Greywulf's Lair

How about now? No? September really cannot come quickly enough for me, and all because of three little words: RED BOX D&D! Folks, all memory of what Wizards of the Coast are releasing between now and then has gone from my little brain. This is the single biggest, most significant role-playing release of the year. And I’ll tell you why.

Just look at it. Just look.

This, my friends, is what the D&D Starter Kit should have been. This is the first few levels of D&D, in full, including character generation.  To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with what the Starter Kit included – the 64 page Dungeon Master’s Book is particularly excellent, and all you need for 1st-5th level DM’ing.  But  the lack of character generation was a pretty major failing in an otherwise brilliant product.

From what I understand, Red Box fixes that, and more.

This is Old School, capitalized and in italics for emphasis. There’s just four races – human, elf, dwarf and halfling – and four classes – fighter, rogue, cleric and wizard. There’s a solo adventure in the 32 page Player’s Book, and an adventure in the 64 page Dungeon Master’s Book. There’s dice in the box. I’ll say that again there are dice in the box! You do have to bring your own wax crayon, though, but I’ll forgive them that. Here’s the full product info.

I’ve been banging the “Fourth Edition is old school really” drum for a long, long time now, and this is exactly what I’ve been talking about. I know there will be some die-hard 4e critics out there who will claim that just because it’s dressed up to look like old school doesn’t make it old school, and I’ve just two words for you: You’re Wrong. Look at that box! Look at that Dungeons & Dragons font! Just look at it! This is Wizards of the Coast listening to their customers, and responding. From what I understand of the DDXP announcement, there was barely a mention of D&D Initiative at all around this product other than a mumbled “maybe later”. This is pen-and-paper gaming at it’s finest, with no computer needed.¹

I really hope they don’t screw this one up.

Finally, this is a copy of D&D that parents will buy for their kids. That’s something which the game (the whole industry, in fact) has been missing for almost 30 years. Pretty much since the first D&D Red Box, in fact. It’s a complete game that doesn’t need three books just to frickin’ play the game and comes with everything you need to get little minds (and older, bigger minds for that matter) hooked on the game we know and love. Hasbro needs to get this in every toystore in the land with a giant cardboard cutout dragon pointing to it saying “YOU NEED THIS!”. At the risk of sounding apocalyptic, if they don’t do this, the hobby won’t last another generation.

Think I’m being overly dramatic? Then ask yourself this question: how many kids do you know playing D&D, right now? How many gamer groups welcome teenagers into their midst? How many teenagers would spend $100 on the PHB, DMG and MM instead of a shedload of console games? Some, certainly, and I’m sure that folks out there will attest that there’s a bunch o’kids gaming with them regularly, or they’re running games with their own children on a regular basis. But I’ll wager it’s not enough to support an entire hobby financially. Mainly, that’s a problem caused by the culture the majority of us live in where Adults and Kids are being increasingly segregated by media-fueled paranoia about pedophiles living under your bed and other ridiculousness. Yes, pedophiles exist, but to treat every stranger like they are one is a terrible, terrible thing. That’s a whole ‘nuther topic I’m not going to go into though.

The point is this: for whatever reason, kids need to discover the magic of D&D for themselves. Just like we did, in fact.

And it starts with opening a Red Box.

Is it September yet?

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Google Wave is, unquestionably, the hot new thing on the intertubes. Except it’s not hot and it’s not new but it is, to be fair, a thing. There’s a lot of folks out there telling you what Google Wave is. “It’s real-time forums!” chants one. “It’s the new email!” says another. “No, it’s IRC on steroids!” utters a third. And in a way, they’re all both right and wrong at the same time.

In that respect I guess the best way to describe Google Wave is that it’s an elephant, and we’re all blind men. Pity the poor man who thinks it’s got a tiny trunk and a small smelly mouth.

To my mind – and bearing in mind I’m just another blind man here – Google Wave is an old internet technology re-invented badly.

Google Wave is a broken wiki.

For those that don’t know, a wiki is a collaborative website which encourages editing and refining of content. Users can post and edit each other’s work in a spirit of beneficial anarchy and (in theory at least) all users take a share in improving the content as a whole.

Just like Google Wave, then.

But of course a wiki is much more than that. Most wiki engines offer fine-grained revision control so you can see who altered what and when, and rollback changes if required. They possess a simple-but-sophisticated markup language where it’s ridiculously easy to interlink between pages (usually through using CamelCase to denote a WikiPage – see, that’s two instant WikiLinks written right there. And there’s another one.). Wikis are also usually either egalitarian in nature or there’s a loose hierarchy of editors to control and moderate the site.

And that’s where Google Wave – for now, at least – falls down.

For all it’s real-time bells and whistles it’s not wiki enough. To really fulfil it’s potential as a real-time forum / email replacement / steroidal IRC it needs the very WikiThings it lacks. It needs the fine revision control (the current pseudo revision system is best filed under “gimmick”). Oh gods it needs easy Wave interlinking. And the Google needs to decide whether to be brave and open everything up by making all Waves public by default, or improve the permission system to allow finer control of participants. Either is good, really.

Of course, all of this may well come – Google Wave is, after all, very firmly pre-Beta.

Or it might not. Wait and see.

It all depends on who is looking at the elephant at the time.

(Cross-posted to the RPG category too as Google Wave is hot stuff among we gamers right now and I value your input on this.  ‘Kay?)

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Way to go with the incendiary blog title, Grey! But it’s a simple point easily made; it’s now become something of an urban legend that 4e D&D isn’t a role-playing game in the traditional sense. Like all the best tall tales if enough people repeat it, it begins to take on a life of its own and folks who frankly should know better begin to believe it too.

It’s like the myth about the wild axe killer who lives in the shack in the middle of the forest. Only without the axe. Or the killer. Or the shack. Heck, there isn’t even a forest. but if enough folks say it, it must be true, right?

Wrong.

And I’ll prove it too. Again.

Here’s a random dungeon courtesy of the awesomely brilliant Demonweb Random Dungeon Generator.

This is something I’ve used for those times when I want to run a quick zero-prep dungeon, or when I want a kick-off point and map for a planned scenario. Heck, it even provides full d20 D&D stats for you. Way to go, Mr LazyGM! In this case, there’s a Troglodyte Zombie in Room 1, a Duergar Warrior and hidden treasure in Room 3, a Large Monstrous Centipede in Room 4 and a Spider Swarm in Room 5. Room 2 is (thankfully) empty, though one of the doors is booby trapped.

Now, I guess it’s fair to say that no gamer would chip in right now and say “but that’s not a role-playing game!”. All of the ingredients are there for a classic D&D dungeon bash – gloomy corridors, treasure, traps, illogically-placed monsters, the works. What makes it a role-playing game is the interaction between the players and GM. Perhaps they’ll try to negotiate with the Duergar, or lure the Trog Zombie into the Spider Swarm. Maybe the impetuous Fighter will trigger the Door Trap while the Rogue is busy picking the Wizards’ pockets. Whatever. The dungeon map and monsters are just things. It’s what you do with those things which makes the role-playing experience.

Now, here’s the second encounter from Coppernight Hold from Dungeon Delve (one of my personal favourite encounters):

This contains five Kobolds – 3 Dragonshields, a Skirmisher and a Wyrmpriest. There’s two traps (the statue and falling tapestries), a patch of difficult terrain and a small amount of treasure to be had. In other words, pretty much the same as what you’d find in a one or two rooms in any other edition of D&D. It’s like a small part of your average dungeon map, zoomed in. In fact I could quite easily drop this encounter into the map above as Room 22 in the bottom left corner.

Given the choice between a rich encounter like the one above and a typical Third Edition one where an encounter usually means one monster against 4 PCs and balance means the PCs should lose a quarter of their Hit Points, I’ll take the Fourth Edition Way every time.

I’ll say again: What makes it a role-playing game is the interaction between the players and GM.

If you play it like a tactical wargame then that’s what it is. Play it like a role-playing game, and it’s a role-playing game – and a damned good one too at that. Every character has options far beyond mere combat, including everything possible in lighter Old School D&D variants. In fact, this is one edition of D&D where it’s far easier for the GM to say “yes” to even the craziest Player suggestion. If the Barbarian wants to topple the statue onto the Kobolds, he can. Heck, if he wants to pick a freakin’ lock, he can at least try. If they want to negotiate with the Kobolds and perhaps gain a hint or two at what to expect deeper into the dungeon, they can. Nothing in the rules says you’ve GOT to fight, though if you do, I’d say that 4e D&D has one of the best combat engines ever designed for an RPG – with or without battlemat.

The main problem has been one of perception, and the blame for that lays squarely on the shoulders of the Players Handbook. If the PHB had shoulders, of course. Of the three Core books it’s the most poorly written (sorry, Rob, Andy and James) with far too much over-emphasis on combat uber alles. Background Options should have been there right from the start along with a beginner’s guide how to make interesting, fun characters. There should be a discussion about personality quirks and traits. Five pages spent on actual role-playing and less space spent listing 1,001 different ways to hurt people would have made a world of difference.

In comparison, the DMG is chock full of role-playing goodness; there’s advice about world building, weaving storylines, crafting memorable NPCs and more. It’s almost as if it’s talking about a different game in places!

But what’s done is done; WoTC have recognised that particular faux pas and bent over backwards to correct it in recent publications and online.

So yeah. 4e D&D IS a role-playing game. And if anyone else tells you differently: they’re wrong.

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