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 It's been a while since Wizards of the Coast announced Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. I'm an old school D&D player, going back to the old D&D boxed set published in 1981. I didn't stay with regular D&D long, moving almost immediately to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. I've played every edition since, but I held off on starting D&D 4e.
So why start now?
It's been a while since I've been involved in a good D&D game. It's been a while since I've been involved in a good RPG, for that matter. And while my 3.5 edition books lie neatly stacked up and ready for use, I wanted to see what the new edition is all about. Certainly Wizards of the Coast has not been stingy with supplemental books. If you want the core books and accessory books, not including the game settings, it's going to set you back a few hundred bucks. But they are in the business to make money and the best way to make money is to continue to derive and sell new product. So why not stick with the older edition? Especially since Paizo has a new world, Pathfinder, and I still have all my older books? First and foremost is mechanics. I know a lot of thought went into 3rd edition with respect to mechanics. Read the older posts from Monte Cook's journal and you'll see that. I know a lot of thought went into 3.5e, as well, though some of the mechanics changes (like some of the changes to the bard spell list) I disagreed with. However, I could see why the mechanics were what they were. But for some reason, I was never a tremendous fan of all the 3rd edition mechanics. I want to see how 4th edition has evolved them, given that was something that was to be looked at. Glancing at the Player's Handbook, some of those mechanics have been rethought. For instance, a wizard or sorcerer isn't basically useless at 1st level any more. That's a good thing. Second is the desire to try something new. This can backfire. For instance, I liked the old World of Darkness. Granted, mechanics were atrocious, especially as you combined systems (like I did with V:tM, W:tA, C:tD, and M:tA... 50 bonus points if you know those abbreviations). But I loved the game world. I loved the clans and the Traditions and the tribes and everything. I've picked up enough of the WoD reboot to know it was, well, meh. That's kind of how I feel about Forgotten Realms. I've been playing and running campaigns in the realms since 1989. I looked at Eberron but couldn't ever embrace it. Wizards ensures White Wolf couldn't continue producing Ravenloft sourcebooks, and that's probably not entirely a bad thing. Greyhawk was never really fleshed out and besides, I've run campaigns in that one since 1982 or so. So I wanted the new rules with the new emphases on races and how the classes are reworked to design a new world around. Just a glance at the new Players Handbook reveals the Eladrin, which provide a better fit for Seelie and Unseelie courts than the myriad of fey types in 3rd edition. You've got the courts, which PCs can come from. Yeah, I like this a lot. Third is the fact that it is more video game-like. I know that's a knock for some RPGers, but I happen to like cinematic types of encounters. Did I mention I used to play a lot of White Wolf? Okay, wanted to make sure we understood that. I also used to love the idea behind Mekton, though I never did get a campaign in. In RPG games, there is a place for monologuing. And cinematic combat is a whole lot better than, "Yeah, you hit for *roll* 6 points. Ooooo, nasty!" And it's more tactical. I used to prefer to play without the battleboard. But after playing with it for a while and then going back, I saw how it solved a lot of issues. And if you play a game like Descent, you understand just how important tactics can be. They tend to encourage player cooperation, which is always a good thing in these types of games. Finally, it's a new edition and new material for the older editions is going to fade away. I could drop back and punt and go to Kenzer & Co's HackMaster, but the only folks who are going to be familiar with that are the hard core RPGers. Also, their license with Wizards was up, so they're doing a new version and I don't know how that will turn out. So it really becomes a market driven decision. If I want to play D&D and I don't want to have to scour various and sundry FLGSes (Friendly Local Game Shops), that means I've got to go with something more mainstream. And that's 4th edition. |
