....Americana

As promised, here is the second part to my last post. My biggest objection with d&d 4 is that it seems to be relying solely on combat. There aren't many social powers that I've found, and the only skills that deal with society are bluff, intimidate, and possibly religion or arcana. I imagine the intention is for the players to roleplay everything out, but I feel crippled with passive insight being the closest thing I have to detect lies.

Since I'm usually a GURPS player, the combat in D&D throws me off a little. I understand the minor/move/standard action system well enough, but it feels....off not having a defensive roll at all. I suppose this keeps the system simpler, but it makes it all too easy for a player to be quickly overwhelmed (last night I went from 12 hitpoints to -15 because the bugbear I was fighting managed to nail his Brute Strike on me...this would have killed me if our GM didn't hate having non-epic deaths for players).

I'm going to jump back to other people's complaints about it now. The game is heavily inspired by the MMORPG scene, in particular WoW. A lot of people really hate this, and insist that the game is being dumbed down for teenagers (which is a lovely bit of irony, considering how many hardcore players started when they were in high school). I disagree with this outlook. Streamlining is not the same as dumbing down, and removing the need to crossreference a half dozen books is a good thing. I'm not confident that WotC will refrain from over-publishing, but at the moment that's not an issue.

I'm not really sure how long I'm going to stick with it. It's fun, but it hasn't really grabbed me. Either way, I definitely recommend anyone new to rpgs to give it a shot. It's fairly easy to pick up and play, just buy the module they alongside the game. It comes with premade characters and a light version of the rules, so you can decide for yourself if you're into it.

-Andy