No cigar and an armchair, but I'll make do

[kohaku_wind]

So I "found" a copy of DnD 4E. Initial impressions to follow, as bullet-points:

-Long overdue change to alignment regarding world balance. I can’t help but think that everything was greatly oversimplified. More than before, I mean. Still, that might be a good thing; that it doesn't try to cover everything means that more people won't expect to... well... cover everything.

-Loving the advancement system. Should help me resist the urge to throw more XP at the party than what is recommended.

-I'm not bothered so much by the separation of the elves, rather what it signifies for the environs. Why are forests and magic forests separate entities? I guess “normal” forests could have a different flavor of magic than “magic” forests. Eh. We’ll see.

-The interpretation of the tieflings is a lot like a demon race I thought about a while ago, with a DND-appropriate backstory.

-The concept of activated Powers reminds me a lot of Exalted Charms. Especially the silly names (not quite as silly as Exalted though)


Last I checked, there were still discount core-sets still around at Amazon; maybe I'll pick one up.

Comments

[mumbly-joe.livejournal.com]

As far as the elves/eladrin thing, the best way to think of it is as the distinction between High/Grey elves and Wood/Wild elves, only made more explicit, and with Eladrin having this planar connection and heritage as Fey Lords. A lot of people who were complaining that 4e was "a P&P version of WoW" compared Eladrin to Blood Elves, which is really only apt insofar as they [i]are[/i] derived from that same character theme of "high-arcanist, tower-dwelling high elves".

The difference in environs, though, is mainly a planar one. Eladrin have a connection to the Feywild, the plane of faerie and life-energy, and the most powerful Eladrin still dwell there. If you wanted to plop Oberon or Titania into your game, they could easily be powerful Eladrin that dwell in the Feywild. On the material plane, your Galadriels and your Celeborns and your Elronds would all be examples of Eladrin-types (insofar as they all keep that otherworldly quality, and high magic nature), while Legolas would be a prime example of an Elf. Yes, Eladrin are more likely to be found near magic forests -that is to say, forests that are linked to the Feywild- but that itself isn't a major thematic difference between the two races.

I don't think they fleshed this out as well in the core books as they did in the preview materials, though; I think they're planning on saving a lot of it for their Manual of the Planes.

[alors-indikaze.livejournal.com]

I figured that, but it's not so much the "eladrin vs elf" thing that bothers me so much as the implication that the forests in which elves live are inherently normal, and that the Feywild is somehow special. I realize that DnD kind of implied that already but it still feels weird.

[arctangent.livejournal.com]

Well, but the Feywild isn't just "a magic forest" or even a set of magic forests -- it's the Faerie Realm. It's an alternate universe where the wild forces that lie slumbering in our world run free.

I don't think it's really that much of a downer to claim that while the forest near my house is touched by fey forces, that forest is still very much a "real" place -- mappable, measurable, razeable for the purpose of building a new castle if I really wanted -- and the true unbounded forest where the faeries actually live remains beyond the mushroom rings.

[alors-indikaze.livejournal.com]

Eh, maybe in a world that tries for realism and/or modernism, but it seems like DnD is trying even harder for the "wilderness is scary and YOU are one of the few who can brave it..." so why take the fey out of the "normal" world?