Keep on the Shadowfell - Session 1 Thoughts
June 3, 2008 · Filed Under 4E, Dungeons and Dragons
On Saturday, five of my good friends and I gave Keep on the Shadowfell, the preview module for DnD 4E, a whirl. Without giving away spoilers, here are my thoughts:
- I like the feel of the mechanic. It was easy to master, and some of the monster abilities were hella cool.
- combat lasted just about the right amount of time, given we were learning the system. I think that, in time, it will speed up. If it’s true that combat at 25th level should take the same amount of time as 1st level, then they’ve definitely got this right.
- Story-wise, the developers did a wonderful job. I especially liked the NPC characterizations as written. I didn’t have to add much of anything.
- I’m not sure, yet, about the flavor matching the mechanic. There were some PC abilities that looked cool but didn’t seem to make sense. It will be interesting to see if they make more sense when we’re less concerned about learning a mechanic, and more able to devote time to the flavor.
- I did shut my guys down at one point. There was some serious 4E trash talk going on, and I felt like it would be better to have that after the game as opposed to during. Some of it was good-natured ribbing, but I think some of it may have been serious concerns.
- The players who I thought would hate it seemed to have a good time.
- The players I thought would be more open minded seemed to have more problems with the rules than the other folks.
It will be interesting to see what the fellas think after we finish Keep on the Shadowfell next session. I’m prepared for the worst; I like what I see. I’m probably 70% sold, after seeing it played. We’ll have to see how it goes with the guys. I’ve got a splinter group ready and willing to play 4E if I need to, but I’d much rather run with these guys.
So, what about you? If you’ve played Keep, was your experience similar? If you haven’t played, what do you anticipate?
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3 Responses to “Keep on the Shadowfell - Session 1 Thoughts”
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Awesome Deals!
If you can make time for it… go to your FLGS and try to grab a copy of the Game Day Adventure. It’s shorter but better than Keep.
The Chatty DMs last blog post..Contest Season… and Pimp your site.
Trash talker chiming in. First session thoughts.
Just a note, my problems are not with the system changes per say. I like the changes well enough, though they pretty much just shift the dice rolls from the defender to the aggressor more and I have a lot more to track now when running my character.
Not that it is bad, I mean tracking things is fun right?!
My problem right now is the flavor of the game has changed. Character classes specifically. I do not want my wizard to play like my fighter or rouge. I understand the reasons behind the changes, Boffo has been very good at explaining his perspective. I simply don’t like them.
Looking forward to the next session, and I promise to be nicer. I want to like it, but as Bob said up above, some of the flavor and powers with classes just seems silly.
Like I told you on game day, It will take a couple sessions at least for me to give an honest opinion.
First impression: different but the same. I didn’t see anything that was really all that ground breaking with it. I guess some of the things some folks may label as ground breaking just didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. It was different. It was fun.
1st level combat always flies. I am very interested how the higher level maneuvers work in speeding up combat.