Star Wars Saga Edition, 4th Edition, Battleground Fantasy Warfare

I haven’t posted much lately because things have been developing on the home front, making it impossible to participate in our usual Monday night games.

However, I did want to put down some brief thoughts on some games.

First off, Star Wars Saga Edition. I’ve got it, read it and done some brief playtesting. So far, I can say it’s absolutely brilliant. The smoothest running d20 product that Wizards has released to date. It doesn’t feel like a d20 conversion like previous editions, this one really captures the feel of Star Wars.

I could go on and on, but maybe you’d really be much better of checking out www.d20radio.com. These guys have put together a great podcast and forum focused entirely on Saga Edition. Their podcast is full of great rules discussion and their forum community is growing every day.

One more thought on Saga Edition: this could easily be converted for any other pulp, modern or sci-fi game. Just take out the jedi and suddenly you can run Serentity/Firefly-based games. You could use the same rules to create Indiana Jones-style pulp adventures. Sure as the GM you would have to write up your own adversaries and gear, but based on the material in the core rulebook that shouldn’t be too hard.

On to D&D 4th edition. The latest round of previews have me convinced this is going to be a great game. As I’ve written about before, I think there is entirely too much angst out there in gamer-land over this change in editions. If you don’t like it, don’t play it.

One piece of information has really caught my attention. In a recent episode of the Gamer Radio Zero podcast, WotC’s Andy Collins said 4E has been playtested by 668 people. Think about that number for a minute. Not every game will credit their playtesters. Those that do typically list fewer than 20 names. But WotC has gathered input from nearly 700 people! That’s an insane amount of feedback. It gives me hope that this game will hit the ground running as a smooth-running, fun-to-play system.

Finally, one last game. As someone without a lot of free time, I think Battleground Fantasy Warfare is an absolute godsend. For those who don’t know, it’s basically a miniatures wargame without the miniatures. Instead it is played with pre-printed cards, with each card representing a separate unit. Everything you need to run the unit is printed on the card: stats, special rules, damage tracker, cool 3d art and a little bit of flavor text describing the unit.

And here comes the good part: it’s really inexpensive. All you need is a starter deck for one army, which will set you back about $15. If you want, you can buy a reinforcement deck for about the same price. That’s it. That’s all you need to invest to have every single unit for a given army. Compare that to nearly any other mass-battle game. Quite frankly, there is no comparison.

Oh, did I forget to mention: no painting. No spending hours getting your miniatures ready for the table. Just pick up your cards and play.

But what about the gameplay, you ask? It is surprisingly complex yet smooth. The designers also did a great job of capturing the feel and flavor of the different armies. For examply, the Ravenwood Elves are shifty, hard to hit and thrive as skirmishers. The High Elves hit often, hit hard, but are few in number and can’t take a lot of damage. The Lizardmen are fast, deadly in melee and are tough, tough SOBs.

I can’t recommend this game enough. For more info, check out www.yourmovegames.com.

Edition Angst - D&D & 40K

There have been a lot rumors flying around the internet about a 5th edition for Warhammer 40k. At the same time, Wizards of the Coast is preparing to release the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Both developments are creating a lot of buzz, anxiety and angst among fans of both games.

What strikes me is WOTC and Games Workshop are taking two diametrically opposed approaches to these new editions. GW has not even confirmed that a new edition of 40k is in the works. As the saying goes, in the absence of information there is only speculation. There are huge threads on message boards rambling on and on about what’s going to happen to the game, how will this impact my army, does this mean all  the miniatures I’ve collected are now going to be under-powered under the new rules.

WOTC on the other hand had a big announcement at last year’s GenCon, has designers and developers posting regular updates on their forums, is talking about the new edition in its podcasts and has even put two compilations of design notes out on the market for sale. 

I’ve seen WOTC take a lot of criticism for this approach, but I personally think it’s brilliant. They must be actively seeking the criticism to put these design concepts out there. They receive nearly instantaneous feedback from their fans about the new rules. Add this to their playtests and it seems WOTC is going to have a pretty good idea how 4th edition will be received by fans of the game.

The other night I was in my local Barnes & Noble looking at D&D books when a couple of guys came in, picked up one of the 4th edition preview books and immediately started chatting about the game. We struck up a conversation. They told me about their campaigns and their favorite characters (One had a stormlord with some gauntlet that created a never-ending supply of javelins. If you know the prestige class, you know that makes him uber-powerful. Not sure I would allow that if I were DM.)

They were young guys and had never played 1st or 2nd edition D&D, so they never had to go through this kind of change before. But they were looking forward to it. They liked the idea of 30 level classes, new core races, new spellcasting systems, the works.

The conversation made me feel good about the future of D&D and re-affirmed my commitment to dive in to the new rules. These were young players, focused on building up their characters and having fun. They want new ways to do that.

GW, on the other hand, is playing its cards very close to the vest. Maybe it’s because they’re in a different market position that WOTC. GW has competition from a lot of different miniatures games and more are popping up all the time. WOTC has the corporate backing of Hasbro, so it can take some chances.

 Whatever the case, GW’s strategy is creating a lot of angst and rabid speculation among gamers. One could argue that any publicity is good publicity, but GW’s way of thinking is resulting in a sort of random buzz that doesn’t really help the company refine its thinking about 5th edition 40k, if indeed it does exist.

By contract, WOTC is receiving a lot of feedback on its new rules, which will hopefully help them create a better game.

I love both games and hope that they turn out well. At this point, however, I have a little more faith in WOTC’s ability to deliver than GW.

4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons

If what Wizards says is true about the new 4e version of D&D, it may be right up my alley. Anyone who’s spent time with the 3.5 rules knows there is a lot of prep work involved in running an adventure. Just the stat blocks alone are cumbersome.
Wizards claims 4e will reduce prep time by shortening stat blocks, eliminating some of the screwy rules like grappling and generally streamline the entire experience. Sounds good to me.
I know there’s a lot of angst out there about 4e. I’m pretty heavily invested in 3.5. I’ve got nearly a complete set of the “Complete” books for optimizing your characters, not to mention a bunch of other material, including Monte Cook’s Ptolus campaign setting (which is awesome!)
That said, I’m looking forward to 4e. Not that I have lots of money to throw around at new RPG books, but if it’s going to help me fit more dungeon crawls into my life, then that’s a good thing.