These games comprise most of what I think about whenever I'm driving. I have a lot to say about them. I'll probably update this from time to time with new thoughts. Feel free to debate me. Feel free to tell me my taste in games sucks. I enjoyed playing World of Synnibarr. You won't be telling me anything I don't already know. 
Also, I hope you like text.
For now, what better topic to start with than:
Why I Don't Like Dungeons and Dragons: 4th Edition
If you care about my opinion of tabletop gaming at all, you might have noticed I don't enjoy 4e. Like many, I tried it out and later went right back to playing 3.5. I haven't touched the game in close to a year, and I still think about it. I love thinking about 4e. Why do I not like it?
1: It's easy to get into. Why is this bad? Am I some elitist nerd who needs his games to be complicated and inaccessible so those normal people, with their jobs and their haircuts and their grasp on what's mainstream and popular, won't touch it so tabletop games stay only my hobby? No. I want people playing these games. I love playing them, and I think other people will have fun with them too.
One of the biggest problems I've found with games that are simple to pick up is that it's just as easy to drop them. You very quickly get the necessary skills to be successful at the game. From there, if something about the game doesn't click on a very basic level, you aren't going to be hooked.
I could get into 4e very easily. It was so easy to just sit down and make a character that was powerful and jived with the rest of the party. If I could pick up a basketball and, with no practice, consistently shoot 3 pointers, where's the challenge? Why should I keep playing? I couldn't keep playing.
2: The game doesn't really evolve as you level up. Okay, that's a lie. You get more powers as you level up, so you can deal big damage more consistently as you gain bigger and bigger powers. So they gave the monsters more HP to make the fights last longer.
WotC say that you should expect every fight to last an hour. If the players are getting more and more powers to do 5[W] + Stat, then the monsters should be having more HP to keep combat to that length. So did combat really change? I'm getting more options so combat can go similarly as it did when I was low-level.
In 3.5, the game evolved as you leveled up. At level 1, it's a game of pure action economy. Just one good roll on the DM's part could spell doom for a character, so it paid to be conservative because you were so squishy. At level 3, you could survive more so you could afford to play a little more recklessly. However, you can't be stupid. A couple of good hits can kill you. At level 6, characters started to be able to access prestige classes, so their power could grow even more. They can afford to be more reckless with their power as they get higher in level. Around level 14, the characters are powerful enough that the game is rocket tag. It isn't about being conservative anymore. It's about killing the other guy as fast as possible. The game grows from being conservative to going nova.
3: Characters within each role are too interchangeable. Now, I think when people say that every class in 4e is the same, it's a gross oversimplification. A fighter is not a rogue, which is not a wizard, which is not a cleric.
The role system is a way to streamline party making. As long as each role is represented, the players will have a functioning party. Maybe the way each class goes about doing it's role is different, but in the end, a defender goes up to the monsters, hits them, marks them, and gets hit. Maybe one class tanks by having a ton of HP and it marks everyone around it as a free action while another class wears heavy armors, so they're harder to hit, and can mark one guy with one mark and have powers that give them more marks. In the end, the dynamic hasn't shifted. Both classes still walk up to a monster, hit it, mark it, and get hit.
In 3.5, even if classes had a similar function, they could be very different in how they were designed and how you can play them. The wizard, sorcerer, warmage, wu jen, and dread necromancer are all arcane full casters. The sorcerer is limited by spells known. The warmage focuses on spells that do damage. The dread necromancer is Exactly What It Says On the Tin. The wizard and the wu jen are probably the only two classes there that are interchangeable, which makes sense because the wu jen was made to be a wizard replacement for eastern-inspired games.
When I pick a class, I want it to be based more on what unique things it brings to the table. If I've picked a bard, I picked it because I want to do a lot of things that a cleric can't. I want the choice to be more than "well, this guy is less focused on healing and more focused on buffing while the other guy is less focused on buffing and more focused on healing." I want the choice to be more like "Well, this guy can give the party +6 to attack, +4 to damage, and an extra 6d6 on every successful attack they make, while this guy can grow to giant size, get super strong, hit harder because he knows what the enemy is, and turn into a troll."
and finally
4: 3.5 is two games. 4e is one.
What does that mean? 3.5 is broken up into two distinct phases. There's character creation and play.
Now 4e does have character creation, that's true. Just not to the extent that 3.5 does.
With feat choice, multi-classing, and prestige classes, in 3.5 I can make a wizard that plays nothing like another wizard that plays nothing like another. Illumian Wizard/Cleric/Mystic Theurge/Dweomerkeeper involves a little bit of shenanigans, but it's workable. Wizard/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil is a decent one. Wizard/Warblade/Jade Phoenix Mage/Abjurant Champion is good if I want to be a magic knight.
In 4e, well Flaming Burst is the best Wizard at-will that targets, so I'm going to want to take that so I can do my job of killing minions. Hm, need another at-will. Thunderwave places me a bit too close to the enemy to be useful and I'm going to want to a way to attack a single target at a range. Well, Ray of Frost has a status. Magic Missile has better range. So between Ray of Frost and Magic Missile, do I want to emphasize battlefield control or damage? Then, based off of which one I picked, I pick encounters and dailies that emphasize either control or damage. Then I can pick feats. They don't enhance my ability to control in any serious way. When that's finished, I'm ready to fulfill my destiny and do damage to an area.
In 3.5, you have choices. You have a significant number of options to choose from. In 4e, that number is reduced. It's reduced for the sake of balance. It's reduced so all classes can be viable. Character creation is so much less a game than in 3.5. There isn't as much of an opportunity to get creative, to find synergy, to say "I just made a character that uses wisdom for just about everything."
Sure, in 4e, power gaming isn't a big problem because of the lack of options. Even if some character is better than another, it isn't going to be as massive a gulf as it would be between a level 20 wizard slinging around Wish for free, 5 times a day and a level 20 Truenamer, who is maybe saying words of power to slow an enemy for 2 rounds.
But powergaming isn't necessarily a problem. The most important balance in a D&D game is intra-party balance. If the free-wish-slinging wizard is in a party with a samurai who can perfectly lockdown any creature not immune to fear, a psion immune to everything, and an artificer who rolls twice and takes the better result to do anything, then it's possible to challenge the party (okay, maybe not due to the high power of everything involved, work with me here) without anyone really overshadowing the other. Everyone is powergaming, but it's still a balanced party. If there's a party of a fighter, a rogue, a healing-focused cleric, and a warmage, then the DM can challenge the party without overshadowing anyone. Nobody is powergaming, and it's still a balanced party. If the samurai who can perfectly lockdown any creature not immune to fear joins the fighter, rogue, cleric, and warmage, the game breaks down. Only one person is powergaming, so it's not a balanced party. If the samurai isn't willing to play a weaker character or help bring people up to their level, then the problem isn't that they're a powergamer, it's that they're an asshole.
I can't let 4e go. I have to know why I don't like it. Even though I haven't played it for a while, I have to think about it. I have to analyze it. It's an elegant piece of game design. The designers at WotC did a fantastic job on it. I wrote this entire thing explaining my problems with it, but some of my complaints are design elements. It's like I'm complaining about Highlander because in the end, there could be only one. That was the entire point of Highlander. 4e is supposed to be easy to get into. Classes within roles are supposed to be basically interchangeable, since each has to do the same job. There are supposed to be less options for game balance. I wrote this entire thing when I could explain it all in five words, technically six because one is a contraction: it didn't click with me.
Also, I hope you like text.
For now, what better topic to start with than:
Why I Don't Like Dungeons and Dragons: 4th Edition
If you care about my opinion of tabletop gaming at all, you might have noticed I don't enjoy 4e. Like many, I tried it out and later went right back to playing 3.5. I haven't touched the game in close to a year, and I still think about it. I love thinking about 4e. Why do I not like it?
1: It's easy to get into. Why is this bad? Am I some elitist nerd who needs his games to be complicated and inaccessible so those normal people, with their jobs and their haircuts and their grasp on what's mainstream and popular, won't touch it so tabletop games stay only my hobby? No. I want people playing these games. I love playing them, and I think other people will have fun with them too.
One of the biggest problems I've found with games that are simple to pick up is that it's just as easy to drop them. You very quickly get the necessary skills to be successful at the game. From there, if something about the game doesn't click on a very basic level, you aren't going to be hooked.
I could get into 4e very easily. It was so easy to just sit down and make a character that was powerful and jived with the rest of the party. If I could pick up a basketball and, with no practice, consistently shoot 3 pointers, where's the challenge? Why should I keep playing? I couldn't keep playing.
2: The game doesn't really evolve as you level up. Okay, that's a lie. You get more powers as you level up, so you can deal big damage more consistently as you gain bigger and bigger powers. So they gave the monsters more HP to make the fights last longer.
WotC say that you should expect every fight to last an hour. If the players are getting more and more powers to do 5[W] + Stat, then the monsters should be having more HP to keep combat to that length. So did combat really change? I'm getting more options so combat can go similarly as it did when I was low-level.
In 3.5, the game evolved as you leveled up. At level 1, it's a game of pure action economy. Just one good roll on the DM's part could spell doom for a character, so it paid to be conservative because you were so squishy. At level 3, you could survive more so you could afford to play a little more recklessly. However, you can't be stupid. A couple of good hits can kill you. At level 6, characters started to be able to access prestige classes, so their power could grow even more. They can afford to be more reckless with their power as they get higher in level. Around level 14, the characters are powerful enough that the game is rocket tag. It isn't about being conservative anymore. It's about killing the other guy as fast as possible. The game grows from being conservative to going nova.
3: Characters within each role are too interchangeable. Now, I think when people say that every class in 4e is the same, it's a gross oversimplification. A fighter is not a rogue, which is not a wizard, which is not a cleric.
The role system is a way to streamline party making. As long as each role is represented, the players will have a functioning party. Maybe the way each class goes about doing it's role is different, but in the end, a defender goes up to the monsters, hits them, marks them, and gets hit. Maybe one class tanks by having a ton of HP and it marks everyone around it as a free action while another class wears heavy armors, so they're harder to hit, and can mark one guy with one mark and have powers that give them more marks. In the end, the dynamic hasn't shifted. Both classes still walk up to a monster, hit it, mark it, and get hit.
In 3.5, even if classes had a similar function, they could be very different in how they were designed and how you can play them. The wizard, sorcerer, warmage, wu jen, and dread necromancer are all arcane full casters. The sorcerer is limited by spells known. The warmage focuses on spells that do damage. The dread necromancer is Exactly What It Says On the Tin. The wizard and the wu jen are probably the only two classes there that are interchangeable, which makes sense because the wu jen was made to be a wizard replacement for eastern-inspired games.
When I pick a class, I want it to be based more on what unique things it brings to the table. If I've picked a bard, I picked it because I want to do a lot of things that a cleric can't. I want the choice to be more than "well, this guy is less focused on healing and more focused on buffing while the other guy is less focused on buffing and more focused on healing." I want the choice to be more like "Well, this guy can give the party +6 to attack, +4 to damage, and an extra 6d6 on every successful attack they make, while this guy can grow to giant size, get super strong, hit harder because he knows what the enemy is, and turn into a troll."
and finally
4: 3.5 is two games. 4e is one.
What does that mean? 3.5 is broken up into two distinct phases. There's character creation and play.
Now 4e does have character creation, that's true. Just not to the extent that 3.5 does.
With feat choice, multi-classing, and prestige classes, in 3.5 I can make a wizard that plays nothing like another wizard that plays nothing like another. Illumian Wizard/Cleric/Mystic Theurge/Dweomerkeeper involves a little bit of shenanigans, but it's workable. Wizard/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil is a decent one. Wizard/Warblade/Jade Phoenix Mage/Abjurant Champion is good if I want to be a magic knight.
In 4e, well Flaming Burst is the best Wizard at-will that targets, so I'm going to want to take that so I can do my job of killing minions. Hm, need another at-will. Thunderwave places me a bit too close to the enemy to be useful and I'm going to want to a way to attack a single target at a range. Well, Ray of Frost has a status. Magic Missile has better range. So between Ray of Frost and Magic Missile, do I want to emphasize battlefield control or damage? Then, based off of which one I picked, I pick encounters and dailies that emphasize either control or damage. Then I can pick feats. They don't enhance my ability to control in any serious way. When that's finished, I'm ready to fulfill my destiny and do damage to an area.
In 3.5, you have choices. You have a significant number of options to choose from. In 4e, that number is reduced. It's reduced for the sake of balance. It's reduced so all classes can be viable. Character creation is so much less a game than in 3.5. There isn't as much of an opportunity to get creative, to find synergy, to say "I just made a character that uses wisdom for just about everything."
Sure, in 4e, power gaming isn't a big problem because of the lack of options. Even if some character is better than another, it isn't going to be as massive a gulf as it would be between a level 20 wizard slinging around Wish for free, 5 times a day and a level 20 Truenamer, who is maybe saying words of power to slow an enemy for 2 rounds.
But powergaming isn't necessarily a problem. The most important balance in a D&D game is intra-party balance. If the free-wish-slinging wizard is in a party with a samurai who can perfectly lockdown any creature not immune to fear, a psion immune to everything, and an artificer who rolls twice and takes the better result to do anything, then it's possible to challenge the party (okay, maybe not due to the high power of everything involved, work with me here) without anyone really overshadowing the other. Everyone is powergaming, but it's still a balanced party. If there's a party of a fighter, a rogue, a healing-focused cleric, and a warmage, then the DM can challenge the party without overshadowing anyone. Nobody is powergaming, and it's still a balanced party. If the samurai who can perfectly lockdown any creature not immune to fear joins the fighter, rogue, cleric, and warmage, the game breaks down. Only one person is powergaming, so it's not a balanced party. If the samurai isn't willing to play a weaker character or help bring people up to their level, then the problem isn't that they're a powergamer, it's that they're an asshole.
I can't let 4e go. I have to know why I don't like it. Even though I haven't played it for a while, I have to think about it. I have to analyze it. It's an elegant piece of game design. The designers at WotC did a fantastic job on it. I wrote this entire thing explaining my problems with it, but some of my complaints are design elements. It's like I'm complaining about Highlander because in the end, there could be only one. That was the entire point of Highlander. 4e is supposed to be easy to get into. Classes within roles are supposed to be basically interchangeable, since each has to do the same job. There are supposed to be less options for game balance. I wrote this entire thing when I could explain it all in five words, technically six because one is a contraction: it didn't click with me.
