The DnD website had been redesigned a couple of weeks back and me for one, feel that it is an upgrade over the previous installment. Its magazine front is much more eye-catching, and there is a certain gloss and structure to it that makes you want to read its content.
Just like the 4.0 game itself, the newly integrated website (nicely linked to its forums etc) strives to change itself for the better over time so as to entice people to look, to try and ultimately, hope to engage its core crowd enough for them to click a link or play the game. That I feel, with the exception of the ugly new forums, is a step in the right direction.
4.0 has been going towards the direction of multiple but much shorter adventures (delves they call it, or "3 to 4 encounter" sort of dungeons/quests), which can loosely link themselves to a main storyline or an end-goal. I am heartened to see this change as many potential DMs are intimidated by having to make a really long dungeon romp if they are just starting out and this delve-concept provides chew-sized pieces -easily digestible- for the creative mind.
The new Chaos Scar campaign is one example. It actually returns to old-school role playing roots. The plot structure is more open-ended now, with the description of the region given, and only the start and end-goal stated. How the DM and the players get there (to the end-goal) is entirely up to them.
Simple. Clean.
Hooray for simplicity and allowing decisions to affect the game-world. Wonder why it took them a whole year to realize that DnD featuring the ideas of the players, and allowing them to immerse themselves in the world by being able to contribute/change it will make a happy campaign?
WoTC's action-first "Movie Scripted"-driven plotline is still around, but is no longer the default pace for every single minute of the campaign, but rather encouraged at given points in the adventure.
New DMs reading and wanting to start a campaign in the Chaos Scar region will thus find that free reign had been bestowed on them. Some say that with freer reign comes greater power comes greater responsibility comes a greater chance to do wrong too, but without a clear right or wrong, the new DMs would be more willing to imprint their own ideas and style on the campaign, which was tougher to do in the tightly scripted Scales of War or their previously published adventure material.
For example, Shane had to alter whole parts or delete complete encounters to place some of his own designs in Scales of War, to give the campaign his own feel. I totally agree with that choice, but more often than not, the adventure still feels like Scales of War due to its pacing and inherent railroading of choices, as being participants of an action movie is the campaign's trademark.
If so wanted, Chaos Scar can allow freedom of movement between quests and adventures, to the point that a party (without proper planning or background evaluation) can venture into a dungeon not meant for their "skill" or "level" and get royally crushed by over-leveled creatures.
This leads back to the DM's discretion. How he plans the control of "his" Chaos Scar will alter the mood and the pace of the campaign. I can safely say that if three new DMs run the open-concept campaign next week, their individual sessions will almost be like playing three largely different campaigns, flavored with their own unique journey from Point A to B- which is the party's goal.
It is early days still, but let us all applaud this small step in 4.o, which makes a giant leap in the direction of old-school gaming. Folks, not everything old is obsolete, or everything new -great-.
In fact if you give Old a go, it might actually turn out to be gold.
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