Inside D&D 4th Edition

[Tirk]

Can I marry LRR? Seriously.


..call me

[Evil Jim]

Matt and Jer's long-winded spiels. Some of the phrases Matt used were [possibly intentionally] clunky to my ear, like the redundant sounding "when he approached me about the blah approach to 4th edition", or the nearly unparsable-on-first-listen "skewing 4E to 5 to 8 year olds".

These phrases are long-winded & clunky to your ears because (as you said) you don't know anything about D&D.

If by "blah" you mean the "Direction & Didactics approach" then I would like to point out the following:
D&D = Dungeons & Dragons
D&D = Direction & Didactics

A joke playing off the name of the game itself.

[Lyinginbedmon]

And I thought the Other Player with Graham and Paul was Ben.

I think it was Matt wearing the Angry Bob wig

[robbit]

Heh. I have been watching LRR for months, and stopped into let you know this video was a blast.

I do offsite customer service for Wizards, and I loved this and have shared it with the other CS staff. We start supporting D&D Insider when it launches, so it is pretty topical for us.

[Android]

I didn't catch the "connect the dots to see the picture" of the Invisible Stalker until the second time through

[Melendwyr]

I thought this video had great content, but it was just a little sluggish. More dynamism (instead of people standing still talking) or slightly tighter editing would have been good.

I laughed at the demon-summing teacher, but enough people believe D&D lets you do that as it is - should we really be encouraging them?

[Jer]

Yes.

Step 1: Controversy
Step 3: Profit

[NecroVale]

Yes.

Step 1: Controversy
Step 2: ?????
Step 3: Profit

Better...

[Evil Jim]

I didn't catch the "connect the dots to see the picture" of the Invisible Stalker until the second time through

I didn't see it right away either. First time through I saw the blank space & took too long wondering at it before I could see the title.

[novel_concept]

Oh, man. I teach elementary school, and this was very funny. I liked the little song for teaching the game to those who don't know basic math (perfect!).

Occasionally teaching can be a very frustrating and tedious experience, and I am tempted to burst out with something rather inappropriate. For example, I've been tempted during several staff meetings to bust out with, "Not the Tippy-tahs!" when faced with new hoops to jump through with our teaching. Now, I can imagine asking my class, "Who would like to summon a real demon?" after trying to introduce reflex angles (the evilest of all geometric concepts).

Eeeeexcellent.

[Frost]

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1040039
linked on Mike Mearls blog.

[AlexanderDitto]

The BEST part of this video had to be the little song. That made me laugh out loud. It was great, but the song was seriously the highlight for me.

I want a full length version on my iPod, STAT.

[Jer]

It's seriously 30 seconds long! It's more a jingle than a song .

[Frost]

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=16015571#post16015571
Scott Rouse's blog

[Dominic Appleguard]

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=16015571#post16015571
Scott Rouse's blog

Jer's name is now Joey Peachfuzz. Apparently.

[tak197]

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=16015571#post16015571
Scott Rouse's blog

Jer's name is now Joey Peachfuzz. Apparently.

If only the man looked at Jer in other videos, such as Pull Yourself Together. He ain't peachfuzz, fo shizznizzle.

[James]

So i did a quick scan of the thread to see if this was mentioned, but I LOVE the fact that the stuffed bear that is drawn with the kind flayer is BOBO from the simpsons!!

I can't remember if Graham ended up mentioning that in this weeks podcast or what. Or if Tensen has been waiting for someone to mention it. BRAVO good sir, BRAVO!

[AlexanderDitto]

A jingle, then! I mean, jingles can be expanded to full length songs. Who could forget "Brylcreem: the musical" or the difficult-to-type "J-E-L-L-O: L-I-V-E" or even the smash hit "The Andy Griffith Show Theme Over and Over until your Ears Bleed" ?

Also I like the "Peachfuzz." Stubble's in, yo. Beards are so 1980's.

[-=Nate the Great=-]

I don't think I'm enough of a fanboy to get most of these jokes.

But I'm sure they're funny.

[Dutch guy]

Nice video guys. Having never played D&D and living in a culture of "D&D players are nerds" I don't really know the game at all but this video still manages to give me a good chuckle.

Laura, looking even better this time. I like it

PS: Is Graham always so annoying when playing a boardgame (reffering to the "King me!" section )

[Alex Steacy]

The thing they are baking is a Gelatinous Cube,

I wasn't aware you could bake jello... Is it anything like deep fried ice cream?

Also, I downloaded the 4E PDFs (so leaked they had the damn printer's marks on them) to give them a look over.

I'm tentatively excited about the new system. So far I've found a LOT of things that make you go:

"What!? That's bullsh-"

and then

"Oh wait..."

and then

"Oh! That makes way more sense!"

There are going to be an awful lot more fireworks and special effects going around, but I think it could be a lot of fun, especially when you consider how much streamlining they've done to the combat system, so you don't spend 4 hours with your nose in the books on one encounter.

Also little nuances I like:

Everyone can heal themselves a little bit, so you don't *need* a party cleric to be everyone's healing bitch. Its a thankless job that nobody likes being saddled with, so I'm glad they fixed that.

Way more movement! You push, pull, slide and generally flit all over the place, which sounds like it will be a lot of fun.

More options when you're fighting! In 3.5, the biggest difference between what a 1st level fighter and a 20th level fighter does in combat is just the number of attacks they toss out. Now, you can do all sorts of awesome stuff, and I suspect many of the early-level powers will maintain usefulness into later levels.

Casters don't hit "empty". There is nothing more frusturating and useless than a spellcaster who has blown his load. Now, even if you use up your big guns, you'll have a variety of tricks that you'll never run out of.

Anyway, I think the overall feel is going to be extremely different, but also very fun. Gameplay will tell...

Simplified durations! Nothing is clocked anymore, it just lasts the encounter or until it's stopped.

[SamsonWest]

so with the release my group abandoned our old campain for a few weeks to test out 4.0

very limited time tonight, but they really streamlined it, made it much more accessible and ieasier to understand all the rules

just remember, before you start, completely forget everything from 3.0, because thinking of it in those terms will only confuse you

I know what your thinking, and yes this is the most in depth review to date. but so far, thumbs up

[pikaqofborg]

We've been playing 4.0 for the past few weeks (yes before the online leak) and we've really gotten into it. Like any new system it took awhile to get used to but now we're getting the form and flow. It's definally simpler but more balanced and more open as well.

4.5 was my favorite part.

[flyingwind66]

well I'm officially turned off switching to 4th edition >.> *looks at stack of 3.0-3.5 books* the fact that I've sold half my soul to purchase a lot of that stuff for my gaming sessions has absolutely no baring on this final decision either XD

[Tetsubo]

I was not happy when Wizbro made the 4E announcement. As I learned more about the new edition I became more and more disenfranchised with the launch. Since the release I have become an active opponent of 4E. I don't see it so much as a new edition of D&D as the 1st edition of a new fantasy RPG. It depresses me that the future players of D&D will consider 4E to *be* D&D.

I think that 3.5 is the best version of the game. It isn't perfect but it is a far better representation of what I think D&D to be.