Typical conversation, one week after the D&D 4E launch:

Other person: “Well, from what I’ve heard, it sucks.”

Me: “Oh? What have you heard?”

Other person: “That it sucks.”

All right, then! I’ve been working my way through the PHB, and have gotten to the end of Feats, so at least I now know how the new multiclassing works. (Sue me for not having more reading time!) And so far, I’ve found a lot to like. This puts me at odds with fellow d21er Random, whose faint praise in last week’s post exists only to set the table for the barrage of negative blasts that is sure to follow. Let me offer my perspective, then.

If you could send the 4E rules back through a time warp to 1978, they would make (would have made?) people’s heads explode. Whereas 3E would have only caused modest headaches. Such is the level of progress that 4E represents. It is, no doubt, a progress of evolution, since you almost need to have lived through all the previous editions just to be able to grok this one, and yet its a masterful step in clearing away the old to make way for the new, and yes, improved.

Gamers should be thrilled. Cynical gamers, however, liken Wizards to Microsoft and denigrate them as nothing more than a bunch money-grubbing monopolists. To that I say, fey! D&D’s competition is not even other tabletop RPGs (and probably never was), it’s Halo 2 and World of Warcraft. What Wizards is doing with 4E should be seen for what it is – a valiant attempt to keep tabletop RPG gaming relevant and enticing in 2008, because it’s not 1978 anymore, and never will be again. But I digress.

A smart choice was made to focus on the Martial, Arcane, and Divine powers in the main book – this is a back-to-the-roots focus on the classic dungeon-crawl aesthetic, and clearly a great place to begin. Not so great if you really want to play outdoors from day one, but I’m sure the Nature power book will be here before you know it. It harkens back to the Basic/Expert delineation: start in the dungeons, graduate to the great outdoors. This is already influencing my thinking on my starting campaign geography and hub town.

I’m no big fan of the Dragonborn, Eladrin, and Tiefling, and I suppose I miss the departed Gnomes, but it’s not such a big deal. It looks easy enough to get Gnomes back if you want them, and as a DM I’ll make sure to find useful (but probably not starring) roles for these wacky new player races. Perhaps we’ll grow to like them, but they’ll never be on the same fantasy footing as elves and dwarves.

I like the way all the powers (and spells) have been brought into the class descriptions. It feels like a lot of learning up front but will probably come pretty easily if you start at first level and work your way up. The distinction between class powers and feats seems sensible.

Multiclassing looks workable. In 3E our entire party’s maiden voyage was undercut by rampant multiclassing; it wasn’t abundantly clear to us just how much potential we were losing when we went down that road. This time around, multiclassing seems to be designed as a boutique experience from the get-go, with the effort being to fill each class with a stronger sense of identity, purpose, and possibility so as not to run out of appeal.

From what I’ve seen so far, from the DM’s chair I feel like it’s going to be much easier to come up with solid and useful NPCs in far less time than in 3E. Similarly, from the briefest thumb-through of the Monster Manual, it looks like a lot of effort has been made into getting appropriately-challenging opponents set up with fewer headaches.

It’s hard not to feel like the play experience isn’t going to be even more about combat time, and that that time will be even more tactical than in 3E. This is a source of possible concern, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it works out in play. I get a sense with the new powers and rules that most of the action should be more streamlined, and if that’s true, it could be great. The goal is to get the party into a state of “flow” so that the action is immersive. Funny how you sometimes see that more often in a Magic duel than in a D&D encounter. So if some of that brilliance is making it in from that other Wizards franchise, we’ll be in good shape.

The watchword of what I’ll be shooting for in my campaign can be summed up in one word: classic. A bit nebulous perhaps, infused with your own hopes and experiences, but hopefully everyone will know it when the see it. I can tell that this version of the game is built for just that, though, and I’m hard-pressed to think of a better way to put a world of 4E naysayers in their place.