Does anyone know of any reasonably active 4e forums other then this one? I am not finding this one particularly useful.
ENWorld isn't particularly active either, something along the same lines as elitestjerks, but for D&D would be great.
How awful. That's like asking your girlfriend for suitable prospects right before you break up with her!
I am not finding this [forum] particularly useful.
Best not disappoint you, then. Therefore, I will not provide a helpful or useful answer to your question.
How awful. That's like asking your girlfriend for suitable prospects right before you break up with her!
I am not finding this [forum] particularly useful.
Best not disappoint you, then. Therefore, I will not provide a helpful or useful answer to your question.
Well, your other option is to have me hang around and annoy the hell out of you 
That's fine. I'm not easily annoyed 
Roflmao
And sorry, Wizards forums I find are the best for D&D
Roflmao
And sorry, Wizards forums I find are the best for D&D
I second that. Also, I am not commonly annoyed. What are you looking for in particular in a forum?
The ones I'm aware of:
Here
EnWorld- surprising amount of Wizards staff posting and good moderation, pathfinder has a separate board.
RPG.net- decent 3e population, but they have a rule that you can tag a thread as "4e positive" which prevents anyone from bashing 4e and vice versa.
Giantitp- predominantly 3e.
How awful. That's like asking your girlfriend for suitable prospects right before you break up with her!
I am not finding this [forum] particularly useful.
Best not disappoint you, then. Therefore, I will not provide a helpful or useful answer to your question.
LOL Well said !
I'm not sure you'll find anything quite like elitestjerks for D&D, there's far too many opposing opinions for many people to have a lengthy theorycraft discussion. You might try the Char-op forums here. I'm curious are you looking for for theorycraft on the player or DM side?
the GitP site is the other one i hang out on. it's primarily 3rd ed due to the nature of the Order of the Stick comic but the forums are not hostile towards 4th at all.
strangely enough, the people who don't like 4th actually stay out of threads discussing 4th ed. instead of jumping in and flaming. all on the same "Roleplaying" section too.
like here, it's generally considered to put [Xth ed] in the title of a post unless you want it to be edition neutral. not just because you'll have confused 3rd ed player responding to a 4th ed question, but 2nd ed (or previous) players responding to it too, as i was reminded today.
the few times i've seen threads close there is when the OP is hostile towards a particular edition and it snowballs from there, otherwise the worst you usually get is a little good-natured back-and-forth ribbing unless someone is extra sensitive.
Roflmao
And sorry, Wizards forums I find are the best for D&D
I second that. Also, I am not commonly annoyed. What are you looking for in particular in a forum?
So there is seriously no busy D&D forum on the web? Wow, that's kind of sad, and more then a little surprising.
I'm looking for a forum where there isn't the holdover angst from the edition wars, I find that its largely impossible to discuss any of 4e's problems without people getting there backs up and developing a completely irrational defensive posture. I have been lurking here for a long time and I only started posting because I decided to undertake this project. I don't want to spend 3/4 of my time trying to defend my position against people who are only arguing because they think I am slamming 4e. Its a waste of both of our times.
So I am looking for another forum where I can discuss potential modifications to the system as well as problems with the system with people who don't have the hold over anger.
I'm not sure you'll find anything quite like elitestjerks for D&D, there's far too many opposing opinions for many people to have a lengthy theorycraft discussion. You might try the Char-op forums here. I'm curious are you looking for for theorycraft on the player or DM side?
Both, I am doing a revamp of 4e for my house rules. Basically a rebuild from the ground up.
Well that's all very disappointing. Thanks for the replies.
Roflmao
And sorry, Wizards forums I find are the best for D&D
I second that. Also, I am not commonly annoyed. What are you looking for in particular in a forum?
So there is seriously no busy D&D forum on the web? Wow, that's kind of sad, and more then a little surprising.
I'm looking for a forum where there isn't the holdover angst from the edition wars, I find that its largely impossible to discuss any of 4e's problems without people getting there backs up and developing a completely irrational defensive posture. I have been lurking here for a long time and I only started posting because I decided to undertake this project. I don't want to spend 3/4 of my time trying to defend my position against people who are only arguing because they think I am slamming 4e. Its a waste of both of our times.
So I am looking for another forum where I can discuss potential modifications to the system as well as problems with the system with people who don't have the hold over anger.
I'm not sure you'll find anything quite like elitestjerks for D&D, there's far too many opposing opinions for many people to have a lengthy theorycraft discussion. You might try the Char-op forums here. I'm curious are you looking for for theorycraft on the player or DM side?
Both, I am doing a revamp of 4e for my house rules. Basically a rebuild from the ground up.
Well that's all very disappointing. Thanks for the replies.
What is it that you find lacking, specifically, in 4th edition? I ask this not to start some edition war (4th is my first edition, so I really couldn't compare it to others), but because I am curious to know what has and hasn't worked for you.
What is it that you find lacking, specifically, in 4th edition? I ask this not to start some edition war (4th is my first edition, so I really couldn't compare it to others), but because I am curious to know what has and hasn't worked for you.
Ya, not gonna go there. Not a comment on you, but there are those that can't see that question answered without getting there backs up. In general though I find 4e to be a well designed and enjoyable system HOWEVER, it is a radical departure from 3e and its clear that there are parts that are poorly thought out and mechanics that simply don't work mathematically.
... or that work too well mathematically.
As far as activity level goes nothing else touches these boards, at least for 4e.
Enworld 4e is a BIT less active, but still pretty active.
I haven't found any of the other boards that have an appreciable amount of 4e stuff to be either particularly active nor particularly high quality. Once in a while there seems to be a decent thread on RPGNet but they aren't better than what you'll find elsewhere and the amount of material seems pretty thin.
Frankly I think Enworld is your best bet. The 4e forums are both pretty active and the posters tend to be reasonably knowledgable. There's really not much that I would call "edition war" going on there. It tends to be more a back and forth between people at worst liking most of 4e the way it is and people wanting to do some fairly major (or minor) house ruling. You're just not going to find much better than that.
Also I think you may find that since the switchover to the new forum system here a lot of the more vociferous edition war people have just gone away. Things seem quite a bit more civil and the discussion more useful. The posting volume seems lower, but perhaps in general the quality has gone up?
In any case, on any active board you're going to have to endure a fair amount of criticism of ANY idea you put out there. Some you won't like. Its just the nature of the way the world works. If you really want only opinions you like you'll have start your own group or something and keep it people you want to hear from, but then it isn't likely going to be easy to find them.
That's fine. I'm not easily annoyed
The easily annoyed people left months ago. I'd have gone, too, but I'm an internet masochist.
PtM
What is it that you find lacking, specifically, in 4th edition? I ask this not to start some edition war (4th is my first edition, so I really couldn't compare it to others), but because I am curious to know what has and hasn't worked for you.
Ya, not gonna go there. Not a comment on you, but there are those that can't see that question answered without getting there backs up. In general though I find 4e to be a well designed and enjoyable system HOWEVER, it is a radical departure from 3e and its clear that there are parts that are poorly thought out and mechanics that simply don't work mathematically.
Then send me a message. I'll see what I can think of. I hate to think that O had done less than to help my fellow gamer.
I kinda think I'm going to call the OP out on this. There is no reason to be afraid of posting your thoughts here unless they are trolling. People will disagree with you, yes. But if what you actually want to say is intellegent then people will more or less respond well.
I'm actually slightly offended that you think the people on these forums are so slavering that you feel that any disent will instantly smote. Just say what you want to, and if it's something of merit people will discuss it. It just seems odd that you are so afraid that people will jump on you. Is it because there is something that they should jump you for? Hopefully not.
I kinda think I'm going to call the OP out on this. There is no reason to be afraid of posting your thoughts here unless they are trolling. People will disagree with you, yes. But if what you actually want to say is intellegent then people will more or less respond well.
I'm actually slightly offended that you think the people on these forums are so slavering that you feel that any disent will instantly smote. Just say what you want to, and if it's something of merit people will discuss it. It just seems odd that you are so afraid that people will jump on you. Is it because there is something that they should jump you for? Hopefully not.
True. And if someone happens to say something inflammatory, I know this is the Internet, but you can always ignore such people, Cerois. 
Cerois, I greatly sympathize with you. I like many aspects of 4e, but I'm just not satisfied with it as a whole. I've seen threads on both this forum and ENWorld full of people interested in contributing and people intent on disrupting the discussion. The disruptors almost always win (as is the case on nearly any internet forum), there's just too many: people who feel that anyone who wants to modify 4e is a hater (I often see the statement "why change 4e when you can just find a game made the way you like!"), or think anyone who's not a paid game designer is too stupid to suggest rules changes, or regular old trolls. It's possible have a discussion on either board, but the biggest limiting factor is finding enough like minded people to discuss with. I've considered making a group here, but I'm reluctant to do much of anything until the forums are more stabilized and out of "beta".
On a side note, I think the biggest limiting factor of 4e for people like me (and I'm assuming you) is the GSL's no re-defining clause. I used to depend on 3pp for interesting alternative mechanics, but how can you present alternative mechanics if you can't re-define any of the basics? It's like trying to make an omlette with unbreakable eggs.
You Can also try penny arcade.
Don't know where the weird name comes from but loads of posts there.
It's actually kind of scary we can all name a few Dungeons and Dragons sites, but when it comes to DnD4.0, this is pretty much it. Strange, that.
It's actually kind of scary we can all name a few Dungeons and Dragons sites, but when it comes to DnD4.0, this is pretty much it. Strange, that.
Its not at all strange that this is the largest and most active forum for D&D at all. Enworld is pretty darned active, but you could probably roll ALL the posts of every other forum that has any traffic on any edition of D&D together and not even equal Enworld, let alone what's here. I mean just how many different ones do there need to be? The point of posting is to get eyeballs on what you post. Naturally the best way to do that is to go to the place everyone reads. Beyond that you have just small groups of people that maybe only want to talk to a few others with exactly the same views they have, and thats a small minority of people who use various other forums. Naturally they are all very low volume. I mean lets face it, D&D is only played by a fairly small number of people in the grand scheme of things. There just isn't the need for dozens of different high volume message boards.
Unfortunately, the invalidity of the argument is shown by there being multiple other sites where 3E is discussed.
Don't turn this in an edition war.
3e has been out for nearly a decade, and the OGL allowed people to post most of the rules on their own websites, making it less inconvenient to discuss 3e elsewhere on the web. 4e has been out for a little over a year, and with the Digital Initiative has a strong internet presence that isn't easy to transport to other venues. It's not too surprising there are few other venues to discuss 4e. If you use the Digital Initiative, you're probably not going to stray too far form that site to talk about it. Consolidation is a natural outgrowth of that. Let's not try to read those tea leaves any farther than that.
The only two forums I know/visit that have not been said are
tgdmb.com/ The Gaming Den. very hostile to newcomers, especially if they don't fit with the very specific crowd of people who post there. It does not totally oppose posting 4e stuff, but most posters there tend to dislike it a lot. If you want your homebrew material balanced, this is the place to get it done.
brilliantgameologists.com/boards/ Brilliant Gameologists. A lot of the people left the WoTC boards a bit back and formed this one, they have a 4e section but I don't really know how good/useful it is. I don't frequent this one very often.
ENWorld is actually pretty active, and pretty hospitable if you stay out of the General forum. Its only flaw is that you can troll the heck out of it once you know the Official ENWorld Rules for Legal Trolling- and the regulars do know those rules, and will troll your threads.
Don't turn this into an edition war.
TGD isn't hostile to outsiders, so much as hostile to people that don't/won't think rationally and evenly about things.
As far as activity level goes nothing else touches these boards, at least for 4e.
...
Thanks, I guess I will try the enworld forums.
Then send me a message. I'll see what I can think of. I hate to think that O had done less than to help my fellow gamer.
I appreciate that, but honestly that's A LOT of material to go over. I wouldn't want to impose on any one person that much.
I kinda think I'm going to call the OP out on this. There is no reason to be afraid of posting your thoughts here unless they are trolling. People will disagree with you, yes. But if what you actually want to say is intelligent then people will more or less respond well.
I'm actually slightly offended that you think the people on these forums are so slavering that you feel that any dissent will instantly smote. Just say what you want to, and if it's something of merit people will discuss it. It just seems odd that you are so afraid that people will jump on you. Is it because there is something that they should jump you for? Hopefully not.
On elitiestjerks this post would get you a warning the first time, and a ban the second. Its pointless, inflammatory and adds absolutely nothing to the discussion. Can you seriously not take a step back and see how pointless this is? This thread was about what OTHER resources there are for 4e discussion and you decide to try to turn it into a pointless argument that could never be resolved?
For the record I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, but if your going to disagree with me and actually want to contribute the conversation, then have a point beyond "It doesn't matter". If it doesn't matter to you then why are you even posting?
True. And if someone happens to say something inflammatory, I know this is the Internet, but you can always ignore such people, Cerois.
No, you really can't ignore them. Stupid people feed off each other, they follow a gut instinct and as soon as someone gives them an inkling of justification for there asinine gut instinct they cleave to as if it were their mothers boob. They will team up and repeat the same irrational arguments over and over again - often after you have already pointed out severe errors in there logic.
This makes rational discussion impossible because anyone who actually wants to discuss the issue rationally will not bother under those conditions. I know I won't.
Cerois, I greatly sympathize with you. I like many aspects of 4e, but I'm just not satisfied with it as a whole. I've seen threads on both this forum and ENWorld full of people interested in contributing and people intent on disrupting the discussion. The disruptors almost always win (as is the case on nearly any internet forum), there's just too many: people who feel that anyone who wants to modify 4e is a hater (I often see the statement "why change 4e when you can just find a game made the way you like!"), or think anyone who's not a paid game designer is too stupid to suggest rules changes, or regular old trolls. It's possible have a discussion on either board, but the biggest limiting factor is finding enough like minded people to discuss with. I've considered making a group here, but I'm reluctant to do much of anything until the forums are more stabilized and out of "beta".
On a side note, I think the biggest limiting factor of 4e for people like me (and I'm assuming you) is the GSL's no re-defining clause. I used to depend on 3pp for interesting alternative mechanics, but how can you present alternative mechanics if you can't re-define any of the basics? It's like trying to make an omlette with unbreakable eggs.
The unfortunate thing is that what 4e really badly needs is a 4.5 edition, it certainly needs it far more then 3 needed a 3.5. But I could just imagine the nerd rage.
You Can also try penny arcade.
Don't know where the weird name comes from but loads of posts there.
Thanks, I will try it out.
Don't turn this into an edition war.
TGD isn't hostile to outsiders, so much as hostile to people that don't/won't think rationally and evenly about things.
Don't say random things that are unrelated to my posts, imply it was.
About TGD, thats exactly what I said. I personally love it, but if this new poster goes over there with some suggested house rules that he thinks are awesome, but are commonly thought of as unbalanced, they will point it out. If he debates them, they will not politely/calmly let it go.
*had to edit my post, to make it make sense.
On elitiestjerks this post would get you a warning the first time, and a ban the second. Its pointless, inflammatory and adds absolutely nothing to the discussion. Can you seriously not take a step back and see how pointless this is? This thread was about what OTHER resources there are for 4e discussion and you decide to try to turn it into a pointless argument that could never be resolved?
I have no idea what you are talking about. All I'm saying is that you should feel free to say whatever it is you have to say on these forums. I never tried to "turn it into a pointless arguement". I'm just questioning why you require another resource. I know for a fact that people have posted their concerns of 4E on this site without the sort of foaming rage you seem to attribute to it.
Can you explain why exactly I'd get a warn on the mentioned site? And why the hell I'd care about a site called "Elitistjerks"?
For the record I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, but if your going to disagree with me and actually want to contribute the conversation, then have a point beyond "It doesn't matter". If it doesn't matter to you then why are you even posting?
Again, I have no idea what you are talking about. How is my point "it doesn't matter"? I did contribute to the conversation. My contribution was "you are being too harsh on the community, you can post here". Obviously this isn't the response you wanted, judging by your response to me.
Look, these are the most active 4E forums you will ever find, so my suggestion is to just post whatever you want here. People will not rip you open, and if they do, then it will likely just be one or two idiots.
@Rustmonster: This may only be a piece of the puzzle, but it may help to explain (from the reflavor thread - a few days before this thread was launched)
If there wasn't so many of you, I would seriously start to question if you were just trolling me.
The question isn't the balance between the characters and the enviorment, its the balance between the characters themselves.
However its becomeing quite evident that this board is pretty much useless for any kind of rational discussion so this will be my last post.
Have fun.
I have no idea what you are talking about. All I'm saying is that you should feel free to say whatever it is you have to say on these forums. I never tried to "turn it into a pointless arguement". I'm just questioning why you require another resource. I know for a fact that people have posted their concerns of 4E on this site without the sort of foaming rage you seem to attribute to it.
No, what you tried to do was start a pointless argument. Its irrelevant to the topic at hand and would result in a pointless debate that has happened on these forums a hundred times. Many of which you took part in. Of course I could say whatever I wanted - within reason - that wouldn't make it relevant to the topic or mean it had a point other then satisfying your obvious itch for pointless confrontation. There have been HUNDREDS of example threads on this forum that directly contradict your position. Virtually any post that compares ANY part of any other system as superior to 4e is immediately jumped on in a fit of sycophantic rage. Regardless of how obvious the position may be to any rational person.
The only type of threads that are tolerated here are talks of how to add to the system, or make small house rule changes.
Can you explain why exactly I'd get a warn on the mentioned site? And why the hell I'd care about a site called "Elitistjerks"?
I never said you should care, if this is how you like the board then more power to you. However its the reason why that board will always be infinitly more valuable and productive then this one.
Again, I have no idea what you are talking about. How is my point "it doesn't matter"? I did contribute to the conversation. My contribution was "you are being too harsh on the community, you can post here". Obviously this isn't the response you wanted, judging by your response to me.Look, these are the most active 4E forums you will ever find, so my suggestion is to just post whatever you want here. People will not rip you open, and if they do, then it will likely just be one or two idiots.
It was an example, not of you but of one of the positions i have seen taken on several occasions. It makes productive discourse impossible when three of every four posts responding to you are people suggesting that your wrong because they don't care about the topic. There are many other ways in which people who don't like a discussion occurring can disrupt any meaningful dialogue.
I have no problem with people disagreeing, even disagreeing vehemently. But I don't want to waste my time. I'm not even complaining about it. This post wasn't some whine, it was just a request for a list of other sites that might fit my needs better. I don't know why some people take things so personally, it certainly wasn't intended that way.
Cerois, if you make a statement like this in your own thread: "I find that its largely impossible to discuss any of 4e's problems without people getting there backs up and developing a completely irrational defensive posture," it's perfectly reasonably for Rustmonster to directly address your point.
You expressed your position that it's impossible here to discuss perceived flaws in 4th edition D&D without other posters acting too defensive and making personal attacks; Rustmonster expressed his position that you're quite wrong and that's it's very possible to have a constructive discussion on the subject here.
You--the original poster--were the first person in this thread to breach the topic of whether or not it's possible to have a constructive discussion on 4th edition D&D's flaws here. Rustmonster just addressed the point further. Now, I don't know anything about Elitistjerks, but if the mods there would ban a poster for directly addressing a subject explicitly brought up by the original poster then I can't imagine their moderation policy being reasonable.
This thread could easily have been about nothing more than other D&D forums, if you had not expressed disapproval for this board in the original post and then elaborated on your reasoning later. But once you did that, the points you brought up became fair game for discussion and debate.
As for other boards where 4th edition D&D is discussed frequently, I don't use many others besides this one (which is pretty huge, considering how many very active subforums it has). Giant ITP is probably the one I'm most familiar with; they're a friendly and helpful bunch, and don't seem to mind discussion 4th edition.
Cerois, it sounds like you've got an ambitious project ahead of you, and one that no mods on this or any other forum yet has a vested interest in. That's great! It means you're probably ahead of the game on your project. The way I see it, you have three viable options:
1) Wait for someone else to make a forum dedicated to what you want to post about. There are some clear flaws with this model, most notably the significant possibility that nobody else will ever make a "Complete Rebuild of 4E D&D" forum. Clearly, nobody has, or else they would've recommended it to you by now.
2) Create a group on the D&D Forums titled "Complete Rebuild of 4E D&D" or some such, and invite the folks you like to post on that forum! While this is a little tougher than method 1, it's easier than method 3. HOWEVER: It does have one significant drawback, and that's that all the work you put into this clearly huge and ambitious project of yours is going to belong to WotC, more or less. Which brings us to...
3) Create your own forum somewhere, and invite people to that! While clearly that's a little more work than methods 1 or 2, it will allow you to keep all your content for yourself, should you ever decide to do something more with it than create a system for you and your closest friends to play at your own home and nowhere else.
Choose one and have fun, or think of your own and have fun!
Best of luck!
A few points:
Virtually any post that compares ANY part of any other system as superior to 4e is immediately jumped on in a fit of sycophantic rage.
This usually happens because the system being referenced is:
A) 3rd edition of D&D. We've moved past that edition as a community, largley because it is no longer supported by it's original creators. That isn't to say the system is without merit, only that many see bringing up design decisions about the 3rd edition while trying to revamp the 4th edition as trying to "go back" to the "good ol' days". Many take that as a call to Edition Wars.
B) Another system that uses ideas counter to the intention of 4th edition. This many people will just tell you to go play the other system if you like it so much, not out of malice ("if you like it so much, why don't you marry it?") as convenience ("if that system has what you need, why not use it instead?"). Unfortunately, the internet is not the best medium for getting across one's intentions, so confusion is bound to occur.
Regardless of how obvious the position may be to any rational person.
Saying "any rational person" is like saying "any good DM". You are beginning or supporting your argument by positing that anyone capable of reason would see that your position is correct, and that your position is correct because it is reasonable. That is not a logically sound way to start or continue an arguement.
Perhaps this is the problem. You see 4th edition as a system that is broken and in need of being fixed. Others see it as they might see paints, using the colors on hand to creat what they want to see. Both ideas are valid for the person in question becaose they are based on the opinion of whether or not the game is fun. For me it could be fun, for you it could be torture.But the problem seems to be that you are not willing to accept that others can find it fun (correct me if this assumption is false, please).
One last point, you mention that you cannot ignore people who disagree with you, when in fact you can scroll right by a post that holds no interest to you (I do it constantly). You do not have any right, implied or otherwise, to a discussion without opposing (and possibly uninformed) points of view unless you happen to be in a private building you own, or a private online forum you maintain. This shouldn't be a problem, as you can dismiss (instead of struggle with) anyone's arguements; as I said, I do this all the time.
Virtually any post that compares ANY part of any other system as superior to 4e is immediately jumped on in a fit of sycophantic rage. Regardless of how obvious the position may be to any rational person.
It doesn't help when anyone who dares to criticize the criticisms of 4th edition are seen, not as someone with a valid opinion, but as a sycophant and psychotically defensive (I remember your short lived post from D&D Designers ignore the official D&D.... It may have been deleted, but I remember). Why is it that anyone who is seen to criticize 4E is relating to a position obvious to any rational person but an opposing view is simply the result of a psychotically defensive sycophant. Have you ever truely considered that what someone feels is superior is often a rather subjective opinion, and thus, there will be rational people on both sides of such an opinion? A comparison of one systems merits to the other is one thing, once you start getting into subjective opinions about which is superior, you cannot claim only one opinion is rational and the other is sycophantic. Do you truely believe that your opinions, and the opinions of those that agree with you, are the only rational ones out there?
Isn't there a houserules forum for this?
Isn't there a houserules forum for this?
Yes, there is. and it's even edition neutral. I'm curious if he would get the same results as what he claims to be getting from the 4E sycophants, if he instead went to the 3E forums and started with 3E as a base and implemented what he did like from 4E into it (rather then starting with 4E as a base and moving backwards... Though I really don't know how many or significant the changes he intends to implement and therefore, how practical the results), or would he get an equivalent reception from the other side of the table (so to speak)?