D & D 4th Edition: Scourge of the Insufferable Prick
As I'm sure you are all aware, this past Saturday was my 23rd birthday. And while I was flattered by the nation-wide ticker tape parades, newspaper headlines, and laser carvings on the surface of the moon, I'm afraid my birthday may have eclipsed other, less worthy news items.
So now that the Cristal stains are all steam-cleaned out of the carpet (my Mom got me a new steam cleaner!) and George Clooney's finally woken up and staggered home, I think it's a good time to talk about a little story that you may have missed on Saturday.
Namely, the release of Dungeons and Dragons: Fourth Edition, which caused quiet, dusty nerdgasms all across the blogosphere.
My thoughts on the matter can best be summed up by my hope that Gary Gygaxs recently inhabited coffins got some padding in it, so he doesnt hurt himself when he starts violently rolling over.
Ive long had the sneaking suspicion that the bastards at Wizards of the Coast were just waiting for the G-man to go tits up so they could gut the franchise, and Fourth Edition finally proves me right.
Now, Im sure Ill take a lot of flak for that sentiment, especially since every geek outlet and Wizards devotee on the net has been singing the praises of the new edition, and why? Just because a massive streamlining has changed the games rules from a horrendous chore that only the most dedicated nerds could navigate without spewing out Cheeto powder in frustrated impotence, to a fun role-playing game that nearly anyone can pick up in an afternoon.
To paraphrase Dr. Malcolm from that Youtube re-enactment of Jurassic Park: these saboteurs were so excited to see if they could make D&D more accessible that they didnt stop to think if they should.
I mean, how many fun, easy-to-play RPGs are out there? Lots. Thats why video games were inventedto roll dice behind the scenes while our various anime characters shoot things with swords somehow.
But how many, dense, torturous analog RPGs--where your life and death can hinge on any number of obscure modifiers hidden in any number of monolithic tomes large enough to crush a mans skull--are sitting on the shelves?
One. Dungeons and fucking Dragons. And now youve ruined it.
I ask you, where are we to go? We, the people who play because theres nothing sweeter than flipping through a book for five minutes to prove that our Halflings Alertness feat counteracts the 16 move silently check from the Undead Priest.
We, the people who live for the opportunity to hunt through the Monster Manual to find out whether Delvers travel alone or in pairs, and if they're intelligent enough to be mindlinked. You know, so you can gain its vast knowledge of dungeoneering.
We, the people who make scrupulous notes about every crossbow bolt the enemies fire, and force the DM to roll every time to see if they break (taking into account the hardness of the surface being struck).
We, the people who screech incoherently at the DM about a rigged game if a Kobold so much as thinks about firing more arrows than he had on his person when the battle began.
In other words, the totally unrelenting dicks for whom the game was designed in the first place.
Thats why Ive written the following list of demands for D&D Fifth Edition, which Wizards will probably release later this year, after a mob of angry, fifty-year-old fat guys in cloaks charge their offices and claw them viciously with their finger-length silver rings, spilling Mountain Dew absolutely everywhere.
Dont disappoint, Wizards. Otherwise Ill only buy a single copy of all the Fourth Edition books, rather than my habitual three. And please, those of you readers who dabble in the D&D (and I KNOW you're out there) feel free to add anything you'd like to see in Fifth Edition. The revolution starts now.
When not blogging for Cracked, Michael rides his birthday jet skis around his birthday lake as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren't Muskets!
Most of the people I play with, including myself, just decided to keep playing 3.5 and that'll probably never change.
ReplyTruly, the way i game, is i use the rulebooks as guidelines in the loosest sense of the word, in the campaign i am currently DMing, a psion in the party dueled an adult red dragon and a tiefling darkblade aboard his steampunk airship whilst gatling guns, congreve rockets, cannons, and snipers roared fire all around. the fight ended when he use Telekinetic Anchor to drive the both of them 1500 ft. down, destroying the Orcish army below.
Reply*Guitar wail*
YyeeeEEEEEEAAAAAAAaaaaHHHH!!!!! :p
Why does everyone even think that 4th edition is simpler? Sure, the rules are easier to understand, but the rules are long, clunky, and make the game unimmersive. 3.5's rules were sort of complex, but that's why you brought the rulebooks with you. D&D 4.0 is basically D&D for idiots with way too much time on their hands.
ReplyAfter Playing 3.5 I moved on to D10/White Wolf Style Games. The Simplicity gave me the Ability (as GM) to let Players do whatever they Wanted. There were always Conflicting Numbers in D&D that led to more Arguing and less Gaming. That was Fun in High School, but Gaming as an Adult was more about Fun and less about "Winning".
ReplyI don't think 4th is an upgraded version of 3.5.
ReplyPeople think it is, maybe because 4 comes after 3 (and also after 3,5).
The fourth edition exists to those who dislikes the 3x ones.
You want a wizard that cast noisy spells and kill stuff? Play 4th edition.
You want a wizard specialized in illusion that disappear and appear as you want and scores crits? A wiz/rogue that let you wield a short sword in each hand and still kick ass while shooting scorching rays? Then play the 3.5 (like me)
Personally, I hated 4th edition. It's a completely new game that has little relation to previous D&D, and thus doesn't "feel" like the game I grew up with. This concept of needing to use "combat power cards" etc feels like I'm being treated like a 8 year old. 3.5 was actually pretty simplistic, you just roll a d20 and add your summed up modifier (although half-orcs suck as a race, as do half-elves). The Pathfinder books are the single most GORGEOUS rpg books I've ever read, not just for the art, but also for the mechanics. You can really tell 30 years of experience went into the writing. Thank Elminster I found out about Pathfinder, because 4th ed broke my heart!
ReplySee I love 2nd ed. 3.5 was ok, but to be really nerdy, I remember spending countless hours devoted to reading up on my character, everything from class to race to kits to realms. Then comming to a game ready for anything the DM threw at you ( which usually was aimed to kill you) actual roll playing, you know thinking on your feet, everything from rolling a 2 and needing to kill the thing infrount of you while you only have 5 hp left to bluffing. Now it seems that DM's job is not to stimulate the mind but to baby sit the sooks of the world that run off crying coz they don't know anything about their character's or how to play them. 4th ed the microwaved meal, quick easy and requires no intelligence
i play 3.5 and (i wouldnt know yet) but i think that 4.0 is gonna be considerably worse i played 3.5 for 2 years and im going to play 4.0 next week and when i tried to make my character my brain short circuted and now im all messed u.. bardle naws sthqueel kitl ith
ReplyA spellcaster’s potency will be directly related to information procured from that player’s tax forms, which he must fill out and bring to the gaming session
That's why it's best to do as I do: take elements from various different versions! I play version seven thirds! (average 1, 2.5, and 4.5) That way, you only use the rules you like, and ignore the stupid ones.
ReplyRule 3201.43: every time a spell is chanted, you must roll a d100 for each syllable uttered. Each roll must be perfect, otherwise the spell backfires.
Rule 3016.09: roll a d9001 before every action. If you roll over 9000, you win everything for that round.
Rule 692.11: any attempt to attack a friendly or otherwise neutral force must first be written, submitted to the national government, returned to sender, rewritten, resent, forwarded, left under a dusty stack of similar forms, crumpled up, returned to sender again, rewritten again, sent again, shredded, and composted. This will get you nowhere.
this argument is pointless because D&D it the worst RPG ever made and anyone who's gotten even the slightest amount of enjoyment from it is legally retarded. Come back when you've played some WFRP, plebs.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesI've played Warhammer!
And I enjoy DnD. To make myself a triple nerd, I am also in a Star Wars DnD campaign.
yea warhammer and dnd go hand in hand
Used to play WFRP & D&D.....but your name has 'Beiber' in it so I'm not sure I can agree w/you on moral grounds.
Trollolololololololololo
I run 4E games, but they are homebrewed to the point of barely resembling 4E.
ReplySame here. I have everything so house-ruled that I actually rewrote the PHB. I call it the D&D4.5ePHBv1.2 :D
As funny as nerds making fun of other nerds can be, which is quite considerate.
ReplyMan, I love it when combat against a well-constructed, appropriately-powered band of monsters takes less than an hour. And a rules system that allows me to introduce newbies on the first fucking day that they're playing.
ReplyAnd most importantly, I love not having rules break my roleplaying rhythm.
4th Edition has all of the fast-and-hard rules that I need without any of the ones that I don't, such as an annoying, argument-causing alignment system, a list of spells that takes up over half of the goddamn book, and an easy, streamlined class template.
3.X sucked, and it sucked hard.
D&D 3.5 required strategy and foresight. It contained simplistic formulae for creating magic items and calculating monster stats. It was also an OGL, which allowed anyone to write supplements for it.
4.0 has no f**king healing spells, and anyone who tries to write a supplement for it without out first paying WAY too much money to Wizards of the Coast will be sued into oblivion for daring to steal a few pennies from the WotC money pile. WotC sold its soul to Satan, and 4th edition was the result.
HA! I have long since let my gaming books explode in Akira-like wonderment by leaving the simplistic rules of 2nd, 3rd, and 3.5 editions of D&D behind for the mind-whip chaos of Iron Crown Enterprises RoleMaster series (which I played in almost all its incarnations).
ReplyYou with your Pythagorean solids for combat look like children playing with crayons to our Cthulhian chaotic system of d100s and charts upon charts for weapons, critical hits, and fumbles. Our calculus of skill bonuses and difficulty levels makes you D&D players look like a bunch of 50 year old fat guys in costumes sitting in kindergarten learning to count to 20.
Of course, having delved into the ancient horrors that treat your brain as a blender, where generating characters is more involved than raising a real child, has left us followers of ICE to transform into hideous blobs of quivering fat which ooze the sweat of 10000 geeks (the dress-up-as-star-trek-aliens kind of geeks, not the billion Bill Gates type).
You can have your +5 Two-Handed Swords of Vorpal-ee goodness - for in our system, you would most likely fumble and pull your groin muscle... resulting in your foes on the ground 1-4 rounds with laughter as you are put out of commission for several days.
Upon being opened, the DM guide shall extend a robot arm and taser any reader who has never written a decent fantasy story at least 1 cm thick.
ReplyEach character must regulary vacate their nether regions and failure to do so will result in them shitting themselves at the DM's discretion.
Backpacks must be taken off before fighting.
If the characters do not wash every so often, they will incur a temporary -3 charisma penalty, and the daily chance to become infected with lice.
Each character must have a backstory/character summary of at least 1,000 words long. The character must also go through believable character development. Failure to comply will result in the character shitting themselves, becoming lice infected or tasering by the DM guide.
5th edition must include:
Reply1:The players handbook seperated into three seperate rulebooks with enough options in them for the most creative player to open it at a random page and pick the first.
2:An extensive quide on how to translate infernal. All suplements must be in celestial, and players are free to use the similarities to translate.
3:A DMG with 90% of it being homebrew from every D&D board on the internet.
4:A map on how to find the person who made it.
5:A sword which comes free with each core rulebook.
6:A free group.
7:A guide to playing fourth edition.
We then use the group and free sword to kill the person who thought that using WoW as inspiration was a good idea, who is claerly located on the map. We then take over WotC.
Hell yeah!! I love the 3.5ed. 4th ed. can go screw itself with an unlimited number of magic missiles, because apparently you can do that now.
Reply2 Ed + Rule 0, bitches.
ReplyAhh, the good old THAC0
I've been running games since 2nd ed (early 90's), and am currently playing in a 4th ed game.
Reply2nd ed stands as the worst system I've seen (I've never looked into 1st ed). The "saving throws" system especially stands out in my mind, as bad RPG mechanics go.
3.5 was pretty much the pinnacle. The D20 system streamlined gameplay without sacrificing detail and verisimilitude. The skill system filled a big gap, and feats, Prestige Classes, and 3rd ed multiclassing allowed ulimited, open-ended options for character generation without threatening game balance too much. 3.5 clarified many rules that the DM uses, such as customizing monsters, and adjusted the balance of the classes.
4th ed represents the point where they've given up on maintaining variety, detail, and open-ended character generation, in favor of the most stripped-down system they could get away with. I feel like I'm playing an "Introduction to D&D" board game. Hack'n'Slash combat seems to be the focus, and all of the charcters have been equalized in terms of complexity/simplicity. As such, I quickly scrapped my Wizard in favor of a Fighter, since the Wizard's been oversimplified so badly, and all we do is attack every round anyway.
The system's still novel for me, and there are a couple of newbie gamers in the group, so it's fun...for now. I don't think these romp-and-stomp battles will hold everyone's interest forever, and I already miss the 3.5 Cleric I was playing before.
I have no intention of running my own games in anything but 3.5.
I have no Idea about 5th edition but I believe some generous people at Wizards whom I can only describe as "Saintly demigods that make paladins look like corrupt pigs" came out with Pathfinder (or 3.75), I was introduced to DnD during the 3rd edition era so I'm used to (and prefer) all the complex rules. pathfinder encompasses the "realistic" rule set of 3.5 while giving the PC's the badassery they've always wanted. slight changes were made to character class which are now more badasser, races (yes gnomes are a core race still) are slightly different (such as humans given an ability score plus of their choice) and even the skills are changed (fly is added for those who can fly, and max skills are brought down to the same as your level) there are plenty of other changes that I feel 3rd should have begun with in the first place.
ReplySHADOWDANCER!!! *the room immolates with green fire which is fueled by pure awesomeness that only the Shadowdancer can fuel*
Huh? "I have no Idea about 5th edition but I believe some generous people at Wizards whom I can only describe as "Saintly demigods that make paladins look like corrupt pigs" came out with Pathfinder (or 3.75)". Pathfinder was published by Paizo, not WotC.
They didn't take gnomes out of 4th ed. Gnomes are now in the second player's handbook, which has been on store shelves for quite some time now.
Replywhat about barbarians? did they get rid of those too?