I am not that big of a Power Rangers fan.
I don't own any action figures (although I'm jealous of anyone who owns a dragon dagger), I'm not currently watching the show and I really have no plans to. I mean, I watch older seasons on Netflix from time to time, as a counter to the usually dark and gritty stuff that I like to consume, but it's certainly an exception to the rule of my bleak and grim tastes. In fact, I sometimes find my brain refusing to shut off and critiquing the show's philosophical underpinnings of using a grid as the basis of all life and whatnot. It strikes me as Cartesian, and thus post-Enlightenment, and thus dumb.
Yes, I did that, sober. Getting me drunk only makes me less restrained.
Yes, my Associate's Degree is focused in Philosophy. I'm that dude who can go on multiple hour rants about the philosophical underpinnings of practically anything, much to the annoyance of all around me. And Power Rangers does not walk out kindly from such rants and ravings, metaphysically speaking. Life is not cartesian-
Sorry. About started again.
So what the hell is going on? Why am I writing so much about this game?
Get in the box.
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| No, I'm not a Dr. Who fan. But I do think the Tardis is pretty cool. |
Yes, really.
No, I am not being all that unfair. 3.5 is objectively flawed
OK, maybe I'm being a little unfair. Doesn't change the fact that I don't like the game.
Now, before you go and start edition-warring in the comments, hear me out: there are objective cracks and flaws in 3.5 that should not be ignored. Linear fighters and quadratic wizards, the mathematical ridiculousness that is prestige classes and multiclassing, the fact that if you're wanting to actually emulate the fantasy genre then you're really in the wrong game, as DnD is its own genre, flat, and Pun-Pun the frickin' kobold. I know people still have fun with the game, and I certainly do as well, but that's not what objectivity is about. I think that word has been abused to all hell and back, into a beat stick for someone to get away with being a jerk.
Yes, I am getting to why I love Heroes of the Grid. But this stuff is important. You need to know it to get why I'm here, now, writing about this game.
Now, objective stuff is independent of one's opinions and whatnot. It's non-personal. I know many people adore 3.5. That's fine. No issue. But its objective flaws were really rubbing me the wrong way at that point, and I found that I could not love the game. And that was a shame! I'd bought a lot of books, especially the later stuff, and found there was stuff in it I still enjoyed a lot.
But man, when 4e was announced I was excited. Every last thing that I had issue with in 3.5 was getting addressed. Broken characters? Gone. Encounter design that actually made sense? (Don't pretend 3.5's does! Don't do it!) Thank God yes! A greater emphasis on party cohesion and making combat more fun? YAAAAAAS!
Notice how objective I'm being.
No, if you can't take the (double-edged) joke I don't suggest continuing to read.
I was so excited, in fact, that I began piecing together 4e from the bits of playtest and preview material that was being released and playing it, months in advance. By the time 4e debuted I had more than a good idea of how the system worked and was hardly surprised by any single piece of it. It was love at first sight. And that continued, for most of 4e's lifespan.
4e, at its best, was a rocking combat game, with tons of interlocking character and monster bits. Players had a suite of powers, class features, and feats, all of which were designed to explicitly work in the overall context of a team. Classes were grouped into roles, which were much looser than most of the naysayers wanted to admit. The monsters in the game were also put into roles, with fewer but much more memorable abilities. The encounter design system was so easy that one could throw together fights in a matter of minutes. Monsters could have their levels tweaked so easily that you didn't even have to write the changes down. And players had pretty easy markers to tell when they were in trouble, both in the short term of a combat encounter and over the long term of a session. If the DM was half-awake the players would find that their resources dwindled quickly, causing the players to have to think on their feet. Or, at least that's how it worked in my games. I was extremely good at pushing that system (and the characters within it) to its brink, without being overwhelming.
I had a good thing going. I knew the system, understood it as a child understands riding a bike, and could do pretty much anything I wanted to with the encounter system. It was the first game that I ever deeply and truly loved. And together, we were an unstoppable force. Hell, I had people coming to watch the sessions, years before streaming was ever a thing, because the campaigns I ran with 4e were that good. And dark. And intense. No really, folks came and sat down and had a running commentary on the game. It got so loud I had to start kicking people out so that way I could focus. It was grand!
Of course Andy had to ruin everything. He has a habit of doing that.
Of course Andy had to point out that 4e is a glorified combat simulator.
Of course Andy had to point out that I was trying to do complex character development with a system that didn't support it in any objective (SEE HOW THAT WORD COMES BACK TO BITE ME??) fashion.
Thank you Andy!
Now, thanks to Andy, I GM three Burning Wheel campaigns. I would do more, but sleep. Yes, Andy, this is all your fault. As usual.
And it's awesome.
I love Burning Wheel. But it doesn't address a lot of things that I had come to love in 4e: the focus on combat, the teamwork, the interaction between roles, powers, and feats to create a very unique character, and the intricate puzzle that was combat. I've tried to go back to 4e but I always found that its flaws had become unpalatable. And that broke my heart. Over the next few years I found myself looking back, wistfully, at a game that had meant so much to me, but that I could no longer connect to.
I don't deal with loss and death very well. I'm that one dude who will sit by a dead dog that I didn't know and just sob for the poor thing. So not being able to connect back to a game that meant so much to me at one point? You know that's not going to go over well. It's a problem I'm going to keep trying to solve, probably for the rest of my life, because I am that sentimental. At times.
I did not back Heroes of the Grid on Kickstarter because I saw its similarities to 4e. I backed the game because Bargain Quest is the best game I (STILL!!!!!!) don't own. The design is infectiously joyful and hilarious. And so, when I saw that Jonathan Ying's name was plastered on the box, I backed it. Not only could I reconnect with childhood nostalgia but (and more importantly) the game design looked amazing.
And when I finally got to play it was an immediate connection. I just couldn't stop thinking about it, which is a phenomena that I find to be rare and disconcerting. It took me months to figure it out. But I started to notice things about the game, and the harder I pulled on the thread the faster down the rabbit hole I fell. At this point I'd say that if 4e was forced to take a paternity test it would be paying some hefty child support to Heroes of the Grid. The characters are definitely put into roles and have unique abilities that have to be understood by the whole group in order to be used well. The monsters are unique yet not obtuse. The game centers around a moving, interlocking puzzle, that requires all of the player's mental, emotional, and social faculties to overcome. Heroes of the Grid took all the things that were best about 4e, and got rid of the long and plodding combats, skill challenges, and all the rest of the stuff that just plain old didn't work with 4e, improved the good stuff, and used it to become its own game.
Heroes of the Grid is not a direct translation of 4e, but it preserved and passed on the spirit of 4e at its best. The camaraderie, the incredible rush of pulling off a combo with your fellow players, the slow grinding into nothing that 4e was so good at, and the feelings of empowerment and urgency were all translated over. And, after all these years, I found that I could move on, which is something normally accomplished by applying a crowbar to my backside. So this a welcome change! And, as it turns out, I have a lot to say about this new thing that I found, honed from years of experience with a fantastic game that doesn't deserve the bad rap that it got.
And so here we are.
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