A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The long running D&D 3.5 campaign I've been playing in has finally collapsed under the ever increasing work required to keep it going. John, our dm, just couldn't devote the time necessary to build opponents at this level that could challenge the party anymore. It's an often heard lament of 3rd edition dm's that it's just too much work to run the game past a certain point and this campaign was probably a few levels (13th) past that. So John didn't want to run the campaign any longer, so now what?
I've been wanting to dm again, so I volunteered to run a new 4e campaign for them. Why 4e when I've been a vocal detractor against it? Well, I certainly didn't want to continue the present campaign. I've dm'ed 3.5 at high levels before and it is not fun to do in my opinion. It's also a complete bitch to balance correctly. You either end up with the pc's blowing through encounters like they're nothing or TPK's - it's very hard to get that middle ground of a good fight that's challenging without being fatal. Starting a new 3.5 campaign is also out as it would just end up the same way in a few months.
So, why not run an older version of D&D? I certainly enjoy older, simpler versions- Basic D&D and AD&D 2e probably being my favorites. The OGL clones available like Labyrinth Lord and OSRIC mean that the rules are free and they are compatible with a lot of old adventures that I have. There are two reasons for not choosing this route at this time. One, my current gaming group are all college students in their early 20's. They have no history with the older games having started playing with WoW and D&D 3e. Earlier versions of D&D seem woefully incomplete to their eyes. They like intricate tactical fights and things like feats. D&D 4e would seem tailor made for them. The other reason for my choice of game is that I really just want to try something new. I'm getting tired of reading the same old rules and running the same old modules. I need something fresh.
So, why not try another game than D&D entirely? Trick question, 4e isn't D&D so it is a new game.
Seriously though, while I have been a player in this game I have bought several other games that I thought of running next- Savage Worlds, Basic Roleplaying, Dragon Age, OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, HackMaster Basic, WFRP 1e - to name a few. OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, and WFRP are out as they aren't something that I haven't run before. BRP and HMb are just too much work for me. BRP is easy to play but requires a lot of front-end work to get a campaign set up for. HMb is just too fiddly and will only get worse as HM Advanced comes out. The critical miss tables in the latest issue of KoDT confirms that. Savage Worlds with it's Fantasy Companion comes very close to being ideal but there are a few things that bug me about it (weird dice mechanics, cards for initiative, starting character power) and I have doubts about it being good for lengthy campaigns. Dragon Age also comes close and it would have been a good fit for my group as I think all of them have played the video game- except for me which is why I would have a real hard time running it. They know much more about the setting than I do. That's never a good thing.
So, why 4e now when I've railed against it before? When it first came out, it was so different that it was a shock. I wanted a better D&D not a different D&D (if that makes any sense). So it pissed me off. I still think they made a major mistake in adding so many unfamiliar elements to the core set of rules. The new races, classes, and cosmology don't have a place in my fantasy head space. I think they realize this now as the new beginner sets that they have coming out later this year have pared away much of what I don't want. It was the announcement of those products that got me to take another look at 4e. Also, by ignoring 4e for the past 2 years, I think I can finally look at it objectively as a new and different game and judge it on it's own as a good or bad game.
Now I have my work cut out for me as the clock is ticking to our first game next week and the only 4e product I own is the basic boxed set which is fairly incomplete as a working game. I did order the phb1/phb2 set (great deal, by the way) from Amazon a week ago which was before I knew I'd be running a game or else I'd have ordered a dmg while I was at it. Unfortunately, it looks like the books may not arrive in time to help. Oh well, the group can use the online character generator to make characters and I guess I can see just how much mileage I can get out of the boxed set in the meantime.
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