I like Dungeon Siege. Point the character at the baddies, watch 'em fight. Figure out what you want to buy. Dungeon Siege II is pushing my taste for "This power goes with that, and you can tweak it with this." When I play a video game, brainless is what I'm going for. Which is why I can play mah jongg for hours.

No, no, 3E was pnp Diablo, 4E is pnp WoW.

OK, fair cop.

I'm not sure about this, but I think WotC have scaled back their plans for DDI tools.

Who can tell what WotC is planning, and I include WotC in that.

When I play a video game, brainless is what I'm going for. Which is why I can play mah jongg for hours.

For me it's RoboRally. Having a computer take responsibility for executing all the cards in the right order makes the game so much smoother.

Who can tell what WotC is planning, and I include WotC in that.

See, they should change their name to Sorcerers of the Coast.

Just to put my money where my mouth is....

I have yet to actually play 4.0 myself, but several other people in my other gaming group have. The people who have played it were very excited about it, and liked everything they were hearing, but that all changed when the game came out.

The biggest problem they have is the way monster challenges scale, and the way they are dependent on the entire group being there for the whole fight. Basically, if you are fighting a monster (or group of monsters) that are appropriate for your challenge level (or lower), you *will* win, every time. It can be exciting (though there have been many complaints about the "accounting" thing Pete mentioned), and it may take a while, but you *will* win, and there's little the monster can do about it.

If you are fighting a monster that's above your challenge level, you *will* lose. Every time. Slowly, perhaps, but inexorably you will lose.

That's the report I've heard multiple times now.

And while everybody loves the *idea* of skill challenges, the designers have a very poor understanding of probability, and the math is *still* broken, even though they've tried to fix this problem in errata.

There are other major complaints, but that's all I remember off the top of my head. But the main point here is that both the guys in my group that were excited about 4.0 now never want to play it again.

And while I have yet to play it, I already have a pretty good idea from just reading the PHB that this is not the style of gaming I enjoy.

BT, that was awful. Painful. Gah.

So, there's a computer version of Robo Rally? Really?

Shame on you Sean. Though, unfortunately, your group may be right. Though our group has been asking for harder challenges because we've been eating the shit out of the level-appropriate ones. I think we just have good synergy.

If I had to pin down one thing in the combat that bugs me it's that I spend so much time weighing up the powers I could use that the narrative of the combat is lost.

The out of combat stuff seems just as good as we always ran rather rules-light out of combat anyway.

So, there's a computer version of Robo Rally? Really?

www.gametableonline.com (along with a number of other games; Axis and Allies seems to get the most attention).

Re skill challenges, I love the idea, though it does seem they haven't got them working right. In the adventures I played on the weekend, there were encounters called skill challenges, but they seem to have thrown most of the mechanics out the window.

For instance, in one challenge we had to corral some artisans to renovate a delapidated temple. There was the occasional social skill check, and I think we appraised some stonework in there somewhere too, but we also had to roleplay dealing with a classroom of unruly five-year-olds, and we had a combat against a wererat and his ratty minions. This allowed my character to create what may well become his signature dish, the four-rat sampler plate: swarm, giant, dire and were-.