I, as a DM, welcome my new 4th Edition Overlords

[hectorse]

So I said we played 4th edition this last Sunday and we had a blast.


Including me.

I stopped playing 3.5 and RPG's altogether because of the immense ammount of prep time involved...

A little clarification may be due. I am a very strong proponent of RAW, and only houserule things that are more or less common sense like really really really broken spells and stuff like that.

I even played only published adventures (and still got like 3 left) throughout 3.x life

1 hour to 2 hour to make just one encounter? No thank you

I am talking even with things such as e-tools and treasure generator tools

All those things left me burn out even before getting to the table and my players walking through the combat saying "what's next?"

Add to that that we got used to track everything that needed tracking (encumbrance, arrows shot, coins to weight conversion, etc)

With KotS I skimmed through it for just 1 hour before playing and it ran even smoother than my best run adventure in 3!

Add to that less mentally taxing abilities (Ability damage? JESUS CHRIST) and towards the end of the session I was eager TO CONTINUE, not EAGER TO GET A REST as it happened so often.

Eagerly awaiting my books on monday 8th

 

[Henry]

As I have said, if there's one thing that 4e excels in, it's ease of DM prep and running sessions as compared to 3e. It's a LOT smoother than my 3e games.

 

[Scribble]

The preperation work for encounters is what I think will make me love 4e hook, line, etc...

In 3e the amoutn of time I took building encounters was often so long that if I spent the time building it, my players would face it by golly! We sneak around it! pshhhh it hears you!

Never liked that.

So I started doing a lot more improvising... But that gets boring/ you fight some monsters in a 30' roomish...

If 4e is easy to prep, it means I'll have more things prepped which means more varied encounters and less feeling like if I don't railroad I wasted a bunch fo time.

 

[hectorse]

The preperation work for encounters is what I think will make me love 4e hook, line, etc...

In 3e the amoutn of time I took building encounters was often so long that if I spent the time building it, my players would face it by golly! We sneak around it! pshhhh it hears you!

Never liked that.

So I started doing a lot more improvising... But that gets boring/ you fight some monsters in a 30' roomish...

If 4e is easy to prep, it means I'll have more things prepped which means more varied encounters and less feeling like if I don't railroad I wasted a bunch fo time.

I believe the DMG offers many useful tips in using the new skill challenges in terms of ad libing stuff while still not being a big jerk and saying "you guys can't sneak cause a thunder out of nothing blows your cover"

It provides a framework for improvisation which is awesome I . IDK the specifics though