I’m not the only person who was wondering how Gabe’s D&D session went. So many people asked him for details, he posted a picture of his setup and talked a little bit about his first time sitting behind the DM screen. His enthusiasm for DMing is just infectious, and he couldn’t have picked a better time to pick up the hobby; the 4E DMG really is that good, and best of all, it’s useful for whatever system you play. If you want to run a game, but have been intimidated by the idea, this book will Dispel Fear and Inspire Confidence like no other. Quoth Mike:
The Dungeon Master Guide is really a great resource. It will give you all kinds of ideas about what you might want to pick up for your game. It even goes into detail about the environment you play in and gives great tips on getting your friends into the spirit. Where the Player’s Handbook is really about rules, the DMG is more about the philosophy of be a Dungeon Master and the mechanics of creating a world for your friends to play in. I was really impressed with it.
I don’t know how much the general public knows about the guys behind the characters in Penny Arcade, but I know them fairly well. I don’t think it would be cool to rip back the curtain too much and spoil their mystique, but they are just good people. I’m really lucky to call them friends.
Speaking of RPGs, Green Ronin has just released a new Mutants and Masterminds book in stores, called Freedom’s Most Wanted. It’s full of supervillains! SUPERVILLAINS! Have you ever played M&M? It’s insanely fun. But don’t take my word for it, you can try it out for free. Get started here.
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Hmmm… sorry, but I just don’t get 4E. It’s not D&D to me – too many player skills/feats/powers/whatever. And it requires minis to play it. I guess I’m just an old fart, after all.
Of course, I’ll have to run it for my fiancee (she’s all about character development) and my kids (they’ll love it, I’m sure, because they’re, well, teenage boys.) To that end, I’ve got the books and Keep on the Shadowfell.
Maybe my outlook will change after we play it. It could happen.
You may want to read my column at Suicide Girls about Fourth Edition, Chris B.
Wil,
I have to agree with Chris B… as someone who did a couple 4E playtests at GenCon this past summer, it simply isn’t D&D to me. It’s WoW with plastic minis.
But the good news is that ALSO while at GenCon, someone introduced me to Troll Lords’ “Castles and Crusades” system, which is all the “easy, simple, fun” of 1st edition, with a lot of 3rd edition sensibilities (additive armor class values, etc.)
I would definitely see if you can find a GM in your area for a C&C session. It’ll definitely take you back to the old-school games of your youth. I know it did for our gaming group. 🙂
Actually, I did. I was, I’ll admit, surprised at how much you loved the game. I didn’t necessarily expect you to hate it, but your obvious adoration for it was wholly unexpected.
To be honest, that piece was the reason I picked up the MM and KotS a few days later. I figured: “Wil’s no mindless fanboy. If he’s so crazy about the game, maybe I should give it a shot anyway.”
So you at least sold me on trying it. Not sure how that will work for me, but I know the SO and the boys will dig it. And for me, that’s the goal anyway. The game is just a tool to bring fun to my family and friends.
Would that title quote be one of the tavern rumors from Keep on the Borderlands? It seems awfully familiar.
Playing D&D 4e at PAX last year made me feel a little sad. At first I chalked it up to the WOW-like changes and requirements for miniatures, but I think it was more nostalgia and missing good times.
Ultimately it isn’t the rules that make or break a role-playing game. I think the rules are really just a smokescreen to give the players a sense that they are inhabiting a consistent rational world instead of one dependent on the whims of the DM. The real show is in the imaginiation of the players. And the real, real show is the social interaction and bonds of friendship formed by sitting around the kitchen table BSing for hours on end.
There is at least one time that I wish we had been playing with miniatures in a campaign. I opened a door to a room full of treasure. While I was waiting for the rest of the party to catch up to me, I asked the DM for an estimate of how much treasure there was. He said “you walk into the room and get hit by a poison dart trap.” An argument followed about whether I needed to walk into the room to eyeball the amount of treasure and if I told the DM that I wanted to start counting it. Miniatures would have greatly helped to resolve that misunderstanding.
“Would that title quote be one of the tavern rumors from Keep on the Borderlands? It seems awfully familiar.”
It is. I rolled for it, too, using an actual, first-printing B2 module that I rescued from the garage last year.
(It’s rumor #2, and it’s false, by the way. Don’t tell the PCs.)
Hey, I haven’t had a chance to play the new rules, but having read the Player’s Guide I can see that I like a lot of what they did. I understand some peoples’ hesitation to play, but ultimately tabletop gaming isn’t really about a “ruleset” anyway – its about the fun social interactions as mentioned above.
And really, if they can get a certain someone at PA excited to play it, then I think they are on to something in terms of enticing new people to pick up the hobby.
Reading these stories makes me miss those good old times around the kitchen table though. I wonder how tough it would be to track down my old gaming buds… ha!
In unrelated news, excited about Apple’s announcement to go DRM free?
Derek’s right about C&C – it’s what I run for my game group when we want to play old-school D&D with contemporary, cohesive rules. (Unlike the fiancee and kids, my fellow gamers are of the Old School; they don’t care for 3.x, and sneer at me if I so much as mention 4E. I think they’d probably try to have me committed if I attempted to make them play it…)
I’d recommend C&C to anybody who wants to play the older, simpler D&D but who also wants a more modern “feel.” (IMHO, FWIW, etc.)
I think 4th ed is an okay system. It’s just not D&D to me. It’s not as expansive, and the books don’t cover as much. With the core books from 3.5, I feel like I’ve got worlds at my disposal. With the 4th Ed books, I feel like I’m playing in a small country a few miles across.
It’s accessible. Very accessible. Except for the crazy house rule game that I’m playing that is.
But a little bit of me misses the fact that you did need to learn advanced mathematics and the histories of several made up universes in order to have the slightest idea what was going on.
There’s a lot of great stuff in those old modules. In my mad search for a model car for my nephew this past holiday I stumbled across this hobby store in Seattle. A huge selection of model cars/trucks/yadda yadda – but the unexpected pleasure was finding the back of the store devoted to old games. I’m talking original in package rpg/boardgames from the 80s, nothing newer than 1990 I think. Not only did they have the campaigns for AD&D and such there, they also had all the supporting material as well – the pulp novels and similar they released at the time. It was like a walk back in time! The old “choose your own adventure” books cracked me up the most I think.
They don’t have a website, which is a shame (even if this also keeps out all those who wouldn’t appreciate the place like we would). However, if you are ever back in the PacNW and looking for a nostalgia trip, I’ll be happy to give you directions.
Cheers ~
Well let me be the first (in this thread) to say that I am unequivocally happy to see Gabe get into the game and have so much fun with it.
I’ve been playing D&D in all its incarnations since the red box, and 4e is as much “D&D to me” as the sound of clattering polyhedrals.
Looking forward to hearing the new recorded game you did with them Wil, now go roll some 20s!
I’d love to try this game out, I just sadly don’t know anyone else who’d be into it.
I hear people talking about how “minis are required”. I’ve done a fair bit of reading on the subject and I haven’t gotten that impression at all. I could totally be wrong, though.
It seems to me like you could use whatever the heck you wanted to make your grid and whatever the heck you wanted to designate players and monsters. Why would you ever HAVE to have minis?
Did previous versions of the game not go to the level of actual grid placement of stuff? Were you just “in the room” and it didn’t actually matter which square you were standing on?
I suppose it’s moot for me, though, because mini’s required or no, I’m still not going to get to play anytime soon 🙁
Jesus, the sheer number of things that you are “really lucky” for could fill a book.
(…oh yeah.)
To clarify, my “minis required” comment doesn’t mean that you have to use actual game miniatures. Rather, that some medium is required to denote specifically where your character is.
While older editions, (esp. prior to 3.x) were rather vague, allowing gamers to use/not use minis (as described) at their discretion, this edition absolutely requires such detail – it is built into the rules.
I’ve always played D&D as a game of pure imagination – I didn’t use minis, because I always found it made my players think too tactically and in terms of the rules, instead of using their imaginations and coming up with all kinds of creative ways to do things. That’s just my personal experience, and why I have so much trouble wrapping my brain (and arms) around 4E.
(Of course, I love Warhammer Quest, and 4E will probably replace that at our game table.)
I’m not Wil, but I live in Seattle, and would love to know where this place is…
Damn, Wil, every time you write about role playing it totally reignites my itch to start playing again. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have any friends that will play with me!
Its right off the main drag in Lake City – American Eagle Hobby Shop (or something similar). Go to the back left (after entering the store), and you’ll literally see tons of old RPG materials. Not just one or two items, but multiple copies of older campaigns and such, from AD&D to Marvel Heroes and such. In the “back back” room there’s a huge collection of old novels.
Funny. I wondered if it might be American Eagles. I haven’t been there in
years.
and thanks.
If you ever wanted to try your hand at writing D&D 4e material for money, here’s a great opportunity: http://www.goodman-games.com/bookofritualsopencall.html