Kurt Wiegel really doesn’t like D&D 4th Edition

As you probably already know I greatly enjoy Kurt Wiegels regular RPG reviews on YouTube. He usually doesn’t do bad reviews and today I found out why this is a good thing. After a lot of people have been demanding a D&D 4th Edition review, he finally gave in. And it’s not a nice review, I can tell you.

And when I understand it correctly, he disagrees with D&D 4th Edition being so different from the earlier editions. I can understand that this is not to everyone’s liking, but does this make it a bad game? I strongly disagree. In a way he’s just saying: “It’s not what I wanted D&D 4th Edition to be – so it’s a bad game.”

I have to admit I like Kurt Wiegel more, when he’s reviewing games he likes!

Michael Wolf is a German games designer and enthusiast best known for his English language role-playing games blog, Stargazer's World, and for creating the free rules-light medieval fantasy adventure game Warrior, Rogue & Mage. He has also worked as an English translator on the German-language Dungeonslayers role-playing game and was part of its editorial team. In addition to his work on Warrior, Rogue & Mage and Dungeonslayers, he has created several self-published games and also performed layout services and published other independent role-playing games such as A Wanderer's Romance, Badass, and the Wyrm System derivative Resolute, Adventurer & Genius, all released through his imprint Stargazer Games. Professionally, he works as a video technician and information technologies specialist. Stargazer's World was started by Michael in August 2008.

14 comments

comments user
Andrew

Angry Roleplaying Game Nerd 🙂

comments user
Zachary

I agree, he probably should have left that one alone.

I don't like a lot of the changes in 4e, either, but I like to sort of let sleeping dogs lie when I can. 🙂

<abbr><abbr>Zacharys last blog post..Friday Discussion: What's Your Favorite Space/Sci-Fi RPG?</abbr></abbr>

comments user
Questing GM

I'm pretty disappointed with this review. For someone who can come up with good and fairly objective reviews, this is sounded more like a rant and quite a lot of generalizations have seem to be made about 4E which sounds like it could be overcome if he had played a few session (with someone who can make use of the rules pretty well).

Still, it's too early to judge. There's part 2.

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comments user
Stargazer

What annonyed me a bit was that Mr. Wiegel couldn't even name the classes correctly. It seems he is so infuriated that he didn't even read the books thoroughly. And that's pretty disappointing because his other reviews are usually spot on.

comments user
Fara

@ Stargazer: 'In a way'? LOL

He just rants incoherently about something without knowing much about the topic, and goes off on useless tangents. At least he should have read through the books again before doing this 'review'. 😉

comments user
Stargazer

@Fara: I was just being polite. 🙂

comments user
greywulf

Wow.

He does make one good point though, that of 4e D&D pigeon-holing both the class archetypes and campaign expectations. I don't think either are necessarily a bad thing though, and just put into words how D&D is "usually" played. If you want to play a plane-spanning campaign at first level go right ahead and just re-tool some of the monsters.

When it comes to the classes being pigeon-holed into certain roles, that's just the nature of having a class-based game system and little different from how D&D through the Editions. 4e lacks 3e's flexibility in this regard simply because it lacks the wealth of supplements that 3e has garnered over the years. I'd have liked the roles in 4e to be less strict than they are though. I'd love to be able to build a decent lightly-armoured spear-wielding Fighter, for example.

Me, I expected to be savage and hate 4e D&D in much the same way. But I don't, I'm pleasantly surprised by it.

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comments user
Stargazer

@greywulf: I agree that 3E's flexibility comes from the fact that we have hundreds of classes, class variants et cetera. D&D 4E will also feel much more flexible when the PHB2 will be released.

My main problem with Kurt's review is that it's not a review, it's a rant. And I don't think the second part of the "review" will change that.

comments user
Fara

@ Stargazer: I know, I just found it incredibly funny for some reason. ^^

Und BTW – Daumen hoch zu deinem Blog und mach weiter so. 😉

comments user
Tom

I agree with Stargazer; it's a rant not a review. Not very subjective.

comments user
Questing GM

I guess fans should have really shut up about asking for that 8,000 pound gorilla by the corner.

<abbr><abbr>Questing GMs last blog post..Word of Wizards – March Editorial Calendar</abbr></abbr>

comments user
Samuel Van Der Wall

He is right on a lot of it. It does pigeonhole characters. It isn't very recognizable as D&D, but almost a completely new game. And they did gut out a lot of races / classes and add new ones.

<abbr><abbr>Samuel Van Der Walls last blog post..RPGBomb – A Social Networking Site For Roleplayers</abbr></abbr>

comments user
Aaron

Dungons and Dragons 4th Edition doesn't pigeonhole you unless you let it. If you want to be exploring the multiverse by the 6th level, then you can do that (unless your DM doesn't want you to). Nothing in the book explicitly says "okay, you can not do anything else during these levels but_______". This could hardly be considered a review – it's more like a rant.

<abbr><abbr>Aarons last blog post..It’s Coming…</abbr></abbr>

comments user
Tom bombadance

Ha, 4th edition is lees and less interesting for gamers every day

http://www.google.com/insights/search/?hl=en-US#c

3.5, instead, thrives