John Harper ran a scenario for seven (7!) players in the second-to-last GPNW slot this year. I prolonged my stay just to be able to play in it. I'm glad I did.

We played through two encounters, (sadly) skipping the skill challenge in between. In the first encounter, we had to cross a rope bridge to charge the kobolds that were slinging at us from the other side. We were boosted to second level after that, and had to face a young white dragon and its kobold protectors. It took us four hours to get through explaining the rules and completing both encounters. That's awfully quick for DnD, or any other tactically-focused game, for that matter.

The game, as a tactical game, is impressive. It finally delivers on the long-standing promises: you actually CAN go into dungeons and kill dragons right from the start, and have a lot of fun doing it. I would actually sum up DnD's design philosophy in this edition as "Fun Now!"

Every character played a vital role in the conflicts:

The warlord let other people have extra attacks instead of doing his own. Albert used this ability very well, and also managed to place a mighty strike on the dragon that also gave us all +4 to hit it for the rest of the encounter (and yes, that's a first level power). In fact, we had lots of "Kickass!" moments when the players whipped out their special powers for the first time.

The dragonborn Paladin jumped up on statues and rained down his acid breath weapon on groups of minions (Me: "So Jackson, what's your special ability?" Jackson, casually: "Cubic Buttload of Damage.").

The cleric patched us up while dishing out damage at the same time. Alan always made sure to check with the group about who was in need, so he could play well to the team.

The rogue shifted kobolds off the edge of cliffs and flanked the dragon to give others combat advantage (and 2D8 backstabbing pain). Chris also put jumping and other skills to good use.

The fighter had some bad rolls for his cleaving, but John managed to use his best move to finish the dragon off, splitting its head (John: "Damn, I ruined the trophy again."). I should have supported him and the other tanks better in the first conflict.

The ranger was the only one who was any good at shooting across the bridge, and Jeremy played the ranged support role very well. There's nothing like a first-level ranger shooting halfway across the map with two arrows at once to take out two kobolds at the same time. (I had a bad experience trying to get my kids to play, years ago, after watching LOTR. It didn't work out well in 3e because a first-level ranger is no Legolas. This guy, in 4e? Completely different story.)

And finally, my warlock was the second ranged support guy, but I played him much more gung ho. What can I say, I'm an occasional Instigator, and I tried to see how badly the kobolds could hurt me (turns out the answer is: pretty damn badly if I charge them with no tactical sense). I was much more careful and team-oriented in the second fight.

In the fight with the dragon, I managed to put Witchfire on him, giving him an attack penalty. That saved several people from his breath weapon, which felt like a big accomplishment. I loved the warlock's cursing ability, gaining free teleports and added damage, and the whole visual of him shifting into concealment just by walking.

Toward the end, I used the Aid Other action for three out of my four final rounds. This action is much better now that you can apply it to virtually anything; I bluffed the dragon to support other characters' uses of their encounter or daily abilities. I'm really glad to see this expanded support for group tactics.

What that did, though, was make me forget all about the stunts! After the first encounter, I was just too focused on helping the other characters, thinking of myself as support rather than solo attacker. I was cursing myself ten minutes later, in my car, for not zapping one of the stalactites with my eldritch dart and making it crash down on the dragon. Thanks to DMG p. 42, that would not only have been a viable option, but a damn good one, once I ran out of encounter and daily powers. Yay for narrative-based stunts that are actually preferable to basic strikes!

I also realize now that those damn shifting kobolds (coming out of cover, slinging, shifting back) were just asking for us to use Ready Action. So there still are plenty of other tactical options to explore.

Overall, since my 2e experience, this is the first time that I'd consider joining a DnD campaign again. With the right players, much use of skill challenges, and some tweaks (like John waiving the action point spending limit and letting us use it for Aid Other actions after another character had already made a roll), I can imagine it being great fun even in the long run.

I am in pretty much the same situation as Chris: I played DnD last time 18 years ago and...

...curse you, story gamers! I ordered the base gift set! :)
*shakes fist*

(and thanks amazon.co.uk for the huge discount and good exchange rate with the GBP... 50 euros for the three books is not half bad...)

Posted By: DoyceIt seems to me that everyone is really, really impressed that the new version of DnD has, in a nutshell, provided players with all the options (in combat - I've heard nothing about skill contests with that same level of detail and immersion) that Spirit of the Century brought to us a year ago. I mean, just taking from this post... combat actions used to give others a bonus to their rolls, putting aspects on the scene for others to use.... token given out that let you give others a +2 modifier or let you act out of turn?

SotC isn't a wargame. I love it, but positioning and tactical vision: They're not part of the SotC equation.

The thrill of a war-game is the accidental or intentional reveal: "Okay, so my goblin takes a shift ... wait ... I can't shift there, I'll get into the AoO zone of the fighter. Hoookay, I shift ... uh ... no, can't shift there, I'll be one Deft-Strike away from sneak attack damage by the rogue. Wait, I got it! I'll shift HERE and set up for my charge next turn." "Cool. Now all five of your guys are in range for one Burning Hands spell. Way to herd him, guys!" "NOOOOO!"

Things are encoded implicitly into the board-space, and the token relationships, that are not explicit when an effect is listed. Burning Hands doesn't say "Throughout the course of the combat, prevent your enemies from forming a cohesive defensive phalanx." But when you've got Burning Hands at your disposal, any defensive phalanx that forms is just a great big target.

The marriage of the elements you've seen in SotC with the game-space and maneuvering of a wargame is why there's so much golly-gee going on. Does that help?

Actually, it sounds like a very good wargame. Too many minis games are kinda bland, and fail to really take movement into account in any fluid sense, or ignore the potential of environment so much that you wonder why they even bother to use minis.

Everything I'm hearing indicates that the designers of this edition have really given some thought to those issues.

On the flip side, I tend not to play the way Tony does from his description, so I remain at least a little unconvinced.

The golly-gee for me is the combination of intense complexity and fine tuning and game balance.

Spirit of the Century is fine tuned and balanced and thoroughly playtested. It also is a fraction as complex as D&D 4e. Prior editions of D&D were as complex -- perhaps more complex than 4e -- but they were poorly tuned and balanced.

For the first time ever, I feel like D&D's designers really understand the game design factors underlying their rules. I feel they have done the math, made hard decisions, slain sacred cows where necessary yet preserved the flavor and philosophy that makes D&D the game we all copied over and over.

Posted By: Adam DrayFor the first time ever, I feel like D&D's designers really understand the game design factors underlying their rules. I feel they have done the math, made hard decisions, slain sacred cows where necessary yet preserved the flavor and philosophy that makes D&D the game we all copied over and over.

I think this is what excites me the most (geek that I am) is they seem have done the math. This is just awesome. Unfortunately, anyone who want to fiddle with the rules will be reverse engineering (and probably miss a few things) or walking around in the dark. Given the much larger pool of potential players I still want to hack in as much story goodness as possible.

Posted By: jackson tegualso, i really enjoy the DMless play option.

Hold on a second.

What?

Posted By: jackson tegu

also, i really enjoy the DMless play option.

Wait. What? DMless? Can you say any more about this?

In the back of the DMG is an option to play without a DM. They're even a bit tongue-in-cheek about "finally revealing" the DMless option they've been hinting at.

It's similar to the DMless options in older books. You use random dungeon creation. You set up a deck of monster cards of reasonable encounter strength. You shuffle them. You explore the dungeon and draw it as you go, using the random tables. You determine what's in the rooms by drawing a card from the monster deck. Someone runs the monsters, or you rotate or split the monster-running duties.

The rules admit that it's not the usual play experience. It's not GMless play like, say, Polaris is. They basically say it's a good way to fight some monsters over your lunch hour without all the story crap getting in the way.

Still sounds fun!

Thanks for that post John! I've been wondering if all was sunshine and rainbows.

Posted By: jenskotAfter leveling up a few times, it just feels like the same old same old after you get over the euphoria of the initial levels. The winning strategies start to become obvious. And the powers become repetitive (now your new power has a different name and does 2 points of extra damage!).

This is something I've been wondering about specifically. It sounds like they've frontloaded things too much, and maybe hurt one of the core fun parts of the game: levelling up. Somebody who's not stuck waiting for the official release date want to tell me more about this? Are all the new powers just the same stuff only better? What kind of things do we get to unlock?

I'm with Ralph. The exciting thing about DnD is not only that it's a good game in its own right, but that it's going to (hopefully) bring more self-awareness and open-mindedness to a large section of the roleplaying community. Sure, SOTC has a lot of these things and then some, and TSOY still has a IMO superior experience system for story gaming, and so on. But how many more people is 4e going to reach than all indie games combined?

Anyway, back to our session. There were several highlight moments for me and I want to record them here for posterity.

- Christian leading the charge with his Warlock, cursing enemies left and right and tossing witchy fire, then realizing that front-line fighter is not his role and teleporting back to a safe position. But he set the bar high for heroic action and colorful narration and the others followed suit.

- Chris's Rogue running and jumping across the treacherous ice floe, and then ham-stringing the kobold lieutenant and sending him falling from the rope-bridge into the deadly waters below.

- John Powell's Dwarf arriving at the head of the battle and showing everyone what Cleave is for, cracking crocodile-men skulls left and right with his mighty maul.

- Jeremy's Ranger running along a vine over the river shooting arrows across the whole map into the eye sockets of very surprised crocodile men.

- Albert's Warlord bringing the super nova strike awesome against the Dragon, spending his action points to erupt into a firestorm of power and then give the Dwarf two tries at his most powerful move to finish the beast off. This was a wonderful union of player genius and cool system bits.

- Alan's Cleric getting divine intervention and the hand of his god appearing in a shower of light to swat attacks aside, then burning the unholy with his divine flame. He was a beacon of divine power in the darkness.

- Jackson's Dragonborn Paladin, Bright Land (the only character name I remember, due to its awesomeness). I could write a whole post about Bright Land. But his shining moment was when he realized he was the only hero who could possibly save the Sun Stone from being dropped into a bottomless abyss, and crossed nearly the whole map in a flurry of action points to knock over a stalagmite onto the crocodile-man shaman, splattering him, and also forming a bridge to run across and snatch the Stone before it could vanish forever.

- My young white dragon, overmatched and dying, draws himself up in his pride and meets the eyes of the heroes who are about to destroy him. "Get on with it, then."

When I finally get around to making custom 4e sheets the p.42 DMG table is going right on that sucker.

Posted By: John HarperI'm going to talk about the actual session we played at GPNW. I hope that's alright with you guys. :-)

Haven't had this much fun reading an AP thread in quite a while.

I have a minor technical question: As DM did you do open dice, or roll behind a screen?

Posted By: John HarperWhen I finally get around to making custom 4e sheets the p.42 DMG table is going right on that sucker.

Perfect idea! I'll do the same thing. Or more likely, I'll just steal your sheets.

Something i really enjoyed in the session was John "the DM" Harper's questioning the players why their powers had the cool effects that the game provided. i mean, sure, the rules tell us that this effect occurs, but what does that look like? we, the players, decided.
and thus Chris' Halfling Theif (who had a cool long fantasy-novelesque name which i totally forget) got to shift opponents a few squares after striking them because he had a rope attatched to the end of his dagger and would just yank them over cliffs, and Christian could teleport after striking foes because he drew on the power of their departing souls.

that was something i enjoyed. Both of those scenarios were very much alive, and i could see getting tired of the mechanics of 4e after awhile, but luckily i have a whole pile of other games sitting here waiting to be played. and doubly luckily, none of them -And I Mean Nary A One- has "d20" written anywhere on it.

Posted By: jake richmondI remember you made some comments about true20 a few years ago

More of an angry rant, but yeah. :)

D&D4 does indeed tell you how to play the game. And not only that, but what sort of game it is, why you might find such a game fun, how to tweak it to your own tastes, and what pitfalls and mistakes to watch out for. The books aren't perfect (the bit that condones dice roll fudging is rather lame, for example) but they are very good in many ways.