Penny Arcade

You might have heard of D&D Essentials already; I don’t really know what to think of it yet.  Billed as a streamlined yet compatible version of Dungeons & Dragons, it makes a virtue of speed at every level of play.  It’s not hard to find thoughts out there on it, but I couldn’t contextualize them because I don’t know what’s true.

I wondered when this day would come, to be sure.  In the same way that you don’t broach the subject of inevitable death at the register of the pet store, Gabriel was taking to this type of play so quickly and so well that I did my best to prolong the magic.  He saw the Holy Wars over the Third and Fourth Editions, along with the conscientious objectors who went to Unisystem, Burning Wheel, Savage Worlds, or any one of a billion indie systems.  None of it made sense to him, because he was missing a crucial piece of the puzzle.

He tried to run a game with it this weekend, actually; in my mind, I can see his lip arch with each new heresy.  I wonder how it went.

I was talking on Friday about what I think “fifteen dollars” means as a price, but it’s interesting beyond that, because it’s one of the few times Sony and Microsoft share a model.  Virtually from the outset, Sony has priced their digital offerings below Microsoft’s quite on purpose.  It’s been that way for a long time, since before the machines had achieved something like price parity, when the message out of Japan was one of total value.  Sony also chose to release substantially fewer titles, but titles of higher fidelity, to further establish that idea.

Xbox Live Arcade was one a repository for Indie surprises, dusted-off “gems” from the back catalogue, original works, and assorted Goddamned mutants.  There’s been an effort to make it a little more boutique by forking off the Indie tier altogether, which I’ve been making an effort to incorporate into my consciousness.  it feels like work, because even with free demos for every game I often come up empty handed.  It’s a wild place.  I don’t want to make value judgments, but…  it is overgrown.  This can be exciting, too.  It reminds me of QuantumLink, with its vaguely curated bazaar heaped with exotic spices and chooking game birds.  A few minutes sifting through the bins produced Ancient Trader, a genuine nautical treasure; rewarded thus, why wouldn’t I return?

(CW)TB

one of them will know enough to ache

I received an early copy of the new Dungeons and Dragons Red Box last week and quickly wrangled a group of friends for a trial run. The game consisted of my wife Kara who has only played 4e a handful of times. My friend Alex who has played in my Monday night game for nearly two years now (Holy shit has it really been that long!). The dashing Kris Straub of Chainsaw Suit fame with his months of 4e experience and his lady friend Marlo who had never played a game of D&D in her life. I want to mention my players because I think that your level of familiarity with the game will shape your opinion of Essentials.

The first thing I noticed about Essentials was its character creation process. I have honestly never filled in a character sheet with a pencil. Since I discovered D&D with 4e I have always had the benefit of the online character creator. I have to say there was something cool about filling in numbers and erasing mistakes. The Essentials Player’s Handbook does an incredible job of walking you through this process via a solo adventure.

It’s structured like an old choose your own adventure with questions at the end of each section. When your wagon is attacked by goblins in the beginning the story asks you if your first reaction is to draw a weapon, cast a spell, heal the driver or sneak around behind the attackers. From there you jump to the appropriate section and continue with the adventure. What kind of spell do you cast? do you offer to help or ask for a reward? By the end of the adventure you have completely filled out your character sheet with your class, defences, skills, languages, gear and powers. I honestly found this part to be really smart and a lot of fun.

Once we had characters it was time to play and honestly I don’t think there is much difference between 4e and Essentials. I’d say the biggest change is an overall simplification of the character classes. In my regular game the players are level 20 now and each of them has pages of power cards, items and feats. Even the fighter has a hundred different ways to hit someone with a sword. For the most part Essentials gets rid of a lot of this stuff. Sure the wizard had half a dozen powers but the fighter just hit things with his sword all night.

I guess the idea is to help get new players into the game without confusing them with a binder full of powers as well as get older players to come back. From what I’ve been told this is a return to the roots of D&D where fighters hit stuff and wizards were the ones with all the cool spells. Essentials attempts to solve two problems that I don’t actually have, so it’s hard for me to really comment on it. It does a great job of doing something I’m not interested in doing.

My players all come from video games and almost all of them have played World of Warcraft for years. My wife felt very comfortable stepping into 4e because it felt like building a character in WOW. Even if she is a warrior she expects to see a ton of different powers down there in her action bar. The idea of only being able to do basic attacks from a couple different stances just doesn’t cut it for most of the players I know. They certainly had fun with Essentials but I don’t think any of them would build an essentials character to play in a regular game vs. a 4e character.

As a DM there was really no difference in adjudicating the Essentials game. I can see how someone could play an Essentials character at a table of 4e players with no difficulty.  The Red Box is a great product and it really does give you everything you need to play Dungeons and Dragons. They have succeeded in stripping away everything that is not “essential” to playing D&D. The end result just happens to be something I’m not interested in.

I never played the older versions and so I don’t long for some return to the “good old days”. I don’t have a group of friends torn apart by edition wars. Essentials isn’t a new edition or even a dramatic departure from the current game. It’s really just a slightly different way to play 4e. I think it’s worth picking up and showing to your players. I say get it and run it as a one off some night. Who knows, maybe one of them will fall in love with it and want to play an Essentials character in your regular game. There is certainly no harm in exploring different ways to play D&D and in the end that’s all Essentials is doing.

-Gabe out

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