4th Edition

This Sunday I played my first session of 4th Edition D&D.

I note with some interest that this is the 13th post I have flagged as "gaming". Coincidence? I hope so.

Anyway, I'm not wild about 4th Ed., but it is interesting. D&D 3.5 had many connections to reality (yes, lots of magic too). I especially noted that carrying capacities for people and animals were very close to reality, bows shot realistic distances, and non-magical items generally conformed somewhat closely to reality.

4th edition... well, I'm still working my way through the rules, but the limited concurrence with the laws of physics present in 3.5 seems to have gone out the window. Carrying capacity? An "average" PC can carry three times the load an "average" person can. Range? Well, they don't explicitly link map squares to feet anymore, but unless the squares got a whole lot bigger... not so much.

This in itself, of course, doesn't make a bad system. In fact if anything 4th Ed seems streamlined - all the nitty gritty bits that can slow things down are filed off.

But I like the nitty gritty bits! OK, I'm weird. I'm sure if I had a pet dragon, he'd be wyred too.