Unnecessary Delays

[alexandraerin]

I spent an hour today writing a 1,000 word update to Jamie's Tale and five hours trying unsuccessfully to turn it into a 2,000+ word update. This wasn't in a row. I kept walking away from the problem to see if I could get fresh perspective on it. Round midnight I was distracted by some D&D-related squee*. Each time I came back not having any better idea how to progress, and each time I missed the essential problem: it was a thousand word update.

That's all.

I'm blogging this so that maybe I learn from it.

---

*This being the new Essentials preview material, which pretty well confirms that the D&D Essentials line will:

• Make things easier on newbies.
  
• Appeal to nostalgia.
  
• Not change the game for people who like the existing character options.
  
• Give new powers/candy that people who like the existing stuff can play with, too.
  

Win-win-win-win.

Comments

[kynn.livejournal.com]

This being the new Essentials preview material

this is indeed squeeworthy as it's a step in the correct direction.

i played d&d dark sun encounters on both Wednesday and Thursday. it was pretty awfulbad, i don't know what they were thinking.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

I have heard so many complaints about the Dark Sun Encounters: poor balance, poor editing, poor editing that leads to worse balance (calling for a Passive Perception higher than any of the pregens have or else you get hit with a Surprise Round being one example I've heard from multiple sources). Talk about putting your worst foot forward.

I am a total 4E partisan... one of the tags on my WotC community blog is "bards are cheerleaders right?". But I have a feeling Essentials will make it easier for me to cheer.

[kynn.livejournal.com]

i like 4e a lot. but they totally messed up on DSE. i can't imagine anyone wanting to start playing Dark Sun and/or D&D if their first exposure was DSE.

i experienced the surprise round that leads to near-total TPK on wednesday. it was pretty awful.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

WotC has managed to give itself some truly epic shiners rolling out great products.

This is why I think a true entry-level "starter kit" will be a good thing - if people can't get into the hobby by themselves, it's in trouble.

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, was this surprise round in an encounter with a dwarf?

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

One thing that's worth noting with regards to the Passive Perception is that someone goofed on the cards; one of the characters has a Perception skill bonus of +10, and an Insight of +8. But the Passive Perception is +18 and the Passive Insight is +20.

Honestly I've been running Encounters since it started and this is only marginally worse than it was with the first run in Undermountain; for example, imagine an encounter that's supposedly intended for five 2nd level characters and is in fact set up with an xp budget for six 4th level characters. Now add in extra, non-budgeted hazards, and four monsters that each have an at-will close burst enemies-only attack that prevents you from using standard actions.

The biggest problem is that Wizards has implied a new DM can sit down and run straight from the book and it'll all be fine. But you really need an experienced DM who knows 4th and is willing to change things in order to make the published material fun again.