, and even 5th edition. Give it a try yourself, there's a discord for 4th edition play with a decent following. But 4th edition is extremely fun, and if you wish to give it a try, I'm looking to run a game on Tuesday afternoons CST. Just reply to this comment and ask for my discord tag.

Would like to see a part 2 with all the stuff on the cutting room floor.

4e number-crunching was a fine system... for a computer-calculated game. It was MMORPG rules, backported to pencil and paper.

I really loved the "hang in there" poster in the background.

I loved 4e :s it was so easy to run encounters, my warlord was epic.. 4e was all about teamwork and fight (more like a boardgame). It fixed alot of damage problems about classes like Rogue and ranged weapons. Every monster had unique powers and had sinergy as a troop. Elite monsters was realy strong and challenging so you had to knew when you pop your daily power.. as a tactician warlord it was awesome.. but one thing about this edition is that you had to read alot, through books to find good powers.

Man, this makes me really glad I didn't get into D&D until 5E was a thing.

Aesthetically, I remember 4th edition being awesome. Every power was like, "You backflip over the enemy and unleash five arrows into its gaping maw!" And I'd be like, "Dude, that's so sick! I need that power!" And then I'd read the effect, and it would be like, "Deal 5d8 damage to one target, and until your next turn allies get a +2 bonus to opportunity attacks against enemies adjacent to it unless their name begins with a Q or a W, in which case you instead add your Wisdom modifier to all damage dealt by . . ."

"Most people started with either 3.5 or later with 5th edition" *Looks over at my 2nd ed books from high school*

A thing about 4e was that it VERY MUCH relied on the DM to adjudicate, recommend action and make sure things ran smoothly. If you had a good DM, players who were familiar with their powers and just played common sense outside of combat... 4e was wonderful and there was nothing like it. I know this isn't strictly a vote of confidence, but 4e was the first RPG I played and I played it exclusively from 2009-2018, and after two years basically all the problems were resolved by getting better at playing and realizing how the tactics of character creation and combat worked and how to roleplay beyond the stats. It's a long process, but I recommend anyone interested find a 4e veteran to DM a game. It's a lot of fun.

Decades ago, I played D&D 2nd edition advanced. Then I was in a couple of 4e games, including a great campaign that lasted a couple of years where we went from level 1 to early 20s before the group broke up and covid happened. Now I'm about to start in my first 5e game.

"We played from noon to midnight." Ahhh, so THIS was that group!

Genuine D&D4 Lore checks, these were a DC to learn an interesting thing about what you see, both of these are the DC20 Lore check: > Goblins sleep, eat, and spend leisure time in shared living areas. Only a leader has private chambers. A goblin lair is stinking and soiled, though easily defensible and often riddled with simple traps designed to snare or kill intruders. (Wow, thats actually really cool to know!) > Dire bears typically maul prey with their claws or crush them to death with their thick, bestial arms. (Wow, you mean big angry bears act like big angry bears?! *sigh*)

I also began with 4E, good times. i feel its more about the fun than the rules.

Ben, I want to thank you so much for making this video. If it wasn't for this video, I might have burnt out on 4E, and have absolutely hated DnD by now. My group of friends got into 4th Edition cause it was hot shit when it came out, and that's the edition they sunk money into, so that's the edition they played. They played on and off over the years, until they finally met me, and convinced me to learn how to play, and DM for them. I had never played DnD before, and so 4th was my first edition, and I was supposed to DM lmao. Luckily, like you said in a previous video, I had one of those friends who knew a lot about the game, and he guided me the first few months of DMing, and slowly faded away the better I got at handling the game. I too DMed 4th Edition for over a year and a half, and maybe once or twice every 3 or 4 months I would actually enjoy DMing. It was like you said, I had fun just hanging out with my friends and stuff, but the game almost had nothing to do with it. I saw that moment at 7:53 and was like "Omg, that's us right there..." I showed it to my friends, and they too were shocked. I bit the bullet and bought the books to 5th Edition...ON OCTOBER OF 2019. THE ONE THING I'M NOT GRATEFUL FOR BEN, IS THAT IT TOOK YOU SO LONG TO MAKE THIS VIDEO XD I've been DMing 5th Edition weekly since then, and every week my friends and I are actually genuinely having fun now. But, you know, I love the fact my background as a DM and player starts in 4E, cause 4E taught me how to be a damn good DM. Cause, I didn't start 4E with some kinda module or campaign setting. I homebrewed it. Yeah, my first DnD, and I was a DM, and I decided to homebrew my own world... I can homebrew 5E with such ease, cause I've spent my time in hell homebrewing 4E to make it work, which as you said in your video was impossible to you. I too read through 5E books and modules with slight frustration, having been spoiled in 4E's wording and formatting. 4E was easy to understand in theory, but hard to keep up with in actual play. Later, I played with a different group of friends who only knew 5E, and I volunteered to co DM since I had a crap ton of experience DMing. Everyone was worried when I told them that I DMed 4E for over a year and a half, that I would be too rigid, harsh, and a rules lawyer, etc etc. But I was the one everyone loved playing with, cause I was fair, and balanced with everything that I did. Surprisingly, everyone hated how the other DM was unfair, arbitrary, and random. That DMing style just wouldn't fly with 4E.

"4th edition had a lot of haters, but I liked it.." *Talks angrily about 4th addition for 20 minutes* What a bamboozle!

As someone who's only played 4e, I didn't even realize the other versions weren't so damn limiting. I thought that was just how DnD was until today...

Thank you, Puffin, for always going over this...Breaking down and analyzing this, and then its relation to the rest of D&D and RPG development and history is useful for discovering of greater game design. My thanks, for Truth, sincerely!

I remember playing lots of 4th addition. Keeping track of all buffs and debuffs was such a hassle.

D&D 4e, it was like someone thought "let's take the mechanics of an MMORPS, and slap them into a tabletop game... where there's no computer to constantly keep track of every modifier from the ever changing list of buffs/debuffs that keep popping up and expireing every tick, I mean turn.

Hey, at least the book has nice art.

I recently stumbled into one of your videos and quickly watched several. They are always funny, cleverly animated, and well-voiced. I love them! But this one just breaks my heart. I loved 4e. Until watching this video, I never understood why there was so much hatred for it. Now I understand. I truly do not mean anything I say as condescending. 4e just made sense to me. The fiddly aspects were easy for me to track. Status effects? We used the rings from soda bottles. You know the ones that the cap attaches to? White ones were for immobilize, red for bloody, yellow for stun, etc. Just throw the appropriate one onto the mini and never forget about status effects again. Modifiers were generally easy to remember because you rarely had more than 2 or 3, though we would occasionally write them down. But just because it was easy for me and my group to track that stuff doesn't mean it was easy for others. And if groups had difficulty, well, that makes sense why they'd find 4e boring. And combat length? My average combats were 10 minutes long. We would spend far longer in 3e and 5e than that. I loved how quick combats would go once you knew how to run them. But then your take on skill challenges is really what made me sad. Once again - truly no insult meant. I feel your DM was not compatible with 4e. I'm sure they are great in other editions but they, imo, did not understand how to do a skill challenge in 4e. If they were running a module, then yeah, it did suffer from "we have to try to print all the options!" which can't really happen. So you get things where "Religion makes great sense to use to get rid of ghosts" but it doesn't fit into the module. That, to me, is more a problem with a module. But in free form DM'ing? My players are telling me what they are doing, then I'm giving them the skill to roll. I could, and frequently did, run skill challenges where the players never knew they were in a skill challenge until the end of the session when they are getting xp. "How so much from just one combat?" "Oh, well there was also 2 skill challenges..." "There was? When?!" I found myself to be very compatible with 4e. After this video, I understand a lot more why others aren't. I realize that the edition is dead at this point and you'll never really have a chance to play it under a DM who is compatible with 4e. But I do hope you realize that the things you are rightfully criticizing due to bad experiences are also fantastic with the right DM.

As a current 4e player, playing digitally makes a HUGE difference. I roll my dice and the computer automatically adds modifiers, keeps track of resistances and advantage, rolls saves, etc. Combat still can be a little slow but it's nowhere near like the nightmare you described in this video.

0:20 I see why no one wanted them, their covers are backwards.

4e: The reason Pathfinder was the dominant RPG for almost a decade.

Thanks for ur vids puffin, they help with the quarantine anxiety, never played a campaign but it's fun to hear about it.

*whispers very quietly* I legitimately enjoy 4e

I always like the 4E monster manual. They made interesting powers and abilities.

I relate to this so hard. I started playing with 4e too and when you said noon to midnight i had war flashbacks. Every saturday, starting 12, and getting done by midnight was a LUXURY. There were times we would play until around 3-4 AM. And we would sometimes play more than once a week because we didn't get where we needed to end up. Granted we had 12 players but we'd rarely have more than a mix of 5-6 of them. Someone would always be asleep, others would be chatting in the kitchen, and i was the only one trying to stay invested because it was so impossible to care about what everyone else does until it effects you. But i also still love 4e, although i play almost exclusively 5 now. It had a certain charm that you really only understand if you played it for long enough to "get" it (even though no one ever truly gets it)

4th edition had some of the nicest lore books in D&D, that book on the Forgotten Realms was glorious, and the Dragon book with the biological references, brilliant. It's woth buy all the setting and lore books from 4th just for the beautiful books, and artwork.

To this day, my old gaming group from 20 years ago still gravitates towards 4E. A lot of the criticism seems copy pasted from people who never played it. It also doesn't help that WOTC buries their old editions and doesn't really support them anymore. Just some of the things I can think of that are great: -Powers were a great idea, and solved the issue of the martial vs. caster bridge -Skill Challenges were amazing (If you knew how to run them, the rules were a bit janky on explaining) -Second Wind is cool -Healing Surges are cool -Short rests only being a few minutes is cool -Attribute based targeting was great. It really flexed the game beyond "weapon vs. AC" and "Spellcasting DC vs. Save" -Creature roles is an awesome idea. Bumps up the games tactical edge on both sides -The Warlord class is cool -Feats every two levels, and powers offering dynamic choices every level was great -Level cap being broken into three tiers, and each one having a "advanced subclass" choices was pretty awesome. Reminds me of Seiken Densetsu, or Fire Emblem -Darkvision was very rare -Minions. Another great idea for mooks. Let's the players flex their power, while also keeping the enemies relevant -Radiant damage hurts undead (I really don't get why this is not a thing anymore. In fact... elemental damage in general is pretty weak nowadays) -Treasure parcels made sorting loot way easier

"that's how they had dozens and dozens of classes: they didn't" if a class can be functionally replaced with another, one of these classes shouldn't exist.

12:59 One of the things that I LIKED about 4e was that you DIDN'T need "Detect Magic". If you had the Arcana skill...you could sense magic all the time. No spell slot used, not 10 minute stoppage in play - you just rolled a D20 and the DM told you if you sensed any magic in the area. Another thing that I really liked (and really miss in 5e) was the "exotic" materials that added to the flavor of the world - fabric made out of shadows for use in armor and magic items; things like that. 5e has lots of "monsters" and "magic spells"...but the rest of the world is apparently untouched by this and everthing is made out of "steel", "stone" and "generic wood".

Your Contra list sounds a lot like my Pro list :) * What baffled me the most is your impression of Hybrid classes and character building. Being a hybrid from level 1... I was like "Oh, yess!", no more suddenly gaining proficiencies / spellcasting over night and having weird power curves compared to single classed party members. And then being able to also multiclass (dip into some other classes' powers) with feats... All those opportunities to find your own synergies and customize your character further with each level. Whereas in 5e MC is an optional rule with little regards to balance... just dip into front loaded classes to gain a power spike at any level. And some classes literally only pick a subclass and that's it for relevant character building choices. Lots of power choices with lots of class features, races , themes, feats, paragon paths and epic destinies in 4e add up to unique characters that can be customized in detail, even when comparing option A to option B don't have much differences. Those differences add up and become significant when combined with other options. There are some recommended (or obvious) power "sets" aka suggested builds but you don't have to stick with them... e.g. with the cleric example in the video, couldn't it also be a good idea to combine any range power with any mace power to be prepared for both circumstances? Different combinations with different feats, hybrids or multiclasses mean making other power choices more viable. Yes, there are some options I wouldn't even consider for a certain character... but it's more interesting to have a choice of say 2 of 10, where seriously consider 5 of them, than a choice of 1 of 3 were you consider 2. * Character roles: if you generalize all classes to just the basic roles that's a very very rough distinction. Likewise you could say 5e only has casters and non-casters. * Combat is more intricate... but I find I can vary my playstyle more in 4e, there's always something else viable in my kit. In 5e only casters get that feeling. It's slower but 4e with people knowing what they're doing still runs faster than 5e with people not knowing what they're doing. It's more effort but I find it to be worth it because it's more interesting. Being able to react at multiple points keeps players engaged - when players don't have to do anything off turn they are more likely to zone out. If you don't get what's going on / have a problem managing the combat it might just not be the right type of combat system for you. * About the system being more rigid and powers only doing what the description says they do... it's similar in 5e (and 3.5 I think). E.g. Flame Strike in 5e doesn't set anything ablaze (description doesn't say it does, compared to Fire Bolt or other Fire spells). 4e tried to differentiate more between in combat and out of combat usages - but for me that is also a plus. Having the mechanics clearly defined as the mechanics and not combined with flavor lets you reflavor abilities much easier. And you don't have to argue if some text is only flavor or should have mechanical implications. * Out of combat casting... if you play in a low gold setting and prefer to save for magic items, then for that setting the prices are too high. I think this "homebrew economy" worsened your experience with this part of the game. In general, I like having some cost attached to magical problem solving - otherwise it often seems too easy and trivializes what would be an interesting problem to work around without magic. At least this way one has to consider the cost (of time and money). * Magic items only being able to be used once a day is just wrong. There's a variety of items and their effects have different usage types (at will / encounter / daily). Generally a 4e is also meant to have more magic items than a character in 5e (more limited due to attunement) so one of them likely does have less effects because otherwise it might become too much. * I am also confused about what you mention around monsters having powers - it makes it complicated and you feel less special as PC because they have them, but at the same time the combat is repetitive? How does the monsters having those kinds of powers not make the fight more interesting and varied compared to them just having an auto attack? * Similar thing with the overly complex combat situation you describe in the beginning - lots of different effects keying off each other, abilities being triggered by certain circumstances, movement, not being able to tell what's going on with the plethora of interaction between effects. Then later: tactics are easy, don't waste daily attacks on minions, don't stand in damage areas - that's everything you need to know. The combat being complex is what makes it interesting - and what makes you have to think more about it to play and coordinate well with your party members. The video is an entertaining rant, and some shortcomings of the edition are just that. But a lot it's design choices actually make it more enjoyable to play for other people. There's another side to the coin to most of the aspects you mention.

Stuff I hated initially: - the ludicrous complexity of making characters unless you went for the “optimal” path from the internet - how every game ended up with at least one player (usually the wizard player) would end up telling everyone else what to do - the original claim that you didn’t need a healer was false - no variation between skills, just have or have not. - the fact the power curve of the monsters was not directly comparable to that of the characters in their base state, but based on their powers being used correctly, so you get no benefit from teamwork, only punishment for failure Stuff I loved: + the monsters were amazingly well implemented and far easier to use, at least by mm3 + some of the adventures were okay. + there was less terrible 3rd party stuff (not much better, but less terrible stuff)

Your art style has evolved so much over time, it’s amazing

I never played that edition. I've never met one DM who wanted to. I also never played 1st edition or 3rd edition, only 2nd (once), 3.5 and 5th. I understand why 1st is left aside, it's probably like a pilot... then 3rd probably had such a large number of problems that it had to be fixed with a 3.5 revision... but I always wondered what was 4th edition like, and now I'm about to find out. edit: and now I know, and the fact that I was never subjected to such horror fills me with Christmas spirit.

Coming back to the video, having looked over some stuff for 4th edition, there were some elements that were good that can be pulled into 5e. Matt Coville does an excellent job of providing some insight into taking 4e concepts to make 5e better (i.e skill challenges I believe). My original problem with 4e was simply not looking for yet another system when it strayed too far from d&d. I had enough rules rattling around in my head to take the time on a then new system that suffered from video game like design. 2e, 3, 3.5, Star Wars (D20 and the 80s one), D20 Modern, Cyberpunk, White Wolf, Song of Ice and Fire, Star Trek (FASFA version), Traveller, GURPS, and more. I just didn't need an experimental attempt at taking video game style into my RPGs (GURPS can do that just fine thank you ha). It had its place, but I prefer RPGs to push for the roleplay, not the rollplay.

I was in a 20+ year D&D group that ended right before 5e came out. Met once a month. 4e was far and away our favorite edition.

I've played pretty much every edition of D&D, even played the old Chainmail and the D&D Miniature Game that was out during 3.5e. While many of my friends loathed 4e, I've always been of the opinion that it's not a bad system, just a bad RPG system. D&D 4e is a great rules system for a tabletop wargame, their biggest problem was marketing it as a tabletop RPG.

I got the 4e books in 3rd grade Never played the game, just went through the players handbook and monster manual with my friends on the school bus. Good times. Think I got more out of it than I would've just playing the game.

I started on 4e. I loved it

The 2 things I miss most about 4e: Ardent (My favourite class), and the formatting of the various books (Seriously, those things are beautifully formatted, far easier to understand than the game itself LMFAO)

4e did have good ideas to it though. The 1 HP minion concept is solid and 5e benefits from it. Enemies having auras, or half HP reactions makes fights more interesting too.

I can't believe you stuck with DND if this was your introduction.

I stopped played DnD back in the 90's when AD&D was all we had. I was aware when 3e came out, but only marginally. When 4e came out, I had a couple of friends that were into D&D and were bitching long and hard about 4e. At the time, I was heavy into PC MMORPGs and the more they discussed the features of 4e, the more it sounded exactly like the developers had tried to take a paper and dice RPG and turn it into a PC MMORPG, hotbar and all. Even the character creation sounds like an online MMO.

Hey good video. As a veteran of Dnd gaming I've played it, thought there were some very cool things in 4th edition. My biggest concern though was how it felt like I was playing Diablo II. I mean that's a multiplayer game that doesn't require everyone to sit around the same table. I'm glad we played it, but I think I've gotten what I need from it. Some good memories.