I am geekiness personified.

[andrewducker]

I picked up the Races and Classes preview book for D&D 4th Ed a few weeks back and finished it feeling thoroughly enthusiastic about 4th Edition. It really felt like someone had stripped the game down and tried their best to make it coherent, simple and fun as a game. D&D is never going to be immersive in the same way that some games are, but for a fun hack/slash/slayage evening of epic fantasy it's been consistently fun for our Thursday gaming group. 4th Edition looked likely to make it even better.

However, the book was just a taster - lots of rules were mentioned, but it's all behind the scenes stuff, with very little actual detail on the rules of the game.

Which made me very happy when I bumped into a few things today. I started off at enworld, which had links to all sorts of goodness that came out of the D&D Experience event that was happening today. And also to this fantastic Aint-It-Cool-News piece which just raved about it. The biggest thing which caught my attention being this paragraph

And the rule simplicity allows players to really attempt craziness without fear of bizarre rules. My wife, who has played 3.5 with us for years, never felt comfortable with it. She was always concerned that she didn’t know the rules as well as everyone else. While she enjoyed the game (and having friends over to play once a week) she isn’t the type to sit down with the rulebooks and memorize them. She’s geeky enough to live with and love me, but she draws the line in the dirt there. 4E on the other hand has made her a different woman. She’s confident. She loves her character and the rules and tries out all sorts of strange things. She no longer looks at me and asks “Is this right?” Instead, she plows forward, kicking ass and suggesting tactics to the more senior members of the party (like the game designer.)

Because this is exactly what we need. While Meredith and Clare are both enthusiastic players, they both get lost in the crunchy bits of the 3.5 system, and neither is sure they've got everything correct in their heads when making complex tactical decisions. If they've managed to keep the fun choices in there, while making it easier for people who don't re-read the books three times and then work out the combinations/permutations to see what works best then I'll be ecstatic.

Edit: Part two of the AICN review

Comments

[astartesyriaca.livejournal.com]

This is making me miss playing! It's been too long. *sigh*

[girl-onthego.livejournal.com]

Is it bad that I read the subject line and thought, "Uh...yes, we do know whose journal we're reading."

;)

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Oh I did that too!!! My head sort of goes 'Andy says it's geeky, just pass right by unread'

[odheirre.livejournal.com]

I don't know....I read the review, and when they were talking about the idea that the game allows for ad-hoc rules, I was thinking, "oh, so it's now the same as many other game systems."

I mean, when I GM GURPS, I don't have any problems handling someone doing something outside the standard rules. I play AD&D, but I refuse to GM it because of the weird rules and the encyclopedic knowledge needed to run the game.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Like the D&D4 designers promised when they noted that they refused to play anything D20 any more since they discovered Savage Worlds, D&D4 is Savage Worlds With Classes And Levels.

(PS: SW main book doesn't involve core design decisions made in *1980*, and costs $10. It's like D&D, but better in every respect. I'm just sayin'.)

[andrewducker]

Just found this in my inbox. I really must tidy up more often...

I've played Savage Worlds - it's the base of thecurrent Deadlands system. It's ok, nothing against it. Didn't particularly remind me of D&D 3.5, or 4th. Nice enough though.

[bookzombie.livejournal.com]

I haven't really done any gaming for about 20 years, but a couple of years ago I picked up the 3.5 D&D rules and got completely flumoxed by the combat system. I have no problem with complexity for Character generation (I used to spend hours when I was a teenager just creating characters in different systems) but I can't be having with combat rules that don't flow easily.

So I'll be interested in what 4th edition do with those.

[andrewducker]

The combat system in 3.5 actually works very well.

_If_ you use miniatures.

If you don't then you're going to be pretty much fucked.

[thadrin.livejournal.com]

Sounds familiar. We'replaying 3.5 in the Iron Kingdoms setting and having fun (though for a swashvuckling pirate game we do a lot of logistics). Just started talking about 4.0 yesterday. Going to be interesting to see what other publishers - the ones using the OGL, like Privateer Press - do.