On June 6, Wizards of the Coast plans to release the fourth edition of 'Dungeons & Dragons.' The latest edition of the iconic game, the first since version 3.5 was released in 2003, will simplify some things for players, such as what roles they play, and the company hopes that that will mean that more people will play the game than ever. Pictured here is the forthcoming fourth-edition 'Monster Manual.'
(Credit: Wizards of the Coast)SAN FRANCISCO--This is not your big brother's Dungeons & Dragons.
On June 6, Wizards of the Coast will officially roll out the fourth edition of the D&D franchise, as well as a new suite of digital tools, and the world-famous game will never be the same.
And this time, it won't require the death of the game's inventor, Gary Gygax, to get D&D into the news.
I got a preview of what's new on Monday, and while I'm certainly no D&D expert, I'll try to spell out what I saw for you here.
To start with, the digital initiative, which is called Dungeons & Dragons Insider, will, for the first time, make it feasible to play a game of D&D with your friends over the Internet and without having to pull out the thick, iconic, hardcover books that have for so long been an essential element to the experience.
This is the fourth-edition 'Player's Handbook.' Among the new innovations that will be released with the fourth edition of 'Dungeons & Dragons' on June 6 is a new Web-based suite of tools known as D&D Insider. This will allow players to play the game online against friends from anywhere, but is based entirely on the paper game. It is not, in other words, a video game, but rather a Web interface for the regular game.
(Credit: Wizards of the Coast)The basic idea behind Dungeons & Dragons Insider is that it will allow players to create their characters using an online avatar maker and then import those creations to a digital game table where they can they wage campaigns online with their friends.
And while the idea is not to turn D&D into an MMORPG--a massively multiplayer online game--like World of Warcraft or EverQuest, there can be no doubt that Wizards of the Coast has taken some cues from those games.
One of the sets of tools included in the D&D Insider is a complete collection of the items, classes, races, and spells from the books, as well as any of the official D&D magazines.
Then, once players have gone through the character creator--which allows them a pretty high degree of customization within all the various classes and races of their characters--they can then begin playing.
But those who are taking on the role of dungeon master can also use the character creator to build non-player characters that they can then put inside the dungeons that players will use as part of their campaigns.
One nice thing about using these online tools is that it is likely, I was told, that the entire process of getting ready to play will be much faster than it has always been to use the hard copy books. That's because, D&D Web specialist Chris Youngs told me, everything is organized in the online tools in such a way that players and dungeon masters alike will be able to find what they need without being required to flip around through the books. Which for anyone who ever played D&D knows is a seriously time-consuming part of the experience.
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