And the art!

One thing I've really missed about mainstream games, hanging out in the Fudge / indie world for so many years... good art. Colorful art. Lots of art. Art that's drawn specifically toward the text, not pulled from a generic collection.

Art's one of the most expensive pieces in the small-press production, but it's also important. Many gamers will tell you that they don't need art... but I'm not convinced that they understand how much they're influenced by art when they say that. "A picture is worth a thousand words," after all. Art conveys mood and style... the right art can "tell" you want a setting is all about in a way that mere words never can.

Unfortunately, those thousand words are a lot cheaper in the roleplaying market than that picture is.

The weirdness of a real network

For many years Fudge has been pretty much the only game I play. And in the community, we've often lamented the lack of support. But it takes only a few days poking around in the D&D 4E community to realize how strikingly different the network effects of playing the worlds most popular roleplaying game are.

For one, this game has only been out for a week or two... and it starts with three big books, already had a big adventure published with starter rules before the books were released, already has magazine support (Dragon and Dungeon are reborn online, and the articles are, for now, free). Third party publishers haven't even started releasing stuff, and there is already more material for 4E than Fudge saw in some years. Granted, they're working on rehashing a lot of existing material, but if we count existing material, well, no one player could every consume it all.

And finding players? Well, no guarantees they'll want to play the way I do, but finding players is a breeze. I don't get "the look" that I get when I talk about Fudge.

About makes me want to start writing for D&D to see if I can break into that market.

D&D 4E? Wha'?

Okay, something I thought I'd never do... not only have I bought the D&D 4th Edition Player's Handbook, I'm organizing a group to play the introductory adventure, The Keep on the Shadowfell.

I haven't roleplayed in 18 months, and really haven't even been able to get excited about it during that time. I really don't know what to expect out of this new D&D, I'm trying to go into it with an open mind (I tried 3rd Edition for a few sessions and had more trouble with the mind-set of the GM and players than the rules), and I'm actually excited about getting this game going.

They've done a lot of surprising stuff with this edition. I kind of frown at including Dragonborn (dragon-men) and Teiflings (demon-men) in the core book. They aren't as "generic" as the Tolkienesque races and seem better suited to a supplement.

The whole "this feels like World of Warcraft" thing... might not be bad. So long as I can roleplay around it and tell great stories with the group, and combat goes quick so it doesn't slow down the story, I can live with it. One of the things I realized I was missing with Fudge was fiddly bits, and I'm thinking D&D 4E might have the right level of fiddly bits for me.

The way they've made wizards capable of using magic constantly is interesting, and the WoW influence is really seen in fighters becoming defenders and rogues becoming the heavy-hitters. Granted, 3E was headed that way with the flanking and sneak-attack of the rogue, but it's just really strange to see what used to be the weakest combat class (the original thief) become the master of dealing out damage. It really looks to me like a big goal, and real plus, of this system is that every character has something significant to do in combat all the time. Low-level wizards don't have to fire off their small assortment of spells and then stand back and hope nobody hits them. Clerics aren't relegated to being walking hospitals... they get free, virtually unlimited basic healing spells, and every character has the ability to heal themselves to a point. But clerics' primary role is now that of leader, and they get powers that convey that ability mechanically.

Every character gets "powers"... fighters get abilities that are clearly not in the realm of human skill. With their primary role as defender, they have the ability to force monsters to fight them instead of passing them up. One native ability a fighter can always use is to "target" an opponent and force him to take a -2 penalty on any attack that doesn't involve the fighter. And apparently that works at range... I guess the fighter taunts his opponent, disrupting his concentration or something.

That self-healing bit is really interesting... they've totally embraced the idea that hit points aren't just physical brawn, but include luck, skill and stamina. So once per encounter, you can spend a healing surge to gain your Second wind and gain back 50% of your hit points, up to a limited number of healing surges a day. Wow.

All-in-all, it's really over the top... I can see this fitting anime-style combat really well. All characters are clearly superhuman... they've stopped pretending and just embraced that. Beginning characters are much more competent... no more "Hey, want to play an awesome hero! Here, play this character who can't go three rounds with a common house cat, and after a year of play, if you survive, then you'll be playing an awesome hero." A common bit of advice from the indie game design crowd is, "Don't save the good stuff for later," and it seems the designers of D&D 4E took that to heart.

If I were to play it long-term, I'm sure I wouldn't play it exactly as written. I can see eventually grafting on Keys... pretty easy to do, since there's a built-in "action point" economy, where action points are basically "fudge points" or whatever you want to call them.

Hopefully we'll get the group together for some character building a week from Sunday. Guess I need to finish reading my PHB.