Lords of Brain

Fourteen years after abandoning the Dark Sun line of products, Wizards of the Coast released a new campaign setting based on the current 4E ruleset this August.  I recently picked up the brand new books and spent a very good while reading them and rereading bits of them.  Before I get into my impressions, I feel like I should put my opinion in context by writing about my thoughts of both the original Dark Sun world and the new 4E rules in general.

4E Dungeons & Dragons

In 1996, TSR went under and so did Dark Sun.  When Wizards of the Coast restarted D&D with 3rd Edition, they did not republish all the myriad campaign settings that TSR had in their stable.  Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Planescape, and Dark Sun were left behind.  This version of the game reached its pinnacle with v3.5 of the rules in 2003.  In the main, it was a popular edition.  I had been a student of the game, and collected the books, though I had no avenue of play.  Indeed, I had not played D&D of any kind since my Dark Sun based game back in 1997-8.

Fast forward to 2008, where two events shaped my experience of D&D.  The first was profound.  Gary Gygax (the creator of D&D) died, and a group of us decided to commemorate his memory with a session of v3.5 that led to a semi-regular game.  Second, a 4E version of the rules was announced by WotC later in the year.

Again, being a student of the game, I looked forward to the new edition.  I had enjoyed each successive version of the game these many years and felt that each revision both streamlined the rules and made them more flexible.  Rumors began to swirl concerning game concepts which were being removed from 4E, but I ignored them.  I did as I always do, ignored the early critics and resolved to make up my own mind in my own time.

I was able to do that after the official release and I read the new Player’s Handbook.

One of their goals was to make the game more accessible.  Easy to jump into and start playing right away without all of that messy character creation.  They succeeded because each character has been reduced to bland similarity.  The new Player’s Handbook is a testament to mindless hack and slash gaming.

You see, the old way of building a character made you think about your background as you were selecting skills and feats.  Where did the bard Rufo learn history?  How did he happen to be pick up ranks in Perform (oratory)?  Why does he speak Elven and Dwarven?  What was he doing when he picked up the Investigator feat?  These are all relevant questions and help you build a back story for the good bard.

In 4E they don’t even have bards, damn them.  What’s more a 3rd level fighter has the same skills as any other 3rd level fighter with only variations in ability scores to allow for the skill check to be more or less probable between the two.  What’s the point of arguing over who gets to intimidate the kobold prisoner if both fighters have exactly the same chance of success?

And, hey, you remember spells?  That’s all you’ll do is remember.  Now everything is a power or ritual.  And where’s the art of it when a 5th level rogue and a 5th level wizard both have the same number of powers (which are now called at-will, encounter, daily, and utility)?  Sure, they have different flavors, each can do a different thing, but the point is... rogues and wizards (and everyone else, don’t get caught up on the details!) use exactly the same mechanic for doing their stuff in combat and out.

If all you want to do is min/max your character and see how many goblins you can kill in an encounter I’m sure 4E is your favorite wet dream.  But it isn’t mine.  Oh, and every character gets healing surges?  How’s that work?  Where is the underlying logic that says a ranger can just heal himself by wanting it?  This is crap storytelling and worse roleplaying.  It tells me that they decided all the cool kids are playing World of Warcraft and they ought to make Dungeons & Dragons a little bit like it.  And then they made it a lot like it.

And so D&D has come full circle.  First it influenced countless pen and paper games and they in turn shaped a host of computer games which evolved and became inspiration to D&D.  It’s a sad cycle, if you ask me.  Predictable and soulless.