Personally, I was a big fan of D&D third edition. It was the first version of D&D that I played a proper campaign, and there was a lot of technical consistency to the rules that I could get a grasp on and create meaningful material with. I even wrote 3e material for some major publications.

Over the years, I began finding imperfections in D&D 3e, as did a lot of long-time 3e players. High-level combat took too long without instant-kill effects. Groups needed a proper mix of class roles to succeed, and so on. When 4e was announced in 2007 I looked forward to seeing those issues addressed.

What let me down most about 4e is that it not only failed to solve the worst problems, it only codified and made them worse, while taking out some of the things I liked the most.

Take solos, for example. In 3e, one of the worst combats I ever DMed was an elder earth elemental versus two PCs, a paladin and a monk. It became what’s been nicknamed “padded sumo”, a fight where both sides have lots of hit points and just keep hitting in a boring battle of attrition. 4e didn’t solve this. It just gave lots of hit points to both PCs and solo creatures.

Slow combat in general was the number one problem that 4e failed to solve for me. I gamed online where the limits of communication slow play more than you’d expect. 4e gave PCs more hit points, more combat options and more things to fight, without any way to compensate for the way this made combat turns take longer. At least low-level 3e combat was quick and decisive!

It’s too early to tell exactly what D&D 5th edition will be, but it’s my hope that it’ll be a game that solves the problems a lot of people discovered with both previous editions, and in doing so, unifies the Dungeons & Dragons playerbase that was fragmented by the release of 4th edition. It’ll be interesting to see what the designers come up with.

This assumption can be used to calculate roughly how much playtime it will take to go from level 1 to level 30. In practice, the experience required to go up a level can be gained in fewer than ten encounters, thanks to a combination of quest rewards, experienced gained from skill challenges and other noncombat encounters, and higher-level combat encounters. One can generally assume around seven combat encounters will provide sufficient experience to gain a level.

According to the assumptions of RPGA organized play events, a four hour session should be sufficient to make it through about three encounters and a bit of roleplaying. In my own experience as an RPGA DM, this assumption is not too far off the mark. Thus, for every two to three sessions of play (at four hours per session), one can expect to gain a level.

If the above assumptions hold true, then gaining 29 levels should take roughly sixty to ninety sessions, likely leaning towards the higher end. A campaign running from level 1 to level 30, then, can be expected to take over a year of play, even if a group plays once a week without fail. In practice, it is likely to be somewhere between a year and a half to two years of play, with one session of four hours a week.

Once you understand the expected duration of a 1-30 campaign, based on the assumed rate of advancement, it becomes much easier to play with it. Some DMs don’t bother tracking experience totals numerically, advancing their players in level whenever it feels appropriate to do so. This works well, but can lead to some levels being “longer” than others if it is not tracked—going by the numbers at least ensures a consistent rate of advancement. Numbers can be adjusted easily, as well.

For example, if you wanted to slow advancement slightly, you might shift the total experience required to level up to reflect twelve encounters rather than ten—three to four sessions, rather than 2-3. This would mean that second level is reached at 1200 experience, third at 2500, fourth at 4300, and so on. You could also speed things up, aiming for 8 encounters, ensuring a level increase every second session—second level would then be 800 experience, third at 1800, fourth at 3000, etcetera.

Adjusting experience requirements isn’t difficult, especially once one understands the play time the numbers represent. There are two things one must bear in mind, however, before deciding to go forward with such an alteration. First, the treasure parcel system will need to be adjusted to reflect any changes. If you reduce the number of encounters between leveling up, you should either hand out treasure faster or use the inherent bonuses system presented in the DMG2—simply because the defenses and attacks of monsters assume that at certain levels, a certain minimum enhancement bonus will have been applied to players. The other consideration is that you must let your players know before you begin about any adjustments you have made.

Experience and advancement are an important part of any roleplaying game, and by understanding the assumptions the game designers have made in creating these systems it becomes much easier to adapt them to suit your group’s particular requirements, be they for a speedier game or a lengthier campaign duration.

The Alexandrian takes a look at the Essentials Starter Set, with a historical comparison to the 1983 Red Box and a frank discussion of the place of the new game. The Alexandrian has previously been critical of 4E, having been a 4E playtester. His most notable complaint is the article Disassociated Mechanics, lamenting 4E’s lack of the fiction-to-mechanics tie that characterized good 3E sourcebooks:

Of course, you can sidestep all these issues with house rules if you just embrace the design ethos of 4th Edition: There is no explanation for the besieged foe ability. It is a mechanical manipulation with no corresponding reality in the game world whatsoever.

At that point, however, you’re no longer playing a roleplaying game. When the characters’ relationship to the game world is stripped away, they are no longer roles to be played. They have become nothing more than mechanical artifacts that are manipulated with other mechanical artifacts.

The Escapist, home to video game review series Zero Punctuation, snuck in a D&D column when I wasn’t looking and set up an interview with Mike Mearls, who is now D&D’s lead designer. It gives a sense that Mearls’ predecessor Rob Heinsoo is responsible for the “disassociated mechanics” situation and that Mearls is hoping to set things right with Essentials. It’s certainly the case that Essentials is an effort to bring back players who disliked D&D 4E’s direction, though it’s subjective whether those changes improve the game or merely pander to old players.

In response to feedback, The Escapist published the full transcript of the interview with Mike Mearls. He goes into more detail on what seemed missing from 4th edition:

If you look the 4th Edition handbook and you look at those players – you have to be well versed in D&D to understand the difference between the classes. It’s the old – I see this comment a lot online – “It doesn’t read very well, but it plays very well.”

I think what we were looking for in Essentials, especially for beginners, because there’s plenty of people out there who have stopped playing D&D – you want them to go “This reads well too,” because you’re dealing with an audience that isn’t already playing your game. [...]

Just going forward from a design standpoint, when you have more visceral design like that, I think it just leads to more interesting challenges for designers. You’re looking at things in more of a world point of view – “What is this guy doing in the world of D&D and how do we express this mechanically,” rather than vice versa.

Outspoken blogger RPGPundit loves the Escapist interview, going so far as to suggest that Mike Mearls May or May Not Be Off the Kool-aid.

Eberron creator Keith Baker had an interesting opinion titled Simulation vs Disassociated Mechanics:

In my mind, the issue is that if you’re looking for a realistic simulation, you’re in the wrong place. 4E isn’t trying to be a documentary about martial arts, realistically showcasing what can and can’t be done. Instead, it’s a Jackie Chan movie. [...]

For me, this is exactly what limited-use powers are. If my adventure is a movie, they are the moves that only get used a few times in the movie – the cool movies that ad some flair and excitement to the scene. This is tied to what I mean if I call 4E “cinematic” – because when I say cinematic, part of what I mean is that flavor is more important than realism. I don’t storm out of the Jackie Chan movie saying “Why didn’t he just trip that guy?” – because I know going in that realism isn’t what he’s aiming for.

I don’t like this rationalization. It would make this the least realistic D&D edition yet, and that’s abandoning what made the game popular. A commenter named Michael Pfaff makes an insightful reply that I think sums up the disassociatd mechanics issue:

The real disassociation [...] comes from when those mechanics aren’t tied to anything from a fictional perspective.

In older editions of D&D (3E and prior), you had to fictionally look into a medusa’s eyes in order for it’s “gaze” to affect you. Without this fictional action, there is no effect. In the 3E SRD, the description even states, “It uses normal weapons to attack those who avert their eyes or survive its gaze…”

This makes sense. I can fictionally say, “My character closes his eyes, or shields them from the medusa’s gaze.” Right?

However, in 4E, the medusa’s power is written with no fictional backbone, only it’s mechanical weight [...] by RAW, my character can only not be affected by this attack if he has the “blind” or “blinded” keyword.

Nothing I do fictionally matters. I can avert my eyes, I can conceal my eyes, I can close them. I’m not “blind” though, am I? So, the medusa’s gaze attack affects me none the less.

Keith Baker replies:

You can say that “The rules never clearly state that a character can voluntarily blind himself by covering his eyes”, but in doing so you’re really missing the flavor I LIKE about 4E, which is that in encourages improvisation. The 4E approach to skills has always been “Rather than concretely stating everything that can be done with a skill, we expect you to be creative in your application of it, and for the DM to be the final judge of what can and can’t be done.” This is spelled out more clearly in the Rules Compendium and Essentials, but it’s always been the premise, and again, it’s always been my favorite thing about 4E.

Finally, Chatty DM at Critical Hits reviews the D&D Essentials DM’s Kit.

Many items in 4E enhance the core competency of a certain character build, and do so in a very specific way. In AD&D, you had more items granting non-combat abilities, improved defences or new attack forms, and most items worked equally well in the hands of any character. In 3E, unwanted items could be sold for half, with the implication that you can spend the gold buying something you want. Since 4E reduced sale price to 20%, your party wealth will vary considerably depending on whether or not you got items you could use.

There are also an awful lot of magic items in D&D4E. At last count, the Compendium had 8,179 items, and this is only two years into the game’s run. That seriously reduces your chances of getting a particular item as a random drop, and it’s not like you can grind the same dungeon over and over as you would in a video game.

This means that even though there isn’t a tradition in D&D of DMs accepting item requests, 4th edition has made it important to begin one. You can always work it into the story that the characters came to the adventure site following rumours or divinations suggesting that the items they’re looking for are here, or just give them gold and let them buy or craft their own equipment.

The modrons are AD&D-era geometric shape creatures from Mechanus, a plane of pure law. They’re also really stupid-looking, which is why they’re so awesome. In this PDF, Randy stats up modrons from the mechanical Monodrone to the deific Primus.

Third edition players will find Ken Marable’s v3.5 modron stats in a back issue of Dragon magazine #354.

What they want

In Dragon, they’re after more assassin material, especially Class Acts. Assassin isn’t getting much coverage in the main books, so D&D Insider is a good niche for assassin support. They’re also looking for psionics material to complement the battlemind, monk and psion classes from Player’s Handbook 3.

Dungeon wants Campaign Workbook articles, individual elements which are easy to drop into a campaign. Single villains, dungeon rooms and encounters are in demand, especially if they’re particularly cool. Dungeon also wants Chaos Scar adventures, which will probably give you the best wordcount of all the articles Youngs is requesting.

What they don’t want

D&D Insider doesn’t want any new races, classes, or builds. While new character options are useful and interesting, they’re mainly the territory of official books, not D&D Insider articles. Adventures featuring new monsters are also out, since there are already over 3,000 creatures in the D&D Compendium database.

They also don’t want anything that’s just a direct update from a previous edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Anything you write should be new and interesting.

Links: Freelancing 101

Critical Hits has a new article titled Freelancing 101, in which former D&D Insider editor Chris Sims gives first-hand advice on how to write freelance for D&D Insider or an RPG publisher, and what editors want to see.

I previously posted part 1-3, part 4-6, part 7-9 plus DM’s commentary for parts 1-4, part 10-12 plus DM’s commentary for parts 5-6.

Parts 14-16 are behind the cut.

D20 Source previously posted part 1-3, part 4-6, part 7-9 plus DM’s commentary for parts 1-4, part 10-12 plus DM’s commentary for parts 5-6.

Parts 8-12 are behind the cut.

Under the cut are parts 11 and 12, and DM’s commentary for parts 5 and 6. If you missed the previous episodes, get caught up on part 1-3, part 4-6, and part 7-9 plus DM’s commentary for parts 1-4.

A useful DM’s tip from part 12: Make sure your players appreciate when their little +2 bonuses make the difference between a hit and a miss. It’s easy as a player to forget which of your bonuses made the difference, and that might make bonus-granting abilities seem less important. It’s also important to track all your different bonuses, both as a DM and as a player.

DM’s Commentary

Click onward for parts eight and nine, the DM’s commentary edition parts one to four, and an important note on the slip-up Chris Perkins makes in an earlier segment.

DM’s commentary

Can I use Darkfire on the door?

In part 5, the DM Chris Perkins rules that a player can’t use the drow Darkfire ability to melt the door, giving the reason that the power specifies “one creature” as its target, and the door isn’t a creature. Attentive viewers noted that the DM did allow players to make a basic attack on the door, which also specifies “one creature” as its target.

The Internet immediately leapt to complain. 4E is too inflexible! 4E’s writers are idiots!

However, Darkfire does not deal fire damage, or any damage – it only illuminates a target. Chris Perkins made the correct ruling, although he gave the wrong reason. Importantly, his quick decision kept the game going, which is the goal of a good DM.