Introduction to the experience

About a year ago, I decided to start up a new D&D campaign with my roommates and some other friends. Back in high school I was an avid player of AD&D 2nd edition and was really looking for the same experience - a highly story-driven, role-playing-heavy campaign.

I looked over the 4th edition books and quickly realized that it wasn't for me. It was appalling, actually. At a glance, every character class looked the same. They all had access to the same attack mechanics and all abilities did about the same thing. Wizards were just fighters that cast spells instead of swing swords. There were no mechanics in places for doing anything but beating into submission anything or anyone you came across.

So I ended up DMing a 3.5 game back then. It met with disaster pretty early, but that's an entirely different story. I went on with my life convinced I just didn't have the energy to DM the kind of D&D game I really wanted to play.

Fast forward to a month or two ago. I had finished listening to the entire archives of This American Life and Radiolab at work and needed something new to occupy my brain while searching for micron-sized flakes of graphene. So started listening to the Penny-Arcade D&D podcasts and quickly came to some realizations.

First of all, these podcasts are 100% Wizards of the Coast PR - clearly trying to get Penny Arcade fans to try out 4th edition. You know, you listen to them playing and think, "Wow, they're having a lot of fun. I could have that much fun if I played, too!"

What mainly went through my head, however, was, "Wow, the encounters these guys are fighting are really lame. I could come up with much more interesting fights." Also I realized I had somewhat misjudged the mechanics of 4th edition, and, more importantly, I had also misjudged the strong allure of beating into submission anything or anyone you came across.

The simple fact is that it's a completely different game. If you want a role-playing-heavy open experience for your D&D experience, go play 3.5. If you want an encounter-heavy hack-and-slash, the mechanics are there in 4th edition to set up some amazingly intricate encounters that I don't think you could pull off as enjoyably in earlier editions.

I mean, you could almost turn it into a board game. Set up the map with the terrain and the players and the monsters and then have at it. And, you see, I really like board games.

So that's what I tried to accomplish with my new 4th edition campaign. I brought in some players totally new to D&D and so really wanted to cut out all the role-playing stuff where a lot of inexperienced players can get really caught up on, looking around the table with a confused expression on their face.

It's going to be a bit of story, maybe some talking back and forth, and then BAM here's your next encounter. Obviously there are draw-backs to railed purely hack-and-slash adventures. I may change it up a little once the players are more comfortable with what's going on, but for now I really think I can keep their interest with some totally outside-the-box encounters I have lined up.

We'll see how it goes...