29 March 2008 @ 08:59 am
Thank you, Mr. Heinsoo!
During my recent trip, I had the opportunity to finally play (as opposed to DM) a game of Fourth Edition D&D. Wednesday night I found myself sitting in a chair that, some other week, might have been occupied by Jonathan Tweet. My DM? Rob Heinsoo, one of the designers of 4E (along with Three Dragon Ante, Inn Fighting, and much more). Rob is a brilliant designer, a witty conversationalist, a kind and generous man, and overall an exceptional human being. Now I'd see what sort of a DM he was.
I ended up playing a dragonborn paladin. I had a great time with it. I had a chance to use absolutely every ability my character possessed - skills, racial abilities, encounter powers, class features... while it doesn't do a lot of damage, it's fun to be able to burst onto the scene and breathe lightning over your enemies. For those concerned about the paladin's marking power, it's gone through a few changes, and what I'll note is that while it played a valuable role in multiple situations, I never actually inflicted damage with it during the game; it simply drew people to attack me instead of my wounded buddies. But since there were quite a few situations where my buddies were wounded, there was nothing wrong with that. Nonetheless, I wasn't dropping enemies right and left with my paladin's challenge.
So it was a fine night, full of mighty deeds and impassioned prayers to Bahamut (we weren't playing in Eberron)... ending with the death of every party member at the hands of a pack of kobolds. I can at least take some pride of place in being the first character to launch an attack in the very first encounter and the last to fall in the final scene, but nonetheless, we were butchered. By kobolds. In my mind, I could hear Mike Mearls cheering (
http://mearls.livejournal.com/145866.html).
Mind you, we put up a good fight. We were at something of a disadvantage in that we were playing a four-person party and had no wizard; a little more area-effect damage would have made a huge difference. Likewise, in the final scene we essentially ended up fighting two planned encounters at once - meaning, again, that we really could have used some area effect to clear the room. Still, with two dwarves, a cleric, and a paladin, we proved to be a very durable group, and as a DM it was interesting for me to see just how long we were able to last against the odds; I managed to pull two fallen characters back to their feet, and the dwarf fighter managed to get back up on his own at a critical point. If I'd been playing for real, expecting to be back the following week, I might have suggested a tactical withdrawal - but as it was, it did have a fun 300 feel. By the end, when I was the only one still standing and was outnumbered four to one, it was pretty clear it wouldn't end well - but there was still a chance, and it was fun making that charge towards the kobold shaman and hoping he'd miss just this once.
So all in all, I had a great time and I'm looking forward to playing again; the main problem is that there's so many characters I want to play. But at least I did get the answer to the question "What sort of DM is Rob Heinsoo?" Answer: A cruel, bloodthirsty man who would butcher his own friends with kobolds. I mean, the defeat was bad enough, but did they really have to desecrate the bodies? I just didn't need to know that my character's skull was made into a chamberpot for the kobold shaman. (OK, I'm making that up, but in MY mind it's what happened...)
Thanks, Rob!
