Thursday, April 22, 2010

Barely Alive!


I seem to have made myself incredibly sick this week. Yesterday I was just a quivering mass of aches and pains basically. I feel a little better today, still a little peaky, but hopefully things will improve for this weekend. Not that I have anything specific planned, I just don't want to waste a weekend. Was supposed to go the west with the friends, but alas, many events have transpired that have ended our expedition early.

Anyway, I have been reading up on Dungeons and Dragons (4th Edition!) after Wilson suggested that we play it together with some friends so he can record it for the blog.

"Who's going to DM?" I asked, my esoteric knowledge of geeky things allows to me know things like what a DM is and what the purpose of a D20 is.

"Well, you are. You're always world building anyway, it could be a good exercise." Wilson replied.

It didn't take much to convince me of course, I've always wanted to try DnD and now I have an excuse. So sometime next week we shall commence our first session. I've already had some practice filling out character sheets (so many numbers!) and getting the hang of combat (grids! argh! initiative! more argh!) with the help of my sister. One day she will be traumatized by all the geeky things I expose her too, but then she wouldn't be half as cool as she is now :P

One thing I like about the fourth edition (not that I have much experience with the other editions) is that it seems pretty friendly. Sure, there are a lot of numbers and things, but in terms of combat and such, players always have options that are cool. Which I think is important to beginners. When you start out and you're hitting monsters with your basic "I hit it with my stick" attack, it can get a little boring.

In fourth edition players get to pick 2 "at-will" abilities, which basically means they use these instead of normal attacks. So even at level one, your fighter will be cleaving his foes with the best of them.

Oooh, and another thing I like about fourth edition? Dragonborn.

2 comments:

Samoanbiscuit said...

OMG, I have never actually heard of anyone here in this fair country who would play DnD without using a video game engine... Whenever people see me reading the source books, they ask, I explain and they walk away thinking "What a weirdo!!" And Dragonborn!?! Dude, what about the Daeva & Eladrin?

Unknown said...

Heh, while I like the idea of the Eladrin...they're too close to elves man! Also, still need to get me the second players handbook, (you know, the one with Daeva...unless that's the third one) so maybe I should say that the Dragonborn are my favorite...so far.