My friend Josh was eager to run a campaign, so those of us looking for an outlet were eager to join in. I had heard a lot of the down-talking of the new edition from the hardened gamers before I even got a chance to see the game; so I expected to be let down.
My first impressions were not as I expected. A lot of the over complicated rules had been simplified. There was a computer program to help choose skills for and advance your character (Josh was subscribed.) All of the abilities were spelled out for us. For once, I understood all of the options available as a player. I actually quickly caught on to the rules for the DM too.
Our three player characters played through a module and some quick homemade dungeons before we began a campaign in earnest. Our first characters were really silly; mine was a flatulating dwarf named Big McLargeHuge. We added flair to make the abilities fit with our characters. It was very fun at first.
When we began our campaign in earnest, some of the glaring frustrations began to appear. First it was just the length of combat sessions. We'd run encounter sessions that would have to be cut short. Combat quickly began to get tedious.
I spent some time talking with Josh about ways to make the campaign run better--less focus on getting to the "end" of the dungeon. Throw in some randomness to make the game more freeform.
I decided to playtest my own sessions to see if I could do a better job. I made a random dungeon and had two players go through it, and it seemed to work pretty well, but combat was still a mess.
Thus began my long obsession with fixing D&D.
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