Dungeons and Dragons and Separation Anxiety: Part 1

Dungeons and Dragons started back before my time in 1974. Since then it has had about a dozen revision and four major editions released. With these revisions and editions there have been hundreds, even thousands, of books released to supplement the original material that is always comprised of a Player's Handbook, a Dungeon Master's Guide, and a Monster Manual.

I'm about to present to you the most basic, clear, concise, and true description of Dungeons and Dragons your eyes will every look upon...

 

D&D is pretend with rules, dice, and paper.

 

That's it. Of course it is an oversimplification of it. This description is like if I said that movie making was like playing pretend that you just happened to film. There's a bit more to it than that.

D&D has been the basis of RPGs for a long time. Thing is, it has existed for such a long time that most video game developers have lost sight of that. D&D players don't really discuss it, but D&D is becoming a thing of the past. It might die out.

So what has Wizards of the Coast, the current developer of D&D books, done to try to pull in more players? They've create 4th edition, which is heavily influenced by World of Warcraft in hopes of bringing in the modern audience of gamers. It is still too soon to say if the sales have proven this "evolutionary step" as a success, but at the very least it has helped it from falling behind.

There is a vocal audience out there that did not want such a drastic change from their beloved 3rd edition. They just wanted it to be more balanced and freshened up with some innovation. I can understand some of their complaints but I also think they are being stubborn or even dumb. First, I'll talk about how they are right.

4th edition is simpler. Much simpler. Maybe even too simple. What used to be an in-depth puzzle solving process of character creation has become a pretty limited. You get so many chances to make the right choices as you level up it is next to impossible to make a completely flawed build. There are also so many choices that after you've made all the right ones you're pretty much stuck choosing some lackluster stuff. Everything is normalized towards the middle instead of the very entertaining extremes of super weak and overpowered.
They've also made the Wizard class far too weak to make up for how overpowered it was in 3rd edition. It's just another standard World of Warcraft-like class instead of a character out of Lord of the Rings or a Harry Potter book.
The focus has also shifted way too far from skills. It used to be where you could potentially hold an entire campaign on the basis of adventuring with very little combat. The new skill system keeps anyone from being useless out of combat but no one is fantastic out of combat either.

What 4th edition gets right is nearly everything related to combat. Magic effects for Equipment have been made to really feel like it makes a difference in more than just sheer numbers. If you have a flaming sword, it can deal nothing but fire damage. You can have a chestpiece that blinds your opponents. These kinds of effects are much more common in 4th edition.
All classes get "Powers", which include anything from a special physical technique to a magic spell. A Fighter can do more in combat than just hit people over and over. A Cleric doesn't have to just heal damage every round. They can now heal twice and deal damage all in a single turn. Clerics are now undeniably fun to play. As for the Wizard, they feel comparatively limited to what they were able to do, but all of the seven other classes feel like great improvements. You also don't get four or more attacks every round. A standard action just gives you a single attack. This saves tons of time on dice rolls.
The thought for 4th edition D&D is no longer in min/maxing but instead on the choices that you make during combat.
 

So what's my final verdict on 4th edition? I like it. It is a new edition, but it is still very similar to 3rd edition in lots and lots of ways.
Wired explained it best. The most fun would probably be had in mixing and matching the two systems. Many will change to the new system and be perfectly happy. There are some that will not want to change to the new system out of loyalty to the old, and a company called Paizo is capitalizing on that with a little something called Pathfinder.

I'll tell you all about Pathfinder in next installment of D&D and Separation Anxiety.

Nick L.