Main Journal
Holy crap, it has been a month. Talk about a long ass month. Here's a recap on what has happened to me:

+ Finished finals with a 2.33 GPA (C, C & B in Lasers, Complex & LinAlg).
+ Got to know "Clive" better online, and have come to realize I want to shag him... vigorously.
+ Got turned down by every job known to man.
+ Got into a fight with my immune system over who was boss (me and my drugs are winning the argument).
+ Fell in love with Portland again (god I'm glad to be home)
+ Watched my friends graduate (meh... good riddence)
+ Won my first war on Travian
+ Ate at the restaurant my parents bought in Vancouver, WA.
+ Procured copies of D&D 4.0 core rulebooks.

SAY WHAT?

Yes, that's right boys and girls, I am now supporting the next generation of D&D: The Gathering.

Now, some will no doubt criticize me for dropping the $100+ for a system that many feel strays too far from the roots of RP gaming. However, I have long felt that RP is something that is driven by the people you play with, and cannot be fundamentally encouraged by the game system. The DMG makes a very good point of the different types of players one will encounter as DM, and I think it should be the responsibility of the DM to make a compelling story to rope the players in, not WotC. So, I applaud them for trying to streamline things and make the game something that a hobbyist like me can enjoy instead of the esoteric and occultish art form of gamers from yesteryear. But... how well did they do? Well, a few comments.

I discussed some of the changes with a friend of mine, and so I shall point out concerns he had here and my thoughts on them:

Alignment Axis
In 3.x, we had to axes of alignment: Good-Evil & Law-Chaos. Now it has been reduced to one train line, with 5 major stops: Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil, Chaotic Evil. What significance do these have? Well, these obviously go from the paragon of holy activity to the depths of evil madness. So, instead of actually making a new track, it just took the primary diagonal of the 3.X system, and then declared this the new alignment code. I, personally, love the idea. I never much understood what a "lawful neutral" judge, or a "chaotic good" freedom fighter were. "Lawful Evil" and "Evil" seemed to be just different shades of the same, uncaring mess. I mean, I'm not an actor... I don't easily play characters that I don't on some level agree with as a player. So the nuance between contractual evil, evil that exists in a hierarchy and is dependant upon the co-operation of all involved is too subtle for me to notice sometimes. I mean, I've got The Godfather telling me to do his dirty work or he'll kill me, and then I've got a bandit who just has a knack for pillaging trade routes. They're both bad guys, they're both obviously needing to be shot/killed... their difference in philosophy is like the difference between whole wheat and rye: the only time you're really going to care a lot is when you have an allergy to one or the other.

So, to summarize, this is a good example of how they streamlined the game, with extra options being snipped off because the casual player just isn't going to notice them except as a stone to get tripped over.

Combat Ability System
Perhaps the biggest change from the old 3.X system is that wizards no longer have their spell tomes and fighters can do more then say "I go smashie-smashie-BAM-BAM". Each of the classes now has 4 catagories of abilities: At-Will, Encounter, Daily and Utility. Their use frequency is as obvious as it sounds: At-Will is basically the new standard action, with swinging a sword or casting Magic Missile falling into this catagory. Encounters are used once every so often, requiring a "Short Rest" to recharge. Daily abilities function once every "Day", which is to say that you need to rest for 6 hours to get another function out of it. Utility abilities are just useful tricks your character picks up, and are good both in and out of battle. Usually, though, they can only be triggered once per day.

Now, I have seen comments about this schematic linking it to MMORPGs. The "Cooldown Timer" battle system, as I have noticed it called, has drawn significant ire in as much because it topically seems to break with the suspension of disbelief: a boomstick spell gets used, and then it's defunct until I recharge it? Pssh... madness!

In point of fact, the rationale for this new system is actually grounded more in roleplaying then mechanical arguement: Some abilities are just innate to what you have trained to do. Swing a sword, mutter some gibberish, stab someone in the back... if you WEREN'T capable of doing this, then you probably slept through your training. But to pull off a twirling riposte or start to bend the fabric of existance away from what it wants to be... that's taking some effort. And if you break the laws of physics (cap'n), well then you're ready to go catch a nap, aren't you? So there are now two types of resting, both short and long. Short rests are what you do after you kill the monsters: loot 'em, sit around, clear your mind, take a few deep breaths, and basically just thank the gods you're alive for about 5 minutes before moving on. The only time this isn't viable is when you have slain a load bearing boss. Long rests, meanwhile, are basically the same as sleeping for the night, though sleep is not mandated. It usually takes at least 6 hours, and you have to wait another 12 hours before you can gain benefit from it again. On the whole, the RP is built into the game if you want to use it. If you just want to MMO it, though, you can always ignore it without too much fuss.

In terms of the abilities themselves, they are all proscribed. They level up a bit with you as you hit the new tiers, and they scale up in strength as you go along, but they are what they are and there is no changing them. In fact, in the whole of the book, rules for making your own ideas reality have been stripped from the language of the game again and we have returned to the idea that "it is what it is", and if you can't find it, you can't play it. I expect that future books will of course offer more options and allow you to expand the visions of characters presented here, but I get the distinct feeling from these books that this isn't the complete story of what characters can do, and so rather then having a game ready right out of the box, I'm still waiting on stuff to be shipped to me... for another $150+, of course.

The practice of these abilities aren't something I can comment on now. I need to see how they work out and go through the process of building a character or 6 from scratch before I will make a decision on them. In the mean time, all I will say is that I don't find them damning in and of themselves. Instead, I have another issue with them.

Imagination
This is not something I talked about with my friend, but is my primary gripe with the game. When I was first introduced to D&D, the single defining set of rules that I found to be most enticing was that I could play anything, go anywhere, see anyone, and basically create a world that caters to my heart's every adventuring desire. Spellswords, Dancing Dervishes, Wizards of Supreme Power, and Clerics of Holy Piety... if I could imagine it, I could stat it. Monsters could be created, classes modified, items customized... the possibilities for it were endless. But supporting this malleable world that needed only my loving attention was a confusing maelstrom of rules. Numbers that were ad hocced, balancing that was sometimes done on a needle's point and all manner of both conflicting rules and intuitions.

I want a magic item that make's me immune to this bit of mind affecting stuff. How much does it cost? 24,000?!? That's MADNESS! What about a class that lets me heal myself, has a limited array of offensive spells, and looks more to distract creatures rather then slay them outright? Sorry, the abilities have no way to correspond with any other? Well... crap.

On and on this went for me, with no end in sight. Spells were just thrown into one of 10 categories (or 5, if it was mid-spell casting, and 3 if it was weak), with the only rationale for one thing being a level 4 spell and another being level 5 supposed "play testing" and "intuition" that is unable to be duplicated by any DM or player besides those who wrote the game. Every item I ever dreamed up needed tweak after tweak as either I or the DM/player I was dealing with got uncomfortable with its power level when some arbitrary snag was hit. And no matter how strong I grew my character, I always felt like I was just one bad die roll away from disaster unless I had this contingency ready, and this one ready, and this one... in my second to last game at college, my character was essentially a DM denial turret. It operated on the principle that anything the DM did needed to be thwarted, because if I didn't thwart everything he did, doom and destruction would surely follow.

For me, I was hoping 4th ed. would provide structure to that idealistic dream of a "build your own game world" mentality that GURPs never acheived (too many rules for me to keep everything straight). I wanted to see a new gold standard for how to live your dreams. Instead, I've gotten a very nice, very shiney book on how to be what fantasy has already shown me. Gandalf, Legolas, Aragorn... each character has been woven back into these books, and players are allowed to make these characters with ease. But if you wanted to make a Drow warrior with two scimitar's that fights for the salvation of his entire race... I'm not sure you have the creative license to do something that original in this system. And for me, that's why I feel a little hollow inside.

Don't mistake me: 4th ed looks like a good system. It will serve the job that is put forward to it, which specifically is to entertain me and generally is to distract me from my life. But it's not the dreamboat I wanted, it's not the revolution I had hoped for. It is going to be a depressingly run of the mill tabletop system, with both pitfalls and strengths that I'm already predicting.

On the plus side, it has forced me to dust off my old notes on the 4.0 system I was devising two years ago. Maybe I can do something with them. You know... with a little imagination.

MINDLESS ZEALOT OBJECTIVE:

Target: Me, actually
Objective: Get some people to look this post over
Reward: More details on 4.0 without you having to buy the books.

I need feedback on my points and would like to possibily get a discussion going on the merits and demerits of the new system. For that purpose, I need the 4 or 6 of you who pay attention to me to actually direct a few peeps here. Thanks in advance if I get even ONE more watcher.

General Personal Details

Favorite Art: PETRIFICATION! The idea of turning someone into a statue makes for great art and great late night fantasy for me. I also love anthropomorphic art. Animals w/ human characteristics are just cool. Like werewolves. Rawr!

Hobbies: World of Warcraft is the big one right now, matched with a little bit of SSB:Brawl. I AM Lucario. I shall destroy you In addition to that, I also do a little bit of ERP (Erotic Role Play) on the side and actually in one of my WoW guilds. It's not as prominant as it was a few months ago for me, so unless I really find you interesting, I'll probably just stick to being friends.

Occupation: Lifetime Student. People just don't get that much more studenty then this. I'm studying Physics & Math right now, and it's going well. My quarter went well, and I will be graduating soon, though only with a 2.5 overall. Really, my GPA is more an indication of my ability to get distracted by things going on my life then it is my intelligence. I try to live life whenever possible, not just study it *shrugs*

Long Term Goals: Teaching position at a decent university. Obviously, I'll be stuck teaching a lot of intro level courses for a while, but that will hopefully die off eventually and I'll be able to teach students about real science at some point. Not the kiddie stuff they're relearning from high school, but the real, brawny, 'I can get paid for this shit' kinda science. I'm also considering a live of public service in politics. More on that later.

"Personal" Relationships: Um... this is a really odd one for me to think about, but I'm not really hooked on the idea of "relationships" right now. I have done stuff on cam and might hook up with someone for the summer, but monogomy isn't really my thing right now. I find it confusing and I can tell you all about it over dinner if you'd like. I know a nice bistro over the river. You really must try it But, seriously, I'm too young to think about seriousness, and I take life with a grain of salt. If I get together with someone, I'll be with them. Until I'm not.

If you'd like to talk to me for any reason, please just drop me a line via this or Yahoo. Otherwise, I hope you at least give me some comments on my blog. I would like to know the unwashed masses appreciate me for something.