A random update: D&D 4th Edition

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:25:49 GMT

I'm part of a Saturday gaming group that's gone through a small handful of games; I started playing 3.5 Edition Dungeons & Dragons with them, moved into the newer White Wolf games, and then back into D&D; lately we've been playing 4th Edition, from 1st level up to 9th now. I think I've played it long enough to be able to give it a good solid review of the good stuff and the bad stuff.

In summary, for those who aren't interested or who won't touch the new edition - 4th Ed is an entirely new system, just like 3rd Ed was compared to 2nd, and the fact that it's a d20 system is possibly the only real commonality between them. It's streamlined, combat-based, and leaves out a lot of detail in favor of a fast-paced, balanced set of rules. These are all good things. The thing is, they're also all bad things.

Good Stuff:

Balance. I've never liked playing fighters, because they inevitably get eclipsed by the casters or the rogue, who are much better at their job than they are. Not anymore, though; 4th Ed is specifically designed so that each particular class has a job to do in combat. Wizards (classified as "controllers") do large-scale stuff and status effects; clerics and warlords (your "leaders") do the healing and buffing; rogues and rangers ("strikers") are the classic glass cannons and damage-dealers; and fighters and paladins ("defenders") make the DM cry because his monsters are quite literally stuck in combat with them.

In practice, what it means is that everyone is looking forward to doing something not just useful, but pivotal on their turn. And I get to be a thorn in the DM's side (and cover the wizard, when he isn't being suicidally brave), which is quite fun. (Not to mention the fact that a fighter can now take abilities that _guarantee_ damage every round, which is a very powerful thing to have.)

Options. "I hit that" is about as boring as combat can get in an RPG. Every class has powers at just about every level now, which makes the fighter's character sheet have a lot more variety. "At-will" powers are abilities that are usable every round on the round - they're basic stuff, like the traditional Magic Missile for wizards, a less powerful double-attack for rangers, a defend-your-ally strike for clerics. Using these alone can make combat interesting enough, especially when the group starts working together and piling on the results.

Magic Items are Skippable. This seems like a bad thing, but when you start to realize just how much of a character's power rested in his phat lewtz in 3rd Ed, it starts to look like a good move. Most items, in addition to giving some defense or attack bonus, do one small thing, once a day, and that's it. Just a little extra edge to help out when it's needed. Just like it should be.

Unfortunately, the combat mechanics are designed so you're expected to have at least a +3 (weapon, armor, insert-slot-here) at such-and-such a point, but the numbers can be tweaked very easily to ignore this. You could run an item-free game, and it would be feasible. Not so much in 3rd Ed, at least not without a LOT of rewriting.

The interesting abilities are _really_ interesting. Each character class seems to gather to itself a host of abilities that get really, really fun to use, and fun to visualize. My current favorite is a fighter technique called "Rain of Steel", which damages any enemy next to him if they start their turn there. Being a fighter can be quite fun when you can harass and endanger your opponents just by being in their general vicinity and waving your weapon around like a madman.

And that's just a neat fighter move. Rangers have some fun-to-watch moves that have them dancing around a portion of the battlefield a la Prince of Persia, attacking every step of the way with alternating hands. Warlocks (a magical glass-cannon class) can take abilities that play with odds and alter dice rolls, their own or someone else's, or play with enemy minds. One of the warlord's basic, at-will attacks, involves getting into position and telling someone _else_ to attack - which is all kinds of abusable. "Hey rogue! Good sneak attack! Do it again!" High-level rogues can take a bizarre power that lets them saunter past their opponents and redirect their swings at themselves, like you'd expect any crazy halfling to be able to do. Fun stuff, stuff that makes combat much more engaging than it ever was in 2nd or 3rd Edition.

Bad Stuff:

It's not epic anymore.A 30th-level wizard in 3rd Edition was deific in power, capable of doing some things that would scare the pants off of any normal person - slay everyone in a circle around him with a single shout, create castles from nothing, step between worlds, create new creatures from mad inspiration. A 30th-level wizard in 4th Edition is a very powerful, versatile... dungeon-crawler. Gone are things like the magic-shattering Disjunction, the world-spawning Genesis, or the unforgettable Wish. (Heck, I have this same complaint about the shift from 2nd to 3rd. What happened to the truly unbelievable feats of magic, like Raise Nation, or Estate Transference?) Now, the most powerful thing a wizard can do is... well, damage. Which brings us to...

It's a combat system - and little else. The Dungeon Master's Guide sets up the rules for skill-based challenges, but they're very (and I mean _very_) bare-bones, and essentially amount to "Improvise". The meat of the system, about 95% of it, is in the combat mechanics... and if I wanted a game that was 95% combat and 5% everything else, I'd reinstall Diablo and play that.

The uninteresting abilities are really uninteresting. A lot of the abilities you get are very, very simplistic, and get cut from the same mold: "XdX damage, and target is [blank]ed immediately/until your next turn/save ends/until the end of the encounter". Abilities tend to get boring when it's all about damage plus a status effect.

They RUINED the alignment system. Ruined it! That's all I'm saying.

Creatures and characters don't operate under the same rules anymore. This is a complicated one for me, but a big one. Player characters in 4th Ed go with their class, eventually take a "paragon path" (sort of like a clarification of the type of fighter, or type of wizard you play) and later go into an "epic destiny" (which is more generic, and offers more clarifying stuff). They get a certain set of powers which they can use at will, once per encounter, or once per day, and they get a certain amount of hit points and other stuff as they level. Creatures do not follow this template. They get one or two abilities usable at will, and a once-per-encounter or recharges-on-a-die-roll power. And that's it. A creature can't "go up in level"; you generally just end up with a higher-level creature with the same name, that has different abilities attached.

Now, what 3rd Edition did with creatures and characters wasn't elegant, but it was a masterstroke of brilliance - they all used the same rules. Creatures had "hit dice", which were effectively their levels. You could "level up" a creature by giving it more hit dice, signifying that this one was bigger, older, or generally more skilled than a basic creature of its type. Creatures had their own particular abilities and magic, which got more potent as they got bigger. Or, if you had an intelligent creature, they could take levels in a character class. The result is this: if you want to make a horrible mind flayer, and say that he's a stealthy backstabber, all you had to do was give him rogue levels, and everything that came along with them. If you wanted a particularly large and nasty grizzly bear, you just took the grizzly bear creature and added more hit dice to it. If you wanted to play a sentient velociraptor who goes into bloody rages, carries magic wands, and speaks five languages... yeah, it's doable, and I suggest that Mr. Pinkington take a level or two in bard just to add a few extra touches.

You can't do this in 4th Edition. The system just isn't there to pull it off - you have to improvise it. It makes me sad that this isn't really feasible anymore.

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My conclusion is this, and I think I came to it after just three games or so: it's fun. It's a good game. But it doesn't replace 3rd Edition. I consider them two separate games, each with their own particular strengths, and their own particular focus. Both are fun, and both are worthwhile. And in the end, I do recommend giving it a try.

Things I Learned In K-12 School Lit

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:23:07 GMT

I never liked my literature classes in high school. This is funny, because I've always loved reading. But I think I've pieced together why I never liked those classes. At first I was sure it was the "classic literature" angle that did it, because I can't stand contemporary or classic stuff; call me a philistine, but my tastes are 90% fantasy. I couldn't quite put my finger on why the classics turned me off so much, though. Until I got to a fun little website, which referenced something I'd never noticed until now: "literature" is fucking bleak. And they raise you on the stuff.

In middle school they gave us Lord of the Flies, which teaches us that we're all two meals away from becoming monsters; they follow it up quick with To Kill A Mockingbird, all about how some people don't need to lose any meals to be horrible people, and you can't do much about them except repair the damages. Before that we read Bridge to Terabithia, in which death ruins our dreams. In high school they gave us Animal Farm and taught us a little more about human nature. To finish it off, we got All Quiet on the Western Front, to give us a good idea of the overall direction of mankind. That's just the literature I can remember off the top of my head, from my own high school curriculum.

I find it appalling to think of what we're giving youth to read, and then expecting them to go forth into the world with hope. And at the same time, it's not easy to see why a lot of kids hate reading. I'd hate reading too, if 80% of the books I got in classrooms were this depressing. Here's a good example, from the above website: think of a young adult book, fit for classroom consumption, with a dog on the cover. Three guesses what happens to the dog. Remember kids, growing up sucks, and everything you love will die. Elaborate on this topic, with a five-paragraph essay.

The vast majority of what is considered great literature falls quite cleanly into this same bleak demographic. No room in literature for hope, after all, because happy endings are unrealistic.

...and I think I just depressed myself writing that last phrase. Seems a little too accurate for my mood to accept. Why the hell does our culture praise this sort of hopeless tripe? What purpose does it serve us - and before you answer, do we really need a memento mori for every season, every little nuance of life?

No room for happiness in literature; happiness is the pause before the roller-coaster drop, the half-beat before a punchline that draws thousand-yard stares instead of belly-laughs. Comedies don't sell; tragedies draw the big crowds. On that thought, what is it about all of us that gets drawn towards this masturbatory angst more often than we're pulled towards hope and optimism?

It's things like this that make me want to jump ship on humanity now, instead of later. If this is the direction we feel drawn towards, there doesn't seem to be much room for real progress in the future. Just more change, and more angst, and more dead dogs on the covers of our books.

Your homework is to read Where The Red Fern Grows. All you extra-credit seekers can follow it up with Flowers for Algernon, if you still feel a spark of joy in your soul that needs snuffing out.

Delcan's Journal

A random update: D&D 4th Edition

Things I Learned In K-12 School Lit