Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Catch All

Ha, I have too many players at the moment. Back in 2001 I barely had anybody to play D&D with, now I DM for a regular group of 5 players. The new edition seems to be generating interest because friends-of-friends are approaching me asking if they can get in on a game.

If any of you goodjers are ever in the Sacramento/Davis area I could fit you in a game sometime :).

I'd be interested in playing with Goodjers, either online or in the NYC area. Scheduling might be a problem, but isn't that the case with everyone. I don't think I'd shell out $15 a month for the WotC online tools though, unless people tried them and said they were well worth it.

Man, if we could get together on a continuing basis for the new 4th ed stuff I would go out and pick up a PH in a heartbeat.

I am lucky in that I have a good, reliable group of players near me - in fact, we play at my buddy's house right across the street from me almost weekly. We play a lot of 3.5, and mix it up with Rifts and just started Deadlands. I am quite interested in 4E, but there is just so damn much money invested in 3.5 books that I don't see it happening. I am willing to give it a go, but the other players have already said they aren't interested in buying new books at this point.

Oh well, 3.5 is plenty fun.

My wife ordered up the core rulebook gift set for me for Father's Day. Can't wait!

cartoonin99 wrote:

Man, if we could get together on a continuing basis for the new 4th ed stuff I would go out and pick up a PH in a heartbeat.

Some of us still meet every Tuesday. I can't say if/when we'll start a 4e campaign though.

Some of us still meet every Tuesday. I can't say if/when we'll start a 4e campaign though.

There's a GWJ RPG group!?

LockAndLoad wrote:
Some of us still meet every Tuesday. I can't say if/when we'll start a 4e campaign though.

There's a GWJ RPG group!?

Not exactly. I mean my local gaming group.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
cartoonin99 wrote:

Man, if we could get together on a continuing basis for the new 4th ed stuff I would go out and pick up a PH in a heartbeat.

Some of us still meet every Tuesday. I can't say if/when we'll start a 4e campaign though.

I know. I will be back, I promise. I am still in the middle of looking for a new job while still working the old one, so my spare time and cash is a bit limited.

Are any of you guys planning on picking up the 4th Ed stuff?

cartoonin99 wrote:

I know. I will be back, I promise. I am still in the middle of looking for a new job while still working the old one, so my spare time and cash is a bit limited.

Are any of you guys planning on picking up the 4th Ed stuff?

I'm planning on picking it up in a month or two. I streamlined 3.5E a LOT for the last adventure to run a more cinematic/story-based game. It went well, though we didn't get around to distributing rewards to the characters at the end. They saved a kingdom and defeated a fairly big baddie in a situation where they would have all died had they waited around too long, so they should expect some serious loot if they use the same characters again.

So far I think I've run every D&D session we've had. That isn't a bad thing other than the fact that, as the GM, I need to stop contributing so much toward the group getting nothing done. The players are good enough at doing that. (I kept it mostly under control last time, right guys? Right?!)

Nice. I have equal time DMing and being a pc, but prefer the latter, especially now that I have two boys and my spare time is a bit on the lean side.

I ordered the 4th ed box set (player, dm, monster manuals) but it won't be here until the 19th. There's still the piddly problem of finding someone to play with, but I figure if we can't get a GWJ group going and I can't find the occasional game near me I'll at least have something to read so I won't go into a future game completely clueless.

Alright you filthy enablers. I'm going to pick up the 4e player's guide and read through that. If I dig it (and judging from Rabbit's comments, I very likely will), I'll snag the DM guide and Monster Manual too. It'll take me a little while (maybe a week or two) to get somewhat comfortable with the new system before I can start working up a campaign (unless someone else wants to DM; I'd be happy to do the player thing too!).

If someone wants to figure out a good online 3rd party tool for us to use (we should to check out the one Rabbit mentioned) that'd be awesome to spare me the time to focus on the books instead. We just need something that has a chat window with private messaging enabled, a mapper you can put graphical chits on (I like going the maps way, forgive me those of you who hate that, for I love using minis for the tactical aspect of battles, but I'm a very story/social oriented DM too :)) and an in-client dice roller. We can use Ventrilo for the voice communication.

If I don't dig 4e enough to want to DM it, then either someone else who wants to could DM (or again, I'm happy to play regardless, if someone else has a desire to run a game :)), or I could run 3.5e which I'm pretty familiar with.

I'll have to figure out a night that would work best for me. Weekends are bad because I'll be out of town a lot for the summer, and Sunday nights are (so far) going to be our 25-person content night for the GWJ guild in WoW. I'm still playing that, not giving up anytime soon. I also have a weekly Civilization 4 night with a couple good buddies of mine. So I have a fairly busy schedule in my fun time already. Finding time to work on DM duties won't be hard. Making time for a regular D&D session will be a little more difficult. We can try weekly at first and see how that goes.

As far as time, if you decide on a time that's not during regular work hours, I'll make the time.

Man, if we can get a stable night worked out then I would absolutely love to join in. I might just hit up the local gaming shop and buy the 4th Ed PHB just to get me fired up even more.

I'll check out fantasy grounds, though Rabbit would probably be the best to let us know about its appropriateness for the game as he's used both the program and has played 4e. As I've said I'm a total newbie to D&D, only having wanted to play for years. I'm fully willing to take over DMing duty once I get familiar enough with the system, as that seems one of the most interesting aspects of the game to me. But I need to get my feet wet first. As far as time, if you decide on a time that's not during regular work hours, I'll make the time.

edit: I checked out the demo and it looks like Fantasy Grounds will fit the bill. Check out the features page. I found the screenshots page to be the most enlightening as far as how the game gets set up and played -- the demo is a bit hard to fathom without another player to experiment with. Notable is the different price point, $40 for "full" which is needed for DMing and $24 for "lite," which looks like a PC-only version.

edit edit: Found this -- looks like someone is going to be running a demo campaign in FG on Sun. I signed up for a spot so I'll hopefully have some impressions.

I'd be in as a player as well. Had the 2nd ed books but never got any use out of them in an actual campaign (though they do still come in handy when playing an Infinity Engine game). Played in a few 3 and 3.5 ed games that never lasted longer than a couple sessions. It was always fun, but the hassle of scheduling and coordinating always seems to get in the way. Would certainly be willing to get at least a 4e PHB if it would see some use. I can't say I'm thrilled with what I've seen of the changes they made, but I can appreciate why they were made.

LockAndLoad wrote:
As far as time, if you decide on a time that's not during regular work hours, I'll make the time.

Man, if we can get a stable night worked out then I would absolutely love to join in. I might just hit up the local gaming shop and buy the 4th Ed PHB just to get me fired up even more.

Tell me about it. The smell of the pages as you crack open a brand new PHB. *sigh*

For me, I thoroughly enjoy looking at all the artwork at least once, maybe twice, before I settle in and start reading.

Just saw that Michael Zenke of Slashdot & Conference Call guest has a blog on the D&D Insider service...

The Miscast Spell: D&D Insider's Missed Opportunity
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008...

One thing in the article really caught my eye...

Just this week, the company announced that D&D Insider will see a few months of free-to-play shakeout before the service enters subscription mode.

Might be an interesting test for us to see if we can sustain the group before buying into something.

What no GURPs 4th edition thread? For shame!

I'm all about playing, let me know when to be in. It looks like a lot of people are interested... maybe the group will split or something.

I'm tempted by the 4th ed thing, but I'm scared too. I reserve judgement until after 3 or 4 sessions.

I'm currently DMing a game already that we play fairly regularly, so I'd prefer not to DM here if I could help it. If a few people are left in the cold and need a DM, though, I'm sure I'd step up.

I picked up the core books on release day, but I can't find a copy of Shadowfell anywhere.

Am I going to have to write up my own adventure? Such barbarism!

stupidhaiku wrote:

edit: I checked out the demo and it looks like Fantasy Grounds will fit the bill. Check out the features page. I found the screenshots page to be the most enlightening as far as how the game gets set up and played -- the demo is a bit hard to fathom without another player to experiment with. Notable is the different price point, $40 for "full" which is needed for DMing and $24 for "lite," which looks like a PC-only version.

Holy cow that looks fantastic! Sign me up! Farscry, you know where to find me.

*Sigh* It seems that one of my two resident DMs picked up the books -- means I'll be playing something, to be sure. To those of you that do not have a gaming group, if you live in the Fort Worth - Dallas area and want to play, PM me.

Fyedaddy wrote:
stupidhaiku wrote:

edit: I checked out the demo and it looks like Fantasy Grounds will fit the bill. Check out the features page. I found the screenshots page to be the most enlightening as far as how the game gets set up and played -- the demo is a bit hard to fathom without another player to experiment with. Notable is the different price point, $40 for "full" which is needed for DMing and $24 for "lite," which looks like a PC-only version.

Holy cow that looks fantastic! Sign me up! Farscry, you know where to find me.

rabbit spent quite a bit of time learning the DOM side of Fantasy Grounds, it's pretty complex. Not bad to play in, but still a little trickier than you might think to reach the heights of complexity they display in the screen shots. We only did one "test" session, but I think there's room for improvement for more "entry level" DMs and players.

Found this blog, where Dad and his 7 year old son run through the 4th edition Shadowfell module. The 7 year old handles all 5 of the characters.

One thing I'm hoping WotC delivers on in the online area is group search for local areas. Currently I'm having a hell of a time finding a group in and around the bay area, if only because half a dozen different sites are dedicated to it and even then a quarter of them aren't focused on PNPRPGs, being general networking sites. If Gleemax manages to become a central hub, especially since you (last I heard) wouln't have to pay for that part, I'll be very happy.

Just got back from 3 local gaming stores and all of them were sold out of everything 4th edition.

Is OpenRPG still a viable solution for online "tabletop" gaming?

jonnypolite wrote:

Found this blog, where Dad and his 7 year old son run through the 4th edition Shadowfell module. The 7 year old handles all 5 of the characters.

Yeah....that's totally cool!

I haven't played since 2nd Edition days, but I've got to admit all this talk about it, and that damn Penny Arcade Podcast has me itching to play again. It makes me want to pick up the set even though I don't even know anyone who plays anymore.