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With the release of the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons
roleplaying game and Dungeons and Dragons Insider suite of online tools coming in
a few short weeks, Wizards of the Coast employees have been criss-crossing the nation to demonstrate
and talk about these new products. I recently got a chance to sit down with
members of the development team to get a glimspe of the future.
I flew up to Chicago to meet with Designer James Wyatt, Brand Manager Kierin Chase, and Executive Producer Ken Troop from
Wizards of the Coast. The first topic of discussion was Dungeons & Dragons 4th
Edition. James discussed the history of the edition, the goals of the teams working on it
and reiterated numerous times that the way the game is played has not really changed.
James described the process of how the team looked at each monster, debated its merits and
drawbacks, and made the call to bring it to fourth edition or drop it. Even with monsters
that made the cut, most have been altered in someway (some more than others) to fit in with
the new philosophies of fourth edition.
Speaking of philosophies, the primary philosophy of the fourth edition is improving the communication used by players
and dungeon masters to present a unified set of terms for describing different parts of the
game. This philosophy also makes itself felt in the changes in presentation of the rules,
stats for monsters, and other key facets. Another philosophy that drove the design teams was
the desire to lower the barriers to entry for new players, while increasing the options for
those "boring classes" to make them more "sexy".
The new class options and methods of selecting them means that at any given level, all
classes have roughly the same number of at will, encounter, and daily powers. More
importantly, the new terminology helps players coordinate their parties without worrying
that the party make up will not meet expectations. Also, changes were made to classes to
help eliminate these situations as well. One of the examples James cited was
the case of a player saying he would bring a fighter, but instead of a melee character he
brings along an archer. In 4th Edition, the fighter class is no longer the best option
for creating a powerful archer, so a player bringing an archer character will be bringing
a "striker" character type instead, erasing any confusion among other players.
Another thing James talked about was how races are races and monsters are monsters. This
is meant to eliminate the need to provide or devise sometimes complicated methods of
translating monsters into player races. However, methods exist for making character classes
that are like monsters. An example James gave was of a rogue (re)designed to mimic the fire
archon monster.
The last item James spoke about was the upcoming adventure, Keep on the Shadowfell, which serves as a preview for the fourth
edition. Like the other fourth edition products, the design of adventures has been overhauled, with a sleek but informative design
replacing the often cumbersome design of third edition adventures. Wizards of the Coast has done away with long stat blocks that
often lead to the Dungeon Master overlooking important details in encounters, replacing them with a design that is color coded to
highlight the important aspects such as attack and defense options for monsters. Keep on the Shadowfell looks so nice in its
folder packaging, that some might even be tempted to use it as a presentation piece to decorate bookshelves. Keep on the Shadowfell
launches on May 20th, and includes all the information needed to reach level three in the 4th Edition ruleset.
Once James finished, Ken took over, demonstrating several pieces of the Dungeons &
Dragons Insider digital platform. First up was the Character Visualizer, an application
designed to let the player design how his or her character will look, down to the smallest
detail. Players of Neverwinter Nights will find many of the options familiar. However, the
Character Visualizer adds many new options, some that are used to integrate into other parts
of the Dungeons & Dragons Insider and others that do not require Dungeons &
Dragons Insider. Included in the assortment of options is the ability to export the
character on a selected background as a desktop wallpaper. Several different background
art options will be available on launch, and more are planned for a future release. The
option to export a token image (think social networking avatars) and virtual miniatures
for the Game Table round out the other export choices.
Ken also demonstrated the Game Table where players and Dungeon Masters can get
together online to play. This was designed with the separate gaming groups in mind, but
there is also a game search option, with a wide variety of options to filter the list
down based on the Dungeon Master, character type openings, and other search terms. The
final list has not been completed yet, and the door has been left open to add more options
in the future. The demo shown was fluid and smooth and allowed numerous options for both
Dungeon Masters and players. When moving the virtual miniatures a helpful movement counter
helps players and Dungeon Masters alike move their miniatures around quickly. The ability for
Dungeon Masters to keep pits and other traps hidden until a player's miniature moves near them
is also a helpful option. One thing that might come to as a surprise to many people is the fact
that the Game Table is not designed to adjucate the games. That aspect of the table
opens it up to the possibly of games being played using other rulesets than the Dungeons
& Dragons 4th Edition.
The Dungeons & Dragons Compendium was one of the items that Ken mentioned that was
not demonstrated. This searchable database is intended to replace the somewhat cumbersome
online lists that Wizards of the Coast currently has on their website and flesh them out
with more complete information. Shown briefly was the Character Designer used to
create characters. This tool is similar to the eTools product, but as James pointed out
will have the full support of Wizards of the Coast behind it. Adding options in the future
was one thing Ken mentioned frequently about the products. The Character Designer will
warn if a character is "illegal" according to the choosen ruleset, but will not prohibit these
characters from being saved or their basic stats exported to the visualizer, so that players
can create characters that conform to house rules without worrying about the application
rejecting them outright. Rounding out the application is the map designer tool, which is
again easy to use and loaded with helpful options. Maps can be exported to both the Game
Table and JPEG file format to be printed as 2D tiles.
Many of the tools, aside from the compendium and game table will include "offline" versions
that can be used without the need to be connected to the Dungeons & Dragons Insider
service. Updates will require a current subscription, and some features will not be available
with the offline editions. Speaking of the subscription, Wizards of the Coast is not quite
ready to discuss costs, but expect that information to be released soon, considering the
service is due to be released June 6th. (Wizards of the Coast has since announced a subscription
cost of $14.95 per month, following a free beta period. --Ed) It was mentioned, however, that there will be some
content that has an additional cost. Since it has been mentioned before that buying books
will unlock content, it is possible that this additional cost will not be incurred if the
corresponding book is already purchased.
I walked away from the meeting thinking that from a mechanics standpoint, there is more
similarity than differences with fourth edition when compared to third edition or 3.5, and
most of the differences are probably for the best. The new designs of the 4th Edition products are very sleek, and very well thought
out, in terms of how they present the crucial information to the Dungeon Masters and players. Still, at the back of my mind, there
was a little concern, something that I simply cannot put my finger on.
I was happily surprised with the options and polish that was demonstrated by the Insider applications
but disappointed that I can not yet judge value against cost. However, judging by the
quality and variety of tools included, I expect a price similar to many MMORPG subscriptions. (Based
on the new information about pricing, I currently believe the price to value ratio is a little high. However, the products shown
were not the final complete versions, and so the PtV ratio may be skewed by incompleteness of the products as they were
demonstrated. Also, the value of the service will probably be greater for players who have more time available for playing games
via the game table.)
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