Much blood and internet ink has been spilled about the 4th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Many, many reviews and thoughts have been written. Even though I’ve read through the PHB, I am still firmly in the “I need to play it” camp. Yet as I read through this book for “Arcane, Divine, and Martial Heroes” and in particular the ranger class, I had a realization — if this book somehow were transported through time to 1986, the year I started playing D&D, I am not sure I would have liked it.
I really got into D&D for one reason (okay, three). First, Ricky Terzo seemed like a cool kid and he played it with his older brother (who was kinda scary but also cool). Second, I read The Chronicles of Narnia in third grade and the idea of wizards and such stuck with me. But the real reason was, that 6th grade fall, I read The Hobbit for the first time and it kicked my 10 year old ass. I suppose the Narnia books planted the seed, which was kept watered by things like A Wrinkle in Time, but The Hobbit dumped Miracle Grow onto my love of fantasy. Mrs. Ricks had a copy in her classroom library — the tan mass market paperback with the original Tolkien illustration of Bilbo riding the barrels into Lake-Town on the front. I don’t remember why I picked it up, but I checked it out, took it home, and devoured it.
The Hobbit, of course, was just the beginning. “WAIT! There are three more books?! And Bilbo’s ring is somehow evil! Gimme those things!” So I snagged Fellowship from my cousin’s house (She worked at a bookstore; her copy was a mass market stripped cover. The blue one. I still have it. Sorry, Paris, but you were supposed to throw that away anyway). Christmas that year was spent at my mom’s in Maryland and I read The Two Towers. Christmas morning I opened the Red Box Basic Set. I was in. School started again, Ricky moved away, and all my friends began playing D&D.
What does any of this have to do with the 4ED ranger? Do I really have to spell it out for you? I began playing D&D because I wanted to participate, somehow, in stories like The Lord of the Rings. For awhile, I wanted to participate IN the Lord of the Rings. That following summer, we spent the better part of our waking hours in a quest for The Bow of Legolas. Tolkien had a HUGE influence in how we saw and played the game, even if, as Gygax claimed, he had little influence on the construction of the game itself. When we “graduated” to the hardback AD&D books, we were all enamored with the ranger. Now, we could play Aragorn and his Dunedain! There he was — skilled woodsman, magical powers, even the freaking name of the class was RANGER! Awesome! (And you don’t have to tell me there were all sorts of non-Tolkien stuff in the 1ed ranger. I know about the giant fighter and the favored enemy and the two weapons. NOT Aragorn. I get it. But the class was called a RANGER!)
(Ironically, I cannot remember ever actually seriously playing a ranger until I was in graduate school. And he got turned into a chimera. That sucked).
The point is that Tolkien led me to D&D. The Tolkien elements in D&D kept me there long enough for the game to become entwined with my adolescent identity. But now, there is very little Tolkien left in that ranger, because he’s not a semi-magical tracker at all. Now, he’s an archer or a two weapon fighter. He’s a striker who deals lots of damage. He has some cool combat stuff. But I don’t look at him and say “I want to play this class because it sounds like those cool guys Aragorn was part of!” So I don’t see the 11 year old me really being interested in this stuff, because it has little to do with the reason I was playing the game in the first place.
Hold your flaming, folks. I know I am not 11 any more. I am not remotely claiming Wizards of the Coast stomped all over my childhood. That was 20 years ago. The 11 year olds of today know LOTR through the movies. They’ve encountered fantasy through all sorts of different mediums — there’s video games and manga and Harry Potter and all sorts of other things (although why there isn’t some Harry Potterish stuff in this game now I don’t get. Didn’t a few kids read those books? A few kids that maybe want to play games where they can do Harry Potter sorts of things?) I am just saying a big reason I got into D&D in the first place doesn’t appear to be in D&D anymore. The game has moved on. I have moved on. Both are inevitable. Yet there is still this nostalgic lament that, had this book been my edition of D&D, I may have passed it by. And who knows what would have happened then.
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4e rangers are pretty awesome trackers. Ours is the not only the “go-to” guy for doing hideous amounts of damage (made even more gruesome in that the player rolls 20s like you or I breathe air), but also for tracking of any sorts.
One thing to keep in mind is that 4e skills are much broader. Perception and Nature do a lot more than they would in previous editions. And really, for the non-combat portion of the ranger, those skills, plus some stealth and some role-play, give much of the “look-and-feel” of your classic ranger.
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That sounds cool. I certainly need to try out 4ed; it’s something I certainly want to play. My point is that little in the class as written up suggests anything Aragorn-like, which bums me out a little.
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In the run-up to the release of 4e, I was extremely enthusiastic. I think that they made some very interesting and innovative design decisions with an eye towards really making the game play well. As a GM/DM with too little time on his hands due to young children, this was my #1 interest. And they succeeded wildly. The DM is probably the best DMG that they have ever made and what they did with the monster stat blocks is pure genius, Every monster is fun to run and fight. I have had an *amazing* time the three times that I have run 4e games.
But playing the game from the other side of the screen… I dunno. Doesn’t seem to have the same magic for me. I think it comes down to the missing classes. But it also could be with the emphasis on cool powers. Maybe this will be fixed with the release of future content (and there has been some excellent content in Dragon magazine). But I fund most abilities to be very cookie-cutter in nature. There’s a bazillion kewl powers, but they don’t feel all that different. You have a lot of choices to make when you level… but having played through 4 levels, I can’t say that I’ve been very excited about any of my character’s choices.
And then there are rituals. I *love* the idea of rituals. But the rituals that they present are mostly boring and useless. If I were running 4e for real, I’d want a whole book of cool rituals. I’m sure Wizards will put one out. But the rituals in the PH are mostly lame (at least at low level).
I think part of my disappointment comes from the fact that I may just be bored with generic fantasy right now. Maybe.
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Don’t forget that those kewl powers have names like White Lion Kick Explosion!
Ok, I really shouldn’t be so snarky, but those names kinda bug me.
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I think the Ranger portrayed in 1st Ed is just as different from Aragorn as the Ranger in 4th Ed. I think a lot of it is what you are expecting out of it. You started with 1st Ed and so you want things to be the same but better.. you don’t want change. If you really want someone that has a mystical connection to the forest, cast spells, and still do some damage play a Druid and get some feats in sword fighting. Your characters are what you make them. You get out of D&D what you put into it. 4th has opened up the game and made things more malleable and able to do what was portrayed in Tolkien’s universe ever better than before. I’m not saying your wrong, I just disagree.
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