Take a look at your equipment inventory. What’s there? Magic items, maybe an adventurer’s kit. Anything else? That’s what mine looks like too. In fact most players I’ve met have similar looking inventories. Empty. Bereft of any life or originality. Occasionally, I will see a crowbar or some other interesting tool in a players inventory, but mostly all I see magic items.
The life of an adventurer is a tough one. It’s a life full of adversity. Obstacles oppose them at every turn. Monstrous races seek to thwart adventurers at all opportunities. In their quest for riches and eternal glory every task is weighted and considered. Time between adventures is spent honing weapons and mastering skills.
While we as players seek to advance our heroes onwards to even greater feats of strength and bravery, occasionally the monster known and Real Life rear’s its head and stomps its foot down. Be it family obligations, illness or work, occasionally we might miss a prolonged period of gaming.
Last week I reflected on my initial reaction of the new web based version of Character Builder. Overall, I was not impressed and if you’d like the details feel free to read the post entitled Character Builder: Working As Intended. However, what I did not do was review the new version. My reaction and major complaint is that the new version just has too many bugs and the release should have been delayed. This does not mean that it doesn’t have any good features.
Today we look at the Legacy and Silverlight version of Character Builder. We’ll compare the two as I build a new level one character. The point here isn’t to point out problems with one or the other but to look at the differences in the process and determine if the Silverlight version is actually a step forward, bugs aside, from the Legacy version.
Disappointed. The word barely scratches the surface on my feelings towards the Character Builder. When Wizards of the Coast made the original announcement about the changes to the CB we remained silent, deciding we would wait until the new version was released before we commented. We had our opinions to be sure, but we felt to be critical of something we couldn’t actually experience wouldn’t be fair.
Well today I had my first taste of the new version of Character Builder. At first glance I was entranced. The interface is slick and very fluid. The updated CB is very user friendly, very new-to-the-hobby friendly as well. At first glance it appears that creating a new character would be a breeze and for the most part it is. It’s when you want to go beyond that first character that you start bumping into problems.
It didn’t take long for WotC to release a page of Known Issues for Character Builder.
The Last War ravaged Khorvaire. The Five Nations drew the entire continent into a war that lasted a century. An uneasy peace has kept open conflict from flaring up, but signs of tension are present and it may take only the smallest altercation to set off open warfare.
The common people gave and suffered the most during the war. Border towns frequently found themselves under the rule of different nations several times throughout the war. With the constant changing of allegiance most commoners lost interest in the origins of the conflict. Since the signing of the Thronehold Accord a small and silent group has grown amongst the populace, their goal to ensure that their sons and daughters don’t die in any future conflict.
The character creation process is one of the most important steps at the beginning of any campaign. The choices you make will echo over the course of many levels. Making a truly memorable character requires you to make a lot of important choices. From race, class and attribute distribution all decisions will factor into the overall enjoyment of playing this character.
While the numbers and powers that describe your character are of great importance they are not the most important factors in the design process. The key to creating an engaging character is developing a back-story full of life and intrigue. This process isn’t easy and often takes more time than selecting powers and equipment.
We’ve all been in this situation. The party is planning how to handle the next encounter. Strategy is being discussed and the groundwork for an epic battle is being laid out. The debate and conversation around such plans could last longer than the combat itself if we allowed it to. Just as the plan is coming together chaos takes over.
Delian the Paladin – We know that Balador favours undead as allies. I feel it would be prudent to lead with an attack that unleashes the power of the gods.
Nenia the Wizard – Wisely spoken Delian, however we know that Balador is truly a coward. He hides behind his numerous servants. I feel if we quickly eliminate these foes we will have a direct path to Balador.
Ethan the Rogue – These idea’s sound great! I just need a minute to sneak behind our adversaries. It will allow me to unleash a tirade of death upon them.
Merric the Cleric – That’s fine Ethan, just don’t separate yourself from the rest of us. My healing magic will only stretch so far.
Delian the Paladin – Great, I say Braddoc and I advance together and form a defensive wall, then Ethan can move in to flank our foes. Braddoc, can we count on you with this plan of attack? Braddoc?
Braddoc the Fighter – (To the DM) I charge!
The remaining players are shocked and upon lifting their jaws from the floor they ask why? Why are you attacking? The response? I’m chaotic neutral, it’s in my nature.
One thing that I have never felt Dungeons & Dragons has handled well are large battles fought by armies. D&D gets the details down for one-on-one combat and small scale party based encounters. The mechanics are designed to accommodate these scenarios. Unfortunately, the rules that make small scale encounters fun simply don’t translate to larger battles.
Fortunately, these types of encounters are few and far between. Most adventurers spend their time in dungeons or completing quests that don’t require armies. However, every once in a while an army is needed. We can see examples of this when we consider the Lord of the Rings. For the majority of the tale the Fellowship journeys forth as a small group. It is only during a few climactic moments that large scale battle is called for.
Fairy tales and folk lore provide great inspiration for Dungeons & Dragons. Most fantasy fiction borrows from what has come before it in some shape or form. It is only the rare work that is truly unique that redefines our expectations. When creating your adventures borrowing from fairy tales is a way to take something old and familiar, twist it, and use it against your players.
Last week I enjoyed the nostalgia that highlighting the History of Dungeons & Dragons Computer Games. Today I want to look to the future. In August Atari announced the next release for D&D on the computer. Coming in Q4 of 2011 is Neverwinter and on the surface it looks promising.
I say that as an individual who doesn’t think there are enough D&D computer titles on the shelves these days. Looking back at past releases we saw that between 1990 and 1993, 17 titles were released. Clearly designing and releasing a computer game today is not what it was 20 years ago, but I would like to see more D&D video game releases.