Keep on the Shadowfell
I’m not sure how, but I managed to devote a couple of hours last night to flipping through Keep on the Shadowfell, the preview adventure for D&D 4E. Now, until it’s played, I will reserve full judgment, but here is what I’m getting at first blush:
4E completes the work of making D&D a true gaming system, rather than a loosely-connected ruleset.
To be sure, 3E started this process, and it is the right path for D&D to take. No one has ever suggested that the rules in OD&D through AD&D 2nd Edition were balanced. In many cases, they were a bunch of disjointed ideas gathered in one place with often disastrous results. Did that make it a bad game? Of course not. If AD&D had sucked horribly, I wouldn’t be writing this blog today.
But, the next logical step in the evolution of the game was to truly systematize the ruleset. 3E started that process, and 4E seems to take to it’s logical conclusion. One of the things that 4E is sometimes criticized for is it’s resemblance to a Collectible Card Game. This may be true, to a degree; while there are no cards per se, creature and character stats and abilities have specific mechanical language, language that helps to define the rules of the game.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I think it’s good insofar as game balance is a concern. I also think it streamlines the system side of things, making it an easier game to learn. That brings me to my next point:
Keep on the Shadowfell reminds me of Basic D&D.
With a player’s guide and an adventure book, the opening pages of Keep on the Shadowfell read like Basic D&D. It lays the whole system out in just a few pages, and does a decent job of describing how D&D works to the initiate. While I’m certain the core books will feel very different, Keep on the Shadowfell is the sort of product a 13 year-old fantasy geek could pick up and be playing with his compatriots within a couple of hours. I’m not sure I can say that about any D&D product since Basic.
This is decidedly good. Anything that brings in a younger generation of players is a good thing. More players means more money, which means more R&D, which means higher-quality products. And, as a seasoned D&D player, I’m not offended in the least by the teaching tone of Keep on the Shadowfell. It’s designed to be introductory material.
So, what else is going on in Keep on the Shadowfell?
Keep on the Shadowfell is decidedly encounter-heavy, but also contains a sufficient amount of role-play material.
For me, D&D is collaborative storytelling, more than killing things and taking their stuff. The problem with collaborative storytelling is the collaborative part: you can never be certain what players will do. As such, it’s hard to design the story side of things for a single gaming group, much less a huge market of gamers. Having said that, D&D has done well over the years in providing some good role-play material.
Here’s what I like about the role-play material in Keep on the Shadowfell: it is designed such that any DM can pick up the adventure and implement the important NPC interactions with little trouble. This adventure really spells things out. Even so, Keep on the Shadowfell also offers DMs ideas about different directions they could take the role-playing side of things, which is something I’ve not seen enough of in recent D&D adventure materials.
If there is something I’d criticize about Keep on the Shadowfell, it is that combat encounters take precedence over non-combat encounters. I can’t say this is that different from previous versions, however.
There is something else I’ll criticize, too.
I’m mildly disappointed in the production value of Keep on the Shadowfell.
Keep on the Shadowfell consists of an Adventure booklet, a Players’ booklet, and 4 dual-sided poster maps, all inside of a card stock folder-style sleeve. This isn’t bad in itself, but I think Wizards cut some corners that they shouldn’t have here. I don’t mind paying $30 for a soft back adventure with 4 poster maps, especially one that is designed so well. Here’s what I have a problem with: the adventure booklet and the players’ booklet have standard glossy magazine-page quality covers. That stinks. Would it really have hurt production costs that much to use card stock or even a thicker glossy paper for the cover? I get that the cardboard sleeve is supposed to protect the contents, but I’m not going to read the thing inside the sleeve.
The production value isn’t horrid in the way that some 3rd party 3E products were horrid. Honestly, I think it’s just the cover thing that bugs me here.
Overall analysis
I give Keep on the Shadowfell 8.5 out of 10 stars. My personal preference for non-combat encounters and the crappy booklet covers keep it from hitting the top.
The real test will be next Monday, when I run the group through it for the first time. Hopefully, I can have some analysis shortly thereafter!
Check out Session Report & Review: Keep on the Shadowfelll (Part 1) from Critical Hits for more analysis.
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- Class(ic) D&D
- Balance and Rules Convergence in Dungeons and Dragons 4E
- How Do You Foster Good Roleplaying?
- What makes a good Dungeon Master?
- Optimization and CR
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6 Responses to “Keep on the Shadowfell”
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Awesome Deals!
I actually ran about two encounters for a group last night, and will probably do so again tonight. The two things I’ll say about running it -
Find a way that your group likes to keep track of who is marking who, and who is bloodied. I totally agree with the old Save My Game article on this - Quickly and easily conveying these mechanics does a lot to speed up combat.
Beyond that, even the most basic monsters have powers that, as a DM, are just fun. It’s not so much a chore to run little mooks like kobolds when they all have neat, quirky powers.
[...] Keep on the Shadowfell flip-through review from DM’s Blog. [...]
Good deal, can’t wait till you run it for the weekend crew. Would like to finally put some of my reservations to rest.
Apis
We started it on Tuesday night with me as DM. What we did for marking was take the chips from a couple of games, most notably the red chips from Axis & Allies to use for bloodied markers, as they are small we will use red poker chips when larger creatures get encountered. We had other colors for other marks and each character got their own chip to keep track of their own marks
[...] → The DMs Blog: Want to hear more about the D&D 4e preview module, Keep on the Shadowfell? You’re in luck. [...]
I’d agree about the covers. I’ve been dragging the thing to work to prep for gaming tonight, and the back cover (aka last page) of the adventure book is almost torn off.
Still, it’s pretty amazing to see all this color and detailed maps, etc. When I think about “Keep on the Borderlands”, and the black and white typesetting.
Since WotC is going to set the standard for how things are displayed, this is a good thing in my mind.