A Veteran GM's First Impressions of D&D 4th Edition

Martin Ralya writes "I spent several hours with the three core D&D 4th Edition books on launch day, and wrote a detailed look at all of them based on my first impressions. Two big takeaways: Yes, the World of Warcraft comparisons are fair (and a good thing), and the way character powers work now will make the game more fun for everyone."

It is great

Yes, quite great. *gurps* Excuse me....

Re:It is great

Two things I find funny about D&D 4E in comparison to GURPS 4e (my generally-preferred system). Remember when GURPS 4e came out? Everyone whined it was too expensive. Now D&D 4E is over $100 for the PHB/DMG/MM basic set (no pun intended), though of course you can find it online for cheaper. Yet no one seems to be complaining.

On the upside, many of the things that GURPS 4e did right D&D 4E is also doing right. Much improved rules layout and general unification/simplification of "stupid things". I was very much not a fan of d20 3.x for this exact reason; the entire ruleset was vomited into the book with what seemed like little attention to organization. (Remember GURPS 3e sidebars?)

That said, D&D 4E is very much still the quick hack'n'slash ruleset. Of course, it doesn't have to be, but it certainly doesn't have the attention to character personality advantages/disadvantages and all the non-combat skills that GURPS does. But then not much else does, and that's why we all love GURPS, isn't it. ;-)

Re:It is great

However, a big part of what I believe is going to push D&D 4e is the D&D Insider Online Tabletop with the voicechat and the rule handling and all that.

We are at a point where tabletopping is ready to evolve, and Steve's reluctance to step in that direction could ultimately doom our beloved GURPS.

I really hope that doesn't happen, but he has a pretty strict rule against anybody else creating online tabletopping software that does combat calculations... yet we really don't see his folks doing it either.

Re:It is great

Well, personally, I don't think Evil Steve sees a lot of hope for GURPS as a line and think that taking the time to invest in forwarding it might be refurbishing a sinking ship. I think he'd rather focus on the next Munchkin or Chez Geek/Greek/Punk/Goth. Maybe relaunch Car Wars. Again.

Back in the 3e salad days, there was a new GURPS suppliment released each month (leading some to remark, not entirely inaccurately that GURPS was less a game and more a gaming magazine.) 4th edition saw that brought down to a suppliment a quarter. (And a few PDF suppliments. Not that they don't count, but... they don't count.)

There has not yet been a print release for any new GURPS 4th edition product in the entire year of 2008 so far. The next product in the queue is GURPS Thaumaturgy.

Munchkin is on it's 6th expansion of the -core- rules which does not include all if it's spinoffs (Star Munchkin, Munchkin Bites, Munchkin Cthulu, Munchkin Fu, Super Munchkin, Munchkin Impossible, The Good, The Bad, and the Munchkin, etc.)

I'm not saying that GURPS will be unsupported, but it is Munchkin, not GURPS that pays the bills - GURPS is the labour of love.

Re:It is great

Thats called growing up. Kudos to anyone who still has their friends around to play DnD but most people just dont. Not many people have a group of friends around where they can meet up all at the same time anymore. I still hang out with my old friends but usually not at the same time of day anymore.

Re:It is great

Doesn't WoW fill this need? Putting DnD online would invite unfavorable comparisons to Blizzard's juggernaut.

Not really... the tool they're releasing for D&D isn't an MMO, nor anything like it. It's more like having a digital tabletop that you can draw maps on, but you're still moving around miniatures on it, and the DM still makes the adventure and actually tells a story.

That last bit is what I find to make it completely unlike WoW or any other MMO. The human element of somebody actively running the game you're playing. It is a vastly different experience.

I personally would love to be able to play that way with my friends that are no longer local to me.

Re:It is great

Bad move, yes... uncommon move? No.

Re:It is great

Well:

From this graph [boingboing.net], the price of corn in 2004 peaked at approximately $3.35/bushel. The latest price of corn on there was approximately $4.30/bushel.

From this site [unc.edu], the approximate weight of one bushel of corn is 56 lbs. According to Google [google.ca] that's 25'401 grams.

If you cut all of the kernels off of the cob, boil them, and eat them without salt or any other seasonings, according to this chart [calorie-count.com], it will contain 66 calories per 82 grams.

This means one bushel contains approximately 20'445 calories.

According to this list [nutristrategy.com], a 190 lb person running at 10mph (6 minute mile) will burn 1380 calories.

So, you'll get 14.8 miles worth of calories out of one bushel of corn.

So, in 2004 you'd be paying $0.226 per mile. Today you'd be paying $0.291 per mile. That's an increase of about 22.3%.

An increase from $75 (GURPS 4e, 2004) to $105 (D&D 4e, 2008) is 28.6%.

So given the questionable sources, estimations, etc I've used, I'd say that those numbers are close enough to conclude that the cost of the books has approximately followed the market.

ND

It's only fun for me when

I put on my robe and my wizard hat.

Re:It's only fun for me when

I put on my robe and my wizard hat.

I steal your soul and cast Lightning Level 1,000,000. Your body explodes into a fine bloody mist, because you are only a AC impostor.

Now *I* put on my robe and wizard hat.

An everyone game?

It seems a bit funny to me that they are making it WoW-like in the "everybody can play easily" quality. I never liked that about WoW, because it just meant that a bunch of idiots could sign on and play, but in a tabletop game it will just make it easier for friends who thought it was too complicated before to get into it. Hearing this about it makes me happy.

Re:An everyone game?

Yes, fortunately you don't have to invite a bunch of idiots to your table in order to get a D&D game going (although in my experience, the complexity of the game never kept the idiots out anyway).

Wait until you've played it

Reading it only says so much. I had my first session today, and I must say that I found it less MMO:ish once you actually started playing it. Sure, some fundamental rules use the same ideas, but, that is in no way an issue when actually playing. I must say I liked DM:ing it, but it will be a while before I learn the mechanics, they are far less intuitive past a certain level since every power is an exception to the very bare core. So, a lot more "studying" is necessary than previous editions if you want to learn it all, but there is a shorter span until you can start playing your first game and understand what you are doing.

Re:Wait until you've played it

Looks like Englishv6.

Just went to a local Game Day event...

...and had a blast. My brother and I have never played D&D, but I have been listening to podcasts and reading about it for the past few months and definitely wanted to give it a try with someone who knew what they were doing.

We had a great time, especially when we essentially tied down an Ice Dragon and our main Fighter intimidated the Dragon into giving up (even without knowing the Dragon's language!) and we won the encounter without even killing it! It was so much more fun than raiding Onyxia, especially given all the freedom you have in D&D. I bought a book and can't wait to rope all my friends into it.

My impressions

I posted my review at here [outshine.com]. It seems to be unapologetic in imitating many aspects of MMORPGs. So you can like that or not, but its there. The good news is that unlike previous editions, when 3.5 goes out of print, there will still be many ways to get the rules. 3.5 is open-sourced (kinda). See d20srd.org. Also Pathfinder will provide new 3.6-ish books for new players wanting to try the old edition. Overall it's going to be a better time for all RPGers, even if you don't like 4th edition.

Something is fishy about this "review"

The 4e books have about 1/4 the content of previous edition books. They have large type, a lot of whitespace, and hell of a lot of repetition and iteration through trivial variants.

Every new power or creature has an embarassingly bad "Magic: The Gathering" style name, which often has only a slight connection to the game mechanic it represents. Many of the powers have rules that only make sense in combat, and the ones that are designed to be done outside of combat are slapdash.

It's all designed around "game balance" (i.e. balance as a competitive tactics boardgame, not as a cooperative role-playing game) to the point of continual absurdity.

I could go on and on, but there is a lot to hate in 4e, and anyone who gives it an entirely uncritical review is either taking money or ignorant of previous editions.

Does anybody see the irony?

Fantasy-oriented computer games started out by trying to imitate games like D&D, and now D&D is trying to imitate them.

Re:Does anybody see the irony?

See, I want to take this another level. There was a tremendous amount of experimentation done with online games. How many MUD's are there? I'd bet the best of those MUD's ended up giving their best programmers / designers to online gaming. And so the stuff people liked about MUD'ding got pushed into the online games, and the online games cross-pollinated. This, indeed, has nothing to do with what happened with tabletop games. I've met many, many people with custom systems.... And they didn't cross-pollinate as much. It's just harder to do. So computers made making the game a better process.

Re:Is the title correct?

Should it be DM, or do I not know what GM stands for...

"GM" is a "Game Master." So a DM is a GM for D&D. GM is just more generic and doesn't have to be associated with D&D or even this genre of role-playing games.

Re:Is the title correct?

That explains why I stopped playing in my teens, and now that I'm married with a couple of kids, I'm interesting in playing again...

Re:Start Reprinting AD&D v2.0 Please

It doesn't make the game more playable to me.

Hey now... anything makes the game more playable than 2.0. I've seen bricks that were more playable games than D&D 2.0.

Re:Start Reprinting AD&D v2.0 Please

I spent the day hashing over the 4E rules, and I must say that just about all the changes I see are very good from a real-world, let's get 5 people together and have fun for 3 hours kinda way.

One of the reasons that I've clung to my original 1E rules over the years (I've got the '70s version and an early '80s reprint of the 3 core books) is that 2E and 3E just seemed to needlessly complicate the hell out of everything. Instead of 15 minutes to fight a party of Orcs, the encounters started taking an hour or more -- OMG skill check, fortitude check, balance check, grapple check, sphincter check. Every single 2E or 3.xE game that I've participated in had house rules to bring combat closer to 1E just so your 3 hour gaming session had some actual progress instead of 2 encounters, loot, nite guys!

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I really think the rules are a basic framework within which to enjoy making a story with friends. I've never really played D&D with any powergamer or rules lawyer types, and to be honest, I'm thankful.

If you want sim-style combat, and save/skill checks out the ass, make house rules. Just don't overcomplicate the core rulebooks!

To sum up: I'm very happy with almost everything I've seen in the 4E rules so far. They mean that I can get buddies and their wives together on short notice and have a game up and running in an hour. Character development is quite a bit more like CRPGs and WoW, which is fine by me! Most people who'd play at my table already understand spec/talent systems from WoW or wherever -- it just means there's less to explain, and it prompts characters to think about goals from the beginning (I love the destiny bit -- getting players to think about their character as part of an enormous story arc is great!).

I've heard a lot about the loss of Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil, but they're honestly still there -- just called Good and Evil now. Part of me misses the old-style 9 grid alignment diagram, but I definitely won't miss having to explain those two apparent oxymorons to new players. I also *quite* like the new Unaligned (instead of true neutral) alignment -- far less restrictive than true neutral used to be. No druids in PHB1, alas, but I'm sure they'll be in PHB2. All of the starting classes are full-on archetypes, and there are none of what MMO types would call "hybrid classes".

The only things I truly dislike about the 4E rules so far is that it seems impossible to do combat without a minigrid. Again, I'm probably in the minority here, but I've always preferred more storytelling-style combat instead of sim/wargame style. It made gaming sessions move much more quickly. We'll see if I end up house-ruling over that after trying it out. I doubt seriously that I'd ever use the loot parcel rule. Magic items in my games are very few and very far between, mostly because the games are about the story, not lewts + power.

Anyhow, this is the first edition since the original that I think I'll adopt. I like the organization of the books, the playing advice/primers and even the DMing advice.

Re:Propoganda much?

- No strategy. Instead of having to rest and pray (or study) to gain spells back, they have the equivalent of "cooldown" (which I can forgive in an MMO, but makes no real-world sense). Basically your players can use their best spells every fight. No strategy, no need for lower-level spells at all. Why do they even exist once you pass 5th level (or whatever level it is you get fireball now)?

You haven't even read the books at ALL, have you? There's 3 kinds of powers - at will (you can do them whenever, all day, usually low damage/low utility), 1/encounter (you can use these once per battle, and you have to take a 5 minute rest before you can use them again), and 1/day (you have to sleep for 6 hours to get them back). There's also a good deal of variety in the abilities, and yes, there is reason to use Magic Missile after you get Fireball. The system works great, and there is a HUGE amount of strategy involved, it's just very different from 3.5's "everything is x/day". And, come on, did you just try to argue that having SPELLS work on a cooldown system makes no REAL WORLD sense?

I really don't feel like refuting the rest of your post, but mods, note that this guy has never seen the books himself, has never played with the system, and is knee-jerking at it without knowing what he's talking about.

Re:Propoganda much?

Honestly, most of your post shows that you don't know anything about 4e and are just having a gut reaction based on opinions you've heard. But, I'll go ahead and refute a few of your more blatantly wrong points...

Spells are called "powers" (goodbye psionics?) and are detailed in the class section; there is no other"magic" area in the book. Great for a person only playing a wizard, ever, but wtf for people making classes. Horrible.

Psionics will be in the PHB2. If you're making your own class, you can either steal the wizard's power list (which is what everybody did in 3rd ed) or make your own. No problems there, that's exactly how it's always been -- the only difference is that the wizard's abilities are listed with him rather than in their own chapter.

- No confirm criticals, criticals are just max damage on a 20. Goodbye dramatic tension as you bunch over the faded die, figuring out if you got a 7 or 17 on that confirm roll. Goodbye variability. Goodbye fight-ending strike.

I'm really sorry if the most exciting part of your game is trying to figure out whether you rolled a 7 or 17. Also, you might be interested to know that this was something that was new in 3rd ed, anyway.

- Most rolls 1d20+1/2 character level+other. Wow, that means that high level people will be able to do everything better than 1st level players! Horrible.
- No ranks in skills. So much for making a detailed and unique character, huh? Cookie-cutter it is then.

High level characters are already capable of doing everything better than low-level characters, if they put their minds to it. Also, proficiency and skill focus still factor into your die rolls, so it'll take a very significant difference in levels before a high-level character who focuses on a skill will be able to easily beat a low-level character who focuses on it. Besides, since when have skill ranks made anybody unique? Unless you were intentionally crippling yourself for roleplaying flavor, every class basically had a few skills that they'd keep maxed out and never put points in any others. Dropping skill ranks and making rolls 1d20 + 1/2 level + other effectively produces the same results and eliminates one of the most tedious parts of writing up the stats for a new character.

- Attackers roll saves instead of defenders. Stupid. It takes the fate out of your hands and into mine, not to mention I have to look up the bonus a cliff gets to its reflex attack. wtf?

All they're doing is making things consistent. In 3rd ed, when you make a melee attack, you roll, add your attack bonus, and if you beat the opponent's AC, you hit them. When you made a magical attack, though, the DM got to roll, add the attack bonus (the monster's save), and compare it to the target AC (your save DC). Now it works exactly the same way for spells, too; the attacker is in control of the "fate" of their attacks.

- No strategy. Instead of having to rest and pray (or study) to gain spells back, they have the equivalent of "cooldown" (which I can forgive in an MMO, but makes no real-world sense). Basically your players can use their best spells every fight. No strategy, no need for lower-level spells at all. Why do they even exist once you pass 5th level (or whatever level it is you get fireball now)?

This is so completely wrong that I won't even bother, other than saying that you need to read the book.

-"There are fewer types of action, standard, move, minor and free." Given that that's about the same as 3.5 core (full-round, standard, move and free), I wonder about this guy's mental health exclaiming its virtues.

3rd ed had full round, standard, move, free, swift, and immediate actions. Further complicating things was the fact that you had to combine your standard and move for a full round, and you could trade your standard down for a move action, but couldn't trade anything down for a swift action. 4e removed the full round action and renam