Everything old is new again

[khaosworks]

Am slowly going over the core rules for 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons.

Preliminary thoughts: lots of changes, but a lot simpler to grasp, and combat just got a lot more tactical. Basically, they're aiming this for the MMORPG crowd — you can almost immediately translate the mechanics into things that WoW players understand and vice versa. That's not necessarily a bad thing, by the way.

Whether I'll actually play it, well... that depends. The people I'd like to play it with happen, unfortunately, to be over in Georgia and Indiana...

Comments

[peteyfrogboy.livejournal.com]

I was flipping through the books at the mall yesterday. It looks nice and streamlined. Part of me would miss all the bookkeeping, but I don't have that kind of spare time anymore. Of course, it's mostly moot since it's highly unlikely I'll ever manage to get anybody together to game with down in the boonies.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

*blink* Oh, great. So now D&D supports kiting, griefing, and pulling MOB trains onto lowbies? ;)

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

And lag. Don't forget lag.

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

heck... i never even had time to grok 3rd edition. been so long since i've played, i'd probably forget how

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

The good news is you don't need to know anything about 3rd Edition. In fact, it probably helps.

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

I've got a friend who is big into AD&D and, I believe, has the 4th edition. Will have to ask him his thoughts on it.

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

I remember back when we were all playing CoV and CoH there was some program or utility or whatever that let us all do a sort of conference call and talk voice while playing. Isn't there something along those lines you could all do? The time difference can't be eliminated, but with sufficient organziation and motivation I'm sure that can be worked around.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

And wind up like this? :)

There's supposed to be some interactive tools released by WOTC that will allow people to play over teh Interwebs, but the biggest problem, as you say, is the time zone interaction. Thursday game nights would be Friday mornings my time, when I'll be at work.

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so? Isn't that what weekends are for? *grin*

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Ah, but would Rob's group want to switch to Friday nights, that's the thing (quite apart from the logistical setup of net.connectivity...)

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be the one to ask, would I? (Seriously, I have no idea. Or if not, maybe a new group... if you, Rob and Bill were interested, I doubt it would be hard for one of you to find at least one other person to play.)

[eviltofu.livejournal.com]

What about the electronic internet thingie that allows people to play DnD on the internet?

[bedlamhouse]

I miss my ($DAY=thursday) gaming sessions!

I've been looking throught the PHB and have concluded it would be pretty much impossible to upgrade existing characters. This may inspire me to finally rework my old campaign setting and try to find some local gaming buddies.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the same thing re: upgrading 3.5 characters, actually. It's not that it absolutely can't be done, but it's so much work and the feats/powers/character progression is so different that you might as well re-roll.

[logam.livejournal.com]

I'm game for a try. Maybe we can find a couple of players at the 'Mart who aren't total retards.

[awl.livejournal.com]

Have you checked out the Penny Arcade d&d recordings? They were very funny.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Yep, and they are.

[jodimuse.livejournal.com]

There's been some debate about whether or not our group will attempt D&D 4 ... We are thinking of starting one of the modules just to try it out, but many of our members are kinda crusty and have finally gotten used to 3.5 ... so getting them to have a look at 4 is ... well. Hard. :D
If you're interested, our site is http://www.thecompanyofstrangers.com/ - there's a link to the forums on that page. :)