4th edition really turned me off D&D, at least as far as keeping up with its current state goes. At the time, I was already souring on 3.5's existential crisis with wanting to be GURPS in a class and level based system with abstracted combat. GURPS I felt simply did that better and I was coming to realise older versions of the game did the D&D parts with class, levels and abstracted combat, better. When 4e then came out, I read all the reviews and play examples to get a feel for the game and see if I wanted to tag along. Nothing new under the sun from me there - I was instantly turned off by the extremely gamist nature of it - A roleplaying game so standardised by rules, it had abandoned all pretence of players playing out the scene and using rules as an aid - Players were playing out the rules with the scene as a background prop. Combats taking forever. 9 page character sheets. Characters defined primarily by boardgamey tactical roles. The hours spent on the mini-game o...

For links to all instalments in this series,  go here . For the sixth instalment, we visit Nentir Vale, the default setting of 4e. I must admit, I steered well clear of 4e for a long time. But the fluff of it possibly the strongest OSR credentials of any editions. It is eminent and at times simply brilliant. First Impressions:  I like it. As a starting DM I feel like this map is much more relate-able than the other maps. This evokes feelings more like the  Domain of Greyhawk , where the local campaign asserts its relevance evocatively on the map. Further Thoughts:  In scale, it is more reminiscent of  Middle Earth , but, unlike ME, it has a sense of  locations  that give PCs a sense of the area they are exploring. Although not as flavorful as  ME, it does give a sense of being enough for a local campaign for ant adventurers who aren't too afflicted with wanderlust. For the far thinking explorer it falls short quickly. But it knows what ...