SPOILERS ahoy! (And players in my Portland game, stay out!)
My players and I just started playing WotBS 4e last week and I'm already enjoying it a lot. I've liked Durn's and others' reports of their experiences, so I thought I'd share mine as well. I intend to focus more on what's worked well and not worked so well from the DM's perspective.
The characters, along with their DMG p.8 archetypes:
Cwndydd (SOON-duth), an Eladrin Hybrid Swordmage/Paladin. Her player enjoys system mastery and creating optimized characters.
Keothi, a Goliath Warden. I'm pretty sure her player is a Watcher.
Aspetra, a Deva Artificer. Her player is a Thinker.
Khansi, a Warforged Assassin. Its player is a hard-core Instigator.
Volk, a Goliath Barbarian. His player is probably closest to Slayer, with Instigator tendancies.
Theren, an Elf Druid. His player leans Storyteller.
Our previous game was Scales of War, and we played it for a year and a half, through to the end of the Heroic tier. The players enjoyed it a lot, but I got bored. Most of them were looking forward to playing Paragon tier, so they were a bit disappointed about the idea of starting a new campaign. We compromised by agreeing to come back and play the highlights from SoW as a pure beer-and-pretzles beat-em-up. It should make a nice break from the intensity of WotBS.
For most of the players, my game is their first significant RPG experience. SoW is a combat-centric game with minimal roleplaying, so the roleplaying aspects of WotBS are new to most of them. SoW is also heavily railroaded, so choices with meaningful results are pretty foreign as well.
I've emphasized that the strength of WotBS over SoW is its freedom of choice and role-playing elements, and the players have dived in. They've all created interesting character backgrounds and personality aspects and they're making a real effort to stay true to their character identities at the table. I've provided each with an individual background sheet that gives inside information (gleaned from the campaign guide and first two modules) that's unique to each PC. Most of them have also read the Player's Guide thoroughly--several actually gave an impromptu lecture on how Gate Pass fits in politically with Ragesia and Shahalesti tonight.
In terms of house rules, we're using three major house rules:
1- Everyone has a "Do Something Cool" at-will power for stunting. It provides 1[W] damage (or equivalent) and a minor effect.
2- Everyone also has a "Do Something Awesome" encounter power. It provides 2[W] damage and a minor effect, or 1[W] damage and a bigger effect.
3- A fate point system inspired by Spirit of the Century, where people can tag/compel character aspects to gain advantages/disadvantages. Fate points are a superset of action points.
And off we go! I hope you'll share your suggestions and ideas along the way.
My players and I just started playing WotBS 4e last week and I'm already enjoying it a lot. I've liked Durn's and others' reports of their experiences, so I thought I'd share mine as well. I intend to focus more on what's worked well and not worked so well from the DM's perspective.
The characters, along with their DMG p.8 archetypes:
Cwndydd (SOON-duth), an Eladrin Hybrid Swordmage/Paladin. Her player enjoys system mastery and creating optimized characters.
Keothi, a Goliath Warden. I'm pretty sure her player is a Watcher.
Aspetra, a Deva Artificer. Her player is a Thinker.
Khansi, a Warforged Assassin. Its player is a hard-core Instigator.
Volk, a Goliath Barbarian. His player is probably closest to Slayer, with Instigator tendancies.
Theren, an Elf Druid. His player leans Storyteller.
Our previous game was Scales of War, and we played it for a year and a half, through to the end of the Heroic tier. The players enjoyed it a lot, but I got bored. Most of them were looking forward to playing Paragon tier, so they were a bit disappointed about the idea of starting a new campaign. We compromised by agreeing to come back and play the highlights from SoW as a pure beer-and-pretzles beat-em-up. It should make a nice break from the intensity of WotBS.
For most of the players, my game is their first significant RPG experience. SoW is a combat-centric game with minimal roleplaying, so the roleplaying aspects of WotBS are new to most of them. SoW is also heavily railroaded, so choices with meaningful results are pretty foreign as well.
I've emphasized that the strength of WotBS over SoW is its freedom of choice and role-playing elements, and the players have dived in. They've all created interesting character backgrounds and personality aspects and they're making a real effort to stay true to their character identities at the table. I've provided each with an individual background sheet that gives inside information (gleaned from the campaign guide and first two modules) that's unique to each PC. Most of them have also read the Player's Guide thoroughly--several actually gave an impromptu lecture on how Gate Pass fits in politically with Ragesia and Shahalesti tonight.
In terms of house rules, we're using three major house rules:
1- Everyone has a "Do Something Cool" at-will power for stunting. It provides 1[W] damage (or equivalent) and a minor effect.
2- Everyone also has a "Do Something Awesome" encounter power. It provides 2[W] damage and a minor effect, or 1[W] damage and a bigger effect.
3- A fate point system inspired by Spirit of the Century, where people can tag/compel character aspects to gain advantages/disadvantages. Fate points are a superset of action points.
And off we go! I hope you'll share your suggestions and ideas along the way.
When they meet Shealis, I'll be sure to convey that Solon is Shealis's familiar, not Larion's. 
