The fourth edition Dungeon Master’s Guide is the DM’s guide I’ve wanted to read since I was a kid. Unlike previous editions, which were filled with all kinds of stat blocks and very little information on actually running a game, the 4E DMG could also be called The Art of Dungeon Mastering, because that’s pretty much what it is.
I mention this because I just saw a new release from Wizards that is another one of those “Where have you been all my life?” releases:
Dungeon Delve has been released! Dungeon Delve is designed for groups looking for an exciting night of monster-slaying without the prep time. It contains dozens of self-contained easy-to-run mini-dungeons, or “delves,” each one crafted for a few hours of game-play.The book includes delves for 1st- to 30th-level characters, and features dozens of iconic monsters for the heroes to battle. Dungeon Masters can run these delves as one-shot adventures or weave them into their campaign.
We all love a nice long campaign that starts in The Dales, and five years later lands us all at Baldur’s Gate before we head to the Outer Planes to battle the gods themselves, but sometimes you just want to grab your sword, head into the nearest hole in the ground, and whack as many Kobolds as you can, you know?
One of the great strengths of 4E, in my opinion, is that it lends itself perfectly to this type of instagaming, while it also supports the longer campaigns we all grew up loving to play. I really wish more of my fellow gamer geeks would understand this, instead of treating it as a failing or a reason to dismiss 4E without even playing it. I think it’s awesome that Wizards has released a book that contains a ton of pre-built dungeons that can be run as one-shots and finished in an evening, because it means more people will get to play more often. As much as I love gaming, I’ve pretty much given up on ever being able to have a weekly D&D group again; I just don’t have the time. Quick one-and-dones, as my friend calls them, are perfect for guys like me who love gaming and want to play, but can’t commit to something on a regular basis.
If you get a chance, grab the 1st Edition DMG – In looking between the two, I still “feel” D&D from the 1st Edition book much more than the 4th.
I think you’re absolutely right about the Delves, and about 4E being more suitable for them.
I specifically remember, a few years ago, my friend attempting to run a 3.5 one-shot and then quitting in the middle of it due to frustration with ooze rules, of all things, though we had had some trouble with various creatures that our supposedly-diverse team just didn’t have the tools to handle. I haven’t run into that at all in 4E.
On a related note to the time issue, now that some of my friends have fled to Britain and other exotic locales, I’ve found that we can reunite the group in rough form through play-by-post games on rpol.net and other sites, which offers an admittedly different, though still entertaining, experience.
I always wanted to play D&D and never had the chance. When I finally had a group to game with they wanted to do other things. Now that I don’t have the energy to commit to a weekly thing I am SOL…..Oh well.
Or you could just play Paranoia.. Lovely cinematic roleplaying without all the rules to weigh you down.
But having said that, this sounds like a good idea. Pew pew ftw.
Funny. My 9 y/o daughter and I were just clearing out those same caves last weekend. Multiplayer Neverwinter Nights + user-contributed content = years of fun for $20 / person.
Or just buy a few prebuilt decks from Magic The Gathering – great for those inter-generation monster killing battles! Not a fan of the “keep buying more to stay current” aspect of MTG, but for your own little family group it’s great.
Over the years D&D has taken a turn for the worst with their new editions. The game has gone from something we imagine, into more of a video game version of D&D. It’s all about stats and rolling and the actually part that we call role-playing is missing. The heart of D&D is gone. Every person I talk to who plays the newer versions has one thing to say about it, it’s so much more involved and all encompassing, well I don’t need that. I want to imagine things more than just have it laid out in front of me. As far as a game system that anyone can pick up and play, well it’s fairly decent, but for us veterans of playing, I can’t stand the people that max out every stat and take advantage of every rule they can at each level. It’s like a video game.
I haven’t kept up with much in the newer game systems since 3.5, but even in that system there were glaring problems all over the place. Once I reached a certain level, I would gain abilities, what a load of crap. If I didn’t study those abilities then how would I get them, but yet in the rules it says I got it. It’s like a video game in the respects that all of the growth is taken away from your character and you have a stat for everything and every encounter you might happen across. I could go on and on about this, but if anything even the 1st and 2nd edition stuff needs to be stripped down a tiny bit to have it not interfere with the actual role-playing part of the game.
All the “I say, he says and they say” really bothers me. Don’t say “I say” before speaking in character, just SAY IT! I have been playing D&D for over twenty years and it’s always been the same with us, if the rule doesn’t make sense, fix it and move on, don’t let the rules get in the way of the story. If you’re not going to tell a story, then you might as well just play risk, you can roll more dice.
After saying all that, the bottom line is that role playing is about having fun, and if you only have the occasional session to play, then you do have to get to the meat of the story quicker than normal and that makes a little sense. Maybe 4th edition is best for that, but I will never know because I won’t be giving WoTC any of my hard earned money because they have the audacity to tell me my TSR editions no longer work. What a load of horseshit that is.
Michael
I miss the way magic worked in 2nd and 3.X editions. In my 3.5 I was able to have a magic tournament with beasties being summoned, black pits of death appearing, and fireballs being thrown around like snowballs. Now, when someone throws a fireball it isn’t like “Ow wow magic!” it’s more like “Oh an encounter ability was just used…”.
I also felt like pick up games were easier in 3.5. The 4e pick up games assume you are going to use the creatures exactly in the book, and frankly that doesn’t give you too wide of a selection. Maybe I’m just not used to the 4e yet, but I had an easier time making things up on the fly with 3 and not having to worry about the assigned powers.
I quite agree about 4E – After having listened to the first series of Penny Arcade podcasts, I talked a little bit about it (in a quite positive way) to my former D&D group, all hardcore D&D players from Basic/AD&D on.. The reception was less than warm, to say the least.
They’re basically unwilling to even try it, having felt burnt with the whole 3.0->3.5 thing. We all loved 3.0, but 3.5 is pretty commonly viewed as a cynical money-grab by WOTC.
Anyway, I hope to give 4E a shot someday, but it doesn’t look like it will be with my old group unless a miracle happens.
I have a PDF of an AD&D 1E book (I haven’t been able to find a print copy — Woe! Woe!) called Dungeon Master’s Design Kit. It was designed to be used in conjunction with (read: to sell) a book of related forms, which I don’t have any kind of copy of, but the book is useable on its own if you just pay attention to the concepts.
It takes you through the process of crafting whole adventures, starting with your Featured Villain, plans for plots, and major characters. As you work your way through the book, it takes these start points and helps you whittle the thing down to more detail.
The book isn’t really heavy on game mechanics. I think it could be used by any story-crafting noob, really. It gives you a lot of good examples of things to think about during the creation process.
Game mechanics only get in the way of the story in most cases anyways. D&D was meant to be used with our imaginations, not dictated to us via rules and mechanics. 1st edition is basically the same as 2nd edition in that it only straightens out a few things that were wrong with 1st edition and well it just needed a makeover. I love the “old” 2nd edition and first edition stuff. Gary Gygax was a crazy rules oriented person who tried his best to make the game mechanics invisible, but he failed miserably and we have had to help him fix what was broken.
Everyone has their own way of playing and some people like to roll for every other actions their player takes, the more dice, the pluses the better. Layer those abilities on top of abilities so it takes five minutes to figure out what you actually rolled and take the wind and tension right out of the DM’s sails. That’s what the newer editions do for me. I’ll stick to my stripped out 2nd edition version and not have to learn that AC is suddenly the opposite. WHY? Just to have a reason to change things. I have no idea.
Michael
I’ve recently purchased the 4E Core Rulebooks Gift Set for myself and the thing that strikes me immediately is that 4E is aimed at a particular set of people : online gamers. These are the books to pick up if you’re transitioning from WoW, EverQuest, FFXI, or any of the great, available MMORPGs to the tabletop. In that light, they couldn’t have come along at a better time.
The Dungeon Delve is totally our style of playing as well, especially with two young munchkins to corral whilst attempting to play a game. We’re definitely getting our hands on this one!!
I was a little wary of the content of this blog entry as I misread the word “dog” in the title as “dong”. Oops – had a good laugh over it though.
I’ve wanted to play D&D for awhile now but it sucks not having friends who are into stuff like that.
They’re *called* “Kobolds”.
Geez… newbs…
I have a problem when anybody claims that the roleplaying is missing from later editions. It’s sort of a blind view to take. While I think one can argue for more or less rules as an ease-of-use thing, I don’t think that any system can dictate how much, or how well, you roleplay.
I’m running a terrific character-driven 4E game right now with players that run the gamut of play styles, and we’re having an incredible time. I can tell you, for sure, that we don’t let the rules get in the way of our roleplaying. Moreover, I feel like some mechanics in the 4E game encourage roleplaying more than older editions did. Just like in any pen-and-paper game, the quality of the game really flows out of the effort and approach of both the DM and the players.
Everyone knows that the big-dong men live in the forest, anyway.
That is literally what I was trying to say. If you are role-playing and having fun there is no need to use a different system, but 4E tends to fill in more of the gaps and it lends itself to online gamers more than the old versions did. Those versions knew nothing of online gaming though. I wasn’t trying to offend, I was just commenting on how the players of today more often then not are just into stat building and number crunching and it seems that the newer editions facilitate that kind of playing. I totally agree that most of the game is up to how the DM is running the game.
I played in a game that was so totally bad a few months back that it forever changed my view on how these friends of mine played. My character was walking down the street and the DM says I notice a Minotaur standing in an alley way, and he had the gall to tell me the minotaur looked like he wanted to fight. I literally had no choice but to fight him, he was amazed that my guy wanted to run away. It was so terrible I have never gone back. Obviously I can’t go into as much detail in this comment board as I would like but you get the idea.
I am glad that you are having fun in your game and I hope that EVERYONE has fun while they play. It’s all about having fun and if people like video games on paper then more power to them, it was just my opinion that WoTC is a money grubbing company only interested in convincing it’s players they need a new system in order for their role-playing life to be complete, which just isn’t true.
Michael
To a certain extent, I couldn’t disagree more. Yeah, the 4th Ed. DMG contains lots of information on how to make a game flow, and it’s definitely a must read for DMs, even experienced ones like me.
On the other hand though, when I’m running a campaign and something that I don’t expect pops up and I suddenly need a powerful noble or red dragon or 10th level wizard that I didn’t plan for in the middle of a session, a book of stat blocks is exactly what I need.
This isn’t exactly a 4.0 criticism though. It’s just a criticism of having a guide vs. a reference document, sort of. In 3.0 and 3.5 the DMG was a reference document, and in 4.0 it is mostly a guide. Really, if they split the two I would buy the reference document and borrow the the guide from a friend. One I’ll need to read once or twice, and the other I’ll need to have with me when I run a game.
Right, the reason that I disagree with you is that I don’t think that this is a strength of 4.0. Rather, the lack of big blocks of stats means that I, as DM, am going to have to specifically limit players to the world that I imagined when I came up with the game ahead of time. I’m not going to have the chance to expand the world according to the players input during a game session. And that’s not a strength.
On the topic of actually running a game, one of the best books I ever came across was the 2nd edition rule supplement book Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide. I recall it covered a number of topics like dealing with rules-lawyers and preventing Monte Hall style treasure giveaways. My Mom was so scared by Tom Hanks’ riveting performance in Mazes and Monsters that I was never allowed to play, only read.
3.5 WAS a cynical money grab. 4E is a completely redesigned game that’s totally awesome and more fun to play than 3.5.
Don’t you get that stat block out of your Monster Manual when you need a monster, though?
I’m a fairly experienced DM, and in order to be prepared for whatever my players decide to do, I’ve prepared a bunch of stuff ahead of time, including NPCs, random monsters, and additional encounter areas, just in case they go nuts. The best part of this is that I prepare one time, and then use stuff over the course of the campaign as it comes up.
I just picked up Dungeon Delve today.
I am a fan.
*Massive* Gelatinous Cube?!? *drool*
Let’s roll some dice!
It’s been a long time-well at least since the release of 3.5 came out since I’ve DM’ed; but like you Wil I prepared ahead of time. The group I had met every week. I had my main campaign mapped out and knowing my friends and the characters they created was at least able to prevent their stump the DM antics.
It was a lot of work, but I think it made the game run much smoother.
For a monster, yeah, I could pull that out of the MM.
But I don’t normally have a random druid of 4th level in my prep work just in case my party decides they need to hire one for a day. I don’t usually bother to stat out the 10th level wizard that the King has hired to teleport my party to the dungeon because I don’t anticipate them attacking him because they’re all drunk from the dwarven tavern and trying to stay in character. Or just if I need the hit points for a random wooden door (although 4.0 probably has that too, I just haven’t DM’d a 4.0 game yet).
If you do have that on hand, more power too you, but it’s really tough for me to see that sort of crazy stuff far enough ahead of time to adequately stat it out.
Wil and raingods, someday I’m going to want to drop by to see your gameplay bible with a separate character sheets for each of the 20 levels of gnome illusionist that you might need. 😉
You guys never use the stat blocks in the 3.0 or 3.5 DMG? Amazing.
Then I guess I just respectfully disagree about WoTC. I’ve been really impressed with the amount of content they’ve put out, the ease of use in the new edition, and the appeal to various styles of play that they’ve managed to allow for, and even cater to. I also don’t see how they’re telling us that we NEED to switch over to a new system for our RP life to be complete; they just make what they consider to be better rules, and release them. That’s what companies need to do in order to survive, to a point. If, when the inevitable 5E comes out, I don’t care for it, then I can hardly blame the company for moving on. But I can see the love and care that went into making 4E very playable and easy to use, and appreciate that they did so thoughtfully consider the experience of the DM and the players in the creation of this new edition.
My experiences with later editions have been completely different then yours, it seems. I have played with a stat-cruncher in a campaign, and kept him just as engaged and happy as the rest of my players, who were there for different reasons. Moreover, I coaxed him into trying new parts of the game out. So, sorry for your bad experiences, and I hope that you have found/will find a group more in line with your tastes.
Oh this is easy: there are no gnomes in my campaign. Problem solved.
Uh, more seriously: I didn’t mean to imply that I never used the stat blocks, just that I prefer the 4E DMG to the older ones, because it is an actual guide to being a DM, instead of just a reference book. Also, the 4E DM Screen has a ton of useful stat blocks on it, and I’ve found the 4E MM to be super easy to use.
Oh! Oh! And I don’t give doors HPs, I just give them DCs vs. strength if someone wants to try and break one down, but that’s just me.
Finally, it sounds like your PCs are a wild bunch who really keep you guessing, so here’s a terrorist-fist-jab from one DM to another for working hard to give them a fun game.
This is sort of a side point, but if you subscribe to the Insider service, then you get access to the Character Builder, which IS capable of generating, say, a level 30 hobgoblin rogue in a few seconds, which would take just a minute’s worth of modifications to run as a monster.
Or, better yet, find a suitable monster and just switch his clothes out for what you want him to look like, which works in pretty much any edition of the game. Though the classification by monster role makes that a bit easier in 4E, I think.
Though I can’t help but admire that level of game prep, Wil and raingods.
Terrorist-fist-jab returned. My PCs are/were a totally wild bunch.
Ah, that brings back memories.
I once had a campaign that I’d planned thoroughly to be in a single city. Right up until I hinted that a bit NPC had left the city (he hadn’t, and if they’d, you know asked someone about him I could have let them know that). So I threw up a fairly BS excuse as to why they couldn’t leave the city just then involving the city guard.
They then proceeded to test the limits of that by spending half a session creating a magnificent escape from the city involving disguises and horse drawn carriages and a forged letter from a Countessa in distress.
And you know, after all of this planning and work, they rolled really well a few times in a row, so I ended up having to draw an area map on a napkin during a ten minute break and come up with a slew of new town names and relocated two major and maybe three minor characters. It just wouldn’t have been fun to do otherwise.
I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the same game where the God of Death had to personally show up to talk a neutral good character out of a planned massacre. Oh, right, the PC ended up getting in a duel with the Death God (that time I luckily had the Death God’s stats, just so you don’t think I never do any planning). During the duel the PC surprisingly didn’t die but I finally convinced him that killing everyone wasn’t necessary.
Or the same game in which a full two hours were spent on an impromptu poetry competition in which I as DM had to write a sestina. That will never happen again. Any further poetry duels will be decided by haiku, by DM decree. Darn English majors and bards.
On the other hand, I can now run an okay gaming session with ten minutes of setup time and a few sheets of scratch paper. So I guess there is something to be said for wild gaming crews.
I miss them terribly.
I do the monster switching thing quite a bit. When I was running D20 modern/future campaigns, I used to keep my 3.5 DMG handy. Skeletons make perfectly decent robots and orcs make easy low level bullies if you fudge the numbers a bit. And, you know, the descriptions.
Hey, Wil.
Please don’t assume that the gamers who’ve rejected 4E have done so before trying it, or because they don’t “understand” the wonders of the game. In a recent (unscientific, obviously) poll on EN World, 55 percent of respondents weren’t playing 4E, but nearly half of those — 27 percent — rejected it after playing the game. Most had also purchased the books.
For some of us, 4E has serious shortcomings that it’s rude to dismiss as failure to “understand” the game. We are hardcore gamers, many of us who had been looking forward to 4E, and we were disappointed in what we got. It’s great that you like 4E, and I’m not going to tell you that you like the game because you don’t “understand” its problems. Fair enough?
Jeff
I might have to pick up 4E just to find out what all the hype is about. Can I ask a question then, if you know a lot about D&D, why did they have to change combat and Armor Class? I didn’t realize it needed to be fixed. Was it broken? I just don’t see the reasoning behind that if not just to make something different so we feel compelled to go out and purchase it. I understand that a company needs to grow, I just don’t see why they need to have change things all the time. I’ve been made a WoTC since Magic The Gathering sucked away half my wealth with their crack like card game. I jest of course, but it was VERY expensive and they had a corner on the market, but yet they felt as though they needed to gouge the fuck out my pocket book by charging me $4 for 15 fucking cards, that’s cold man, that’s cold.
I am in a very stable group of role players actually, that was just one of my experiences with 3E and 4E rules and playing with those DM’s. I am sure they were bad examples of the stereotype and I am probably wrong, but it was just the rules changes that confused me. I just didn’t see the need to change things that I thought worked perfectly fine in the previous editions. It’s like George Lucas releasing 4 different versions of Star Wars on DVD. It’s all about the money in my mind. Of course WoTC have released a large amount of content, they want all the money they can get from people. As for ease of use, well I have to see that to believe it. It can’t be easier to use then something that I have been playing for twenty years. For a new gamer it might be easier, but switching systems is never going to be easier than staying with what works for a gamer.
We will probably never see eye to eye on this topic, and I find it thrilling to engage with someone cut from the same role-playing cloth who shares different views about the same subject. It’s refreshing and I enjoy the conversation. I used to command a blog entitled “roleplaying101” at blogspot, it’s still there in some fashion, you might like to check out what I wrote about a year ago, I think you would REALLY disagree with a lot of the stuff on there.
Keep up the good gaming and bottom line to everything I have said and will ever say, as long as people are having fun role-playing, then all is good on the world. Just don’t give TOO much money to WoTC. LOL.
Michael
I’ve never understood the obsession with “the rules” that some D&D players have had over the years. I started playing in the ’70s when my friend brought home the original boxed set of rule books (all three together were over a hundred (I think, perhaps less) 8.5×5.5″ pages!) and later with the first set of AD&D hardcovers. But there was one rule that we valued above all others, I’ll paraphrase it:
We played any time, any place. We didn’t need books, paper, pencils, dice, little toy people/monsters or anything else. Just two (or more) fertile imaginations. In a way, most of our games were more of a collaborative verbal story telling than any attempt to meet the minimum guidelines to earn a merit badge.
I stopped playing in the late ’80s because my original group dispersed (after high school and college) and the only folks who want to play made the game as much fun for me as a tax return. I should also mention that I sucked horribly as a player, but people seemed to enjoy my style as a DM.
But, at the point when which edition of the rules is more fun became a topic of dispute, it was obvious that an important aspect of the original game had been lost. At least to anyone arguing about their favorite rules. As an author, I’m sure Wil knows that, while a story has a basic set of rules that make it work, no two stories are required to have the same set of rules. Look at your favorite fantasy stories and see how differently they all treated the “rules” of magic, if you want an easy example. And if they were all fun to read, why would you want to stick to only one set of rules for a game?
Basically, your POV is that you won’t give WoTC your money for a new edition. That’s cool and I’m in the same boat. I have too many 3.5 books at home to just up and huck em away for a new toy. I mean, add all the completes, the heroes of battle, the 4 MMs, the planes, etc. and you end up with a hefty book shelf and a total monetary value beyond what I’d imagine I spent so far.
But, 4E isn’t bad. Way I see it, it’s just not for those of us who have been playing 3.5 for so long. 4E is more for the new players and would be the system I’d use to introduce the younger masses to the joys of tabletop roleplaying. It’s faster paced in combats, better explained and just plain flows more naturally to those who have never held a d20 in their lives.
Granted, I’ll not use it for my regular games nor do I want to switch systems in any forseeable future but that’s because I have this comfort zone in which I live wth 3.5. It’s a familiar old friend that has been with me for so long. Of course I said the same thing when 3.0 came out oh so long ago but, that’s an other story.
4E was suposed to be, for D&D, what the new SWRPG edition is to Star Wars. It’s there to fix things a bit, make classes more balanced, combat faster paced and roleplaying as a whole more accessible. If it manages to bring in new blood to the world of the polyhedral dices, power to us then.
Monster switch FTW. I for one usually just adapt by improvising. So the fight is a bit too easy because they roll like gods? Fine. Lets readjust the monster’s HP on the fly and make sure he goes down on a very climactic moment. The rules are used as a basis but we know enough of the game to wing it and to give a fair rendition of a 10th level wizard for a single encounter.
When 3.0 came out, I was thrilled. An easier system than what it replaced, my husband and I bought into it whole-heartedly. We went along with 3.5, a little unsure but willing to trust. 4E’s appearance was a shock, and while we tried to keep an open mind, it was difficult not to feel betrayed. Silly perhaps, but true.
My husband and I (who got me into gaming, BTW) have spent thousands of dollars over the years for all the books and paraphernalia. We base our campaigns in the Forgotten Realms, a world that has been completely altered for 4E. Switching everything over would be tedious and complicated, not to mention expensive. Sure, we could do it, but why would we want to?
Whether 4E is fun or not is largely irrelevant to me. I don’t get to play often enough to justify buying another set of rules that make all of my previous investments more or less obsolete. 3.5 may have been the cynical money grab, but 4E was the straw that broke this gamer’s back.
For the longest time I was always a player and never a DM or a GM, I understood all the rules but like you mention Wil, I didn’t understand the Art of Storytelling. We played all kinds of games D&D, Rolemaster, MERP, GURP, and burp, uh sorry excuse me. It wasn’t until I got hooked on White Wolf’s Vampire:The Masquerade. The First Edition book and Storyteller’s guide really brought everything together for me in regards to the storytelling part of it. I’ve since moved back to D&D with 4Ed, I own 3.5 but it was kinda eh. I didn’t buy a lot of the resource manuals for 3.5 so while it was an investment it wasn’t as bad as when I upgraded my GURPS set to 4ed. I use D&D for my fantasy setting campagins and GURPS for everything else. So now I am stuck with the role of always being the DM and have to settle on the simple joy of getting back at the PCs for making my job hard but I wouldn’t want it any other way.
I’ve got to say that 4e is absolutely perfect for me. I’m DMing my first campaign right now, and the new DMG is perfect for advising how to run it and making sure its FUN for every play style. I don’t think I’m good enough to start writing my own campaign, so I’m running them through “Keep on the Shadowfell” right now. I’ve been using the DDi Character Creator to let them pick their Powers and Feats, which prints out cards they can reference, which saves us all money as we don’t need 4 copies of the PH to look up what Power does what. I like everyone having Powers so that my players can choose what strategy is best for their current opponent instead of the fighters only being able to hit with their swords and the wizard running out of spells halfway through the first encounter of the day. I like that Fort, Will, and Reflex are static stats now like AC.
Basically, I like the whole thing and I’m glad I waited for 4e to start buying books (save for 2 used 3e PHs and a 3.5 PH2). I really want Dungeon Delve, as I’m not sure I can run whole campaigns, but could run one-shots frequently. Wish I had more people to play, as I have to NPC a fighter for my group this weekend so they don’t get destroyed!
Yeah, absolutely. It has been a fun discussion. I have a feeling I would enjoy playing with you, too, and that it would only be enhanced by the discussions on theory that would no doubt occur outside the game.
I think I will check out that blog. Thanks!
It was a lot of work, and after about 6-7 months the game kind of fizzled out. Wives and g/f’s of my group were complaining about the weekly game, RL intruded into my own gaming time…but it was a fun time.
I learned how to prep from one of the best DM’s I ever gamed with, and he told me how he was able to all he did in a time conscious fashion. One thing he did and I picked up was emailing a brief synopsis of what we did, how much XP was gained what loot there was how it was distributed etc. I would also let certain characters know certain things and act accordingly, much to the consternation of the others.
I think I’ve found my happy place in the middle ground. I too am coming from the D&D blue box and AD&D 1st edition background (I’m still getting over the idea of clerics using edged weapons) so I’m use to a certain style of play.
I’ve moved to Pathfinder RPG (PFRPG). A 3.5 based game with substantial improvements on things like grappling, turning of the undead, clerical healing and so on. So on one hand, I like that Pathfinder has simplified the rules a bit, I just feel like 4E has gone too far. I like the idea that spells are hard to cast in 3.5/PFRPG as opposed to the magic user (sorry, “Wizard”. I’m still old school) being able to cast magic missile every single round. I don’t like the idea that any character can cast a healing surge. I don’t like the idea that characters can go from negative hit points to full power by spending their healing surges after an encounter.
This is not to say that 4E is a bad game. It’s just a substantially different game. And that’s the point I think people are missing. It’s a different game with the name “Dungeons & Dragons” tacked onto it and people who’ve grown up loving this game resent that change. If Wizards called 4E anything other than “D&D” there wouldn’t be this debate.
However, there is very likely a space for both PFRPG and 4E. If you want a role playing game that’s fairly easy to get into and will attract new players who’ve never played an RPG before then 4E may very well be a better choice. But if you want to play a more detailed game where party construction plays a big role in how well you survive, a game where spell casters start off weak and gain amazing skills as they increase in level, a game where each character class has a different role as opposed to “everyone has some way to do 1d8 of damage each round and everyone can heal themselves” then PFRPG could be the best choice.
PFRPG and 4E are simply different games for different styles of play. I could even see a scenario happening where new players get introduced to PRGs by playing 4E since it’s easier to play and then move into PFRPG later on. We can have fun in both games and there’s probably room for both in the RPG world.
Hi sir,
This isn’t particularly relevant to the post, but I can at least be thankful to D&D for turning me on to your site here. To be honest, I’m not actually sure how I got here, but I’m glad that I did.
I just wanted to pop in and let you know that I appreciate your sincerity for the things you post here and that I am glad that your experiences with your hobbies, friends, family and kinsmen have been as awesome as they have for you.
Reading back about 8 pages so far, I haven’t found a post yet that doesn’t contain either a topic I find relevant or something that I can appreciate, and that’s…well, it’s an unusual thing for the Internet to accomplish.
So, as an amateur in most things, to you who seems to have similar interests, I say thanks and keep up the good work. I’m going to go back to waiting for someone to fix the most recent D&D podcast of the session that you guys did.
Wil, I have to admit that after 25 years of being and ex-gamer (couldn’t find anyone to play with after we moved when I was a kid) I am jumping back in and bringing my son with me, and its all your fault. When I was a teen, I tried DMing a game and sucked horribly. After reading your assessment of the new 4e, I figured I’d try again, and while its VASTLY different from the AD&D I played as a kid, both I and my son are having fun. I will be getting this book, it is just what the attention span of a 9yo can handle. Thank you for getting me back in the game. 😀
It’s been my experience so far that 4e is easier to run as a GM than 3.0 or 3.5, but harder to play as a player. Part of that is just lack of familiarity as we all stumble around trying to remember what we can do every round in combat. A fight that would take us 20 minutes to resolve in 3.5 recently took over two hours in 4e. 🙁 Streamlined my ass.
I’m one of those players/Learning DMs who has sporadically played throughout the various versions. I know just enough about each of the versions (DnD, ADnD, etc) to be truly dangerous in either occupation. Not too long ago I took up the task of upgrading Hollow World campaign material (DnD for those who don’t know) to 3.5 edition. The thing I liked most about it (and I think my players as well) was that everything in that world is brand-new, probably because its so old that nobody remembers most of it. One of the other great facets was the fact that I prepared a TON of material beforehand, because #1, I’m a new DM and figured I better be prepared. And #2, I wanted to give the players the ability to just do whatever, which in my mind is where “roleplaying” really comes out. I like the idea that you give players an open canvas and just let them go. There are obviously some guides you have to give them or its absolute chaos. But from the feedback I got afterwards, the wide-open structure was something they really enjoyed, and the roleplaying was excellent. I had a min/maxer too, and although he was difficult to manage (probably due to my inexperience), it worked out okay anyway. So whats my point? These “ready-to-run” quickies really wouldn’t work for me very well. I agree with Michael in that to me it “feels” very computer game-like. Now to be fair, I have not actually purchased nor perused the 4th edition material, so this is a very uninformed opinion. But I just think these quick episodes as they are described here would lack the things I enjoy most out of DnD gaming. If I want a quick smash and grab dungeon crawl, there are plenty of games (both PC or console) I can pick up and still play with friends. DnD to me (again, a personal opinion) is about roleplaying, and I just don’t think you can honestly get a good roleplaying session going in a quick dungeon crawl.
We recently had Andy Collins, Gwendolyn Kestrel, and Harley Stroh here in Denver for Genghis Con XXX. Here’s a podcast of a panel they did on the differences in 4e. (I was there listening to it live, so I haven’t heard the ‘cast yet; don’t know how the sound quality is)
http://podgecast.com/archives/435
I’ve spent hours in prep before. I had whole binders of maps, NPC’s, time-lines, random-monsters and even pre-generated random treasures with theirs and mine note cards (for pre and post identification). You know what? I was never prepared for everything my players decided to do. http://hackingandslashing.blogspot.com/search/label/D%20and%20D%20Campaign This is the journal of the last D&D games (3.0ish with some house-ruling) that I ran. I had to make up rules, on the fly, for how many random NPC’s managed to avoid a falling roc (yes, the giant bird). That’s right, rocs fell and everyone died.
I have learned that what I need to do is to say, “They will do the one thing that you didn’t think of in preparation. Therefore, prepare differently.” Now, I work out main NPC’s stats and personalities, as well as their goals and motivations. I also work out what they’ll be doing in the period of time that will cover the next session. Then, I react in character to what the players do. This means that somethings happen in the background that my players may not find out about for weeks or months. It’s always awesome when I can pull of a big reveal, and my players see that the world isn’t just reacting to them, but to itself.
Another collection you may wanna check out is Goodman Games’ recent goods: “In Search of Adventure” (Six Level 1 adventures for 4e). Obviously it doesn’t cover the 1-30 range (how about just 1-1), but still 6 small adventures all in one book, I can dig.
Old fogies (like me, and you ;>]) may recognize the title from an old TSR collection of Classic D&D (Basic/Expert) modules B1-9 (including of course some faves: Keep on the Borderlands, The Lost City, etc) in a full campaign form:
http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/dd/dd-b1-9.htm
Seems odd to dupe the title like that…ah well.
At any rate, I haven’t “delved” into this Goodman Games collection yet, but I plan to. I’ve heard on some podcast reviews (The Tome Show, etc), that some of the Goodman material is a little off on some of the 4e mechanics, mainly because it wasn’t really out yet when they created some of their 4e mods, but it’s worth a shot, IMO.
Back on topic, I plan to snag WotC’s “Dungeon Delve” today. I’ve been waiting a couple months for it, so time to ante up. Good stuff, I bet.
Quoted for truth: “This is not to say that 4E is a bad game. It’s just a substantially different game. And that’s the point I think people are missing. It’s a different game with the name “Dungeons & Dragons” tacked onto it and people who’ve grown up loving this game resent that change. If Wizards called 4E anything other than “D&D” there wouldn’t be this debate.”