I listened to the Penny Arcade playtests of 4e. It runs smoothly, but it doesn't feel like D&D because every character now has a slew of specials. You are no longer playing skilled people. You now live in a world where everyone is magic. That's fine for some settings, but it doesn't feel right for sword and sorcery purists.

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Despite playing in a camaign, I can't say that I've read the rules thoroughly enough to support this, but: It's my understanding that the PCs represent the exceptional. Your village blacksmith and town drunk don't get sly flourish or eldritch blast.

The rules also have "minion" rules for speeding up combat: They have 1 hit point and if you hit them they just die.

How common the exceptional "Hero" level characters are depends a bit on the GM and the setting. I mean, even in 3rd edition the games I played in typically had magical items available for purchase in shops and magical spells available for hire. We felt pretty unexceptional in those settings.

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In some ways 4e is simpler (easier character creation, easy monster/encounter prep). In other ways it's tedious (keeping track of conditions is one task that really annoyed our group).

Star Wars Saga edition is much better - an evolution of 3e that made sense. But it's a different kind of game, of course.

For a fun dungeon crawl, I'd almost consider going back to the old Rules Cyclopedia/Basic/Expert Set - simpler, yes, but rules are quick to pick up and work well enough. But that might just be nostalgia for simpler times talking.

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No, I agree with you. There's so much miniutia that the old Basic/Expert sets didn't need. *shakes cane* We had a 25 page softcover book, we had spells up to level 3 and that was good enough for us!

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Tony has the right of it.

Parts of it were extremely simple. Very little "option paralysis" since PCs only had a few, different choices. "Standard attacks" only ever came up in special situations and with the 15(?) year old who was playing with us who didn't grok the Warlord's powers.

That said, combats seemed to last longer in some respects because except for Daily powers, the PCs were not dishing out tons of damage each round, and except for Minions, everyone, PCs and opponents alike, have more than in 3e.

As Tony said, effects/conditions could get burdensome when several of them were going on at once.

OTOH, even though the Indiegamers value RP experimentation, we had a fair amount of fun with 4e, and may even pick it up again some day.

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I agree entirely. Saga is a much more elegant system. I can't say about the Rules Cyclopedia, though a lot of people seem to be of your opinion there...

For Beer and Pretzels gaming, though, I suggest Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Completely random and hilarious character generation, so there are no boring bits where the book is getting passed around. Very simple percentile rolls for attack/defense.

'Course, it has a flavor, and that flavor is sorta like Paranoia in a jumpy 1400s Germany... Lots of flailing and dying. So you gotta be in the mood for funny instead of glorious.

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I tell you this because I believe in knowledge, not because I support D&D, 4E, WotC, or whatever.

At NW, Cort was saying that the online D&D thing is $5/mo and includes all the content from all the books and Dragon magazine and such. There's some kind of free signup that gives you the basics/essentials up to 3rd level. It might be a good way to experiment without buying the books, especially if enough of the core stuff is available.

Also, rob_donoghue has posted a lot about his experiences playing the game.

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I've been playing in a game for a few months now:

http://sealwatch.pbwiki.com/

The positive: Significantly less bookkeeping than 3.X, to the point where I can mostly play without a character sheet. Combat is kinda fun for once, 1st level characters are no longer frail things with limited resources and a strong chance of dying. The rules are entirely bulletshaped for combat and your role in it, which means that everyone has something to contribute, so long as what they are contributing to is killing things.

The negative: You are much more limited in character concepts, even compared to 3.X. Coming from 3.X, I've also found it hard to figure out how to adapt concepts from that game to this one. (Case in point: The duelist.) The majority of your abilities revolve around killing things.

I think that's the basics.

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You're still in A², right? Let me know if you do this, especially if you decide to run it in a "pick-up" format where it isn't necessary to attend every session.

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