First 4th edition session

Last weekend, I ran the “Mists Of Madness” module from Goodman Games that I bought at Gen Con for my wife Katherine so that we could learn the rules. We got about half of the way through the module in our first session and did not have to look much up after about the first three encounters.

Character creation took a while, but, even having never made a 4th edition character before, Katherine was able to make two of them in the time it took many people in my last role-playing group to role up one 3rd edition character. My first impressions seemed correct in this regard: that character creation had been simplified. This allows groups to start playing quickly, even with several inexperienced players.

The biggest stumbling block that I noticed as a dungeon master is that I didn’t know what checks needed to be made at several points in the game. To make the game flow better, instead of looking them up every time, I ended up have generic checks such as a wisdom check in a few cases. For the most part though, the actual checks were pretty easy to locate.

The number one thing that I noticed Katherine missing out on was using her action points. When I asked her about this, she said that she did not know what she should use them on. I am not sure if this is common for new players – personally, I would have used one to make an extra attack or flee faster – but, it is something for anyone running a game with players unfamiliar with 4th edition to watch out for. It may be good to suggest places to use action points for the first few sessions if you notice a player never spending them. For instance, “hey Stan, you could spend an action point and make another attack against that orc”.

Overall, it seems that anyone who has played a role-playing game in the past should be able to pick up Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition pretty quickly. Having played games other than previous versions of D&D or AD&D may be beneficial as bringing preconceived notions into the game tripped me up a couple of times. Those who have never played an RPG in the past should still have little difficulty picking up 4th edition; however, it would help if most of the group has been playing 4th edition for at least a couple of months so that they can answer questions that arise for the first few sessions.

Katherine’s wizard did not have a familiar as neither of us could find rules for summoning them, suggestions for animals, and if they granted any kind of bonus. I have since heard that familiars are discussed in a non-core rule book. I have no idea why Wizards of the Coast did not feel the need to provide this information in the “Player’s Handbook“.

Overall, my first session was a went well but could have been improved by better planning, not having and preconceived notions (impossible to achieve), and Wizards of the Coast providing information regarding familiars in the core rule books. However, character creation went smoothly and most of the information was easy to find quickly.