Three posts long! I win at Verbiage!

I have a text message on my phone from Wallybee, from when we were dating, that says simply "So wordy! Shut up Penguin!" Is that when I knew she was a keeper? No, that was when I was off to run a D&D game and she sent me a message saying "Have a nice game! My thoughts are with you. Kill them all." But similar vintage.

Blimey.

Thanks BT. I'm now even more curious about social skill challenges.

"Have a nice game! My thoughts are with you. Kill them all."

A true gamer wife.

Awesome verbiage, BT. Thanks!

Excellent review, bt, thank you! Our books have shipped, so hopefully this weekend we will give it a shot (since the GM is still suffering a creative block about our ongoing campaign, and all our boardgames are now packed in boxes).

I read a bunch more reviews last night, and I think it's just one of those things I'm going to have to try for myself. Seems that most of the reviews on the internets are written by folks who play to beat the GM. PvP rather than co-op, if you will. They are the Cheese Weasels, and they seem to be thrilled with the shift from character build to party build. Because hey! It's still about your build.

I like to get more immersive than that. I'm a narrativist, rather than a gamist. So we'll see. I've played the Saga system and wasn't whelmed.

One thing I like is that they recognized the problems with magic items. I'm hoping that they also recognized that after about 12th level, it's not you it's your stuff (in 3E). And I would argue that 3E plays best from 3-7th level...but in any case, we shall see.

Now, back to Rock Band.

One thing I like is that they recognized the problems with magic items. I'm hoping that they also recognized that after about 12th level, it's not you it's your stuff (in 3E). And I would argue that 3E plays best from 3-7th level...but in any case, we shall see.

Actually, they've been saying for awhile that the dependancy on magic items to keep up with the group was something they wanted to change. I'm not 100% sure how effective they've been as I haven't been able to play, but it seems to me that the significant plusses to your character and powers come from the character build and only a little from the magic items. They're also quite strict with how powerful your magic items should be at a given level.

Okay, my friend Manny's thoughts on the new edition:

He likes the rules for social encounters, and he likes that prep time has been drastically reduced.

That's about it for his likes.

For his dislikes, he starts right in by saying that a lot of the work that has been removed from the DM has been transfered to the players.

He also felt that, while a lot of things in 3.5 were overpowered, he's found 4e to be seriously underpowered, in contrast to a lot of fears and initial reactions.

After defending the new system (blind) for months and months that it's not going to like World of Warcraft, he read the book and came away saying that it is exactly like World of Warcraft, except that in WoW, the computer keeps track of all the math and everything for everybody.

He said the game is very well balanced for the most part across the board. However, he's now reversed his position on game balance, and has decided that, at least as far as the form it took in 4e, game balance is actually a crappy way to make an RPG. Everything comes across as SAME. The amount of variation and flavor between characters (or lack thereof) he found to be very off putting.

He was also very WTF??? about the one primary exception to game balance (as far as base classes go) -- the rogue. In 3.5 it was the CODzilla, in 4e it seems to be the roguezilla.

More importantly, he (and I) always had some big problems with the ridiculous and extremely unlikely combat options that wound up becoming commonplace in 3.5 rules because of quirks in the system mechanics. Now, with the bizarrely overpowered rogue combat tricks, the problem has just shifted to different, silly combat maneuvers, now even more comic book-like, and more improbable.

He said he'd really placed a lot of trust in WotC to deliver a new system worthy of supplanting 3.5, and they really let him down.

There's no longer a lot of talk in my regular D&D group of all of us switching to 4e. Instead, there is a lot more openness to some other system, or taking our own crack at some version of a d20 system. (I'm now more encouraged than ever to take a run at some sort of home-brewed, funky d20/GURPS hybrid, and see how it plays.)

They're also quite strict with how powerful your magic items should be at a given level.

You know, when put exactly this way, it sounds like exactly how you had to treat magic items in 3.x, just with a difference of style or flavor. I'm sure mechanically, it's completely different, but you must agree that the sentence "They're also quite strict with how powerful your magic items should be at a given level," taken just on it's own, is just as applicable to 3.x as you say it is to 4e.

Now, all of that having been said, I'm still thinking heavily about running out an buying a copy right now, though I should order online, since you can still get the PHB for $20 on Amazon. It's really clear at this point that it's not a system I can use to implement some of the ideas I have for my own fantasy worlds, but I'm tired of only knowing second hand.

Well, I agree 3.x might have been strict about magic items. Our DM was not, and I think the new rules would make it more difficult for him to give out overpowered magic candy because they tend to be more clear & direct. i could be totally wrong. Time will tell.

Anyway, here's a very interesting Enworld post from a playtester who has had the advantage of playing 4E for months. It's lengthy but worth reading - [link]

For his dislikes, he starts right in by saying that a lot of the work that has been removed from the DM has been transfered to the players.

Sean, could you elaborate? My impression was that overall the work was a bit less for players too.

After defending the new system (blind) for months and months that it's not going to like World of Warcraft, he read the book and came away saying that it is exactly like World of Warcraft, except that in WoW, the computer keeps track of all the math and everything for everybody.

That's a question a lot of people seem caught up on. I've never played WoW myself (I've played Warcraft I-III, but that's it). I imagine that the designers would've got some ideas from that genre, I understand that maintaining balance is a long-standing concern for MMORPGs.

That said, I think this more or less has the same origin as the 'tactical minis' impression. The designers are using game design theory to address combat. That means both 4E and WoW (for instance) evolved from a D&D place into a niche with pretty similar concerns. (I see the tactical wargame analogy more clearly, as that's what I'm used to.) Even if the designers had never cracked open a MMORPG, there'd be some convergence, for pretty much the same reason that the thylacine looks much like a wolf (ok, now this is really what I'm used to).

The key differences, I believe, are a more meaningful experience out of combat, the ability of PCs to improvise, and the existence of a GM. (And role-play, but I figure that's a given.) Of course, these are genre differences, and would apply to any other RPG too.

He said the game is very well balanced for the most part across the board. However, he's now reversed his position on game balance, and has decided that, at least as far as the form it took in 4e, game balance is actually a crappy way to make an RPG. Everything comes across as SAME. The amount of variation and flavor between characters (or lack thereof) he found to be very off putting.

This is something that I understand differs between reading and playing (once I've actually tried running a game, I'll report further). The architecture for each class is the same, but their particular abilities play rather differently in combat, depending on their role (you wouldn't mistake a ranger for a fighter, for instance). One thing I'm not clear on is if classes built to fill the same role will feel that different.

He was also very WTF??? about the one primary exception to game balance (as far as base classes go) -- the rogue. In 3.5 it was the CODzilla, in 4e it seems to be the roguezilla.

Which abilities does he think are overpowered? I haven't heard that one concerning the rogue before. I have heard of one ability that seems potentially overpowered, but it's in the ranger's list - Blade Cascade, which lets you keep attacking until you miss. If you can find ways to push your attack mod through the roof, even for one round, then this could become simply ridiculous. (I plan a house rule that each subsequent attack gets a -1 cumulative penalty to hit.)