Franchise Familiariser: Deadlands

Tabletop roleplaying games are currently back in vogue. Dungeons & Dragons 5^th Edition continues to be the biggest fish in the pond, with a revised edition released in 2024, whilst games like Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk RED, Mothership, Mork Borg and Dragonbane continue to do well. But another venerable RPG recently (ish) returned with a new edition (with a minor new revision arriving soon). What is Deadlands? What is it about? We have you covered with a Franchise Familiariser course!

The Basics

Deadlands is a horror-steampunk-alternate history franchise that debuted in October 1996 as a tabletop roleplaying game. Since then, it has spun off novels, comics and multiple editions of the tabletop game, but no live-action or video game adaptations as yet (despite interest and attempts).

The game was developed by RPG writer Shane Lacey Hensley, inspired by a painting by the artist Brom depicting a Confederate vampire from the World of Darkness line. Hensley set up a new company, PinnacleEntertainment Group, to publish the game. Two industry veteran friends of his, Greg Gorden and Matt Forbeck, come on board early on to act as writers, editors and even investors in his company.

Launching in October 1996, the game was an unexpected smash hit success, given the poor state of the tabletop industry at the time (Dungeons & Dragons was just starting to undergo the convulsions leading to the collapse of TSR and its buy-out by Wizards of the Coast several years later), and won an Origins Award. Deadlands sold well enough to warrant no less than forty-nine sourcebooks and a revised edition (launched in 1999), as well as spin-off roleplaying games Deadlands: Hell on Earth (1998) and Deadlands: Lost Colony (2002). A collectible card game, Doomtown, was launched in 1998 and ran until 2001. The roleplaying game also generated an accompanying miniatures line and its own focused wargame, Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars, which began in 1997.

In 2001 Deadlands was relaunched as Deadlands d20. It abandoned the use of the original, popular rules system and switched to the d20 rules system popularised by Dungeons & Dragons 3^rd Edition, under the Open Game Licence. Although new companies had found financial success with d20 games, established companies were fiercely criticised by long-term fans for making such a move to chase dollars at the expense of existing fans (who saw no reason to move to a whole new rules system and spend more money when the existing rules were still fine). The move was also of arguably limited utility: many D&D fans who came on board with 3^rd Edition showed a reluctance to move to a new game, even one using compatible rules. As a result, Deadlands lost many of its established fans and failed to pick up many new ones.

The financial losses stemming from the d20 experiment were substantial and Pinnacle almost went under; the company was refounded as Great White Games to alleviate these issues.

In 2003, the Deadlands rules, specifically the simplified set used in Great Rail Wars, were revamped and republished as Savage Worlds, a generic rules system with no established setting. Like earlier generic games like GURPS, the idea with Savage Worlds was to have one central rules system and players could then pick up a number of different optional settings and games to slot into the core system. Savage Worlds was warmly-received, with a number of different games and settings released for it in the first few years.

By 2006 Great White Games was able to revert to the Pinnacle Entertainment moniker. In that year Pinnacle released Deadlands: Reloaded, effectively a second edition of the game using the Savage Worlds fork of the rules system. Numerous supplements and expansions followed. Hell on Earth was also relaunched, and in 2012 was joined by a new spin-off game, Deadlands: Noir. In 2020 the game was relaunched as Deadlands: The Weird West, aka “Deadlands for Savage Worlds Adventurer Edition” (SWADE), compatible with the latest edition of Savage Worlds. This is the current version of the game being supported, with additional adventures and sourcebooks following.

A small selection of the original 1st Edition Deadlands sourcebooks, courtesy of Wayne's Books.

The Canon

The Deadlands canon consists of four roleplaying games (with a fifth in development) broadly sharing the same timeline. Time travel and parallel universes exist in the setting, allowing for retcons and lore changes between versions of the games without getting too caught up in minutiae, an in-universe phenomenon known as “the Mandela Effect.” Each roleplaying game exists in multiple editions, broadly speaking the original (now dubbed “Classic”), the Reloaded edition that used the first version of the Savage Worlds rules system, and the modern editions that use the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition rules system (SWADE).

The five roleplaying games in the setting are Deadlands (sometimes called The Weird West to differentiate it from the others), Hell on Earth, Lost Colony, Deadlands Noir and the forthcoming Dark Ages.

Deadlands

Classic Core Rulebooks: Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game (1996) • Deadlands: Weird West Player’s Guide (1999) • Deadlands: Marshal’s Handbook (1999) • Deadlands Classic: 20^th Anniversary Edition Core Rulebook (2017)

Classic Sourcebooks: The Quick and the Dead (1997) • Book o’ the Dead (1997) • Smith & Robards (1997) • Hucksters & Hexes (1997) • Rascals, Varmints & Critters (1997) • Twisted Tales (1997) • The Great Maze (boxed set) (1997) • Marshal Law (1996) • Ghost Dancers (1998) • Fire & Brimstone (1998) • City O’ Gloom (boxed set) (1998) • Law Dogs (1998) • Devil’s Tower 1: The Road to Hell (1998) • Devil’s Tower 2: Heart O’ Darkness (1998) • Devil’s Tower 3: Fortress of Fear (1998) • Tales o’ Terror: 1877 (1998) • Lost Angels (1998) • River O’ Blood (boxed set) (1998) • Boomtowns (boxed set) (1999) • Marshall’s Log (1999) • Doomtown or Bust! (1999) • Bloody Ol’ Muddy (1999) • Back East: The North (1999) • Back East: The South (1999) • South O’ The Border (1999) • Canyon O’ Doom (1999) • Rascals, Varmints and Critters II (2000) • The Agency – The Men in Black Dusters (2000) • Ghost Busters (2000) • Hexarcana (2000) • The Collegium (2000) • Rain O’ Terror (2000) • The Great Weird North (2000) • The Black Circle – Unholy Alliance (2000) • Dead Presidents (2000) • Lone Stars – The Texas Rangers (2001) • Epitaph #1 (2000) • Epitaph #2 (2000) • Epitaph #3 (2000) • Epitaph #4 (2001)

Dime Novel Adventures: Perdition’s Daughter (1996) • Independence Day (1996) • Night Train (1997) • Under a Harrowed Moon Part 1: Strange Bedfellows (1997) • Under a Harrowed Moon Part 2: Savage Passage (1998) • Under a Harrowed Moon Part 3: Ground Zero (1998) • The Forbidden God (1998) • Adios, A-Mi-Go! (1998) • Skinners (1999) • Worms! (1999)

d20 Core Rulebook: Deadlands: d20 (2001)

d20 Sourcebooks: Horrors o’ the Weird West (2001) • The Way of the Brave (2001) • The Way of the Dead (2001) • The Way of the Gun (2001) • The Way of the Huckster (2001) • The Way of the New Science (2001) • The Way of the Righteous (2001)

GURPS Deadlands Core Rulebook: GURPS Deadlands: Weird West (2001)

GURPS Expansions: Dime Novel 1 – Aces and Eights (2001) • Dime Novel 2 – Wanted: Undead or Alive (2001) • Hexes (2002) • Varmints (2003)

Reloaded Core Rulebooks: Deadlands Reloaded (2006) • Deadlands Reloaded Player’s Guide (2006) • Deadlands Reloaded Marshal’s Handbook (2006)

Reloaded Sourcebooks: Marshal’s Screen (2009) • Trail Guide: The Great Northwest (2010) • Trail Guide: South o’ the Border (2010) • Trail Guide: Weird White North (2011) • 1880 Smith & Robards Catalog (2011) • Ghost Towns (2012)

Reloaded Adventures: Coffin Rock (2008) • Don’t Drink the Water (2009) • Doomtown: A Fight They’ll Never Forget (2009) • The Flood (2009) • Murder on the Hellstromme Express (2009) • Night Train 2: For Whom the Whistle Blows (2010) • Saddle Sore (2010) • Devil’s Night (2011) • Blood Drive 1: Bad Times on the Goodnight (2012) • Blood Drive 2: High Plains Drovers (2012) • Guess Whose Coming to Dinner (2012) • The Last Sons (2012) • Return to Manitou Bluff  (2012) • Blood Drive 3: Range War! (2012) • The Inheritors (2013) • Stone and a Hard Place (2015) • Dead Men Walkin’ (2015) • The Tombstone Seven (2015) • All the Purty Little Horses (2016) • The Twilight Protocol (2016) • The Land Beyond the Busted Doorway (2016) • Sawed ‘em in Gomorra (2016) • Paradise Lost (2017) • Good Intentions (2017) • Knights with No Armor (2017) • A Tale of Two Killers (2020)

Reloaded Dime Novel Adventures: Beast of Fire (2005) • Deadshot (2006) • Frostbite (2006)

SWADE Core Rulebooks: Deadlands: The Weird West Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (2021)

SWADE Sourcebooks: Hell on the High Plains (2023) • The Abominable Northwest (2025) • The Mysterious Maze (2026)

SWADE Adventures: Showdown at Sundown (2021) • Blood Drive (2021) • Crater Lake Chronicles (2021) • Horror at Headstone Hill (2021) • Night Train (2024) • Carnage in the Cascades (2025) • Curse of the Maze Queen (2026) • Red Tide (2026)

Short Story Collections: A Fistful O’ Dead Guys (1999) • For a Few Dead Guys More (1999) • The Good, the Bad and the Dead (1999) • Wendigo Tales: Savage Stories of the Weird West (2025)

Novels: Deluge: A Novel of the Flood (John Goff, 2008) • Ghostwalkers (Jonathan Maberry, 2015) • Thunder Moon Rising (Jeffrey Mariotte, 2016) • Boneyard (Seanan McGuire, 2017)

Graphic Novels: The Cackler (2016) • Rise of the Black Circle (2025)

Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars

Core Rulebook: Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars (boxed set) (1997) • Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars Revised (2001)

Expansions: Reinforcements (1997) • Derailed (1998) • A Fist Full of Ghost Rock (1998) • Dogs o’ War (1998) • Cry Havoc (1998) • High Noon (2000) • Raid on Roswell (2001)

 

Deadlands: Hell on Earth

Hell on Earth Core Rulebooks: Deadlands: Hell on Earth (1998) • The Wasted West (1998)

Hell on Earth Sourcebooks: Brainburners (1998) • The Last Crusaders (1998) • Children o’ the Atom (1998) • Road Warriors (1998) • Toxic Tales (1998) • Radiation Screen (1998) • Cyborgs (1999) • The Junkman Cometh (1999) • Shattered Coast (1999) • Iron Oasis (1999) • Monsters, Muties ‘n’ Misfits (1999) • Waste Warriors (2000) • Spirit Warriors (2000) • Denver (2001) • City O’ Sin (2001)

Hell on Earth Adventures: Hell or High Water (1998) • Something About a Sword (1999) • Urban Renewal (2000) • The Boise Horror (2000) • The Unity (2002)

Hell on Earth Dime Novels: Leftovers (1998) • Killer Clowns (1999) • Infestations (1999)

Hell on Earth d20 Core Rulebook: Hell on Earth d20 (2002)

Hell on Earth d20 Sourcebooks: Horrors of the Wasted West (2002)

Hell on Earth Reloaded Core Rulebooks: Hell on Earth Reloaded (2012) • Hell on Earth Player’s Guide (2012)

Hell on Earth Reloaded Sourcebooks: Hell on Earth Companion (2014)

Hell on Earth Reloaded Adventures: The Worms’ Turn (2014)

Deadlands: Lost Colony

Classic Core Rulebooks: Deadlands: Lost Colony (2002)

Classic Sourcebooks: Lost Colony Companion (2002)

SWADE Core Rulebooks: Deadlands: Lost Colony for Savage Worlds Adventurer’s Edition (2020)

SWADE Adventures: A Billion Miles from Home (2019) • Widowmaker (2020) • Hellstromme Triumphant (2020) • Maw of Oblivion (2024) • Mad World (2025)

Lost Colony Novels: Banshee Screams (2002)

 

Deadlands: Noir

Core Rulebooks: Deadlands Noir (2012) • Deadlands Noir Player’s Guide (2012)

Adventures: The Old Absinthe House Blues (2013) • The Case of the Jumbo Shrimp (2013)

Dime Novels: Tenement Men (2012) • Blood & Roses (2013) • Memories of Yesterday (2013)

 

Deadlands: Dark Ages

SWADE Core Rulebooks: Deadlands: Dark Ages Core Rulebook (forthcoming)

SWADE Adventures: Sins of the Father (2023)

Graphic Novels: Merlin’s Champions (forthcoming)

Brom's original cover art for the 1996 release of Deadlands.

Backstory

In 1863, the American Civil War peaked with the Battle of Gettysburg, a decisive confrontation between the United States of America and the rebel Confederacy. But on the day of the battle, a mystical ritual ruptured the walls between this dimension and one beyond, the Hunting Grounds, the home of incredibly powerful entities known as the Reckoners. The Reckoners were able touch our world, unleashing chaos, evil and darkness. The dead began to rise, strange creatures appeared and an uncanny sense of fear began to spread across North America. The greater the cumulative level of fear in the world, the more powerful the Reckoners became.

Shortly after this event, a massive earthquake tore California apart, dropping most of the coast into the ocean and forming a shattered landscape of ravines, whirlpools and canyons: the Great Maze. In the walls of the Maze, explorers found an incredible source of energy and power, ghost rock. Capable of burning far hotter than coal and for far longer, ghost rock opened amazing new avenues for scientific research and engineering. New technology appeared, including steam-powered gatling guns, gyrocopters and steam tanks. Stories of “strange happenings” around ghost rock were dismissed, or even accepted as the price of harnessing this new power. The Civil War raged on, far longer than anyone expected, before the North finally gained the upper hand and defeated the South in 1871 (although many swear blind to having memories where the Civil War continued into the early 1880s).

Deadlands chronicles the “classic” Weird West, the original incarnation of the setting. The original edition of the game was set in 1876, the very mild revised edition in 1877, the Reloaded edition was set in 1879 and the current SWADE edition updates things to 1884.

Deadlands: Hell on Earth is a sequel to the original game. Set in 2094, Hell on Earth postulates that the Reckoners finally succeeded in entering the world in 2081, triggering the Last War, a cataclysmic conflict that devasted the world. Hell on Earth is set in the Wasted West, a post-apocalyptic North America where magic and technology have become intermingled. The world has largely been laid waste but, curiously, having entered our world the Reckoners soon after vanished, and a key part of the metaplot ties into finding out what happened to them, as well as traditional post-apocalyptic concerns.

Deadlands: Lost Colony runs simultaneously alongside Hell on Earth and is also set in 2094. However, the setting is another planet altogether, known only as Banshee. Using a mixture of ghost rock and magic, an expedition was sent via wormhole to this planet. Discovering it to be rich in ghost rock, humanity began colonising and exploiting the planet, leading to conflict with the native species, the Anouks. More than three million humans were on Banshee when the Last War took place, sealing the wormhole and leaving them trapped. The game depicts more of a classic science fiction setting, with some spaceships, laser weapons and more advanced technology, mixed with magic. The game’s metaplot kicks in when it is revealed that the Reckoners were banished from Earth shortly after the Last War…but they were banished to Banshee, and their arrival obviously is not good news for the inhabitants of the planet. Fortunately, since Banshee is in a much better state than Earth and has a smaller population (depriving the Reckoners of the vast quantities of fear they feed on), there is also the possibility that they might be finally vulnerable on Banshee. The SWADE edition of the game updates the timeline to 2096 and hints of a final way of defeating the Reckoners.

Deadlands Noir is a limited-run RPG that updates the setting to the early 20^th Century, and is thus an interquel, set between the original Deadlands and Hell on Earth. The rulebook provides information on running games from the 1910s to the 1950s, and is a moody, noir-infused game where intrigue and investigation is favoured over combat. Elements such as Prohibition, World War I, gangsters and jazz music feature.

Deadlands: Dark Ages is a forthcoming game that acts as a prequel to the entire Deadlands saga. It is set in Dark Ages England in 877, a thousand years or more before the original game, and taps into Arthurian legends. Morgana le Fey will be a major character in this game. Despite being a prequel, time travel (which canonically exists in the setting) allows for events in Dark Ages to impact on the other time periods and vice versa, and possibly allows characters from one game to travel to another.

A map of the Weird West by Cheyenne Wright.

Setting

The primary Deadlands setting is the continent of North America in the latter half of the 19^th Century, specifically the area known as the Wild West, approximately an area extending from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean incorporating the Great Plains, the south-western deserts, the Rocky Mountains and the coastal regions of California and the Pacific North-West.

The geography is more or less identical to that of the real world, with several notable exceptions. A massive earthquake destroyed the coast of California in 1868, obliterating most coastal cities and settlements. What was left behind was a maze of water canyons, bays, inlets, towering sea stacks and vast seams of ghost rock. The resulting terrain became known as the Great Maze. Fear of a recurrence was offset by the immense wealth to be gained by mining ghost rock, resulting in a crazed rush reminiscent of earlier gold rushes. The City of Lost Angels became the dominant settlement of the region, benefitting from the resulting westwards rush.

In terms of geopolitics, the United States remains the dominant force on the continent, especially after defeating the Confederate States in 1871. However, control of the western states is somewhat tenuous, and Native American tribes have regained autonomous control of two regions: the Sioux Nations, which expand across western Dakota, most of Nebraska, eastern Wyoming and south-eastern Montana; and the Coyote Confederation, in eastern Oklahoma and south-eastern Kansas. In 1866 Utah declared itself the independent nation of Deseret, a religious nation under Mormon leadership.

As well as political entities, there are also powerful factions within those entities to contend with, such as the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the Texas Rangers (both now oriented towards supernatural threats more than mundane ones), and various newspapers and do-gooders determined to expose what's "really happening" out west, though the folks back east are still distracted by reconstruction and other issues.

With the Civil War over, the Great Rail Wars have begun: several major and numerous minor rail companies were established with a competitive goal: to drive railheads all the way from the Mississippi to the Pacific, allowing for fast cross-continental travel and delivery of ghost rock, gold and trading goods back east. The Rail Barons would turn out to be utterly ruthless, competitive to the point of lunacy and almost untouchable in their power, using means both mundane and supernatural to ensure they would come out on top. The rail companies include Bayou Vermillion (noted for their use of zombie labour), Black River, Union Blue and Iron Dragon.

The Deadlands world also features significant differences to our own when it comes to technology. Ghost rock, a supercharged (and, some say, supernatural) form of coal, has allowed for the creation of advanced steam technology, including steam wagons, faster steam trains, steam-powered gatling guns and even steam-enhanced gyrocopters. Alongside the standard six-shooters and horse-drawn wagons, more exotic, weird technology is starting to appear in the West.

More concerning are the Reckoners: enigmatic beings of supreme power, the Reckoners were sealed away from our world but that seal was broken in 1863 during the Battle of Gettysburg, when their influence was able to seep into and touch our world once more. Since then, supernatural events have become more commonplace. Magic, though unpredictable, works through strange rituals and processes. The dead – the Harrowed – can rise again to torment the living. Wendigos, jackalopes, wallcrawlers, ghouls, sasquatches, maze dragons, gremlins, pox walkers and Texas skeeters, among many others, have become increasingly common and unnerving threats.

To overcome these threats, the various groups of the Weird West have a powerful resource to call upon: you. Or rather, any number of well-meaning adventurers, heroes, antiheroes, cowboys, cowgirls, huxsters, hexslingers or mad scientists who are ready to heed the call to adventure and take on the forces of evil armed with noting but their wits and guts, and maybe a gatling-cannon-armed steam gyrocopter.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs.

Wizards of the Cost scraps plans to revamp the OGL and moves D&D to a Creative Commons licence

It's been a bruising few weeks for Wizards of the Coast and parent company Hasbro, whose plans to monetise the never-more-popular Dungeons & Dragons brand by removing the Open Game Licence 1.0 ran into fierce opposition from fans and fellow businesses alike.

Wizards initially offered a partial compromise, allowing existing OGL products to remain on sale and removing plans for licence charges for successful products using the D&D rules, but confirming they were pressing ahead with eliminating the OGL 1.0 for new products moving forwards. Creators would instead have to sign up to the OGL 2.0, which was still significantly more restrictive than the old 1.0 model that company had employed since 2000, and changes to the rules pertaining to the virtual tabletop (VTT) market would remain in place, effectively forcing online players to use Wizards' own D&D Beyond service with a subscription fee.

However, the creators of the OGL 1.0 voiced doubts that the original OGL could be legally revoked (they'd deliberately included language suggesting not), several companies mulled over legal challenges and multiple other RPG companies announced the creation of a rival open licence, which soon saw a large chunk of the tabletop RPG industry come on board.

Today Wizards of the Coast announced a comprehensive climbdown. They will no longer try to revoke the OGL 1.0, they will no longer try to impose their changes on the burgeoning virtual tabletop (VTT) market (with the 1.0 remaining in place, that's no longer possible) and they are in fact scrapping the entire OGL 2.0 initiative in favour of moving to a Creative Commons licence instead. They are releasing the rules for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition via a Systems Reference Document for use with either licence. Effectively, this is a return to the status quo, with a more comprehensive 5th Edition SRD as a result.

Wizards likely decided on the climbdown after seeing over 40,000 subscribers abandon their D&D Beyond platform in the space of three weeks, as well as a burgeoning campaign to boycott the forthcoming Dungeons & Dragons movie, Honor Among Thieves, which launches on 31 March. The film is the opening salvo of a broad-spectrum D&D assault on the multimedia space, with Hasbro keen to bring the franchise to film and television, as well as reinforcing its presence in video games (the highly-anticipated Baldur's Gate III launches later this year).

Whilst likely to be welcomed by those whose livelihoods were threatened, the climbdown is unlikely to erase the memory of Wizards' behaviour. Other companies have benefitted, most notably Paizo who make the rival Pathfinder fantasy RPG which was previously the dominant tabletop RPG from 2009 to 2015 before D&D supplanted them. Paizo reports selling out of all of its physical stock of its core rulebook in the last fortnight and is rushing reprints to meet renewed demand. Some other RPG creators are also reporting increased sales. Work on the rival open gaming licence is likely to continue.

A Roleplayer's Guide to Roleplaying Games

 A few months back I wrote A Beginner's Guide to Boardgames, which was quite successful. So now I'm going to do the same thing for roleplaying games, because why the hell not? This article will differ because it's less-focused on more recent games and offers more of an overview of the entire field, and also that there is no differentiation between "beginner", "intermediate" and "advanced" games, although I note in each entry how approachable each game is. Generally the main difficulty with RPGs is getting into them in the first place and getting comfortable playing them; once that's achieved it's relatively straightforward to adapt to other games.

So, pen-and-paper roleplaying games. Since the mid-1970s, when Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson released the original version of Dungeons and Dragons, RPGs have been a continuous source of enjoyment, bringing together friends and allowing them to bond over murdering dragons in the face. RPGs have diversified over the years, offering rules-heavy, combat-focused games and lightly-codified, narrative games where the emphasis is more on creating a collaborative story than in winning any particular objective or reward.

RPGs, like boardgames, went through a lean period in the late 1990s when video games (including, ironically, some games based on pen-and-paper RPGs) exploded in popularity. They also made a strong comeback in the 2000s thanks to the Internet and, more recently, the arrival of Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites as a way of funding more niche and specialised games.

Without further ado, let's take a look at some of the better RPGs for beginners that are around.

Dungeons and Dragons: The Classic
Well, we have to start here, don't we? The original roleplaying game, the longest-surviving and, for most of its lifespan, the most popular. You know the drill here, a group of players create characters from stock fantasy races (humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes being the basic choices) and stock fantasy careers (barbarian, bard, cleric, mage, monk, paladin, rogue, warrior) and engage in surprisingly diverse adventures, ranging from political thrillers to gruelling dungeon crawls to war epics and many more. It's straightforward, it's fun and it can be quite varied in tone and potential (which is more than can be said for some other, more tightly-focused RPGs). D&D remains probably the ultimate RPG because it's so familiar but can turn on a dime in a heartbeat and become something quite unpredictable and weird.

You do have a choice of which rule set to play with, as the five numbered editions to date (not to mention several variant half-editions) do each have their drawbacks and benefits, and I'll be covering that in a separate article. Fortunately, the current edition is one of the more welcoming, hitting a sweet spot of offering a lot of customisability and options whilst also not being extremely confusing and occasionally flat-out broken. The 5th Edition is well-supported by Wizards of the Coast with a lot of online support, but the relative paucity of published material is a bit surprising, and the lack of new world books updating settings like Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance and Planescape to the new edition is disappointing. But compared to the insane bloat of previous editions, the new edition makes D&D a lot more welcoming than it has been for many years.

An alternative choice may be Pathfinder, which is derived from D&D 3rd Edition but eliminates many of its smaller problems (the larger ones remain, however) and backs it up with an immense amount of support and, more recently, an SF spin-off called Starfinder. It isn't as streamlined and elegant as D&D 5th Edition, but it has an utterly titanic amount of content, a friendly and welcoming community and support that is second to none.

Star Wars: The Ultimate Beginner's Game
Well, it's Star Wars, isn't it? You can play a bounty hunters or a Jedi, an Imperial stormtrooper or an ace Rebel pilot, an escaped Wookie slave or a Coruscanti noble. Games can be set at the height of the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War, during the ancient Jedi-Sith conflict or, crazily, maybe during a rare period of peace. Hate the movie Rogue One? Form your own crack team of agents and try to steal the Death Star plans your way.

There are three distinct versions of the Star Wars RPG: the original West End Games version, the two ill-advised Wizards of the Coast editions (derived from D&D 3rd and 4th Editions, and neither fit particularly well) and the current game from Fantasy Flight, which consists of three distinct rulebooks (Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny). I've never played the Fantasy Flight version and have heard mostly good things about the rules, but the complete experience does require purchasing three very expensive rulebooks and then buying custom dice, a huge no-no for most RPGs. Fantasy Flight do good work and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on that one, but I'm not particularly moved to try the new version (especially after being burned badly on the WotC editions).

Instead, if you can get hold of a copy (and there's been a recent 30th anniversary reissue, which makes things easier) of the original West End Games version, go with that. You only need six-sided dice and the ruleset remains one of the most elegantly designed. It's streamlined, easily understandable but opens up into greater complexity later on. It's a game which will have you gunning down stormtroopers, flying X-wings and doing the Kessel Run, all in under twelve parsecs (put lots of skill points in Astrogation). Compared to many roleplaying games, which tend towards bloat and steep learning curves, the West End Star Wars is a thing of beauty. It's Star Wars! It's fun!

All versions of the game do suffer the "Jedi problem", namely that players portraying Jedi can end up dominating games and getting over-powered, but a canny Gamemaster can overcome that problem by balancing opponents appropriately. Overall, Star Wars has a tremendously well-developed setting and a lot of variety, and the West End Games version nails it very nicely.

Deadlands: The Weird West
The original "Weird West" roleplaying game and still one of the most satisfying roleplaying experiences around. The game is set in an alternative history of the 19th Century, when, at the point of the American Civil War, a Native American shaman inadvertently released Lovecraftian forces of horror into the world. The dead rise, hideous spirits possess the living and horrific monsters appear to threaten the United States and indeed the entire world. Players can take on the role of local townsfolk trying to defend themselves, secret agents belonging to paranormal investigation organisations (the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the Texas Rangers), escaped slaves seeking revenge against the Confederates or anything inbetween. A robust rule system which treats combat like a poker game remains inventive twenty years on (now streamlined with the new Savage Worlds rules system, derived from Deadlands 1st Edition) and there is scope to treat the game like an outright horror game or a zany steampunk adventure with zeppelins and crazed inventors.

This is basically a game for people who appreciate the Lovecraftian approach to cosmic horror, but hate the nihilism and prefer to belief they can defeat eldritch forces from beyond the dawn of time with gatling guns, gyrocopters and steam cannons.

Call of Cthulhu: Go Mad & Die
On the flipside of that approach is Call of Cthulhu, the official roleplaying game of Lovecraftian horror. In this game you create paranormal investigators and set out to investigate strange goings-on in various parts of the world. The emphasis is on investigation, research, cooperation and collaborative storytelling: victory doesn't come through killing the monsters with shotguns, but through surviving with your limbs and sanity intact.

Call of Cthulhu has been hugely popular for thirty years for offering a very different experience to the power fantasies of games like D&D. The characters in Call of Cthulhu are far more fragile and more likely to end up dead, maimed or insane if they try to fight horrific monsters head-on. Defeating the forces of darkness requires brains, wits, intelligence and knowing when to make a strategic withdrawal. To be fair this game is not for everyone - watching D&D-raised power-gamers trying to hack their way through the game and getting angry when they realise they can't can be an uncomfortable experience - but for those who enjoy the tension and the horror, it's a gripping experience.

World of Darkness: Be a Vampire, Drink Blood, Have Fun
This isn't a roleplaying game, but rather a family of interrelated games which share a common background and setting. The best-known of these is Vampire: The Masquerade, which allows you (spoiler alert) to play vampires, with additional rulebooks allowing you to play werewolves, mages, mummies, wraiths etc. Essentially this is a game which allows to play as the "bad guys", but also explores these cultures to reveal a great deal of nuance and complexity.

If you want to play an urban fantasy RPG, World of Darkness is the go-to choice, although there is some confusion due to the fact that there are two distinct versions of the setting and all of its sub-games. Paradox Interactive recently bought the entire setting and seem to be considering a revamp of the whole line, which would be welcome. But if you want to play a vampire and engage in vampire-based shenanigans in a very well-realised world, this is the ideal choice.

Numenera: Be Weird, Be Wonderful
Numenera is, essentially, Dying Earth: The Roleplaying Game (which actually exists as a small, intriguing game from Pelgrane Press). Set a billion years into the future when nine great ages of human civilisation have come and gone and aliens (from both other planets and other universes) have settled on Earth, the game features one of the most vivid and interesting settings to emerge in recent years. The game has magic, although it's really ultra-advanced science and technology, and offers an intriguing balance between traditional D&D-style roleplaying and something far weirder.

Originally launched through Kickstarter, the game is now expanding with a second edition (but don't call it a second edition) which seeks to give players more of an ability to change the world. It's an interesting, original game which takes Jack Vance's original Dying Earth setting and revamps it with a lot new ideas and atmosphere.

There's a lot more out there, of course. There's the Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying title from Green Ronin for those who want to fulfil their Game of Thrones fantasies. There's the newly-released Starfinder SF game from Paizo Publishing or its spiritual predecssor from the old TSR days, Alternity (complete with its StarCraft RPG spin-off). There's a whole family of Warhammer 40,000 RPGs from Fantasy Flight (which are sadly quickly going out of print). There's an intriguing RPG about godlike superheroes in a fantasy realm in Exalted. Deadlands has a post-apocalyptic, far-future sequel game called Hell on Earth. There's a generic universal roleplaying system called, er, GURPS, which can be used to play everything from cyberpunk to adventures on Terry Pratchett's Discworld (and was used by Steven Erikson and Ian Esslemont to create the Malazan world). There's the Shadowrun roleplaying game, a fantastic setting which is still looking for a good rules system (and still not finding it). If you can find a copy, there's the bafflingly-out-of-print MechWarrior RPG if you like big stompy robots. There's the Judge Dredd RPG from Mongoose Publishing for those who want to Be The Law, as well as the classic space opera Traveller game, which has been around for almost as long as D&D, not to mention the madness-inducing Paranoia (trust no one!).

There's a lot of roleplaying goodness out there and a lot to choose from. It's a good time for the field and a good time to get involved.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs. The Cities of Fantasy series is debuting on my Patreon feed and you can read it there one month before being published on the Wertzone.

Get tons of PATHFINDER books for just $18

The Humble Store is running a promotion where you can get a lot of Pathfinder roleplaying books if you pay more than the average donation ($17.05 at present). Given that the books separately are worth $354, this is a bit of a no-brainer even if you already own a couple of the books.

Paying that amount of money gets you:

• The Pathfinder Core Rulebook
• The GameMastery Guide
• The Digital Beginner Box
• Player Character Folio
• GM Screen
• Advanced Class Guide
• Advanced Player's Guide
• Inner Sea World Guide
• Strategy Guide
• Bestiary
• Bestiary 2
• Ultimate Equipment
• Ultimate Magic
• Ultimate Campaign
• Ultimate Combat
• Inner Sea Poster Map Folio
• Adventure Path: In Hell's Bright Shadow
• Adventure Path: Turn of the Torrent
• Adventure Path: Dance of the Damned
• Scenario: Between the Lines
• Scenario: Year of the Sky Key Megapack (23 adventures)

If you pay $25 or more (plus shipping), you also get the physical copy of the Pathfinder RPG Beginner Box.

On top of all of that you can also get the Inner Sea Primer and Guild Guide free if you sign up to the Paizo newsletter.

As is normal in Humble Bundle deals, a chunk of what you pay will go to charity as well. The deal is running for the next two weeks.

Steven Erikson hints that a MALAZAN RPG might be on its way

In his regular Q&A over on Tor.com, Steven Erikson has said (Q.21) that there are serious talks underway to adapt the Malazan universe to a pen-and-paper RPG game based on the D20 series (using rules similar to the 3rd Edition of Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder).

"As for the encyclopedia, well, it seems that we might end up going through the back-door on this one, as we’re in serious talks with a RPG 20D group who are keen to adapt the Malazan universe to a game. If this goes ahead, well, it will of necessity involve a release of all the relevant maps and game-notes presently occupying a cardboard box in my garage, and those from Cam as well. Said project demands full disclosure, don’t you think? Although, that said, the eventual release of everything could end up as instalments, expansion packs, etc. Still, it does mark an opening of the flood-gates."

No deal has been signed yet, so nothing is confirmed, but Erikson indicated that he and Ian Esslemont would release all of their background material, including maps, for use with the game. No word was given on which company was interested in publishing the game.

THE GAMERS III needs fan support

In the past I have spoken positively about Dead Gentleman Productions and their excellent fan-made, low-budget Gamers movies. Fans have waiting for a third movie in the series for some five years now. Rather than continue to slowly accrue the budget necessary to make a third film, Dead Gentleman have gone directly to the fans through a Kickstarter campaign.

The Gamers: Hands of Fate picks up several years after the events of Dorkness Rising. The same cast of characters returns, this time determined to master a new game (a collectible card game) and overcome some more personal issues whilst continuing their roleplaying campaign (and attempting to finally destroy their arch-nemesis, the Shadow). Part of the movie will be filmed at GenCon 2012, the largest roleplaying and CCG convention in the world.

The first two Gamers films are probably the best and most accurate representations of roleplaying put to film. They certainly knock the official D&D movies into a cocked hat, and are extremely funny on their own terms (the undead roast chicken and the wall of bard corpses both have to be seen to be believed). Contributing to this project or spreading the word can only be a good thing.

Note: for those unfamiliar with the Kickstarter concept, people pledge to support the project through a monetary sum. However, no money is collected until the project passes its target. If it does not make it, the project fails and no money is collected. With Kickstarter projects it is important to check the previous form of the company proposing the project to assess their integrity. In this case, Dead Gentleman Productions has been in operation for fourteen years, producing numerous fan films and webisodes, and has a large number of fans. They have a detailed plan on the Kickstarter page for how the film will be funded and how investors will be rewarded depending on the amount pledged.

BALDUR'S GATE II comes to Good Old Games

The Good Old Games website - which 'rescues' old PC games, makes them compatible with modern PCs and reissues them at competitive prices - has gotten around to releasing Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, one of the greatest (and largest) computer roleplaying games ever made. The GoG edition also comes with its huge expansion, Throne of Bhaal, included.

"The eyes, Boo, go for the eyes!"

GoG have been reissuing a large number of the old BioWare and Black Isle (now Obsidian) CRPGs and this completes the set. Also available are Icewind Dale (including its two expansions, Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster), Icewind Dale II (including it's 'adventure pack' containing new items), Neverwinter Nights (including its three expansions, Shadows of Undrentide, Hordes of the Underdark and Kingmaker) and the legendary Planescape: Torment, as well as the original Baldur's Gate (and its expansion, Tales of the Sword Coast). There's also Fallout and Fallout 2, for those fans of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas and want to see how the saga began.

The Baldur's Gate games and their expansions form one giant mega-game which will take you well north of 250 hours to complete and much more to see every possible permutation of characters, storylines and endings. If Planescape: Torment is The Book of the New Sun of computer RPGs, Baldur's Gate II is The Lord of the Rings, a vast epic of immense scope. It's the largest CRPG BioWare have ever made and probably ever will, and it was the inspiration for their own, later Dragon's Age series of games.

The best way for modern gamers to experience the series is using the Tutu mod, which allows Baldur's Gate and its expansion to be run in the Baldur's Gate II engine, which has superior graphics resolution and more features. You can also carry your BG1 character over to BG2 and continue the adventure through the entire series, which is highly recommended (even if it will take you a long, long time to do it).

The Worlds of D&D: Overview

Since its inception in the early 1970s, the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game has attracted millions of fans, both of the game itself and the numerous worlds that were created as settings for its adventures. After the demise of the original publishers, TSR, in 1997 and the sale of the game to Wizards of the Coast, most of those worlds were unceremoniously dumped, including the more quirky and original ones, in favour of the somewhat more traditional and popular 'basic' settings which became the bread and butter of the game's 3rd Edition (2000-2007). The new 4th Edition, launched last year, has proven highly controversial with fans but Wizards have won some support for their decision to resurrect some of the old, classic campaign settings for the new game.


The major D&D campaign settings (not counting one-offs produced for Dragon Magazine) were (in roughly chronological order):

• Blackmoor (1975), the home setting of co-creator Dave Arneson's games. A generic medieval campaign but with a Renaissance level of technology brought about by the discovery of a crashed spacecraft.
  
• Greyhawk (an adventure in 1975 and then a full boxed setting in 1978), the home setting of co-creator Gary Gygax's games. A generic medieval fantasy world, noted for its frequent wars.
  
• Mystara, the setting of the D&D Basic game, introduced in 1980. Blackmoor was later retconned into being part of this world. Mystara itself resembles the Earth of some 150 million years ago and is a hollow planet, with a whole other world on its inner surface accessible by tunnels at the poles.
• Ravenloft, a non-traditional setting invoking a sense of gothic horror and dread. Introduced as a single adventure in 1983, but later expanded to an entire world of darkness (cough), undead races, vampire rulers and general unpleasentness.
  
• Dragonlance, introduced in 1984 as D&D's answer to The Lord of the Rings, a world riven by a struggle between good and evil in which the players were heroes out to save the world. Gave rise to the multi-million-selling novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
• Kara-Tur was created in 1985 as the setting for the Oriental Adventures line of products which introduced martial arts and other eastern ideas to the D&D game. The setting was later retconned into the Forgotten Realms world.
• Lankhmar (originally published in 1985) is, perhaps surprisingly, one of only two officially licensed D&D settings. Based on Frit Lieber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories, it is set on the world of Newhon and principally the city of Lankhmar.
• Forgotten Realms is the most popular D&D setting. Originally published in 1987, the setting is a high-magic, highly-detailed medieval fantasy world which has become the 'default' D&D setting, despite some changes to the basic D&D rules. The Realms have continuously been in print since 1987, making it most closely-supported setting for the game, and have given rise to the best-selling Dark Elf series of novels by R.A. Salvatore and Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights series of computer games from BioWare and Black Isle/Obsidian.
• Spelljammer, introduced in 1989, is probably the barmiest D&D setting, featuring sailing ships which can cross the interstellar void to other worlds. A mixture of high magic, medieval weaponry and retro-space opera, the setting was not commercially popular but has legions of diehard fans who liked its craziness.
• Dark Sun (1991) is sometimes regarded as the most approachable of D&D's 'non-traditional' settings. It is set on the post-apocalyptic world of Athas, where a vast magical war has transformed the planet into a baking desert world gradually being swallowed by a vast sea of silt. Magic as is known elsewhere in the D&D multiverse does not exist, with 'defilers' instead drawing on the life-force of living creatures to create magical effects. There are also no gods, and psionic powers are preferred over magical ones. Despite strong rumours they were considering it, Wizards of the Coast mildly surprised the fanbase when they recently announced that Dark Sun would be resurrected for the new 4th Edition of the game.
• Al-Qadim (1992) is an Arabian-flavoured D&D setting, featuring genies, scimitars, corsairs, evil viziers and other Arabian Nights-flavoured elements. Set on the continent of Zakhara which was officially located in a remote part of the Forgotten Realms world, Al-Qadim has built up a strong fan following over the years but has been largely ignored since the late 1990s.
• Masque of the Red Death (1994) is another horror setting which uses the rules laid out in Ravenloft, but rather than the Demiplane of Dread the setting is 'Gothic Earth', an alternate-history version of our own world in the 19th Century incorporating magic and non-human creatures.
• Planescape (1994) was not a new setting as such, but a setting developed out of the multi-dimensional cosmology that D&D had been using for over a decade and a half by this point. Featuring numerous factions and ideological concepts, the setting attempted to move vigorously away from the traditional elves 'n' orcs of many of the other settings in favour of something new, a setting that challenged many of the underlying ideas of the whole game and forced players to confront the ethical realities of their decisions. The setting also favoured roleplaying over combat. With a unique art style not shared by any other D&D product, the setting was a massive critical and artistic success but proved to be somewhat on the highbrow side of things for most players, and did not sell as well as could be hoped. It was soon discontinued, but later gave rise to one of the single greatest computer roleplaying games ever made, Planescape: Torment.
• Council of Wyrms (1994) was a very short-lived setting which allowed players to control dragons as player-characters. Despite a strong concept, the limitations of what a dragon can do compared to a human player outside of combat soon presented themselves and there were no expansions, although it was briefly reprinted by Wizards of the Coast in 1999.
  
• Birthright (1995) was another 'traditional' cod-fantasy setting, but had a unique spin to it: the players are painted as the rulers of a powerful kingdom or faction, and between quests have to deal with the day-to-day running of their kingdom and its place in the world, fighting wars and dealing with economic factors. Essentially a D&D campaign crossed over with a board game. The split focus proved challenging and the setting was later abandoned, but interestingly some of its ideas, more cohesively presented, have found their way into the two later Song of Ice and Fire roleplaying games by Guardians of Order and Green Ronin.
• Rokugan (2001) was a second Asian-themed fantasy setting, licensed from the Legends of the Five Rings roleplaying game. It was used in the Oriental Adventures book published for D&D 3rd Edition and several associated adventures, but was not expanded upon, and the licence later reverted to the creators.
• Eberron (2004) is the newest D&D campaign setting, introduced specifically for 3rd Edition and featuring a traditional world with somewhat more advanced technology than is standard, including magical robots ('warforged') and some elements of industrialisation. The setting has proven fairly popular and is the official setting for the Dungeons and Dragons Online computer game.

At this current time, Wizards of the Coast are continuing to support both Forgotten Realms and Eberron through new products for the 4th Edition of D&D. It has been officially announced that Dark Sun will be resurrected for 2010, with a strong chance that Dragonlance will follow in 2011 and Greyhawk for 2012. Planescape and Ravenloft have been absorbed into the base cosmology of the D&D multiverse and will apparently appear as adventures and as asides in the rulebooks, but probably not as fully-blown campaign settings in the future.


Hopes that Mystara, Spelljammer and Birthright will reappear seem somewhat premature so far, but if the new version of Dark Sun is a big success it is possible we will see other settings revisited. The new 4E business model is also more favourable to these old, less commercially popular settings. In the old days, TSR would release a boxed set featuring the setting and then follow it up with lots of expansions, adventures and novels. The new model instead only has three products released for each setting: a general campaign book, a player's guide and a single adventure. Other material is then released online via the D&D Insider website, based on the sales of the physical books.

Future instalments of this series will visit some of these individual worlds and finds out what made them tick, what made them work (or in some cases fail rather badly) and whether we will see them again in the new edition of the game.

New Song of Ice and Fire RPG on its way!

Green Ronin, publishers of many popular roleplaying games such as the True 20 system, are about to release a new RPG based on George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels. A previous RPG, based on the D20 system, was released to great acclaim by Guardians of Order in 2005 but the company went bust shortly thereafter. The new game uses an original rules set developed specially for the setting.

The first release will be the Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying core rulebook, due out at the start of March. This will be followed in April by the Narrator's Kit, which includes a gamemaster's screen (depicting the Wall), a 16-page adventure and a map of Westeros. In the summer will follow Peril at King's Landing, a full-scale adventure set during one of King Robert Baratheon's tourneys, and the massive 256-page Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide, a substantial resource for both gamers and also general fans of the series. Because of the delay in publication of these books, Green Ronin have already done substantial work on some follow-up products, including ones that will allow very different types of games to be played. The default model has the players representing their own House in the game of thrones, but these new expansions will also cover campaigns set amongst the Night's Watch amongst others. Green Ronin hope to start releasing these new books as early as the autumn.

Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition: Player's Handbook

Reviewing is something of a solitary habit, so it's good when an opportunity arises to test something with five friends over an extended period of time. In this case, it was the new, fourth iteration of the Dungeons and Dragons pen-and-paper roleplaying game (actually it's the seventh, but we won't dwell on that). I got into playing D&D back in school with 2nd Edition about fourteen years ago and we got used to changing rules systems every few years: we took on board a lot of changes from the '2.5' rules set (the Player's Option/DM's Option books), gratefully changed over to 3rd Edition and incorporated some, but not all, of the 3.5 edition rules as well. Along the way we have played many other RPGs, running from the World of Darkness games through the splendid Deadlands, the old-school Robotech, Cyberpunk, Star Wars (West End rules, obviously) and a number of the D20 games, including Wheel of Time, Judge Dredd and Babylon 5.

Let there be no mistake, D&D 4th Edition has been the most controversial new edition in the game's history. The flamewars on various Internet sites have been something to behold, with the fans of 4E accused of being simplistic morons who want to turn the game into World of WarCraft and the antis accused of being terrified of change. The change-over from 2nd to 3rd Edition, which was pretty controversial at the time, had absolutely nothing on this. I'm trying to take a balanced view in my approach and sum up what I find to be good and bad with the game.

First off, even the most ardent fans of 3rd Edition had to admit there were substantial flaws with the game. Preperation time for DMs was quite high, characters ascended levels very quickly unless you constantly gave them weak opponents to fight or changed the XP tables, and although the core classes and prestige classes were nicely balanced, some of the prestige classes in the add-on books were broken. In addition, multiclassing, although a vast improvement on the abomination of 2nd Edition, still didn't work as well as it should have done. The changes for 3.5 fixed some of these issues but a lot of the core problems remained.

4th Edition does successfully answer some of these issues. Level advancement is now very slow. After four sessions and killing dozens of enemies between us and achieving several major story and campaign goals, we still hadn't hit 2nd Level. Making a campaign last a decent, long time with 4E isn't an issue, which is good. We didn't get a chance to test multiclassing in the game, but the way it works does seem to be reasonable, giving you some major abilities from another class without totally destroying your levelling rate in your primary class, leaving you underpowered compared to the rest of the party. Preperation time for DMs is also much reduced. In fact, 4E seems to be a lot easier for DMs to prepare campaigns for all-round, thanks to the completely different track that monsters and NPCs work under, and that is a good thing as well. Unfortunately, character generation, which was supposed to be streamlined for this edition, still takes about as long as 3E. Although 3E's confusing morass of skills has been streamlined (a good idea, although some extremely useful skills were lost in the process) and the feats have been toned down, the new class powers have replaced them.

Some sacred cows have been killed along the way, which although admirably bold does lead one to ponder if the resulting game can be called D&D any more. The Vancian magic system is out. Given it was one of the cornerstones of the game, it's a pretty radical change. Some people hated it as being illogical, but the variation on it they brought in for 3E worked pretty well in my opinion, and many iconic spells are now gone. In fact, spells don't exist any more. They're either wizard or cleric powers they can use at will, once per combat or once per day, or they're 'rituals'. It's a very interesting idea that more or less works, but it does feed into the overwhelming 'balance' problem of the game, which I'll come to momentarily. Other big changes including the temporary removal of some core classes and races, but it's okay as they'll be back in another book you can pay more money for, the permanant removal of others (the new system doesn't really allow for sorcerers, for example) and the new way healing is approached. Fed up with the cleric being treated as the party medpack, the creators have changed things so that every character can heal 25% of their hit-points at will, several times a day or once per combat. Clerics and paladins can do a bit more healing than that, but essentially PCs are going to stay on their feet a lot longer than in 3E.

Then there is the 'balance' issue. Balancing is important in a game. No-one wants to have a character who's special skills only come into play once a day and they spend the rest of the time bored whilst everyone else takes care of business. The problem is that D&D was never that sort of game. I've read horror stories of 2E and 3E games where the wizard would simply fire off their one magic missile a day or whatever and take no further part in the game, and the player would end up feeling bored. All I can say is that any DM who ran a game like that should be shot. Keeping your players engaged in the game is vital, and I've lost track of the number of times my 1st Level party was about to be obliterated only for the wizard to save the day with a sleep spell or a fine piece of negotiation aided by a charm spell. Unfortunately, WotC's quest for balance has been too successful with 4th Edition. There is now zero difference between one class and another. A wizard hangs back and pelts the enemy with limitless magic missiles for similar damage that a ranger does with his bow or a warrior does with his sword. Mechanically, everyone is identical, they just approach the problems from different angles. Lots of people really like this, but I find it against the spirit of the game. One character being able to do something the others cannot is the whole point of assembling a party of different adventurers in the first place. That now feels redundant.

4th Edition is a good game. In fact, I look forward to the inevitable martial arts expansion for the game, as it could be the most successful depiction of martial arts in an RPG to date. The rules really lend themselves well to it. However, it's not really in the spirit of how our group plays D&D. We veer towards realism (including realistic use of shields, borrowed from the excellent Game of Thrones RPG, and the correct, damage-reducing application of armour) and 4th Edition veers towards cinematic exuberence. The DM said he enjoyed the fact that the game lent itself well to a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style of flamboyence. That's great, but our group doesn't particularly like to do that (maybe a result of several people in the group with a solid grasp of medieval history and weapons) in D&D. For us, 4th Edition felt like either a solid optional ruleset like the old 2nd Edition Player's Option books, or a completely different game. It is also inherently a high-magic game (even non-magical classes have magical or supernatural abilities) that will clash badly with people running a low-magic setting. Plus you cannot transfer characters from 3E to 4E. If you want to start a new campaign which is very heavy on combat in a high-magic setting and uses miniatures, then 4E is for you. If you don't, than the new system will likely be of no use whatsoever.

It's annoying because there is a lot of good stuff in 4E, but overall it doesn't feel like the next logical step forward in the rules, as the progression was from 1E to 3.5E. There's definitely some interesting ideas in there, but overall nothing that really warrants our group to permanantly switch from 3.5E. Obviously, each D&D group plays the game slightly differently, and 4E will no doubt appeal to other groups more than 3E and beginners will probably find it a lot of fun, but it didn't quite do the job for us. Fortunately, with several of the 3E designers now working on the Pathfinder D20 game, those hankering for new rules and material for 3E can still get it, so no longer is it a choice of "stick with old books for a dead system or get with the new rules," which is all to the good.

Some notes on the book itself: the font is quite large and the borders are huge, leading to a lot of wasted space compared to the busy 3E books or the crisp and efficient 2.5E ones. The art direction feels rather conservative compared to 3E, but the illustrations are good. The layout is horrendous, however, and the index is laughably bad. I was quite shocked at how difficult it was to find information in a hurry, as this is something previous editions of the game going back to the 2.5E revised rulebooks in 1995 had fully delivered. I also had a chance to look at the Monstrous Manual and was really surprised at how bad it was: stat-blocks, a picture and maybe a single paragraph of text and that was it, easily the worst iteration of the book to date (including that loose-leaf foldered 2E thing).

I'm not going to give a score to 4E D&D because it's a very subjective game. The things I outlined as being weaknesses for our group may very well be huge strengths for yours. I can only say that I was disappointed that the game didn't offer more to our group, but it is impossible for one game to appeal to everyone. The Dungeon and Dragons 4th Edition Player's Handbook is available now in the UK and USA from Wizards of the Coast.