Dungeons and Dragons

DISCLAIMER: This is a Nerd-Post all about Dungeons and Dragons. It assumes you know a thing or two about Dungeons and Dragons. Please skip this if you don't. You will definitely be bored.

I'm no stranger to DMing. I've been an avid table-top RPG player since sometime in 2000, and that experience started as a DM. Before that I played HeroQuest (as a DM), played a number of computer/console RPGs, read many Lone Wolf CYOA books, and LARPed. Role-playing is a bit of a life-long passion for me.

The thing with DMing is that it takes a lot of time and effort. Me? I'm usually pretty busy, so whenever I find myself in the DM seat, I have always tried short-cuts to get the sessions going. These short-cuts have made my DMing not as good as other DMs I've known/played with, but most of the time my games are fun, if a bit short lived.

One of the things that immediately interested me in DnD's 4th edition was the supposed focus on making the DM's life easier. As I read the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's guide, I started believing that I could do this whole DM thing sans shortcuts.

The prep-work was easy. I created a spreadsheet to help me calculate my XP budget and keep track of my monsters. I set-up the PCs as militia within an ancient Elven City who start with a simple smuggling bust and uncover a plot to depopulate the elven lands. Picking monsters was easy. Designing interesting encounter spaces to compliment the monsters and create interesting combats was just plain FUN. I didn't really have to worry about PCs bringing out some unusual/overpowered/unclear spell/feat/item/power and wrecking all of my plans like I would were I Dming Mutants and Masterminds, Star Wars, or DnD 3rd edition.

Unfortunately, my session was a 1-shot, so getting detailed characterization from 3.5 hours of a session wasn't really possible. The 4 sets of stats we had as PCs each brought something interesting to the encounters. We had
1.A grapple-build fighter who could move enemies all around the battlefield
2.A Greatbow Seeker who could lock-down enemies from hundreds of feet away.
3.A pacifist Cleric who could heal like nobody's business and debuff enemies to uselessness
4.A Monk who could go anywhere and could move enemies to his best advantage.

In conclusion, this taight me a few things about DnD 4ed:

A. I can totally DM it and not go crazy trying to challenge any PC/make fights interesting.
B. Fourth edition PCs are all SO different a fights play out very differently depending on the types of PCs you have running. I think this edition will offer many years of interesting gaming. A good thing too, considering the money and time I've put into it.