I attended DDWWGD in Seattle.

[hennebeck]

IT WAS AWESOME!
The 13' Beholder is, well, Huge.
I'm sure there will be video and photos up on DnDInsider soon. (I'm the guy in the Hotpink T-shirt.)
We all got a T-shirt with the Gnome on it that says, "I'm a Monster. Rahr!" I also walked away with tons of free swag, including a new set of dice, and 3 repainted minis that were my characters throughout the day.

I played a Dungeon Delve with Chris Youngs. Into the Mausoleum to save 2 kidnapped children. He was a great GM and our table was experienced and it was a really smooth game.
-He and The_Rouse did tell me that the Artificer will be out on DDI next month.
-And that one of the races that was planned for PHB2 is not there anymore, implying that it will show up on DDI before next summer.
-And the final bit was that there is going to be an exclusive class to come out soon-ish on DDI. It will not be a preview, it will not be published. It's being made just for subscribers, though it will be up before the start requiring payment.
-The Virtual TableTop will hopefully be up and running in beta before the end of the summer/early fall.
-The character generator & character visualizer will be done before that.

I got a look at the not quite finished Visualizer & Generator. Looks good. Better than the previews. IMO, you can make realistic characters. They only had Dwarf, Human, Halfling and Dragonborn so far. Everyone that I talked to that is working on DDI is just as bummed as we are that it isn't ready yet. But they really don't want "what happened to the Gleemax launch" to happen to the DDI.

I played a Combat Encounter. 5 PC's vs. 1 White Dragon.
The DM rolled 3 crits in his first 5 rolls. And 1 of those non-crits, he rolled 3 6's. (max damage).
At one point in time, 3 of us were negative hitpoints, including our cleric. And then the cleric rolls a 20 on his Saving Throw, stands back up. Gets the rest of us up and we actually won. It was an epic fight.

I talked for, what felt like a long time, with mike mearls.
It was exciting to actually speak with the designer of my hobby.
I relayed my One fear of 4e.
The Cleric seems dependent on attacking AND hitting to do his buffs. I've always played a cleric, and when I wasn't casting CLW, I could atleast cast Bless or other blessings. Now, if you miss, you get nothing.
He agreed.
BUT, he's been working on the PHB2, and specifically saying it isn't bloat, they've learned alot already since releasing the Big 3. Like instead of a cleric doing 2[W] and healing or missing, another power, that would be balanced, would be 1[W] and healing and on a miss, healing half. He was surprised to see the pre-gen cleric didn't have any effect on a miss.
This would be the kind of thing that could show up on DDI at anytime.
And because of the balance, either version would still be viable.

And then there was an empty seat at mike mearls table. And I got to play again.
I fought the dragon again, but this time as a fighter rather then the rogue. Classes really play so different. It takes different tactics and as I had seen earlier, if your style doesn't match, you really should be playing a different class. You wouldn't play a wizard that stands in the middle of melee. And you shouldn't play a fighter who wants to deal mass amounts of quick striker damage (which I saw in the previous game I played).
Playing with the lead designer was Cool. (There really is no other word.)
There was obviously very little RP, because it was just an encounter, but he still added life to the dragon and we all were very into our characters. It was a great table. We had the dragon flanked on all sides, the only way to fight a dragon, and eventually the rogue brought him down with a well placed sneak attack.

It was just a fantastic event.
Thanks to everyone at WOTC that helped put it together.

I got many autographs and will always remember the relaunch of my Lifelong Hobby.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

Hennebeck'

It was great to meet you! I am glad you had a great time, we did too.

It's fun to throw a party for friends.

 

[RodneyThompson]

I also had a blast yesterday. I met some ENWorlders, too! Probably met more than identified themselves to me.

 

[questing gm]

Any pictures to share ?

 

[Scott_Rouse]

Any pictures to share ?

I'll get some posted this week.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

I played a Dungeon Delve with Chris Youngs. Into the Mausoleum to save 2 kidnapped children.

Did you manage to save them? At the London event, we took about an hour to blunder into the downstairs bit, set ourselves on fire, got distracted with a load of innuendo-laden jokes (a lot of the powers seems to have double-entende names... or maybe that's us being too English for our own good), segued into a gay love affair between the dwarf and the half-elven rogue*, and finally - having found two strapping lads** chained up in a side room - got our arses kicked by a wizard on a pillar and a couple of statues.

At which point our GM had to leave to make the last train home.

Still, we had fun.

*He tried to hurdle a coffin, tripped on it, and landed flat on his face. I tried to hurdle the same coffin, tripped on it, and landed flat on him. And thought: "Slim, long hair, no beard? Hmmm..."​

** Well that's what the miniatures looked like, anyway. We'd got the impression we were searching for two children, but these looked to be strong strapping lads just ready to help out their father in the smithy.​

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Also played at the London Dungeon event - my lot were a paragon of teamwork and laid waste to all before them.

The Rogue's quote of "It's all in the wrist" did get a few giggles at our table, though, too.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

The Rogue's quote of "It's all in the wrist" did get a few giggles at our table, though, too.

Oh yes! I caught sight of that on the character sheet of the bloke sitting next to me (for those who weren't there, each character had a quote written at the top of the sheet) and thought: "No British person would have written that."

 

[Shazman]

I played the same module to get a real feel for 4E before writing it off. Here are my intial reactions.

1) It was as complex to play (probably even more so) than 3.5.
2) 1st level characters are too complex. Endless time was wasted trying to figure out which powers to use.
3) Monsters (at least the ones in this module) are way too hard! Does every single fight have to be a near TPK for it to be fun? The occasional hard fight is good and invigorating, but having every fight be extremely difficult gets old and frustrating fast.
4) Combat took way too long. It took a while to decide which power to use and the monsters had too many hit points and too high of AC. It took a very long time to whittle them down.
5) It really didn't feel like D&D. It feels like a new game, not a new edition.

It defintiely would go smoother with people more experienced with the system, but overall, I was not impressed. The ease and speed of play that has been touted since last August was no where to be found.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I went to the local event here in the wilds of west Texas.

From any perspective it seemed to be a tremendous success.

I saw one person who was dissatisfied, but otherwise the worse that happened was a GM who was disoriented by how functional the system was.

He was literally frustrated that all the information was clearly available where it was needed and that he didn't have to flip through the book all the time. He could not believe it and kept looking for things as specific powers even when we were all telling him they were built off of general rules.

It was like watching a kid realize that he wouldn't be punished for asking questions or conversing with the class once he started college.