Thoughts on 4th edition

I've never played the 4th edition rules. When the new game was first announced, I was very eager to try it. The pre-release hype promised all sorts of fixes to things that are problematic in the 3rd edition rules, and I wanted to stay current.

When they actually came out, I had mixed feelings. One purpose of the Ft. Aralan game will be to evaluiate the rules. Don't buy the books on my account. We'll get by passing borrowed books around for now. If you like how it goes, then buy the books.

Things I like:
- 4th edition seems to be a better organized, better edited, and more balanced tactical combat game. That means smoother combat encounters at play-time.
- 4th edition promises simplified rules for creating characters, NPCs, and monster stat blocks. That mean less work for the DM at design time.
- In 4th edition alignment is simply a guide to the expected behavior for a character or NPC, rather than a "force" that can be detected or "protected from". That means it's up to the players to figure out who's good and who's evil.

Things that cause me some concern:
- In order to achieve the smoother rules, 4th edition eliminated things that were seen as cumbersome or unbalanced in the old rule sets. That means less choices for the players when their characters level up. I worry that this takes something away from the game.
- In the name of "balance" each character class has a set of powers to choose from. Across the classes, the powers are essentially equal in power. I worry that this will produce a sort of blandness in the game. Maybe not.
- At first glance, the rules seem to be very focused on how to deal with combat encounters. I tend to run a more story-based game, and I worry that these rules are too combat heavy for my taste. It may be that the non-combat aspects of the game really come from the DM and players imaginations, rather than from the rules, and that this won't matter. We shall see.