The short version: It’s awesome and hilarious and you should listen to it right away.

The longer version is that it’s great podcasting in a general sense: Fans of D&D are going to get a nice insight into some of the 4th Edition changes while even people who aren’t interested in the nuts and bolts of the game can get a good sense of what a good role-playing session is like. It’s sometimes tough to explain to people who don’t play RPGs what makes it fun, and this is a great exercise because it captures that essence right away and it just so happens the PvP and PA guys are hilarious so it’s framed in a comedic backdrop that really pulls the whole thing together.

Plus the first episode includes the phrase “I’m just super-good at D&D” that had me in stitches so, yeah, it’s worth listening. As if that wasn’t enough, they’re also building an accompanying comic that chronicles the adventure and it’s pretty sweet in and of itself (though a bit context-less without having listened to the podcast).

As with most stuff the PA guys do, the language gets pretty rough so it’s maybe not for kids, but everyone else should make time to check this out.

But I’m not here to talk about specific changes to D&D but rather to ask a question: Considering that D&D is basically the flagship product not only for WotC but for role-playing in general, what ought 4th Edition look like? What changes need to be made to this essential title to meet the varied criteria for a) New players b) Veterans and c) Lapsed players, especially those who may have felt put off by the changes from AD&D 2nd Edition to 3rd and 3.5?

Strangely enough, I kind of identify with all three of these groups. I played some 2nd Edition and more or less enjoyed it but my focus has usually been superhero or SF settings so while D&D may be great for fantasy, I really don’t play that much fantasy in the first place. Because of that my familiarity with Dungeons and Dragons has always been negligible to the point that I practically feel like a newbie every time I play. But at the same time I’ve been through 2nd Edition, I got stung by some of the tweaks that were a part of 3rd and I participated in a campaign using 3.5 so I do have enough experience to know how to create a character, run an adventure and play through a full encounter’s worth of combat. Yet through all that, I kind of have a nostalgia for the old clunky TSR rules and I tend to shy away from D&D when it comes to my own games.

So taking all these perspectives I have toward D&D into account, here is my un-researched, uneducated opinion on what they should do to make me want to play it a) at all, b) more and c) again.

Hooking the Newbies

Role-playing is kind of like programming computers for fun: Either you seek it out because of a predisposition or you happen across it and make a decision. For those who don’t seek it out on their own the biggest hurdle to overcome is the geek factor. Some people just can’t stoop to the level of geekdom required to play D&D. I’m not sure what you can do about that without fundamentally altering what role-playing, especially in a fantasy setting, means. Video games began to shed their geeky patois when sports games earned some street credibility and non-nerds found an aspect of the hobby to latch onto. I don’t see that happening with RPGs.

But the second hurdle for non-gamers is the complexity of the game. There are, even in the fairly lightweight rules of D20, a lot of arcane tables and conceptual mind-warps that can quickly scare off someone who doesn’t find themselves drawn to math-as-leisure-activity. A possible approach to this that might make Dungeons and Dragons more compelling for people is to introduce a tiered system of complexity. I’m sure there are other games out there that attempt this and I concede that a similar experiment with WotC’s other major property, Magic: The Gathering didn’t go over so well. But the problem with Magic (Portal I believe they called it) was that the games weren’t exactly compatible.

The key would be creating a set of rules that worked well as a simplified, fast moving game but could have extra layers of detail added to them to create a more traditional D&D experience. The design challenge would be significant, but for a company that has an expanded audience as a core business need, perhaps one worth undertaking.

Keeping the Old Guard Happy

As someone who enjoys role-playing games and has a certain peculiar soft spot for D&D yet who finds himself more drawn to alternate systems and worlds than the one offered by D&D proper, I ask myself, “What would it take for me to play more D&D?”

I don’t know that I exactly qualify as a veteran, but I have played through several new editions and I consider myself fairly experienced at role-playing in general. To an extent my opinion of D&D is shaped mostly by the setting. The basic Tolkien-esque fantasy realm is fine and all but the creative spark doesn’t fly for me as a game master or world-builder within those confines. It’s a personal thing, and not indicative of all GMs. As a player, though, I have no particular complaints with the fantasy setting.

Perhaps that’s not entirely true. As a player my biggest complaint is that first-level D&D characters tend to be one of two things: Quite weak or painfully archetypal. I don’t want to be an elven ranger or a human fighter. I don’t want to have to slog through dozens of rats and low challenge rating Kobolds just to earn enough XP to get to the good skills or feats or until I can multi-class into something that has some actual hooks.

By the same token though I don’t necessarily want to always have to start my campaigns at a higher level because there is a certain thrill to working a character up from the bottom, role-playing through the stories of conquest and bravery rather than simply writing them down into a box on a character sheet.

Other games and systems manage to allow for interesting low level characters, or at least low level characters that feel heroic and interesting. One thing I think that might help is to adjust the scale a bit. For example, my opinion is that 3.5 characters start getting interesting around level four. What if WotC made it so that base starting characters were roughly equivalent in skills and strength to level 4 characters in 3.5? They could even include rules for making “old standard” first level characters (maybe call them Level 0 characters) in case players or DMs wanted to role-play through the awkward first adventures of a hero for the sake of a long-term campaign, but for most people they would end up playing characters that had a larger group of starting options.

Another thing that I think would help my interest in D&D would be a greater focus on making the rulebooks and supplements feel less like marketing-driven products and more like gamer-friendly resources. For example, books like The Complete Mage ought to cover supplementary material for playing as a magic-user but should also include complete listings of magic spells for use as that type of player. When the Arms & Equipment Guide requires a supplemental tome for legendary weapons, it’s not really a complete guide, is it? I would prefer fewer but more comprehensive sourcebooks and divide specialty classes, spells, monsters and equipment into setting or campaign sourcebooks.

I’d prefer books that focused on encouraging DMs to build their own worlds, that explained how to construct a profile for a new monster or gave tips on how to spec a special weapon than books that simply listed new worlds and monsters and weapons. Most DMs alter and modify the heck out of everything anyway, so why bother with year after year of new campaign settings that hardly anyone plays? Why not play to role-playing’s biggest strength which is facilitating imagination?

The biggest thing I think to keep enthusiastic players playing is to give them the tools they need to create better campaigns and adventures faster and easier. Part and parcel with the layered design to ease new players in could be having modular rulesets. To an extent they already do this with third-party supplemental material that replaces combat options, but why not make all game mechanics modular? To an extent they already do this with the D&D miniatures line which can be used in campaigns for combat resolution, but why not publish several combat variants? Give players the option of using complex, detailed combat rules or let them play with looser, more cinematic rules. Let them use miniatures or cards or quick-outcome dice rolls or LARP actions depending on the style of the group.

None of this is prohibited now but by including it explicitly you can add an air of authenticity for games that aren’t played by regular meeting groups (I’m thinking of convention adventures as an example). I’d also like to see WotC focus more on useful tools like computer software for character generation, campaign design, dungeon mapping and character profile design. Imagine a Player Suite where you can roll your character, and in the background it uses your choices and attributes to build a basic 3D model of your character along the lines of the character generators in many video games. You could then tweak and adjust it to your liking and finally print out a portrait or perhaps pay a fee to upload the model to WotC and have them fabricate a custom plastic miniature.

My point is that rather than spend as much time as they (and TSR before them, let’s be honest) have on extraneous rulebooks and settings, they should be focusing on creating a superb base game and then working furiously to facilitate the player’s use of that base as a jumping off point for their own creativity.

Bringing the Lost Back into the Fold

Some of what I’ve already suggested would probably go a long way toward bringing people who used to play back into the game. Having modular rules could allow WotC to create a game that includes all the balance tweaks and basic playtest experience that has gone into Dungeons and Dragons in the last ten years yet has a feel that is more like AD&D 2nd Edition than anything that’s come since.

Also by focusing on creativity facilitation rather than reams of optional rules and supplementary fluff they could decrease the perception of entry barrier that’s been erected starting with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Many people I know shied away from D&D because they started to need their income to go toward more “adult” things than the newest campaign sourcebook. If the core set was the core of the products offered and most everything else was plainly optional or mostly targeted at the hardcore player it might not seem so much like “getting into” something that would be a long term money pit.

But I think the biggest improvement WotC could make would be to put a lot of resources behind creating a robust system that allowed for remote role-playing. I’ve heard of a number of projects to make this work but the biggest reason I know for people who enjoy role-playing to stop participating is the lack of available players. I don’t hesitate to say that no net-based game would hold a candle to an in-person session with an engaged group of players but when it’s that or back to WoW, I’d rather involve a lot more imagination than a computer game can generate.

Conclusion

So that’s my two bits. I don’t know what Wizards has in mind for 4th Edition (we’ll find out shortly!) but hopefully they’ve considered all this.

What about you? Do you agree? Have suggestions of your own for how you would approach a new version of the graddaddy of all RPGs? Feel free to leave a comment or email me at ironsoap@tunnelsofdoom.org.