I cut my teeth on “real” RPG’s back in the day, starting with AD&D 2nd Edition, then expanding my horizons to other venues like Call of Cthulhu, Chill, Mage (only World of Darkness I ever experienced), Star Wars, then finally Palladium’s Fantasy RPG and Rifts.
I get a bit nostalgic when I read about Cameron and SmakenDahead and other bloggers getting their pen-and-paper on. Problem is I’m gone more than I’m home so I haven’t managed to make any actual friends here in Jacksonville. I talk to the random neighbor here and there but no one I’d be friends with, and certainly no one I’d game with. So… is there such a thing as online pen-and-paper? I have a vague understanding that D&D 4.0 will have some type of online component for a subscription fee. Not sure how I feel about that concept. If I had to wager a guess, I might be limited to finding an IRC channel running RPG and Die Roll scripts?
I did recently discover an RPG shop but I didn’t hear if they knew of any adult groups looking for fresh blood, and my wonky schedule has always been a problem for events with other people, live or MMO, which is why I’m normally stuck with PUG’s even though I’m always in great guilds.
I’d love to try my hand at RPG’s again but I have a feeling if that ever happens, I’ll be limited to an online-only scenario…
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Did somebody say Digital Pen - I followed the links but didn’t find anything about them.
Your occupation will be an issue for most mature gaming groups that seem to want to play regular sessions with a continuous storyline, but yeah, maybe 4e and WotC’s attempt to get it all online will help you out.
Here’s a link to some of what was revealed at Gencon. My understanding was that the subscription would be cheaper than a MMO - I have no idea if that’s changed.
If you check out the WotC site you’ll see lots of information about 4e.
There are definitely online PnP communities that you can get involved in. You’ll have to do a little google digging, but I know that there are several freeware/shareware options for tabletop gaming over the internet that can display a simple grid map with markers and simulate dice rolls in a shared environment.
Alternatively, if you’re more interested in story than dice rolls (and can’t commit to a regular schedule), there’s the good old forum DnD session… you leave a post telling the DM what you do, he responds when he has time. It takes forever, but it can be a fun diversion.
First two seconds of searching yielded this: http://www.d20pro.com/
There are others.
Hmm… I’ll look into those. I just don’t know about the whole d20 thing. I left AD&D back in the day because it just didn’t have enough “oomph” for me, and Palladium Fantasy and Rifts did, though I’m sure that system is clunky by today’s standards? I don’t know squat about d20 or the “new and improved” D&D.
It’s better IMO. I found Palladium type games had rough combat with the auto-parry, armor stuff and percentile skills. It’s sort of got dicey.
The d20 system sort of simplifies things a little. The die you use for checking all successes is now the d20. AC, skill check, attribute target numbers, saving throws are all numbers you have to exceed now. It’s always d20+modifier and try to overcome the target number. You can kiss THACO goodbye and all those saving throw charts per class and level can go buh bye too (they’ve reduced it to three saves; Fortitude, Reflex and Will - go figure).
No race/class limitations or dual/multiclassing like it was in 2e. Now each race has a favored class and can multiclass until their hearts are content - of course, if you spread out too much you could take XP penalties or you end up having a whole lot of lower level abilities locked into one character. Personally, I’m not too keen on multiclassing. You tend to be half-assed at two classes at the higher levels; spells too weak to work on the critters and tanking too weak to stand toe to toe.
Grabbing some Prestige Class levels can work out, depending on what you take. I’ve played a Shadowdancer (it really is amazing how many creatures see invisible/hidden things automatically…) and a Dwarven Defender (this one rocks for defense).
Oh, that’s another thing. XP and levels are different from 2e. There is one table that all characters use regardless of class. It’s based on ‘Character Level’ which is the sum of your ‘Class Levels’. i.e. a level 7 Fighter/9 Dwarven Defender is a level 16 character. A level 16 Cleric is also a level 16 character.
Are there flaws in the game?
Yes. The death effects can be pretty nasty. You almost absolutely need a healer willing to focus on healing (we ran into this issue because we have a bigger group and usually had two clerics; one would heal, the other sent to watch the other half of the party wouldn’t heal so we got a lot of dead characters - we now have three clerics heh).
The mechanics for calculating encounter levels is a little screwy; the idea being that four characters of level 12 can handle a Challenge Rating 12 creature and expend only 30% of their resources. Unless that CR12 creature is a dragon… massively underrated. Most level 12 characters couldn’t hit a CR12 dragon and most of the casters would have issues getting by the dragon’s spell resistance.
A lot of these issues are being addressed in 4e. Death effects sound like they’re going to take a number of rounds instead of instantly taking a player out of the game. Classes are changing to have more clearly defined roles. It sounds like some things are going to be simplified more, while others will have more meat added - such as the difference between races. Race effects/abilities are supposed to grow as you level. There was also some talk of fighting styles so someone using a mace would have different options from someone using a longsword.
It’s sounds neat, but also a little overpowered and scary at the same time.
/blogjack
Oops.
I had debated getting the 3.x DMG and PHB several months ago when I started playing DDO but ended up just reading a couple Eberron novels to get some familiarity with the new campaign setting rather than the d20 rules. Shortly thereafter, GenCon came and 4.0 was announced so, no real point in getting the books, especially when I don’t actually play.
On the virtual gaming front, I also found a multi-platform client with chat, die rolls, mapping, etc. called OpenRPG but that’s about all I know about it.