Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Preview

[GameBanshee News]

GameSpy brings us a two-page preview of Wizards of the Coast's Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition ruleset, summarizing what we can expect when it's released this summer. Get your credit card ready...

Insider also comes with a map-building tool, a dungeon cartography set with numerous tiles that you can easily drag and drop onto the dungeon grid. Initial tiles include basic walls, doors, pits, and popular variants like walls of fire and spike pits. More tiles will become available as the product line goes on. There's also a simple-to-use sketching tool, so you can doodle something on the fly if needed. Most of these tiles are also 3D, so when you're done building your dungeon you can turn it into a more visually interesting 3D one for your players.

The tiles revolve around the key feature of Insider: the ability to play digitally. In the maps you've assembled, players can manipulate virtual miniatures, make their dice rolls, and play the tactical level of D&D almost as easily as if you were all in one room together. With integrated voice and text chat, the program becomes an easy-to-use, centralized solution for playing D&D without having to get an entire group into one room.

[GawainBS]

While the Insider-portion has potential, especially the map designing, I'm appalled by the evolution towards MMO. From what I've seen from 4E, it gets more shallow. I'm all for simplification, like 3.0 & 3.5 did from AD&D. It simplified the rules, while providing more details. 4E seems to forget to provide the details, making the whole more bland and shallow.