So, every story gamer worth his salt looks down on D&D with a high-handed, snooty gaze of pity. I have used this same gaze myself. Now for the confession. I've played D&D 4E. As a player, no DMing. And only two sessions. It was a fair bit of fun, I confess. In many ways, it's more of a miniatures game than a story-oriented RPG. But, I suspect the right GM could swing that pendulum a little. There's no doubt that the designers put a lot of design thinking into the game. I found it very, very solid from a design standpoint. To be honest, it's a little too much like playing World of Warcraft. Do you remember how in 1st Edition D&D the spell-slingers had all these options, and the fighters basically had, "I attack with my ____." Well in 4E, the fighters have as many "spell-like options" as the spell-slingers. Which is kind of fun.
So, as I ponder the guilty pleasure of running a D&D 4E game, I look to see what I need to acquire. I just recently filled out my core three: Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual. And I could stop this blog entry here. Those are more than sufficient to allow me to do my thing.
It's this whole Essentials line that Wizards introduced. After doing a fair amount of research, I've reached the conclusion that it's best avoided. It's a dumbing down of the rules, and there is overlap, and they are poorly organized, etc., etc. etc. Now, the confusing part is that as far as I can tell, they're phasing out or at least no longer featuring the core books. I can't find the core books on the Wizard's site, but they are available on Amazon. Anyway, why did Wizards make everything so damn confusing? It's almost like they're a) Trying to sink 4E with terrible ideas or b) Ignoring the serious RPG gamer and catering only to newbies. There's more confusion than what I've outlined too. For example, I was listening to their podcast on how they're releasing a new Essentials book, Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms. Now from what I understand this is sort of an enhanced Player's Handbook. But like two months before that book was released, they released Heroes of the Fallen Lands. On the D&D podcast, they explained that an individual probably wouldn't want to buy both of these books as there was substantial overlap in the material. But yes, there are different powers and classes, but mostly a different focus. Uhm, could that be any more confusing to the consumer?! Seriously. I swear they sounded almost embarrassed on the podcast as they explained the difference (or lack thereof). What is Wizards doing? Have they become some kind of inefficient money laundering operation overnight?
At least, I know that I have three solid products I can use to run a campaign. And perhaps the second and third iterations of these core books are as good as the first (e.g. Player's Handbook 2).
This post is probably more rambling than usual. I have a fever. Forgive me.
So, as I ponder the guilty pleasure of running a D&D 4E game, I look to see what I need to acquire. I just recently filled out my core three: Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual. And I could stop this blog entry here. Those are more than sufficient to allow me to do my thing.
It's this whole Essentials line that Wizards introduced. After doing a fair amount of research, I've reached the conclusion that it's best avoided. It's a dumbing down of the rules, and there is overlap, and they are poorly organized, etc., etc. etc. Now, the confusing part is that as far as I can tell, they're phasing out or at least no longer featuring the core books. I can't find the core books on the Wizard's site, but they are available on Amazon. Anyway, why did Wizards make everything so damn confusing? It's almost like they're a) Trying to sink 4E with terrible ideas or b) Ignoring the serious RPG gamer and catering only to newbies. There's more confusion than what I've outlined too. For example, I was listening to their podcast on how they're releasing a new Essentials book, Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms. Now from what I understand this is sort of an enhanced Player's Handbook. But like two months before that book was released, they released Heroes of the Fallen Lands. On the D&D podcast, they explained that an individual probably wouldn't want to buy both of these books as there was substantial overlap in the material. But yes, there are different powers and classes, but mostly a different focus. Uhm, could that be any more confusing to the consumer?! Seriously. I swear they sounded almost embarrassed on the podcast as they explained the difference (or lack thereof). What is Wizards doing? Have they become some kind of inefficient money laundering operation overnight?
At least, I know that I have three solid products I can use to run a campaign. And perhaps the second and third iterations of these core books are as good as the first (e.g. Player's Handbook 2).
This post is probably more rambling than usual. I have a fever. Forgive me.
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