I had a friend lend me his Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition (D&D) books to me, as I was considering starting a group, ether in reality, or online. Anyway, I came from 2nd edition to 3rd edition, which, at the time, I thought was appalling, but the more I played with the world, The more I loved it. I fully supported the "d20 system." It was an ingenious way to create a set of rules anything could use to explain their world. It was like the day C++ programing language was created for PC. Well, now that 3rd edition has, apparently, passed its prime, 4th edition is taking over the shelves... unsuccessfully, mind you. Part of that might be the death of Gary Gygax, and part of it is the overall death of paper RPGs, or rather the slow starvation of paper RPGs. Let's face it, kids, and even young adults, don't want to sit at a table rolling dice, using their, god forbid I even mention the name, "imagination." They would rather turn on their XBox 360, logon to Halo, and "pwn sum nOobz!!11!!11" I mean, come on! Seriously, what is more fun? Sitting with real people, imagining your an all-powerful wizard, or calling some guy you never meet a fag, or a gay noob? Duh!
Well, call me old fashioned, but I would rather sit with real life friends, and call them gay noobs. (The irony is I would best apply to that statement, as I am both gay and a noob at many things.) Anyway, I decided: Hell, I might as well give the new rules a spin, seeing as they will be updated and supported much more then the "old, out-of-date" 3rd edition ones.
Now before I begin bitching, allow me to provide a few points of note, to be discussed further, at a later point in this rant... I wonder if blogger as a limited number of characters? Well, I'm about to find out!
In previous versions of D&D, including, but not limited to: 1st edition, players were giving a basic set of rules and guidelines for creating a custom persona, known as a character. This could be anything from a brainless warrior who's entire motto was: Smash, then smash some more, then eat; to a half-human, half-zombie wizard who's brain was in a jar at the north-pole and who's heart was in a chest on the elemental plane of fire, thus allowing him to live forever and gain all the power of the multiverse.
This is the one factor of paper RPGs that made, and still, to an extent, makes them so much better then any 360 game. The best part of 3rd edition was an expansion of rules, allowing you play, virtually any creature with any class you wanted. At one point I was a gelatins cube, with the power of a cleric, that was until I discovered my deity did not care about me, then I became a Blackguard, or a cleric who specializes in killing, rather then saving people. I could go on about the numerous combinations I have made, but I won't, rather I will discus one aspect, in detail.
The best part about the D&D world, is magic. There are many types of magic, from the power to create buildings from nothing but sand, to resurrecting an army of dead soldiers to fight for you. From launching fireball after fireball into a crowed of gnomes, ah the memories! Magic was the backbone of nearly everything in D&D. Nearly ever campaign has aspects of magic, from the evil polymorphing dragon king, to the enchanted weapons use to slay it. Every time you encountered a wizard, you never knew what you were going to get. Maybe he would turn himself into a dragon, then create a fire elemental to fight for him, all the while, controlling the minds of your party members. Or maybe he was much more simple then that, maybe he would just burst into flames, then start shooting lightening and fire from every orifice of his body.
All of this made the D&D game fun. I will admit, in creating a character, you had to spend at least a day to make a good wizard, and even longer if you wanted to make one that would last longer then a single fight, but that was part of the fun.
Then 4th edition comes along. In summery, this new edition is nothing but a video-game, smeared on the pages of very expensive books.
The premiss of 3rd edition was simple. You character class would gain experience for doing things, like fighting and disarming traps. As you gained experience (XP) you would gain levels in your character class, giving you better and better abilities. You would go from a fighter who could do 4 points of damage to a fighter who could smash a solid steel wall in half with his face, then cause 200 points of damage to the surrounding area. However, things changed if you were a wizard, as you gained more levels, you gained the ability to use more spells. These spells could be anything you wanted, as in, anything your character could research. The best part was, if you exploited a few rules of the game, you could have a wizard at level ten, casting 8 level 5 spells. (that is a really good thing, it would be like having a rocket-launcher in a game were everyone else has sticks.) This meant that my wizard could use the spell fireball at least 8 times a day, even without exploits I could use it twice. In the new rule set; a wizard, at level 5 gets fireball, but it never increases in power, and you can only use it once a day... What the hell? That would be like saying the Master Chief from Halo gets a Laser Sword, but can only use it once per game... or he could only use one gun-magazine per game.
Now, I admit the idea of having powers you can use whenever you want, as many times as you want, is a good idea; as in the 3rd edition rules, you had a set number of spells per day you could use, and if you wanted to cast simple spells, like making a coin disappear, you had to sacrifice a "spell slot" to do so. Now you don't have to worry about that... all you have to worry about is being exactly the same as every other wizard on the planet.
What do I mean by that? Let's say, in 3rd edition, you wanted to be a guy who could fight, and summon other creatures to fight for you, like undead and elementals. That was easy: You would take levels in fighter and wizard, then choose only spells that would help you control other people, or summon creatures to fight for you, then at higher levels, you could even create golems to fight for you. In 4th edition you have a wonderful selection of spells, ranging from offensive spells, to... offensive spells... Oh wait, crap... it looks like you only have a very, very, VERY limited selection of spells to chose from. You literally only have 5 spells to chose from, that are "at-will." Nearly every other spell is a daily spell, meaning you can use it once every 6 hours. The one that pisses me off the most, is Fly. That spell in 3rd edition was a god-send. It allowed you to fly, very fast and every accurately, for as long as you wanted, and if you ended the spell, you normally had it in another slot, meaning you could cast it right away, again. Now, in 4th edition, you get the spell, but it is a daily use (remember that means every 6 hours) and it only last for 5 MINUTES! WHAT THE FUCK? "Hey guys! The dragon is waking up and headed for the village! Don't worry though, I'll fly 5 minutes ahead of the dragon and then run the rest of the way to tell the town they are all going to burn... man i really wish I could fly faster then the Dragon and warn the village sooner... oh well! I hope they like watching their children raped, then burned alive! WOO! GO MAGIC!
Okay, so I really am ranting, now, let me just sum up everything:
In many ways, 4th edition has done a good job of bettering most of the classes in the D&D game, however, the best, and most fun to play, the Wizard, has been neutered. This is annoying to say the least. As I continue to read the rules, in the hopes that this error will be corrected someplace, I am coming to realize why they wrote these rules the way they did:
I have a background in video-game development, and even some in paper RPG development, and I have come to realize, these rules, almost perfectly translate into ones you could find in a modern computer RPG. They wrote these rules so they could be translated into a video-game easily; which would mean, anyone playing the video-game might go out and spend the 100$ on the three books needed to play the paper RPG. Of course, though, as I mentioned at the top of my rant, kids, and most adults, don't care about that now, so all Wizards of the Coast has done is murder a great game.
I will admit, if they do come out with a video-game version of D&D 4th edition, it will be a great game. Only because the rule set fits the profile of a solid video-game. As for fitting the profile of a good paper RPG? Fail. There is no room to create a custom character, beyond where your character comes from and what her name is. The rules are based in a rule of squares and boards, and concentrates VERY heavily on combat, something that is very boring with paper RPGs, no matter the rule set. Something else that is becoming prevalent to me, as I read: WotC (Wizards of the Coast) has turned D&D into a money grubbing franchise. All the interesting classes of character (Psion, Monk, Druid, etc...) are not present in the "core" rule books, rather, as mentioned in the Players Hand Book, they will be made available in other Player Hand Books, of which, I can imagine they will cost 30$+ too.
Finally, my last anger inducing, rage filled discovery is in the actual rule set. 3rd edition was a god-send for those who wished to expand and add, or modify the game world. The rule set was so open and diverse, it allowed for anything, from cars, to spaceships, to dragons and robots. The rules presented in 4th edition are solid, but they are constraining. I have very little to work with for expanding on the world, outside of describing the look of it. Even the character classes are confined to very limited proportions. If I wanted to create a summoner type wizard, I would have to work for a week solid to create the spells, then another week insuring they we're balanced.
In summery, again:
4th edition is a video-game written out on some very expensive paper, with lots of pretty pictures. I will stick with 3rd edition, at least there, I know I can change the world without having to rewrite the rules.
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