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At this point it’s common wisdom that the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons is the worst. It’s certainly the most maligned edition, with a general consensus that it parrots video game mechanics, straightjackets PCs with predefined abilities, and eliminates much of what makes individual classes special.

And I love it.

Which isn’t to say I don’t have criticisms (lengthy combat and lack of support for the epic tier being two of them), but I also think there’s a lot to recommend a second look at 4e. Over the next few months I’ll be posting some of the things I think 4e got right in its changes to the fantasy RPG formula.

For instance, 4e is the edition that was made for Dungeon Masters — literally. Not a lot of people seem to remember this, but one of 4e’s explicit design goals was to make running the game as easy as possible. In the Worlds and Monsters promo, Matthew Sernett writes:

“It’s going to be a lot easier and more fun to be a Dungeon Master in 4th Edition. You’ll have to do less work to put together and run great adventures. The time that you used to spend on math can be spent on coming up with cool ideas for encounters and adventure plots instead… Making being a DM easier (and making it easier to be a good DM) is going to get more people to try running a game.”

One place this mindset is reflected is in the layout of adventure modules. Almost every encounter is laid out as a two-page spread, meaning the DM doesn’t have to flip pages back and forth while running an encounter. All the information needed is in those two pages: environmental descriptions and effects, monster stats, traps, tactical suggestions, etc. By contrast, I’m constantly flipping pages in WotC’s 5e adventures between the encounter description, the map, and the monster stats in the Monster Manual, and any spells used by the monsters in the Player’s Handbook just to run a simple encounter.

4e also featured fantastic advice in it’s 2 DMGs. The Dungeon Master’s Guide 2, in particular, is a great resource for DMs of any edition. It has advice on crafting long-term campaigns, including story structure, avoiding dead ends when PCs fail to overcome an obstacle, and integrating flashbacks, transitions, and even third-person teasers into a session. It also has great examples for creating more interesting encounters, building traps, customizing monsters, and offering alternate rewards. Anyone interested in RPG design would benefit from the DMG2’s insights.

In the end, the focus on DMs is probably one of the things that worked against 4e. Since most D&D players are, well, players, they weren’t as invested in the upgrades to running the game and didn’t see the benefits. Which is a shame. While 4e isn’t perfect, it did a lot to lift some of the burdens on DMs — a fact for which I am grateful.

At the end of 2019 I was planning to dive deep into board games: I was putting together a little card game about a robot who saves a crippled spaceship’s crew, I had started attending a local board game meet-up, and I even had tickets for Gen Con 2020.

Then came a global pandemic and lockdown.

As a result, 2020 was the year I went deep into role-playing games, spurred on by a late 2019 invitation to play some Mutant Crawl Classics.

At first I was a little skeptical. I don’t consider myself an old school gamer (I cut my teeth on AD&D 2e and Werewolf: the Apocalypse) and my experience with grognards was uneven at best. And now a gonzo game with lots of random tables, high lethality, and a design aesthetic from the 70s?

Instead I found that I loved the game. Reflecting back on the last year I think there are three things in particular that make the Dungeon Crawl Classics system (on which MCC is based) right for me:

Randomness acts as a guardrail. One of the things that made me keep old school gaming at arms length was the perception (and some experience) that the “rulings not rules” ethos was used as justification for GM fiat. As someone who wants the characters to be proactive and try things, I tend to at least give players the opportunity to fail. But I’ve played with old school DMs who just say “no, that won’t work” without even letting me roll the dice.

What I found playing MCC is that the randomness actually puts the brakes on some of this because “that doesn’t work” is baked into the system. For instance, the DCC spell system incorporates random tables specific to each individual spell. Roll too low and the spell fizzles out (or even causes physical corruption of the spellcaster!). On the other hand, the effect of the spell becomes bigger and more spectacular the higher you roll.

Even when attempting something that isn’t covered by a system in the rules there’s an easy mechanic for letting players try out something crazy, because…

Luck is the secret sauce. DCC characters come with five stats that will be familiar to most gamers: Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, and Intelligence. But instead of Wisdom, DCC (and MCC) has Luck.

Luck can be used in two primary ways. First, if a character wants to try something outside the box, the judge can call for a simple Luck check: roll a d20 and try to roll under your Luck score. If you succeed, it works; if not it fails. This can be used in a variety of situations: did you remember to bring a tool that will help you out? Do you find anything useful in that discarded backpack you found? Is the dragon asleep or awake as you creep into its lair? All can be handled by a Luck check.

Even more importantly, Luck can be used to boost any roll. By taking a permanent decrease in your Luck score you can add a bonus to almost any roll. Decrease your Luck by 1, get a +1; decrease it by 2, get a +2; and so on. Desperate times call for desperate measures and taking a hit to your Luck will get you out of an immediate scrape, but will catch up with you eventually. That extra dash of resource management really balances out Luck and is one of the unique spins the creators of DCC brings to the hobby. Speaking of them…

Goodman Games treats its fans well. Without calling anyone else out, I don’t know of an RPG company that does more outreach and support for its players than Goodman Games. They have regular programming on their Twitch channel with actual plays, shows about the literature of Appendix N and old D&D modules and previews of upcoming releases. They host regular online conventions and actively support a large number of regional and national cons.

They even have their Road Crew program which rewards judges (their term for GM) who run public games in their local community or at cons. How cool is that?!

On top of that, they understand that lots of gamers don’t have a lot of cash to spend on modules, so their price point for the standard adventure is just $10 for the printed version or $7 PDF. They do have some deluxe boxed adventures that cost a bit more, but the fact that I can get a solid adventure that will last 4-6 hours for just $10 is amazing.

All said, getting into DCC/MCC this past year has been a boost to my gaming life. I’m looking forward to running some modules at cons this coming year and continuing to meet more members of the DCC community!

In Defense of 4e – Part 1: Love for the Dungeon Master

Three Great Things about Dungeon Crawl Classics