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by Kim Mohan Playtest Coordinator Our new Playtest Group of the Month is the second group we’ve featured from Great Britain. Ian Malcomson, the Dungeon Master and group leader, is one of the most insightful and articulate playtesters I had the privilege of working with. He has a deep background in the D&D and AD&D games on both a personal and professional level, and his love of the game is evident in the tone and substance of all the feedback he provided us. Ian’s group was particularly important to us for another reason: It included a player who had no previous roleplaying experience (who also happens to be Ian’s wife). We wanted to find out how easy it was for a newcomer to get into this version of the game, and Caroline Malcomson’s remarks (see below) were just the sort of information we were hoping to get.
Our Thoughts on 3E by Ian Malcomson Tim Joslin’s comments on the reduction of the learning curve in 3E (see April’s Group of the Month) equally applies to our way of thinking, especially since 3E is the only game one of our players has been involved in. We also feel that the expansion of possibilities available within the core rules is an important aspect. With previous editions of the game, such flexibility has only seeped in through a bewildering array of optional volumes—from Unearthed Arcana to the Complete Handbooks—and through large portions of campaign material being given over to the rules specific to one world or another. Under 3E, the emphasis has been switched to providing a good generic grounding, placing the onus of what is possible and what is not firmly on the shoulders of the individual gaming group, and allowing campaign settings to do the job they are supposed to do—describe the milieu without having to get bogged down in the game mechanic mire. Although the familiar is still there—thieves are still thieves, for example—the room in which both DM and players have to work within the now-broader definition of what a thief is creates a flexibility never before possessed by the D&D family of games. The fact that such flexibility has been created within the system without sacrificing the underlying simplicity of the basic D&D concept—even making this concept even easier to grasp and learn—stands as a testament to the designers involved in its creation. |
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