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June 18, 2008
Media Glutton: Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition
I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons off and on for a really long time. If my math and memory are right, I started iin third grade which makes it somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 years. Oh, man, I hadn't done that math before. That's a really long freaking time. I played D&D and other role-playing games all through my school years, although less and less in college. But then more and more in grad school. And then, through some freak combination of luck, desire, and hard work, I started writing books for role-playing games in the mid 1990's and even almost got a job at Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes D&D these days. But I wrote my last pen and paper RPG product in 2000, and ever since then I've been just a fan and a player of tabletop games. It's become a really nice, cheap, fun release to get together with my gaming group of mostly married 30-somethings and play games on Sunday nights, although we'd mostly been playing other things besides actual D&D for the last year or more.
Then, a couple weeks ago, after months of anticipation, the long-awaited Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition came out. I'd been following ruors and leaks and hints about the new overhaul for six months, and I was excited to see what they designers had changed and what had stayed the same. Indeed, the last time I'd been this excited about playing D&D was back in 2000 when they released 3rd Edition. They'd hinted at big changes, and quite frankly that was something that really drew my interest. I have no particular attachment to any of the grand old traditions of D&D, although I can be as nostalgic about my youthful playing days as the next gamer. But it was't like I was playing 3rd Edition anymore (or 3.5 for that matter). Bring on the newness, I thought.
And new and different 4th Edition D&D is. It's a complete overhaul from the ground up, with only the most basic elements of the game the same as they once were. You still play fantasy heroes from various mythical races. There are Clerics and Wizards and Paladins and Rogues (the names “thieves' and 'magic-users' having disappeared in 3rd Edition). Your ability scores are still the classic six and you of course roll a 20-sided die to see if you hit your enemy in battle. But beyond that, even where some of the names have remained the same the game, and especially the way you actually play it from moment to moment, has changed a lot.
My biggest worry when I first heard about some of the changes they were planning was that the game would be more like a World of Warcraft-style online game than a traditional tabletop game. As turns out, the worries were well-founded, because that's pretty much exactly what happened. As it turns out though, that's not nearly as bad a thing as I was worried it would be. It makes sense, actually. MMORPG's like World of Warcraft have been borrowing heavily, almost entirely even, from pen and paper RPG's like D&D since their inception. It would be surprising if they didn't make some improvements of their own along the way that the tabletop games could turn around and steal back.
The most obvious changes come in the area of balance and focus. Online games have to do their best to make each class of character balanced, which is an area the tabletop games have never really excelled at. The new D&D breaks down each class and really focuses hard on exactly what role that class plays in combat and then makes sure each class has some specific role to fill and offers the player plenty of options during play. From a role-plying purist's point of view, this seems to suck out some of the imagination and flexibility of the traditional gaming experience, and I think it probably does do that to a small degree. But the trade-off (and risk) is, in my judgment, well worth the trade, because D&D 4th Edition is now more fun to actually play, especially moment to moment and encounter to encounter.
Players have fewer options about what kinds of powers their characters get, especially the spell casters like wizards and clerics (although the fighters and rogues probably have more options). As many have said before me, the trade off is that, whle characters have fewer desigs options, they have a whole lot more optios during actual combat. This makes every round for the players a new set of tactical decisions and choices. That makes for a fun game.
The one thing I'm theoretically opposed to even though in practice I don't mind at all, is that to really enjoy the game you pretty much have to play it with miniatures and a grid board. The whole game system assumes this setup, which is not the way I like to play role-playing games besides D&D. For me the new game has become less about the role-playing and much ore about the series of tactical combat situations you find yourself in. Here too the game is a lot more like a modern dy MMORPG than anything else. The story is there, the characters are there, but the meat of the experience is in the combat.
The only question I don't really feel qualified to answer about the new D&D is whether or not it's a good jumping on place for new players. My gut instinct tells me that it probably is. The system makes sense, and is well laid out and, if not easy to understand, then at least not incredibly complicated. The thought processes behind it and general structure of character advancement will make a lot of sense to those used to playing RPGs on computers or consoles. Add in the inherent pleasures of playing around a table with real, live friends and the added flexibility and fun that comes with a human DM who can take into account and easily gloss over the weird rule bits and improvise in unexpected ways, and it's a great, unique kind of fun. So why not give it a try? I know I'll be playing this Sunday.
Posted by rdakan at June 18, 2008 10:00 PM