This page is about one of my hobbies, playing role-playing games. I play both online and offline games, online mostly Lord of the Rings Online (check me out on the Firefox server, Kajiyama), and offline I mostly play dungeons and dragons 4^th edition.

Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) is pretty good, but like all online games, once the pre-programmed story is done (once you hit the max level and have done all the solo-quests) it becomes a grind. All the “quests” become “Go kill 15 of monster X for me”, and when you do that, the guy says “Oh, I also need 20 of Monster Y”. I find myself constantly wanting to yell “You could have mentioned that when I went out the first time!”

Dungeons and Dragons 4^th edition is ok, but I have to say I liked where 3^rd ed was going better. First edition (Dungeons and Dragons) and second edition (Advanced dungeons and dragons) both were very player-character centric. Your character had a level, and hit points, and armor, and all these skills, other people, like the random farmer you meet, had none of these things. They were, in a video-game sort of way, not attackable (meaning you also couldn’t lie to them, steal from them, sell things to them, buy things from them, convince them to let you marry their daughter, etc.).

3^rd edition set out in the mammoth project of giving everyone a level. So you might be a level 3 fighter, but that guy you are trying to swindle is a level 12 shopkeeper (“expert”). This meant he was better at negotiating than you. That was cool, and suddenly everyone was on equal terms. But the problem was that to become a better shopkeeper, you had to go kill monsters. That didn’t make much sense, and was never really resolved. (I ended up ruling that 1 experience point was the amount of experience you got in a typical day of work, and giving the shopkeepers levels based on how long they worked.).

The other problem was that there would have had to be hundreds of classes (Fighter / warrior / guard / prison guard / scout…) because everyone had slightly different abilities. You want thugs to be good at intimidate, but not royal guards. You want royal guards to wear heavy armor, but not pirates.

4^th edition gave up, and went back to the “The players have levels, nobody else exists”. This made record keeping easier, but it hurts the reality of the game. My favorite example of this is Cave slime. This is a small hazard (obstacle to overcome) on the floors of caves. You have to roll over a certain number to avoid falling down. Sadly, that number is based on your level. So, if you are a world-known and mighty wizard (or whatever) you have pretty much no chance of not falling on your ass, while the n00b fighter is usually fine. Odd.

Anyway, lemme know if you are in Tokyo and want to play D&D, I’m looking for a group.