A Better 4th Edition

My feelings on 4E aren't really hidden. I don't like it as much as 3.x. Which is a shame, since 4E sounded like such a good idea at the time.

But this isn't a post about Dungeons and Dragons or anything, so I should stop talking about them. This is a post about a better 4th Edition that's coming out soon. Legend of the Five Rings 4E. Adam was kind enough to send me this link to a bunch of creator diaries about the game. The most recent one's at the top and the others are further down the chain.

They're a little lengthy - I've only read the first one so far - but it sounds pretty good. My biggest concern with their third edition was that it made things far more complicated than they needed to be. First edition was simple and straight forward (most people complained about the magic system being odd, but I didn't mind it so much). Second edition was a trash heap and third actually started cleaning it up a bit, but there were so many things to remember. For example, defense was no longer Reflexes times five plus armor. Now it was Reflexes times five plus armor plus this chart based on your attack value if you're using a sword of a particular style plus this bonus from terrain minus your opponent's skill in a particular weapon plus and minus any schools either of you might have. Times three quarters. Probably not quite that complicated, but it felt that way.

I think my biggest downer about the new edition will be that it's taking place in the current timeline. For my money, there's nothing better than the original pre-Scorpion Clan Coup timeline. There wasn't the 50 years of absolute turmoil and chaos where everything that the clans did went contrary to the previous 1000 years. The card game's good as a card game, but it shouldn't impact the storyline. It really screws things up.

Would I switch to 4th when it comes out? Perhaps. It's got a tough hill to climb to replace 1st edition, but it could do it. Either way, I'm excited to see what happens.

Now if only I could hear what's going on with Iron Kingdoms too...