Why does 4e have such a big gap between players and games?

Why does 4e have such a big gap between players and games?

Because "players" is just how many people have it put as a prefered system in their profile, while "games" are actual Roll20 games that have the system listed as the system being played.

In other words: a lot of people are willing to play it, but not nearly as many actually are.

4e is a skirmish-scale fantasy combat simulator. As such it shouldn't be compared to 5e but to Warhammer. Look at the figures, they're very close and have nearly the same ratio.

Because 3.PF and 5e players are all fucking flakes and terrible shitters, meaning games have to canceled and remade with a different group very often.

>5e has 10x more games than all other games except 3.pf

Are you other guys even trying?

Ha ha, sounds like someone's upset about some games' popularity!

I'm upset about rarely even reaching session #1 with those systems, yes.

Oh, you're so cute.

Who /shadowrun/ here?

>You: "umad!"
>Him: "yes, a little"
>You: "hehe now i being condescending >

>I'm upset about some games' popularity!
>Yes, we know
>Look at me try to craft some fiction to pretend I'm not, only to confirm I am!

That's why you're cute. You're like a little kid with his hand in the cookie jar trying to say you're not trying to take a cookie.

Because you play 4e with miniatures on a well crafted piece of terrain over a battlemap, user.

Those would all be arguments for 4e being popular, not the other way around. So if what you suggest is true, then 4e must be truly horrible.

I noticed that. Although Warhammer covers a lot more genres than just fantasy, so it isn't a truly fair comparison.

Could it be that roll20 does not handle 4e as well as the other systems?

What exactly is covered by "Other Games"?

It's possible.

There's also the issue of what sub-section of Veeky Forums related stuff does roll20 cover.

If people go there and play "range doesn't matter because everyone is wizard/cleric" 3.5e, both what the site can do, and the types of people that go there will be baised against 4e.

Probably the catch all term for people using roll20 to run hombrew content or using it for card games. I am probably responsible for like 15 of those because I use roll20 to make maps and reveal them to players as we go since two of them bring tablets to the session.

Other Listed Games are things like Fallout rpg and Gurps that have sheets available on the site.

At this point, you find little who probably gave a shit enough to play 3.5 here to actually sway public opinion for another system.

Only people left who discuss it do so only after someone baits people into a discussion about 3.5 for shits and giggles.

Shadowrun has probably the most consistently non-flaky and also not-shitty roll20 community. I love it.

Wow, go Shadowrun go. I bet this is because of the PC games. That said, I started a SR5 game around the start of the year for players who'd only played the PC game. Not sure they were quite ready for a game where you need to have your paperwork in order to be permitted to kick arse.

Jesus Christ you're retarded.

> mfw 5e has more games than 3.5, PF and 4e COMBINED

Wait so they mention 40k and Dark Heresy?

but they didnt mention the others....

I dont think Only War or Death Watch are bad and kinda like them over dark heresy....

They said ect.
I think they just listed the popular ones because if you're using limited space your going to go with the most used.

>mfw when there are more D&D games than all other games combined

>Those would all be arguments for 4e being popular, not the other way around. So if what you suggest is true, then 4e must be truly horrible.

What? No it doesn't. It's not about the game's quality, it's about popularity and community.

If everyone and their mothers are running 3.5/3.PF games that only last a session or two (since people can just go "fuck this, I can find another PF game any time"), that inflates the numbers pretty badly.

If 4e players stick to their games for a long time (either because 4e games are good or that there aren't that many to pick from to begin with), that deflates their numbers.

In general, OP's image is not really useful for anything but starting a troll thread.

>vast majority of dnd games are completely focused on combat
>those same people playing combat focused games still bitch at 4e

What exactly does other dnd editions do that make 4e not an rpg in comparison?

>mfw
I can't even convince my group to play a single non-D&D game.

They have natural language rules.

It's

>"you throw a ball of fire up to 100 ft that explodes and deals 10d6 damage in a 15 ft radius circle, enemies can make a reflex saving throw to half the damage"
vs
>"arcane, implement, fire
INT vs Reflex
blast 3 centered in 20 squares,
hit: 10d6 damage
miss: half"

I massively prefer the second, but some people just need the rules to be obfuscated to feel immersed.

Large proliferation of less associated mechanics, essentially the kind of "per day, per hour" shit with no basis in the game world that started becoming big in late 3.5. A lot of d&d players have a vaguely simulationist mindset so this bothers them.

There's no per hour shit in 4e. You are mixing it up with 5e.

There's per day and per encounter, both of which had been in 3rd edition core.

The writing isn't really the issue at all so much as martials getting per day and per encounter powers. Which is an issue because the player makes a decision based on an abstraction that doesn't exist "in the game world" The idea is that the player is making decisions based on things their character couldn't possibly have knowledge of.
Things like hp and spell slots are generally only accepted even though they're very disassociated because "that's the way it's always been done"

Per day and per encounter weren't so prevalent in early 3.0 and gradually became more common as the game went on. Back in 2000, you'd see 2e players bitching about say, the way the barbarians rage mechanic worked "what do you mean he can only rage a certain amount of times a day?" and whatnot with largely the same reasons folks bitched about 4e. Per encounter wasn't a thing until late in 3.5's lifecycle so most players didn't encounter it till 4e. The per hour for example is functionally similar to a per encounter but being moored on in-game time makes it "feel" less gamey.

This was quoted from Races and Classes in the 4e thread, so I guess this is the official explanation for those:

> As with all 4th Edition character classes, fighters have three categories of powers: at-will, per-encounter, and per-day. At-will powers are relatively simple attacks that the fighter simply knows how to do. For example, one defensive strike is a simple attack that deals normal damage, but if you hit, you get a bonus to your Armor Class against the foe you hit. Your attack leaves you in a good defensive stance against your foe, and he’ll have a hard time striking back at you.
> Per-encounter powers are special weapon tricks, surprise attacks, or advanced tactics that can only be used one time per fight. The fighter doesn’t “forget” a power once he uses it, nor does a power deplete any innate reserve of magical energy. He can’t use it again because it simply isn’t effective more than once per battle. If an enemy has already seen your dance of steel maneuver, he won’t be taken in by it a second time. Because you can use one of these powers once per battle, the challenge is to find the exact right moment to use each one for maximum effect.
> The fighter’s per-day powers represent a single act of incredible strength, endurance, and heroism; the fighter digs down deep and finds what he needs to make the ultimate effort. For example, the great surge power allows you to make a devastating melee attack and also call on your reserves of healing. When the battle looks grim, the fighter finds a little more strength to shrug off his injuries and strike a crippling blow. Because you can only use each of these powers once per day, the trick is to decide which combat during your adventure deserves the use of such a precious resource—and then exactly when during that battle your exploit will have the greatest effect.

Of course, many don't/can't accept that.

>The per hour for example is functionally similar to a per encounter but being moored on in-game time makes it "feel" less gamey.

How? How's having a literal 60 minute cooldown less gamey than "you need to take a breather before you can do that again"?

Because the concept of encounter is at its core a metagame idea while time is an in-setting conceit. The whole idea of 60 minute and 24 hour cooldowns though is why 3.0 got called "diablo edition" a lot when it first came out.

An encounter/short rest is short hand for roughly 5 minutes.

Death in other editions is do to attrition.
You have limited resources, every fight can end in death.
There are lots more stuff available for not just combat.

With 4e though players have excess of resources and can use many of them at least once a battle, so conservation is lessened.
Combat feels mechanical and slow, and players can easily heal up, so they are always relatively safe,
The only real rules added were skill challenges or whatever they were called, and as a player I felt they limited what I was allowed to do, and as a GM they made me feel like I had to come up with the possibilities instead of just allowing whatever and figuring out what to do when a player though of what they wanted to do,

I know 4e is often compared to a video game, but in this regard it really feels that way. I felt like I had to preprogram skill encounters. I know I could do it the older way, but it wasn't really supported.

yeah but a lot of people don't read that far. When it gets called "per encounter" then folks assume it magically refreshes after an encounter ends rather than being a 5 minute rest.

And now cue the "you don't really play 4e" idiots.

Because a timer means that the power cools down based off of whatever dumb rational you can come up with for it taking so long.

By encounter is much harder to come up with a reason.
>"Oh you just murdered those orcs and walked into a group of new ones? Of course you can use your power again.
>"Oh you've been fighting four 8 hours and used your encounter power at the start? Sorry, you would have to leave the area and come back to use it"

The only real artificial thing about the time is how precise it is and how it so conveniently lines up with a common measurement of time

A shame really.

How does wand of cure light with more that enough charges not mean that HP in 3.x isn't an issue between encounters.

... Confirmed for never doing anything physically demanding, taking a short break, and then doing it again.

What is a short break about walking five feet into a new room with new monsters? The waiting an hour is more inline with taking a break

8/10, you actually had me enraged there for just a moment.

Because that wand has limited uses, can't be used by everyone, costs money, and most importantly doesn't refresh, meaning that if you use it up you can't just sit around and wait while in a dungeon.

Even if he did, he missed a lot of the points.

Fighters now have resources to be drained, including their health (which, because of surges, is now a resource for everyone), which while they can recover, they can't recover as freely than before in 3rd edition.

Yeah, you get into more fights topped off by design, but now everyone has resources to manage both inside and outside battle.

The impression he got for tools outside of combat is fair, but it's merely an impression. There's really nothing holding you back from running outside of combat the exact same way you do in any other edition, short of magic being less retardedly useful.

That's not how encounters work. Unless you somehow have a 8 hour (that's literally 600 round) encounter without 5 minutes to stop and recover anywhere in there, that does not happen.

A short break is described as at least 5 minutes in 4e I think, so if you just stepped into the next door 6 seconds later (why didn't the orcs come over, did they not hear the commotion? Whatever), that's still the same encounter.

It's something, I think a lot of the renaming of things was to make the concept maybe less precise but more intuitive. Things like short rest or how hit dice work so similarly to healing surges. Hell, I'm pretty convinced that essentials classes were a sort of test run for design concepts they polished for 5e.

It's called an exaggeration my friend, my point is showing that the idea of per encounter opens up logical inconsistencies that make it feel more "gamey"

It costs 25 gold per pop IIRC. It has 50 charges. It can full heal the fighter like 20 times before you need a new one, and during that many battles it will make its price back multiple times, especially if you actually use the WBL table.

You mean the faulty idea people who don't actually read the fucking rules have in their head?

Okay, sure. I can live with that.

Veeky Forums is the only board where enjoying the most plebian normie casual bottom of the barrel shit is not frowned down but celebrated.

Well don't get me wrong, the wand isn't crap or anything, but even if those issues I listed don't come up, they still exist, and make the game feel less like a computer game. Also that wand takes an action, and if I remember healing surges were free actions and could be used when knocked out.

That's a lot of cool memes, but 5e is just a good game, and even it being popular can't dissuade people from liking it.

And how is one hour ok while 5 minutes is not?

>but even if those issues I listed don't come up, they still exist, and make the game feel less like a computer game

It's literally, and I mean LITERALLY like gulping a fuckload of potions down in diablo.

Except, that's also an option in all other D&D but 4e.

>Also that wand takes an action, and if I remember healing surges were free actions and could be used when knocked out.

You remember wrong. Healing surges take a standard. Only dwarves can use them as a minor. You can only use it once/battle. And the only other heal you get for a battle is your leader.

CLW wands are for out of combat healing; for in combat you got the Heal spell when you get there.

It's no shadowrun.
For babies first RPG it's actually really good.

>healing surges were free actions and could be used when knocked out.
No.
Healing surges can ONLY be used by having a specic power triggering it. Like a healing spell.

Well it's not, I forgot how you needed a short rest, it's been a while. Though the hour powers weren't overly prevalent in 3.5

5e has 1 hour breaks and even uses the term short rest, and no one cares.

that's assuming the wand is available in every general store, crafting it needs a feat and a certain level, so its not always available to the party

Well, phrasing is a lot. Also an hour means it won't be every encounter. And an hour is a good amount of time to set up an ambush. The books even say there shouldn't be that many short rests in 5e.

It's because "abilities recharge on a short rest" is the terms used rather than "abilities are per encounter" that no one cares.

It can support full parties no problem

Literally anything you don't specify in your profile as a preferred game. Hitting "Other Games" is the Roll20 equivalent of a girl going to a bar with a low-cut top and no bra. You don't care who you go home with, so long as you get some action tonight.

So players care more about how the rules are written rather than how well they work?

Well I mean I outlined other reasons, but yes, in part. How you sell something really changes peoples' perceptions. Even the way powers were done, with the little cards, make it seem more like a vidya.

The problem is, of course, you might get a party that gets into an encounter then gets into another one 30 mins in-game later at which point the GM either: gives them their short-rest anyway in which case the "1 hour rest" is pointless and it may as well just be "per encounter" or he doesn't and the game becomes much more about micromanaging time which can be annoying in breaking the "simulation" itself.

I would,if I could find a group that fits in my bloated schedule

In fact micromanaging time makes it feel even MORE videogamey and like you're managing cooldown powers and waiting for them to recharge.

At least "encounter" is just a meta-game term so you the player understand what options are available to you instead of having to stand there as your character and wonder why the fuck my abilities need a whole goddamn hour to recharge and try to undertake "getting faster recovery time" as an adventure.

>Shadowrun
>911 Games
Dragons did 9/11

>It's called an exaggeration
>I remember healing surges were free actions and could be used when knocked out
>I forgot how you needed a short rest
Every 4e hate thread in three shitty posts.

But you're not supposed to micromanage time.
Short rests aren't supposed to be a given. You're expected to get two at most, and it's something you eke out

>Because you haven't played a game in years and that means you can't remember the rules it also means that your not liking it when you did play it is invalidated
Well, I guess when you're only capable of playing DnD retard edition if figures you're kinda stupid

Oh look, it's eternally triggered bitch user.

Don't use that if you don't know when to use that.

An ETBA complains about 3.5, not D&D in general. It's a very useful term to describe a specific phenomenon, don't let it lose its punch like "sjw" or "cuck" have

Who else but an ETBA gives a shit about a dead game enough to make threads showing how unpopular it is in comparison to 3.5?

Powerbolt can't melt steel beams.

Whoa. Calm down. 4e is actually still played, and it's actually pretty popular, just not when put against the other editions of D&D. OP just had a question, he got his answer early on, and people just wanted to discuss the 2016 Q2 report.

That's all.

I only ever see it in bait threads so the sooner it loses its punch, the better.

Maybe that one fag will fuck off or something, or at least, a man can hope.

Oh look, it's an eternally triggered bitch user.

Mhmm, sure.

It's a little pathetic that Veeky Forums was able to come up with a meme insult more annoying than "cuck"

If calling me an ETBA makes you feel better, go ahead.

In the end, you're just killing the meme faster.

I'm just happy we don't have frogposters

As long as you choose to be eternally triggered, it will never die. It's really your choice.

Is this a forced meme thread? I say we bring back Gay Purple Man/Penisguy. He was the best back in the old days.

Considering how shitty the place has gotten over the summer, is it really a surprise?

Veeky Forums makes nothing but forced memes and pointless drama, 3.X was just an easy means of getting (You)'s and once the ETBA meme dies, you'll most likely never be able to talk about 3.X again without being accused of posting a bait thread or something.

Like how you can't talk about alignments or non-evil [mostly evil class/race] or shit like that.

Can my daughter and I join this thread?

Actually, it'll die once you stop forcing the meme.

At best, it'll be used as a red flag to show that nobody should take you seriously.

Wow, you really seem to be way more interested in this ETBA thing than actually discussing the original topic. It seems like being called an eternally triggered bitch really gets under your skin.

I kind of disagree, because the language is extremely important. I'll agree that hour long rests are a little more videogamey, but the language makes it seem more natural, and the option for 5 minute short rests in 5e makes it seem even more natural.

Those kind of powers are the kind that should make you a little winded, and taking five minutes for a rest seems to make a lot more sense than an hour. Of course, this messes up some classes by making them a lot stronger (particularly the warlock), but it keeps the players active and happy.

Don't flatter yourself honey, at best, it's annoying like posting frogs or calling someone a "cuck" or a "shill."

And the only reason why I find it annoying is because it adds nothing to the discussion and just serves as a shorthand for "this guy is triggering me so I'll call him [forced meme] so he stops talking."

And of course, if people find it annoying, it's not because it gets spammed everywhere on the board, it's because they're a [forced meme] too or some shit

>Considering how shitty the place has gotten over the summer, is it really a surprise?
Is it me, or has this summer been particularly bad?

It's not you.

This place has gotten particularly shitty over the last few months.

Even /v/ has gotten less caustic than this place has, though I think that's mainly because it had plenty of bombs to focus on and it's a bit harder to pollute something that's already raw sewage.

It is because the questfags are still on their shitposting spree due to the massive butthurt in the wake of the creation of /qst/ even though they haven't been officially confined to their ghetto yet.

I think they have been behind the false-flagging on the return of ERP and smut threads.

Really? That's your conspiracy theory?

You haven't been reading the shit threads that are all /pol/, SJW, or Racism Central have you. And those false flag ERP stupidity threads have never gone away - they existed long before quests did.

You're just so butthurt the mods didn't bow to your demands after you acted like an asshole in /qst/ you have to blame everything on your scapegoat of the day. You're pathetic.

>It is because the questfags are still on their shitposting spree due to the massive butthurt in the wake of the creation of /qst/ even though they haven't been officially confined to their ghetto yet.

Any particular reason why they're so butthurt?

I mean, I haven't seen /v/ reacting this poorly to a new board and they've gotten Veeky Forums and /vr/. I thought Veeky Forums was better than this but I guess I was wrong.

Burning the rulebook and snorting it with your ass doen't count as playing. And it seems to be a close approximation of what you did.

Because they didn't want it and were afraid of losing "muh traffic and board culture" and screaming about how it would kill Veeky Forums as /qst/ would be a slow-ass dead board. I haven't followed how /qst/ is actually doing but my filters show that the questfags haven't left so it ended up a whole lotta nothing.

I just noticed the uptick in shitposting really took off right after /qst/ was launched and just considered it fallout from the massive butthurt event that followed in its wake.

So the true eternally triggered bitch anons are questfags?

Man, that makes a whole lot of sense.