I bought a battle mat this weekend. I’ve never owned one before, because I never needed one until now. My experience with Dungeons & Dragons goes back to 1981 or a1982. I had heard mention of the game at school, but was able to examine it for the first time one summery day when my neighbor John came home with the Moldvay Basic Set. This was the famous “red book” with the Erol Otus cover, presented in a box with module B2, The Keep on the Borderlands.
Even at the tender age of 11 or 12, I immediately understood the implications of the game. I didn’t have to actually play it to have fun. Its mechanisms were a tool for organizing my daydreams and stories. How powerful was that heroic warrior? He was a 5th level fighter, and far tougher than that other character, who was merely at the 3rd level. I was fascinated (and still am) by the many worlds created to support (A)D&D and other games. I’ve written before of my love for Mystara, in particular, but many other realms caught at least a bit of my fancy.
I think my friends and I were typical, in that our games were hybrid ones, with rules plucked from here and there. We soon also collected the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books and modules, since they were more comprehensive and there were more of them. But I liked the simplicity of “basic” or “BECMI” D&D. I especially enjoyed Frank Menzner’s Basic and Expert Sets for the way they explained how to play the game, since AD&D essentially had to be taught to novices by experienced players.
I remember playing AD&D into my early 20s. We had a game going my sophomore year of college, and tried getting one going after my senior year, circa 1992. I then drifted away from it. I made new friends, and they weren’t gamers. I was busy dealing with life, with things such as settling my mother’s estate and learning my place in the world. I had no interest in 2nd Edition AD&D, since the layout and artwork seemed unappealing, and the mechanics struck me as clunky. I was aware of Wizards of the Coast taking over the brand and introducing 3E and 3.5, but I never so much as examined a product from those lines (FWIW, I did consider the Open Gaming License a fine idea, and collected the occasional neat product from other companies).
The itch to game again came over me after, say, 2005. I started looking into finding a game, and in Denver, I found a gamer to play against. He wasn’t into D&D, but was a fan of Squad Leader (and ASL) and Axis & Allies. We played those frequently, and in lighter moods, also Zombies!!! and its sequels.
I arrived in New Jersey at the beginning of January this year, as I wrote about below. My first weeks involved using my free time to settle-in. However, by early February I started looking at Meetup to find some sort of gaming that fit my schedule. The best option was the Fourth Edition (4E) D&D gaming that was held on many Saturdays in midtown Manhattan. All I knew about 4E was what I had read online: Grognards didn’t like that it had a heavy focus on gizmos and tricks that could be used in combat. Actual roleplaying was not emphasized, in favor of making D&D seem more like a video game. Most of the activity involved portraying fights through the use of miniature figures on a battle mat. Still, I knew very few people in my new home area, so this was a chance to have some fun and make new friends. I’ve now been attending quite regularly for over four months.
I’ve learned that 4E is indeed based on trying to create the biggest badass of a character that the rules allow. It’s not my first choice for how to game, but it is fun none-the-less. The best aspect, to me, is the way the current generation of designers have invested enormous amounts of imagination into creating character races and classes. No longer do the types out of The Lord of the Rings rule the day. Now there’s psionic collections of animate minerals (the Shard Mind), battle droids (the Warforged) and other interesting races that were never part of the game until recently.
My first 4E character was a Longtooth Shifter Melee Ranger, that I named Growler. Shifters are beastmen, the descendents of were-creatures. Longtooths (Longteeth?) have werewolf ancestry, and they go berserk when wounded badly enough. Rangers these days are either twin-weapon proficient (one in each hand), or archers. My guy isn’t heavily armored, but still enjoys rushing into combat to hack up whatever enemy he can reach. I like him a lot. I’ve recently created a second character, an Eladrin Swordmage known as Korgath (Eladrin are like more mystical Elves, while Swordmages are swordsmen who enhance their attacks with magical tricks, without being true spellcasters).
The website for the New York City D&D Meetup group is here. The games are scheduled at RPG Connect. The latter site tracks karma points, and it is necessary to serve as DM sometimes to keep one’s karma up. Mine is failing badly, as I haven’t felt familiar enough with the new rules to give DMing them a try. However, my time is near, and so in the past few days I bought a battle mat of my own on which to draw maps for encounters, some wet-erase markers, and additional dice. I’m especially pleased with a set I found that has red numbers set into a charcoal-drawing-like grey and white plastic. I also stopped by a local chain bookstore and got myself the 4E Starter Set, a sort of new-era Basic rules. I already owned a used 4E Player’s Handbook, so I now should have all the reference works I need to run a game, and I still have loads of miniatures from 20 or more years ago. I will probably DM my first 4E session on July 3. I’ll post here on how that goes!
If the above leaves you thinking, hey, that could be me, then don’t hesitate to try out a 4E game, wherever you can find one. D&D is still fun, even if it is different. And if the above left you confused, yet intrigued, the 4E Starter Set is a worthy investment of only $17. Roleplaying gaming, under most circumstances, is a healthy way for friends and families to interact and use their imagination, and doesn’t have to be expensive. D&D and its competitors have given me countless hours of fun, over the course of almost 30 years, so I’m very pleased that it has found a way to capture my interest anew. I think I’ll create a Shard Mind character soon…
Inevitable Glen Cook side note: At the chain bookstore I also bought the paperback of An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat. This is the Dread Empire short story collection, which was released in hardcover in 2009. The trade paperback wasn’t due until July 13, but Nightshade has released in ahead of schedule. Good for them. I waited for the paperback because I own the predecessors in that format, and I’m retentive enough to want my set to match. I’ll be really torn on what to do when The Wrath of Kings is finally released, as I may not be able to stand waiting for the paperback ;-)
