Thursday, March 27, 2008

I'm choking on Miniatures.

As I'm going over the character sheets (Tira, Kathra, Corrin et al.) I keep getting this vague sense of deja vu. Where had I seen these? Were they released in an earlier incomplete form? Did I see them in a dream?

Then it hit me. I had seen them before. In every Spotlight article about some new mini for the D&D Minis game.

Oh sure, they're a little more fleshed out now. A few more stat lines but that's about all the difference that I see. Squares. Defense scores. Features that depend on an ally (or allies) being so many squares away. Is this 4th Edition D&D or 2nd edition Minis?

Roles I can ignore (in fact I love the idea when applied to monsters and encounter design). Squares I can easily translate into feet (yes WotC. I can manage 4th grade math.) The redundant explanations I can just roll my eyes and move on from ("Your powers are called spells, since they are from the arcane power source." Ummm... duh.).

What I can't stand is having the Minis rulebook inflated and sold to me as the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons.

That said, I'm definitely buying the 4th edition PHB. I'll do my best to approach the game with an open mind and give it all a fair shake. I'll adapt to the new lingo (what the hell is a "slide"?), ignore roles as they pertain to characters, and convert squares to feet (yes WotC, I can manage 4th grade math).

Above all else I know better than to make too much of preview material and teasers. The game that comes out in June could be very different than what I'm picturing in my head.

Of course, if the first adventure module includes ready made characters on 2x4 cards, I'm outta here.

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