I ran 4e at the Worldwide D&D Gameday on June 7th, and at Origins, and a friend started a campaign last week, and yesterday was the monthly game day for the local role playing club. So at this point I have about 80 hours of gaming time logged using the 4e rules.
I'm supposed to judge the D&D Championship at Gen Con, so I'm seriously trying to learn the new rules as best I can.
Yes, they are trying to draw back some of the players they've lost to the MMORPG market, but more than that, they are trying to make the game accessible to a younger generation. I've taken to asking people what they think of 4e, and so far the funniest response has been "Dragonball Z called, they want their maneuvers back." They've really tried to pack a lot of action into the new rules.
Combat is fast and fun when everyone knows what they are doing. The rules are different, though the basic mechanic of the game hasn't changed, and getting used to some of the changes takes a little time.
The most important thing to remember is that the game rules focus on things that you need rules to resolve: combat is primary with some additional rules to deal with traps and skills. Combats take about as long in 4e as they did in 3e, you just do about three or four times as many rounds in the same amount of time. But for things that don't require rules, all you need are players and a DM willing to imagine and portray a world filled with fantastic characters having amazing adventures.
Combats are much less likely to bog down in 4e, and characters get about the same amount of face time. You won't see the druid with animal companion and summoned creatures who takes more time on his turn than the entire rest of the party, or the targeted dispel magic on the bad guy that forces the DM to stop and recompute the villain's entire stat block. You no longer have Wizards who are weak at 1st level but dominate in high level play.
I don't agree that it is a "pure product" release. There are some very specific goals they set for the new mechanics, equal face time, class parity, a really playable game from the first level to the last. And I feel they hit the target on most of these, though I can't speak to that last item just yet since I'm focused on Heroic level play for now.
Of course they have come up with a publication plan that is pure marketing. Releasing a new PHB, DMG and Monster Manual every year, well, that's all about the ca$h. The change to the GSL rather than the OGL is also about making more money by focusing 3rd parties on creating products that support D&D rather than making the rules a foundation for independent products.
I am beginning to see that the game has the potential to be a lot more flexible than most people realize. There is nothing that says you have to follow the rules all the time. Once you get a feel for the balance of the game, improvising, changing and adding things seems to be pretty easy.
All in all, I like it, even though there are still problems... like the skill challenges being broken as written. But hey, like I said, the rules are easy to change.
4e
I'm supposed to judge the D&D Championship at Gen Con, so I'm seriously trying to learn the new rules as best I can.
Yes, they are trying to draw back some of the players they've lost to the MMORPG market, but more than that, they are trying to make the game accessible to a younger generation. I've taken to asking people what they think of 4e, and so far the funniest response has been "Dragonball Z called, they want their maneuvers back." They've really tried to pack a lot of action into the new rules.
Combat is fast and fun when everyone knows what they are doing. The rules are different, though the basic mechanic of the game hasn't changed, and getting used to some of the changes takes a little time.
The most important thing to remember is that the game rules focus on things that you need rules to resolve: combat is primary with some additional rules to deal with traps and skills. Combats take about as long in 4e as they did in 3e, you just do about three or four times as many rounds in the same amount of time. But for things that don't require rules, all you need are players and a DM willing to imagine and portray a world filled with fantastic characters having amazing adventures.
Combats are much less likely to bog down in 4e, and characters get about the same amount of face time. You won't see the druid with animal companion and summoned creatures who takes more time on his turn than the entire rest of the party, or the targeted dispel magic on the bad guy that forces the DM to stop and recompute the villain's entire stat block. You no longer have Wizards who are weak at 1st level but dominate in high level play.
I don't agree that it is a "pure product" release. There are some very specific goals they set for the new mechanics, equal face time, class parity, a really playable game from the first level to the last. And I feel they hit the target on most of these, though I can't speak to that last item just yet since I'm focused on Heroic level play for now.
Of course they have come up with a publication plan that is pure marketing. Releasing a new PHB, DMG and Monster Manual every year, well, that's all about the ca$h. The change to the GSL rather than the OGL is also about making more money by focusing 3rd parties on creating products that support D&D rather than making the rules a foundation for independent products.
I am beginning to see that the game has the potential to be a lot more flexible than most people realize. There is nothing that says you have to follow the rules all the time. Once you get a feel for the balance of the game, improvising, changing and adding things seems to be pretty easy.
All in all, I like it, even though there are still problems... like the skill challenges being broken as written. But hey, like I said, the rules are easy to change.