While my local gaming group hasn’t quite gotten started yet, November was a great month because I was able to do a lot of prep work. In addition to doing a lot of reading and podcast listening, I saw some of my college buddies with whom I used to play D&D. We get together once a year and this year we decided to play a little 4e in addition to our normal geocaching excursions. We played 4 encounters I think, mostly out of Dungeon Delves. Our DM for the weekend has been playing in a regular campaign back home, and so he was a natural to introduce us all to 4e. We had a great time and I’m pleased to report that I enjoyed 4e as much as I thought I would. It’s actually very similar to the house-ruled game that we actually played in college based on AD&D… but that’s another post.

Tactically speaking, the weekend play experience gave me some great insight into what I needed (and what I wanted) for my local campaign. I’m not talking about the story or the campaign yet, but just the mechanics of introducing a new group to the game. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Rules Compendium
   I actually bought this for the weekend, and I’m glad I had it. I may never accumulate all of the printed literature for the game, and certainly not all of it to get started. So the Rules Companion is the perfect summary for me, and the classes, races, feats, powers, and magic items we’ll pull from a couple copies of the PHB in the group and from D&D Insider. I considered the new Red Box Starter Set but, while I’m new to 4e, I’m not new to the game and felt that the Starter Set would be a bit too introductory.
2. Dice
   Yeah, everybody’s going to want their own set of dice… but I learned a long time ago that one set of dice per person slows down a game. I picked up a Pound-o-Dice from Chessex and will have plenty to go around.
3. A Dedicated Gaming Table (with a 1” grid and erasable surface)
   OK, that’s not going to happen… so I picked up a Chessex Battlemat. Very nice quality, unfortunate shipping practices… more on that later.
4. Condition Tokens
   This is a big one for me. Our DM had these great little colored, wooden rounds that we could stack under our mini or token on the battlefield to indicated conditions like “bloodied” or “prone”. It really helped us visualize everything that was going on, so I knew I wanted something similar. But I had a hard time remembering what color meant what, so I thought an improvement could be made… that’s another post.
5. Miscellaneous Encounter Bits
   There is no question that 4e is still a role-playing game, but I think Wizards was smart to introduce some elements from board and card games to enhance the experience. To that end, I’ve got a simple burst/blast template for quickly visualizing area of effect (thanks for the idea sLim) and an idea for a simple initiative tracker so that the players can all easily see where they are in turn order. More on that to come.

That’s about it I think. Oh sure, there’s tons more to prepare around the campaign itself, but don’t despair… we’ll get there.