Hello, all.

You may have noticed that I decided to give my good friend Randy a shot at expressing his thoughts on Fourth Edition, and why it isn’t for him. I did this for a couple of reasons:

1. I’m interested in Randy’s opinion. We are part of the same extended gaming group and while, because we both tend to DM we don’t often play at each others’ tables, I am interested in what our shared players might think and feel from the other side of things. Beyond that, we’re good friends and I genuinely wanted to know the reasoning behind his distaste for 4E.
2. I think our gaming group is probably not that different than other gaming groups. Some folks play 4E and say “I like it” or “I don’t like it,” some folks don’t even read the books and say “it’s crap,” and some folks (like Randy) DO read the books and decide they don’t want to try it. The dynamic between those positions is worth discussing in a public way.

Now, I haven’t said a whole lot about 4E here since release. I mentioned I liked the idea of Rules Convergence and I gave a peek into what I thought about Keep on the Shadowfell both before and after I played it. Before release, I talked about liking the new cosmology (which I believe Randy’s adopted at his table. Correct me if I’m wrong here, bro). I also talked before release about why I was confident that 4E would be a good product. But I haven’t given a thorough opinion.

I’ll be doing that, over the next few posts (hopefully they’ll come more often than once a week, LOL). But I want to specifically address Randy’s complaints, and tell you all what I think about them. I’m not doing this as much to argue with Randy (we’re completely cool between us on the issue) but to broaden the discussion with my readers. Let’s go through the list, the way he presents them:

1)The powers section for PCs just scream ” goofy” to me.

I haven’t had the same experience. I think I’ve figured out why it is, too. See,once I accepted the fact that “Hit Points” were no longer representative of physical damage, it opened up a whole new world of possibilities. D&D isn’t about physical health anymore; it’s about heroic acts and the flow of battle. An ally’s ferocity or focus in battle is boosted when I fell my foe? I can buy that easily.

Would it have been easier to accept if they dropped hit points and called it “Hero points?” Maybe, but that sounds a bit wonky. No, I think this is the right move. Let’s get away from this idea that every hit does physical damage. The fact is, hit points as physical damage makes no sense when a naked character can be run through from behind at the dinner table without hardly getting a scratch on him, while it would kill any peasant or king.

As for the ritual thing, I’m not certain Randy’s got a correct reading of the rules. As I understand it, a fighter can’t just pick up a resurrection scroll and use it. Even If he can, though, I can live with it – the magic is in the item, not the user. It doesn’t affect my gameplay that much. I’ve been accused of handing out resurrections too freely, yet my players keep coming back. What do I care if the fighter can read the resurrection scroll I conveniently leave for the party?

2) The game is way too board/minis gamey for me.

Having played through two sessions, I can tell you 4E is the same amount of board-gamey as 3E, no more, no less. There’s very little different in this regard. The leap from AD&D to 3E was what made D&D more like a board game, and nothing’s changed in gameplay. Besides, it’s the DM and his ability to foster good roleplaying (which Randy, for example, does with extreme awesomeness) that keeps a D&D session from becoming a board game anyways.

3) The game just looks boring.

Again, having played 2 sessions, I can tell you 4E wasn’t boring for me. Quite the opposite, I had a blast.

Part of Randy’s argument here is the question of how things scale. I think there’s a danger when you’ve only got core books to say, “gosh, this looks limited. How boring will this be at 30th level?” By the time most of us play 30 levels, though, there will be scores of new books with all sorts of options we haven’t even thought of. That’s how Basic D&D worked; that’s how 3E worked; that’s just how D&D works. Core provides a startup experience with a high learning curve; supplements shake the shit up, so to speak.

The other part of this has to do with everything being “damage.” I think this goes back to the conversation about hit points. 4E uses familiar terminology in a new way to redefine how things work. You no longer make a will save, your opponent attacks you with an attack against your will “defense.” Is that different? Absolutely. Too different for some folks? Probably. Does that detract from gameplay? Not in my experience.

4) The GSL.

I’m more or less indifferent to the GSL and couldn’t tell you whether current rumors are speculation or not. Here’s why: I’m not an indie publisher. For the most part, I don’t usually play with Indie D&D products. I like the idea of there being competition in the marketplace, because it makes everyone’s products better. There’s nothing here to elicit any emotion from me in either direction on the GSL. I’m agnostic on this point. I can see where third party publishers might be really pissed, if the rumors are true.

5) The new DnD stuff is cheap looking crap.

I mentioned my problems with the production value in Keep on the Shadowfell already. However, the core books are better, much better. There are some printers errors and some indexing problems in the PHB, but I haven’t seen anything else that would make me say the books were cheap-looking or crap.

I can’t speak intelligently about the D&D minis. I don’t collect them. I buy individual figs I might like. Mostly, I paint my own minis. Yes, it’s discouraging if the D&D minis start to suck, but it doesn’t affect me much more than the GSL. Randy (and some of our other local guys) are big collectors, so I know this probably bugs them. All I can say here is this: don’t buy the minis if they suck. Reaper minis look a thousand times better anyways.

As far as repeat art, I don’t think the volume was particularly overwhelming. The Monster Manual certainly had plenty of new and interesting artwork.

See, I’m OK with some re-used art. Always have been. I want to think about this statement: “WOTC can afford new art.” First off, D&D isn’t and will never be the most profitable division of Hasbro, or even WotC. Magic has a much higher margin, for cample. This isn’t the right question, though, whether or not W0tC has enough money. The question is this: “Will consumers pay $X more per book to get 100% new art vs. 95% new art?” There is a point of diminishing returns, a point at which we either pay more for the books or they substitute a few older pictures.

Don’t get me wrong; I like new art. But I don’t buy D&D books for the artwork any more than I buy them for the stories. Stories belong in novels, artwork belongs in art books (Vallejo books, for example, are about half the cost of D&D books for twice as much art). I like stories and art in my rulebooks, but they’re not the reason I buy them.

6) Paizo and Monte Cook.

I asked the question a while back: Does Monte matter? Read my comments on that post, but I’ll throw out one quote from there: “if you press me, I’m going to tell you that I like Jim Wyatt and Mike Mearls at least as much as I like Monte, or probably more in the case of Jim.” Monte’s a non-starter issue for me. I like the guys at Paizo, they do great work. But I’m not dumping D&D for them. I recognize that’s a purely personal preference, and that Monte’s got a HUGE fan base. He is *the* rockstar in the D&D world.

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As you can tell, a large portion of the 4E debate comes down to personal preferences and habits. For my part, I don’t collect D&D minis. I don’t intend to publish anything under the GSL. I’m not worried at all about what Monte Cook does; I have other favorite designers. I like the idea of rules convergence. I accept the idea of hit points as totally separate from physical damage. I like the idea that the magic in an item is really in the item. Not everyone buys into these preferences, and I’m cool with that completely.

Do I think Randy will go 4E within a couple of years, like he jokes about? Maybe. Maybe not. There are guys, many of whom read this blog, that still play some version or another of AD&D or even OD&D. I’m cool with that. We’re all friends in the big D&D world. They don’t spit on my version of the game and I don’t spit on theirs. It’s all good.

What about the rest of you? How’s your gaming group handling it? What do you think about Randy’s problems with 4E and my replies? Do share.

Image by mborowick