Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition

My gaming group finally got around to giving the latest edition of D&D a trial run. I’ve had the Player’s Handbook for many months, and I’ve read most of it. Reading it just didn’t turn me on to the system.

Reading the rules gave me one main feeling: this ain’t D&D.

The rules/mechanics — races, classes, abilities, etc. — seem well balanced, but there’s a lot of stuff that just feels like a new game system than D&D. But I withheld real judgment of the game until I could actually play it.

Well, now that I’ve played it, I have one main feeling: this ain’t D&D.

I know “this ain’t D&D” is an inflammatory statement among D&Ders, and I fully understand how and why it will completely piss off some of 4th edition’s fans. But it’s an honest feeling from me. Just too much has changed, too much is drastically different from the game’s predecessors. It feels like a whole new game system, not a new edition of D&D. I don’t see an evolution, or even a revolution. It’s just, different.

There are some things that I just don’t want in my D&D, like dragonborn and tiefling player character races. There are some things that just seem alien to D&D, like 1st-level characters having two dozen hit points (and goblins having equal combat lasting power). And there are some things that seem to go counter to making D&D “better,” like so many character abilities and even more things to keep track of.

But when I look at the game system as a new game (rather than an evolution of D&D, specifically), I still see problems. For instance, the 1st-level characters have half a dozen abilities. (My pregen tiefling warlord had 7 abilities to choose from each round.) That’s a hell of a lot of stuff for beginning players, with 1st-level characters to deal with. (It was a lot for me, an experienced gamer, to keep up with.)

I like some of the concepts the designers said they were trying to incorporate into, or eliminate from, the game. Like make the characters abilities work well with a group of allies, and give the characters the ability to keep going beyond the 15-minute adventuring day (after expending their big daily powers). But many of the systems the designers put in place really didn’t solve the problems, or worse, made things more problematic.

I thought the new edition was supposed to make the game easier and smoother, especially when running combat. But what it really did was make combat more complicated and longer. Absolutely not an improvement.

Playing the game felt like trying (but failing) to mimic D&D with an entirely different system not actually meant to be played as D&D. It felt as weird as playing in the Star Wars universe with the Marvel Super Heroes rules set — a bad fit.

Now, I don’t hate this game, though I do see some flaws in the design (especially when I consider what the designers said they intended to make better). But it really does not feel like D&D. A new edition of D&D should be like coming home to find your spouse has dyed their hair, lost weight, and put on sexy new clothes. 4th edition as D&D is like coming home to find a new person there, posing as your spouse. No matter how good they may look, it ain’t what you know and love, and want.

Bullgrit