Rpgfiend’s Weblog

As an old school role player i thought it essential that i write a review to set the record straight on 4th edition.

All over the internet views are pretty much polarised on the dungeons and dragons 4e core rulesets; some love them, others detest them.

I’ve been playing role-playing games for about 20 years, i was one of the first to buy D&D when Games Workshop released it into the UK (thank god for games workshop – even if you hate them at the moment you need to love them for unleashing UK editions of D&D, paranoia, call of cthulu, runescape and god knows how many other american RPGs into the UK market) and I still play (occasionally) now.

4th Edition books I need to say are beautifully laid out and the illustrations are really really nice.  The books just feel good (although i wish they’d start binding them into A5 sizes with a decent binding so you could surreptitiously read them on the bus/tube/train) and the content is good.

Most people seem to lament the loss of skills and other highly specific attributes of role playing characters, but the truth is that this isn’t what role playing is all about, instead the rules just try and give you the basics so you can tell a story amongst the gaming group.  4th edition does this, and makes it simple enough to do.  If you want to add miniatures to play (personally i don’t: i like minis in wargaming but nothing else, but each to their own) then that’s great and the rules will handle it for combat situations, and if you like neverwinter nights then i’m sure you’ll understand the same mechanisms underpinning the next version of the game (assuming there is one.. i hope there is one!).

As a veteran gamer are you going to find something new and amazing out from the books?  No, not a chance (but did you do that when you moved from AD&D to 2nd edition, or between any of the others?).  Will you enjoy the mechanics (and their simplicity) when you’re gaming a fast moved encounter?  Yes (once you’ve remembered that things have changed a bit and gotten over the shell shock).

One thing that’s amazing about D&D is that it is Star War ish in it’s fandom.  Loads of people moan and groan about how it’s all sold out, it’s too commercial, too childish, too simple, too long etc. but they’ll all go out and buy it.  Just like a millions of us geeks worldwide paid for premium tickets to watch the train wreck star wars prequels, even when we knew that lucas would bugger it up.

So, if you haven’t got them then buy the core books and take a look – never before has the market been so competitive for selling role playing materials and you no longer have to shop around to try and find a discount of 2 or 3 %.

For the players guide I recommend Ewelike (it’s a geek’s product search engine thingy) – it’s simple and it’s used by all my friends, ok it’s got some rough edges but it’s getting better all the time (plus it’s easy to find reviews for stuff and their prices tend to beat any searches that i do… even if i end up buying stuff from play.com or amazon.co.uk/amazon.com i still have a good idea that their prices are competitive – even if not the best… i like retailers i can trust!)

Take a look at Dungeons and Dragons – Players Handbook 4th Edition Core Rulebook, and see if you agree