Monday, August 20, 2007

A word from our sponsor*

Well, I haven't really gotten to what I wanted to get to lately...if it means anything to you three, I've finished the freelance assignment, so we're back in intermittent business here as well. To trumpet and herald the possible return of posts, I bring you something that's here because, to the best of my knowledge, it has never been remotely covered here despite inspiring the blog's name.

Announced at the best reason to go to Minnesota, GenCon: AD&D 4th Edition. It's got rules changes!

But much more importantly, it is Wizards of the Coast incorporating online play, which is ample reason for me to point out the real highlight of the article. Ladies and gentlemen, if it's not online, we're in meatspace. Couldn't have dreamed of a better term myself.

*Edited to make more sense. The whole post that is. I maintain that within 24 hours, wholesale changes may happen without notice to fix things. After that, they aren't mistakes. They are stylistic twitches that make things more better.

4 comments:

Jonny America said...

What do you want to be? A dwarven fighter? Or a dark elf like everybody else?

Unknown said...

Yeah, except for the online component, which might be useful given my d&d groups are all disperesd across the country, but nothing seems too exciting.

So 3.0 was a big deal because 2.0 had lots of glaring problems. But 3.5 actually is pretty well balanced and well designed.

It doesn't sound like they are doing any big changes. Except perhasp to make fighters more interesting.

hcduvall said...

Jonny: Elves suck.

Hobs: I must admit to not have progressed beyond owning 3.0 and noting the changes. While I'm sure the systems have gotten better, the general look seemed to indicate that it was turning to Final Fantasy-style...which personally seemed like a bad off ramp to take since it seemed cleaner to introduce to ne rpgers, but harder to non-rpgers. Kind of academic, since I'm more a reader now of rpgs than player. From hence my interest in the non-dice models of games these days.

Unknown said...

so it is a bit more final fantasy like in its emphasis on equipment. that took some time for me to appreciate.

but the main advantage of 3.0 and 3.5 is that it rationalized the rules. there were just parts of 2.0 that just were stupid. and 3.5 mostly fixed that. you can then take that framework and play it in any style you want.

one thing about 4.0 that is attractive, possibly, is that it is developing online tools for "lapsed" players or dnd alumni. for people like us, that may want to get the old high school gang together, and play a couple sessions, but since we live far away, provide a virtual table with voice chat and virtual rolling and maps and rule streamlining. probably still too much trouble to use, but neat way to go back to high school