I’ve had all 3 core rulebooks in my possession for about a week now, but I’ve had little time to dig deep within this triad of tomes. I have, however, flipped through them extensively, stealing glances and digesting snippets of various bits and pieces from an assortment of topics and content. There’s one standout theme I’ve garnered from all this flipping: 4th Edition is AWESOME!

I was first introduced to Dungeons & Dragons while visiting a friend who’d moved away when I was about 10 years old back in the mid to late 80’s. I can’t be positive on which edition it was, but I’m pretty confident it was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1st Edition). Hooked after what was essentially a 2 hour miniatures free-for-all battle, I sought out the books for myself. Another friend back home had D&D, but only the original Red Box. Since he didn’t play the game, he lent me his books. The creative bits in my tiny kid brain were blown.

I ran games for my brother and his friends for a while, and ended up running games for myself when they decided they didn’t want to play anymore. I hooked up with some new D&D buddies when AD&D 2nd Edition hit the shelves and have had the game on my mind ever since. I’ve played just about every iteration of the Dungeons & Dragons game over the past 21 years. This said, I can confidently say that 4th Edition is swiftly becoming my favorite of them all.

Classes are distinct, as are races. They each bring their own ‘thing’ to the table, and there are so many power options that customizing two human fighters to serve the same purpose in extremely different ways is very easy. A mage should NEVER run out of things to do in battle, and while Spellbooks are still in the game, they’re implemented differently than ever, and it makes the job of selecting spells for the day a much less tedious task. Movement is simplified. Actions have been simplified. The entire system’s been revamped to make actions perform faster so there’s more room for roleplay.

Monsters are much more defined also. Each one is distinct with its powers. Hobgoblins no longer feel like bigger goblins with a bigger weapons. In fact, in previous editions of D&D, it often didn’t matter statistically whether you were fighting a Kobold, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Gnoll or Bugbear. It just represented the same exact challenge for a different level character, and carrying a different name. Now each of these monstrous races bring with them powers and effects that make them unique and full of flavor. Also, all those shiny powers and abilities you have, well they have some too. In fact, the new power system allows there to be multiple types of one creature, each performing a different function in combat. There are some character wrecking abilities to be unleashed upon your party by some monsters, and I can’t wait to use them as a Dungeon Master.

Speaking of the DM, The Dungeon Master’s Guide is more aligned with its purpose of instructing people HOW to be a dungeon master than previous incarnations of D&D. Magic Items now reside in the Player’s Handbook, as they should. It’s always bugged me that there were rules and options for players that were kept in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Add in 3rd Edition’s inclusion of Prestige Classes, and there was little left over in the DMG for helping understand how to run a game. The 4th Edition DM Guide will have people who’ve never played before running a game in no time.

4th Edition also fixed a lot of tiny things that I think they did wrong in 3rd Edition. Moving diagonally now counts as 1 square, not 1.5, which delayed combat very much in practice as people double-checked each other to make sure they counted properly. Weapon size is handled much better in this edition. When 3.5 was released the weapon size rules were the first ones I adopted house rules for. The 4th Edition rules are far more intuitive and far less restrictive.

This represents a cursory exploration of the new Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition rules, culled by precious few hours flipping through bits of it and reading the parts that I was concerned with. Over the next couple of weeks I’m taking to the books like a trilogy of awesome, and will be reading them page-by-page. After running a game or two I may be back with a more in-depth review of the game that got me through adolescence. Without it, I’m not sure I’d be here today. It’s the best tribute to Gary Gygax anyone could imagine. I absolutely love this game.