D&D 4E Wrap-Up Thoughts

There’s been a lot written about D&D 4E and why is it superior/inferior to all other editions. I really don’t care about those arguments. This is my blog and I’m going to write MY thoughts. :p
(In other word, the following post is my OPINION and does not reflect a judgement upon anyone. If you find a game to be fun, then play what you like!)

I love playing D&D, regardless of edition. That doesn’t mean I like all editions equally. The title of this blog is How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love all D&D, and even though I tried (I think the dozen or so sessions of D&D 4E with a mix of adventures from Dungeons and adventure I wrote myself counts as having given it a fair shake), I just can’t love 4E. I’m going to stop short of saying I’ll never run/play it again, but it is not my edition of choice.

Why?

First of all, I don’t want a debate with 4E-lovers. Let’s just say it doesn’t fit my GMing style and leave it at that. The real answer is more complicated than that, but as long as you can accept that personal preferences do not have to be the same for every person who plays the game, then we’re good. There’s just something about it that rubs me the wrong way as a GM and I just don’t enjoy running the game like I have with other editions. I think part of it is the tactical combat. The more tactical combat is in a game, the less I seem to like it. At first, when D&D 3rd edition came out, I was totally on-board, but the more I played it, and through the transition to 4E, I just found combat tedious.

4E has it good points, to be sure. The online tools work pretty well as much as I used them and certainly made my game prep easier. Far easier than it had been since 2E and the Core Rules CD-Rom. The tools made it dead easy to convert classic adventures (Basic D&D and AD&D) as long as you know how to build 4E encounters. I learned that you can’t rely on the Encounter Builder’s estimation too much, because it makes assumptions that my group didn’t always meet (it was rare for us to play with more than 4 player-characters, for one, and we did not have a perfectly balanced party of Defender-Striker-Controller-Leader all the time).

My background in D&D starts in 1982 with the Moldvay/Mentzer basic sets (my friend had one and I had the other). I moved on from there to AD&D and spent much of my gaming “life” playing AD&D 2nd edition. I played a lot of 3rd edition and really liked it, but always felt 4E moved too far away from what I was used to. To me, and I stress this is MY opinion and not meant to infer that everyone should share my opinion, it feels like Fantasy Superheroes, far more so than D&D 3.X ever did. My last session with the system really cemented that with character making vertical leaps from standing that really, probably, should’ve been physically impossible, though I will admit I didn’t stop the game to look up jumping rules, so maybe I just screwed it up.

We’re moving on (some might say backwards) to Pathfinder. Time will tell how I feel about it. I spent a lot of time running D&D 3.X, but I’ve only run one Pathfinder game. Maybe it’ll be too complicated for me (I suspect I’m going to find combat too tedious and complicated since it’s just an evolution from 3.x). I’ve said before (in this blog or elsewhere) that the older I get, the more I prefer rules-light systems and I think we can all agree that D&D 3.X, Pathfinder, and D&D 4E are anything but rules-light. I’m curious to see how much game prep is involved in running an adventure path. We’re going to start with Skull & Shackles. I’m hoping the chance to be pirates will allow my players to indulge in some of their more anarchic tendencies and by the time we’re finished with it, they’ll be ready to play the heroes they’ll need to be for adventures like Rise of the Runelords. To further add to the anarchy, the PCs will be goblins (at least until/if they die; I won’t restrict races for replacement characters).

Who knows? By the end of the year, I might swear off modern D&D/Pathfinder altogether and go back to my beloved AD&D 2nd edition and play other games like Savage Worlds and various FATE-based games. Or, I might finally grok the rules-heavy games (I haven’t felt I had a system mastery of an RPG since I left AD&D 2nd edition and the West End Games Star Wars d6 behind). Time will tell.

I asked my long-term players (of varying levels of experience) to write up some of their thoughts about D&D 4E (as I did with Basic D&D). Here is what they had to say (names have been altered to protect the innocent):

Theirastra’s Player: “[4E] is too complex and takes the fun out of the role playing aspect of the game. And in an effort to please everyone, there are zillions of races [and classes], which are not really necessary. I liked Basic better. Haven’t played enough Pathfinder to compare to it.”

Mercutio’s Player: “After running a campaign and playing in this short one, I think that 4E reads better than it plays.  In practice, while our powers all have different names, they all come off on the gameboard like pretty much the same stuff.  The numbers are a little too sterile for my taste, if that makes sense.  There’s no “swing” on rolls.  Little sense of risk/reward, in that you don’t feel in danger with all those hit points and surges and heals and stuff, and you don’t get the satisfaction of smashing your enemies into tiny bits, since most of them take 3 or 4 hits to fall down.  Even a crit isn’t terribly satisfying in this system, and that seems kind of wrong.”

I won’t go so far as to say that I think D&D 4E is a bad game. It’s OK. It does what it’s trying to do well, but it’s not what I am looking for when I play D&D. It’s not what I think the game should have evolved into. If my opinion on that offends you, then you really need to take a closer look at your life, your passions, and your priorities. To those who love 4E and think it’s the best edition yet: more power to you. I’m glad you’ve found an edition you love. It’s just not the edition I love.

Reapermas

So, back in August, I backed the Reaper Bones Kickstarter at the Vampire (or the Holy Shit Do I Get A Lot of Miniatures) Level.

(There are some REALLY long .jpgs after the jump, along with the bulk of the text of this post; I just didn’t want to have these huge images on the main page. Hopefully, I formatted it correctly.)

Doctor Who – Adventures in Time and Space

A few weeks ago, when attendance was not up to par for neither the Doctor StrangeRoll D&D game nor our Star Wars game, we played a session of Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space. This time, I was a player, not the GM, so it was a good break for me. The game took place in the modern Who era. I didn’t catch if we were on Doctor 10 or 11, but since The Doctor was Sir Not Appearing In This Game, it didn’t matter. We rolled up characters before starting play (it only took 20-30 minutes or so for the entire group).

My character was Dr. Cornelius Constance, a scientician from 19th century Kansas who became a time traveler after a run-in with a 51st century Time Agent. He was quite a bit like Doc Brown from Back to the Future. Some how, he became a companion to Jenny, The Doctor’s Daughter (my wife’s character). We were joined by Delyn Godslayer and Mark or Sandra. Mark or Sandra had a bit of a split personality thing going on. Jenny possessed a time ship, which was our mode of transportation. Dr. Cornelius would have loved to have acquired a TARDIS, but no such luck. He did have a sonic screwdriver, though, as well as a squareness gun.

While tooling around helping people, we came across an old space station, one which had not been heard from for 50 years (I don’t remember if we were on a mission to find it or if we stumbled across it. The former, I think.). The power seemed to still be on, though there were no automated docking systems. We docked anyway and Dr. Cornelius exited the ship (wearing a space suit, mind you) and helped with the manual docking procedures. Because Dr. Cornelius is awesome, he also started an automated refueling cycle once the ship was docked.

The rest of the crew disembarked from Jenny’s time ship and we began to explore the space station. There was evidence of fighting and we kept getting conflicting readings on the number and location of life forms within the station. When we finally reached the central computer room, we came face-to-face with a Dalek. Delyn leapt upon in, intending to do hand-to-hand combat with it (he’s a little insane in Dr. Cornelius’s opinion). Fortunately, it was mere the shell of a long-dead Dalek. We then noticed a charred corpse on the ground behind the Dalek as well as the live wire that apparently caused both of their demise.

Dr. Cornelius looked around for the controls to the computer and immediately pressed the first button he found, because pressing buttong MAKES THINGS HAPPEN. What happened was that he got a shock from pushing the button. Now we knew what that button did. Science! Learning!

We continued exploring the station, still receiving intermittent signs of life. Our group of intrepid explorers found the station’s medical lab where we discovered that many of the station’s inhabitants had a type of transponder implanted into their heads. Naturally, Delyn decided that having one implanted into his head was the way to go. Mark/Sandra assisted with the operation. While there were side-effects, the operation was deemed a success and Delyn could now do more useful things like open the stations doors without Dr. Cornelius jimmying the mechanism with a sonic screwdriver.

Sadly, the notes get a little sparse from this point on, so the remaining summary is very brief compared to how the game went and I slacked off enough writing this update that I’ve forgotten a lot of the details.

We discovered that the station had only one actual survivor and shortly after finding him, the Daleks returned. Fortunately, we also found the armory and everyone armed themselves with laser rifles (except Dr. Cornelius). While most everyone fended off the Daleks, Dr. Cornelius went to the station’s power core to do something (I’m sure someone will speak up in the comments to clarify) important for our escape and we did manage to convince the not-quite-sane sole survivor that coming with us was the best option for his continued survival and we would definitely NOT give him over to the Daleks.

The game was fun. The system was easy to pick up and learn and was very fast-paced. I’d almost say it’s a rules-light system, which I’ve mentioned several times is very appealing to me. The Whoniverse is diverse enough that if you think of the bigger picture a bit, you can easily find ways of playing in that universe without involving the Doctor at all, as this game session showed.

Musings of High-Level Options

I’ve been thinking a lot about what adventure to run as the “High Level” adventure for the campaign. High level, as a tier, has fluctuated from edition to edition. In Basic D&D, characters could go as high as level 36 (and beyond if you take Immortals into account). AD&D had no theoretical upper limit, but game play didn’t seem to change much once you go into the teens. 3.X/Pathfinder, of course, got into high level play in the mid-teens and Epic level play was always spotty (and not officially supported in Pathfinder). 4E separates things out explicitly, making the divisions between low (Heroic), mid (Paragon), and high (Epic) obvious.

Couple that with my new approach which has me running only certain parts of a series per edition (i.e. U1: Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh started for Basic Low Level and got switched to X1: Isle of Dread due to PC derailment, U1 will be repeated for AD&D low level, U2 will come in Pathfinder low level, and U3 for 4E low level; I3: Pharaoh is Basic D&D mid-level, I4 AD&D mid-level, and so forth).

Of course, there will be some repetition since most series are 3 adventures and I have 4 editions to run (so far), or I might throw a 4th or 5th adventure into the mix.

High level is the real problem. There just aren’t that many adventures that I own for high-level play. Most cap out right at the low teens. The C & M series adventure written for basic D&D for characters in their 20s and 30s are reasonably inexpensive, but there isn’t really a series, per se. Plus, the domain-running/building aspects of high-level Basic D&D play are something I don’t think a majority of my players would enjoy (based on the amount of bitching I heard regarding the wilderness exploration portion of X1, i.e. the parts where they weren’t killing things and taking their stuff or even interacting with NPCs).a

The only way I could run the same adventure 4 times with little-to-no repetition would be to run S1: The Tomb of Horrors as the high-level adventure. In Basic D&D and AD&D, they would probably die very quickly. I could run it until there is a TPK, then make the switch to a new edition. By the time Pathfinder rolls around, most of the insta-kill traps aren’t insta-kill anymore due to the way the system works, but they still might die somewhere before the end. If they, at any point, solve the puzzles and make it to the end, I would have to run a different high-level adventure. Perhaps Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits?

My Geek Chic Spartan Gaming Table

It is here. It is assembled. I have pictures!

You can see here, the gaming area awaiting delivery. It’s so empty. So lonely.

It starts unassuming. Boxes being carried up by two men suffering in the unseasonably warm & humid spring Indiana weather.

More boxes. It actually looks like parts of a table now.

The top is unboxed and awaits assembly.

Assembly commences. They’re nice enough to provide me with an instruction booklet. If I ever move, it’ll have to be disassembled to get it out of the room in which it resides. (No, I didn’t have to assemble it myself, they were just out in their truck when I took this picture.)

It…is…ALIVE

Here is the interior storage space.

Next, here’s the table with the top fully removed.

My ginormicus Ptolus map has a new home!

Here I have two leaves in with the Leaf Guards installed so they can be used as playing surfaces.

And finally, a detailed shot of the table top/interior with the leaves & Leaf Guards in.

And I was up way too late getting these pictures uploaded. Apparently, my 12MP camera makes pictures too large and WordPress chokes on them. :p

My Spartan Gaming Table

As you may have surmised, I’m fairly excited about the impending delivery of my Geek Chic Spartan gaming table. Lemme share something with you all:

 

This was my first look. I’ll post further updates as it actually arrives, is brought into my house and installed.

Upcoming Game Dates

If you think my updating is sporadic, it’s not really. We do play every two weeks, but sometimes it takes me a few days to write the update.

May 4th – Star Wars: The Old Republic – Galaxy at Peace (’cause it’s May 4th – Star Wars Day – May the Fourth Be With You!)

May 18th – Doctor StrangeRoll D&D Basic featuring a brand new Geek Chic table and birthday cake (the cake is NOT a lie; it’s my birthday)

June 1st – No game; I’ll be on vacation and won’t actually be at my gaming table. My beautiful gaming table. It is…precious to me… [gollum gollum]

June 15th – There will be a game, what it is will be determined by attendance.

June 29th – The game will likely be the one we didn’t play on June 15th.

The Star Wars game is going to be a mini-campaign, probably no more than 5 or 6 sessions, I think, depending on how much we avoid conversational tangents, Monty Python references, and talking about Doctor Who instead of gaming. Once the Star Wars game is wrapped up, one of my players has volunteered to run some Doctor Who for us (the new one by Cubicle 7, not the old FASA game), so I’ll play that (though still provide updates on the game) while I prep a post-apocalyptic game for our alternate sessions, probably Gamma World or Atomic Highway (Fallout flavor), depending on what the group prefers. By then, it might be time for me to play test some of the adventures I’ll be running at Gen Con. I won’t post any spoilers about those here, though, just in case anyone who plays in them at the convention reads this blog.

Gary Con IV

There isn’t a Doctor StrangeRoll game this week due to Gary Con IV in Lake Geneva, WI. I’ll be there, so I can’t be here. See you in a couple of weeks!

The First Adventure

As I may have mentioned, the first game will held on February 10th. The group has been talking via e-mail about character options, asking good questions, and even discussing the adventure options (since I put it out there). As the poll shows (and discussion confirms), there are few low-level adventures as iconic as B2: Keep on the Borderlands. Adventures that I own, anyway.

However, several people have played it. Several times. My last campaign (a D&D 4E campaign, by the way) was based on a lightly modified version of Keep on the Borderlands. So, as a group, we decided it would not be the best low-level adventure to use. The low-level portion of the campaign will instead use a series: U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, U2: The Danger at Dunwater, and U3: The Final Enemy. This will have the added benefit of advancing the characters naturally through the low-levels so they’ll be at the correct level for the mid-level adventures.

The group consists of a mix of veteran players, some of which have familiarity with Basic D&D, some not, and a newbie. It will certainly be a good mix of opinions when I approach the task of writing out how the various editions play.

Need a balanced party?

Since the game hasn’t started yet (February 10th will be the first session), the players who are participating in the Doctor Strangeroll campaign are doing what players do: planning their characters in advance. The Basic D&D aspect of this greatly amuses me, as that game is so simple, planning mostly involves deciding what class to play and what weapon you’re going to wield. There are no skills. No feats. Hardly any decisions of any kind to be made during character creation.

So far, for 6 players, I have three whose first choice is thief. Two others’ first choice is elf, and one is dwarf. There are a few magic-user second choices. Notice anything missing?

Oops. No Cleric.

I could be mean and say nothing (too late if any of them read this blog, and I know at least one of you do ). Then when a whole lotta dyin’ is goin’ on, the results will speak for themselves. Granted, a Basic D&D cleric isn’t going to be doing much healing at level one. Or level two. So, aside from turning undead, they’ll only be missing out on another heavy armor wearing front-line person who doesn’t attack quite as well as a fighter. Again, at first level, it won’t make a difference.

Fortunately, Basic D&D (and AD&D, too, for that matter) has a built-in solution: HIRELINGS!

It’ll be darn hard not to give any hireling clerics names like Brother Maynard, Durkon, or Friar Tuck, though (the first two moreso than the last one, though). Maybe I should name them after Catholic saints? (Francis, Damian, Rene Goupil…)