4E Update: Project Old School

I’ve had 4e for about three weeks now, and I’m still coming to grips with many of the changes. Unfortunately, unlike a book, you can’t really decide conclusively how you feel about a game until you’ve actually played it, and that requires a little more effort than just reading it through a few times.

To this end, I have initiated Project: Old School. Its mission: to convert six old-school flavored, older-edition modules to 4e to determine if the essential “feel” of D&D is preserved. The candidates selected are:

• Forest of Doom (Myriador, 2004)
• Warlock of Firetop Mountain (Myriador, 2003)
• T1-T4: Temple of Elemental Evil (TSR, 1987)

The Fighting Fantasy adaptations had several attributes that made them prime candidates for conversion. Firstly, I played both of them in gamebook form, and have a pretty good idea as to how they should “feel”. Secondly, Myriador’s 3e adaptations have listed Encounter Levels, which make them easier to translate to 4e. Thirdly, both the gamebooks and modules incorporated a “Luck” point mechanic which can easily be modified to correspond with 4e’s Action Point system. And finally, Titan, the official Fighting Fantasy world, was a deliberately all-encompassing and vague setting, thus making the inclusion of 4e newness like Dragonborn and Tieflings simple.

Temple of Elemental Evil, of course, is the ultimate test. If that adventure can be translated into a satisfying 4e game, then it rightfully deserves to be called the rightful heir to the Dungeons & Dragons name.

The process of conversion is certainly demonstrating one thing conclusively: 4e is considerably more DM-friendly than its predecessors. NPCs no longer take an hour to build without software assistance, and level-adjusting monsters, which used to be a major pain in 3.5e, is very quick and simple. The payoff, of course is that the stats are much less flavorful and NPCs will need a lot more improvisational work by the DM to avoid being cookie-cutter.

Compared to the work I did on Ruins of Adventure for 3.5e, this is a lot like being handed a new, smaller box of tools with multiple settings. I can’t search through the box and find the right tool (I needed a Locathah. 4e has no Locathah stats), but I can change the settings on the tool that I have and make it do the same job (reduce a Sahuagin Raider by three levels, and voila! ersatz Locathah). Of course companies have to make money, and eventually I’ll have a toolbox of similar size after I’ve been sold a few more books. It may be there that 4e will really begin to shine.