4e: Mind Control
Content Warning: I’m going to discuss some mind control stuff in ways that violates consent. Not any specific outcomes from that, but if you find the whole vibe icky, that’s what this is about. Also, other, I guess, content warning: This isn’t about the horny topic of mind control, so if that’s the vibe you’re […]
4e D&D: Marks Are Great
A common criticism of 4th Edition D&D is that at its root, it was good at combat, and therefore, everything in the game, is in service of those combat rules. One example given, is that in 4th edition D&D, there’s the mark system, which turns any kind of player choices manipulating enemy behaviour is turned […]
4e: Rites and Rituals
A complaint about 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons was the ‘loss’ of a bunch of utility magic like Rope Trick and Leomund’s Hut. Typically, I hear it framed as the wizard specifically lost something by having its powers reduced to just the ability to fire off combat magic, and that’s kind of fair; when a […]
The Points of Light
Recent conversations about racism in D&D- Oh yeah, uh This isn’t going to be about that. That’s a pretty heavy thing. This is a light one. Anyway, recent conversations about racism in D&D got me thinking about how rarely I saw the flavour text for Orcs and Drow. They’re there, in the monster manual, and […]
4e Power Sources
Back in the olden days of Fourth Edition, we would cast our minds back to the even oldener days of Third Edition and the slightly less oldener days of Third Point Fifth Edition, all of which predates Fifth Edition, about which, I want to underscore, and reiterate, because I keep having to do this, I know […]
Oaths, Pacts and The Moral Failure of Trying
A lot of D&D players view their D&D world like they’re a bunch of cowards. There are two classes in the general ouvre of D&D who spend their lives in pursuit of a goal, having committed themselves to the will of something outside of themselves to have power enough to achieve it. One of them […]
Five Reasons You Should Try Running 4e
Typically when these edition conversations come up, I come at it with a certain kind of defensiveness. This is in part conciliatory – after all, I don’t think the conversation is useful if it’s about whether or not you should play 5e or 4e (or 3e, or Pathfinder, or whatever). It’s not useful, because I […]
Just Playing 4ED D&D
I remember sitting down and trying to make my case that 4ed D&D removed too many options from me, it made me do all this work all over again to make characters I liked, and now I didn’t even know if there was anything cool I could connect to. I even said ‘it doesn’t feel like D&D.’
Why 4ed?
I get there are a lot of reasons to dislike 4th Ed, that’s fine. But it’s approachable, it tries to be balanced, and its tools for storytellers are way stronger and way more inclusive than people seem to want to give it credit.