Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 – Sort of a Pen, Paper, & Dice Game

Adventure Atari 2600
This post is brought to you by Adventure for the Atari 2600. Don’t get eaten by the… seahorse? Ostrich? I think the main character would be the best Con outfit ever. The Adventure square, the original fantasy game hero…

There have been a lot of whispers as of late about there finally being a new edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and how people feel about what has been announced (or just rumored). There are plenty of things that are making me gape and cringe, one of them being the attempt of Wizards of the Coast to try and make AD&D a pen, paper, dice, and laptop game.

It sounds cool to have an online community to access resources and have discussions. It seems WoC is planning for this to be a place to either print out all of your materials or just plain play. Your mouse is your dry erase marker and avatars are your miniatures.

How do we feel about this? There is no need to look at each other or interact… just look online!

This is what I see happening…

“You encounter a roving band of rogues. Wait a minute while a print it out. Or better yet, log in and we can all see the map over the internet!”

“Cool. It’s like a LAN party. Can we play Doom?”

“If we’re just going to play on the internet, why did we drive to your house?”

“For the cheetos and mountain dew, duh!”

“I have those at my house. Why did I drive if I didn’t need to? I could be playing naked. I want to cast magic missile… naked!”

“Dude, that’s creepy. But I see your point. I could be home, playing World of Warcraft and this game at the same time.”

“Why don’t we just all play World of Warcraft instead?”

“Good idea.”

“Naked?”

“Uh, no. Not a good idea. But, what you do in your own house is your business.”

Scary stuff, huh? It sounds like a lot of the things WoC is removing, changing, or adding are an attempt to lure the MMORPG crowd into the AD&D fold.

Any thoughts on this?

  • The Cowboy

    Adventure rules. I’m pretty sure I still have that one somewhere. Best game ever made for the 2600.

    I have to take credit for being a visionary, when I wrote a dice rolling program back in the mid-80s and used it to play D&D. That started everything….

  • “when I wrote a dice rolling program back in the mid-80s and used it to play D&D”

    Oh, yeah, just a dice rolling program.. suuure… ‘Hey, wow, a natural 20 again!’.

    A visionary… who knew that weighting dice was just too much work. ;)

    “Adventure rules. I’m pretty sure I still have that one somewhere. Best game ever made for the 2600.”

    I don’t know if I think it’s the best, but it was up there. Warlords is the most fun with friends you can have with a 2600 game. Barnstorming is the most fun you can have with animals in a 2600 game. Enduro is the best racing game. Kangaroo and Pitfall for the best platformers… Mountain King I think was the most innovative adventuring sort of game. After that I might put Adventure or Haunted House. I’m sure I’m forgetting games, so if someone wants to jump in and say ‘what about…’. Adventure was probably the closest thing to an enjoyable RPG the 2600 ever had, so for that, it gets uber props. Maybe I should go back and review and do a ‘best of 2600’ awards post.