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Message: <blockquote data-quote="smathis" data-source="post: 4161005" data-attributes="member: 56465">Earlier today I participated in a 4e demo at Dragon's Lair in Austin, TX. First off, I'd like to say thanks to Brian (I didn't catch his last name) for going out of his way to run an entire day's worth of 4e demos. If you're reading this, know that it was greatly appreciated and I think you did a great job. Also, many thanks to Angie and Rachel at Dragon's Lair who helped get me on the list for the demo.Now my background:I've been excited about 4e since I heard that Mearls was on the team. I was one of those DMs who was disillusioned by the preptime that 3e took and, while I did learn to "wing-it" fairly well, I also felt that cheated the players by offering them two-dimensional and (often) imbalanced encounters. So, I hung up my DMG around 2001 and went on my merry way to M&M, AE and just about every indie game under the sun.So I guess that puts me in the "target" demographic as someone WotC would like to lure back to D&D. Fair enough. I've liked most of the stuff I've heard thus far but definitely wanted to try my hand at it before making any final decision. Note, I have not pre-ordered 4e.What I wanted to examine in this demo session was:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What were the non-combat encounters like?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Which edition of D&D did it remind me most of? I've played and DM'd all prior editions of D&D dating back to BECMI.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What were the opportunities for roleplay? Comparable to 3e? Or comparable to 1e where a lack of rules on things like skills often made players work harder to roleplay encounters, in my experience. In other words, you just couldn't roll a Bluff check in BECMI.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What were the possibilities for players assuming Authorial or Directorial stance? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">How feasible would gridless play be?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And lastly, did it live up to the hype?</li> </ul>What I arrived to:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The "Escape from Sembia" module from D&D XP. I was very happy about this because I knew it included a skill challenge and was longer than the Scalegloom Hall delve.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Probably the least favorite of the demo pregens -- the Halfling Paladin.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A time crunch. Allan, at Dragon's Lair, had told me it was at 10:30am. When I got there (surprisingly at 10:30am), I was informed that it was supposed to start at 10:00am. That, coupled with back-to-back groups all through the day, really put us in a bit of a bind. It was nice of them to wait up for me, though.</li> </ul>Notes on the time crunch:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It turned the Sembia mod into sort of a delve with a skill challenge stuck in the middle of it. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">We didn't have any background on why we were where we were (other than we were giving a scroll to a shopkeeper) or why what we were doing was important. Fair enough. It wasn't a campaign so much as a kicking of the tires.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">We did get a bit of roleplaying in at the onset, which was refreshing, because it gave me a sense of where roleplaying fell in the rules and how much or how little it could play a part in a 4e game.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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