D&D Kent Game Report
Last Friday I ran my first D&D 4th Edition session. Overall, it went well, with a few bumps that I hope will work out in future sessions.
Here’s how it went.
The group was myself, and five high school students. None of us had played D&D 4, three had never played any version of D&D, two hadn’t seen dice with more or less than 6 sides, so it was a mostly inexperienced group. We planned to run for two hours, and we went over by about thirty minutes.
We’re running through Keep on the Shadowfell, which starts with a combat encounter. We used the Character Builder to print character sheets, this went really well, as it prints power cards, which proved invaluable with all the new players. It let them see what their tactical options were easily. For the next session, I’m going to make up a cheat sheet for the more traditional options (charges, grabs and the like). The fight was the five players against 8 kobolds. Withthe
new group, it took two hours to run, I think it would go much faster once everyone gets a handle on the system.
My DMing style needs a lot of work. I found it difficult for me to frame the encounter in a way that has any atmosphere. I hope that I’ll improve with practice.
We didn’t have much time for the in town interaction, which was probably for the best, it’ll give me time to get to ‘know’ the people in the town.
My biggest concern is that since the session was entirely combat, I’m concerned that there will be an expection that that’s the game. This only builds the pressure on me to balance the next session.
One of the complaints that I’ve heard about 4th edition is that it’s too reliant on miniatures, usually followed by a rant about how they sell them in a sealed box, which I admit is frustrating. We used pogs from the PDF that Firey Dragon released for the Shadowfell adventure, mounted on one inch washers, which I think went well. They worked out to about $0.12 per token.
Overall, I’m liking the game. I think it’s the most accessible version of D&D to date. I like that nobody seemed too overwhelmed by the game (I did make lots of assumptions to keep the game moving, such as not making players worry about minor actions unless they’re doing too
much, and I think that I messed up flanking).
The biggest piece of advice for someone running this version, is that the system doesn’t try to help with the more ’story focused’ aspects of the game. In third edition, there were skills that weren’t particularly useful for adventuring (craft comes to mind), which would give the DM hints for what’s important to the character, and what sort of story the player wants to have (Bangs to you Story Games hippies). This makes character background pretty important if you want a RPG that isn’t heavy on the game and light on the roleplaying. I’m not sure if I like that, but I think that it’s okay once it’s known. I’m wanting something like the old 1e specialty table. The thing I’m really excited about is the apparent focus on making it easy to play, by lowering the learning curve, and making D&D less of a lifestyle choice, I hope that this translates in more time spent playing, which is why we all game.
