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Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Thoughts
By Cameron Sorden | October 25, 2007
Michael’s post over at MMOG Nation pointed me towards two excellent DnD 4.0 previews that are too cool to pass up sharing. I know at least some of you who read this are DnD fans… the first is a great post over at Aggro Me detailing a lot of what’s coming with 4.0, and the second is this YouTube video that demonstrates the new virtual tabletop:
While the virtual tabletop is cool, it also looks a little cumbersome and might have some growing pains, especially in the payment department. I can’t envision paying $10/month for what they’re offering now– it would make more sense to pay a traditional software fee of $50 or $60 and then get free access to their game servers in perpetuity, and maybe pay $20/year for new content or something. I mean, there are currently free solutions that work just as well. I don’t need figures rendered in 3D to have a good time playing DnD.
That said, it’s pretty cool to have a built-in online community of DnD fans centralized around tabletop game servers and a specific website. I like to look at it like the ultimate hobby shop back-room, where you’ll always be able to meet new people and find a pick-up game or start a new campaign if your friends flake out. There are also other applications of this online play space that I can envision which wouldn’t have happened very often in a traditional play setting for a variety of reasons.
- Guest Actors - There are bound to be people hanging out bored on the website at any given time. Frequent users will get to know each other and make friends. If someone on your friends list is online and bored while you’re running a campaign, why not have them jump in and play a guest NPC in your campaign? If the motivations and background of the NPC are explained in advance (or provided in a handy DM note), a good player would make things far more interesting than having the DM play them since the PCs won’t know this new player as well and might not expect him to do certain things.
- Play Variants - Sometimes you just want some fast fun in a game you enjoy. Time coordination is one of the hardest parts of tabletop gaming and schedules often are vastly different from player to player. I imagine that bored players will start doing short, one-session pick up games to make new friends and kill time. Among these variants could be one-shot dungeon crawls (rogue-style) where loot is random and the goal is to survive as long as possible, a battle royale where everyone builds a character at the same level using the same rules and you duke it out in a giant arena, and heavy RP single-scenario encounters (murder-mystery-at-the-inn type stuff). I’m sure there are infinite possibilities with creative players.
- Double DMing - Sometimes the party gets split up. As everyone who plays tabletop knows, this sucks. You have to sit and do nothing while the DM deals with the one half and then they have to sit and wait while he deals with your half. In an online setting, it would be easy to PM a friend and have him run a drinking contest or a bar-room brawl with the party half who’s bored while you deal with the “active” party. This works even better if you don’t want the two halves of the party to know what each other are doing (and can lead to some pretty exciting scenarios).
- Spectator Games - Watching a good DnD session can be as fun as playing one (well, that’s a lie– but it can still be fun). Sitting in on your friends’ games while bored is a good way to get fresh ideas for your own PCs or campaigns, and it would be really easy in an online setting.
There was also a quote from Aggro Me that I thought was really interesting and right on the mark:
Now, where D&D is going further then MMO’s is giving the mobs (or monsters if you will) similar classes. So some monsters will be tanks, other will do crowd control and so on. This will definitely make it easier for DM’s to put together solid, exciting encounters in much less time. Believe me MMO’s would love to do this - it would make combat far more exciting. And to some extent they have, but it’s really not there yet. The beauty of D&D is that you don’t have to worry about AI, because the DM is the AI. But I think MMO’s will reach this point someday. Just think about fighting a group of orcs in an MMO. Would you rather fight five orcs who just sit there and swing the same club at you or a coordinated group with tanks, healers and ranged dps? It would lead to so much more excitement as players put together different strategies based on what they are facing.
Brilliant. Thank you. Yes. Fighting a coordinated team of enemies is SO much more rewarding than having every enemy be a vanilla-flavored warrior. Lots of problems with that, yeah, especially in solo play, but that’s what designers are for. Get cracking, guys!
Anyway, I’ll be eagerly anticipating 4.0 and picking it up whenever they push it out the door. It looks quite cool by all accounts.
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