With all the triathlon talk around here lately, I’ve been wanting to do a post on straight Dungeons and Dragons for at least two full weeks. I mean, I like triathlon and all—I love it, really—but this blog was conceptualized as a blog specifically about storytelling for folks running online role-playing games. And yeah, I’m not dogmatic enough to feel like I need to keep the blog on-topic or anything, but at the same time, it’s been months since we’ve done anything even remotely related to D&D, and that seems like a shame. So that’s what I’d like to do today.
But first…
Sally and I picked up a copy of the latest Competitor Magazine a couple of weeks ago at the Milford Y-Tri. Competitor is a free, presumably ad-supported magazine that I’ve seen in a lot of the local bike and tri shops around NYC and Connecticut, and I wasn’t hugely surprised when we found copies in our goodie bags after the race. So having finally finished The Way of Kings—which I liked a lot, if you’re wondering—I finally had a chance to leaf through my copy of the May 2011 Competitor during lunch last week. And I’m glad I did.
The most interesting thing about the magazine was an article and photo-shoot about the supposedly “new” breed of Millennial runners, i.e. competitive amateur runners from the post-Gen X/Gen Y generation. Essentially, the article points out that young runners aren’t just runners anymore, now they’re trail runners or triathletes or dedicated cross-trainers or whatever, and they like to look fashionable when they train or race. Which is fine. I mean, it was certainly a good excuse for doing a photo-shoot with an attractive spokesmodel. But through the article doesn’t say it, I’d argue that the growth of fashion and cross-training for runners is really about the growth of triathlon and the cross-pollinating effect of combining three separate competitive populations into one new(ish) combined sport. After all, fashion is and has been a huge part of cycling culture since its inception thanks to the massive European influence on the pro tour, and so by introducing runners to cycling, triathlon has incidentally introduced them to whole range of sports fashion as well. Hell, Competitor itself shows the point perfectly. The articles are written from a fundamentally runner’s perspective, and yet you see it in bike shops and at triathlons. The fact that they gave it out at a triathlon to a bunch of at-best casual runners simply speaks to triathlon’s ability to broaden a running magazine’s consumer appeal. And that’s all good.
Anyway, I’d not have brought any of this up were it not for a basic desire to link to the photo-shoot and include the cover-shot of sportsmodel Ann Wessling in today’s post. So here’s the link.
If you’re curious, Ms. Wessling hosts an online triathlon news show called TriCenter that’s available in 5-minute chunks on Competitor’s website. I watched a bit of it the other night and liked it, although I think it’s a shame the way that the triathlon pro tour focuses so exclusively on Iron distance races. For my money, the International distance (aka Olympic) races are MUCH more exciting. For example, Sally and I watched the USA Triathlon College National Championships on one of the CBS Sports networks on Saturday night, and we both found it thrilling in a way that the inevitably cut-up recaps of Iron distance pro races never are. And yeah, if you’re wondering, they race Oly’s in college these days.
Now on to D&D…
It was my birthday recently, and I confess to buying a couple of presents for myself in honor of the event. One was Wrath of Ashardalon, a D&D board game based loosely on the game’s 4th Edition rule set. I bought it because my girls have been wanting to learn to play D&D for while now, and with the old Dungeon! board game—the one that originally introduced me to the world of D&D lo these many years ago—apparently no longer in print, I’ve struggled with how to bring them into the game’s basic ideas. Fortunately, Wrath of Ashardalon is a board game, which makes it far more visual than the core D&D game itself is, but even so, I was still a little worried. The box claims that Ashardalon is intended for ages 12+, and my girls and aged 6 and 7. On the other hand, the game comes with a million little figurines, and I figured that at worst the girls and I could play with those while I helped them through the games’ various decision points.
For experienced players, Wrath of Ashardalon is a nice mix of 4E and simplified board game rules. It comes with five basically pre-generated characters, though each has a small mix of power cards that allows for some individual specialization, as well as a wide variety of monsters, traps, and encounter conditions that come in card decks and which thereby generate random dungeon effects naturally during the course of play. By far the nicest thing about the game is that it requires no DM or Referee. Turns occur in three phases, with each Player acting for his character, for the dungeon itself, and then for the various monsters under his control. So far, we’ve found that play is fun and relatively straight-forward, but it can bog down a bit if one Player accumulates a bunch of trap and monster cards. We’ve also found that the game plays best with 3 players.
From my standpoint, the game is good because it’s pretty easy. After only two sessions, my older daughter had the rules down cold. During their turns, characters can take two actions, a Move action and a Standard action, which in this game is either an Attack, a Disarm Traps check, or a second Move action. However, unlike full D&D game ruleset, there are no Minor Actions. For that matter, there aren’t any Immediate Interrupts, Immediate Reactions, or Attacks of Opportunity, and you can’t gain or yield Combat Advantage. All of which means that the combat in Wrath of Ashardalon is a lot less tactical than it is in full D&D. There’s no Shifting, and there’s very little reason maneuver. For example, you can’t improve your odds to-hit via tactical movement, and there’s no reason not to use Ranged Attacks with a bad guy adjacent to you. As a Player, pretty much the only decision you have to make is which power to use and when to use it. Also, there are very few Healing powers in the game, so every time we’ve played, the game has become something of a war of attrition. Thus, the strategy revolves around using your big powers early enough to keep yourself from being overwhelmed without using all of your best powers before you reach the individual villain for each specific encounter-set. And yet, even with that my kids ask for my thoughts on what they ought to do nearly every time. But that’s fine. At least they’re having fun.
Wrath of Ashardalon is a fun game. Yes, it misses some of the essential role-playing that is the soul of true D&D, but it’s an excellent way to introduce people to the game, and unlike the full version of D&D, there’s a discrete beginning, middle, and ending to each miniature adventure. It’s also good way for experienced players to pass some time with friends without getting into all the math and sheet set-up that’s involved in a regular D&D campaign. I like it, and I recommend it, especially to folks who like fantasy adventure books but who think D&D is just too weird to actually play. Wrath of Ashardalon is a great way for those folks to see what the fuss is about.
No comments:
Post a Comment