Dagons and Dagons

When my daughter was but a wee little thing, she would say "dagons and dagons" instead of "dungeons and dragons." So cute. I have no idea where she even picked up the phrase since I've never played the game in my life.

But I know plenty of dorks who do. I'm familiar with the two basic kinds of D&D dork: the relatively harmless, pasty-faced, Mountain Dew-swilling variety and the more volatile and dangerous min/maxers. The latter would just as soon kill you as play a gimped character. Both varieties look like the zombies in 28 Days Later, only catastrophically slower. When they shamble down vacant streets, you'll hear them groan "Cheeetoooees" rather than the industry standard "brains." The most pathetic of the lot moan for Funyons.

Lately, I've heard rumblings that D&D 4.0 is in the works and that the developers are implementing changes that mirror today's most popular MMOs. I can imagine both varieties of dork balking at the very notion of these proposed changes. How long before these nerd masses take to the streets in vehement protest?

I think these changes are good. D&D suffers from game-ending class balances issues, especially at higher levels. The swirling rumors report that the developers are redesigning the classes to more closely resemble the class roles in MMOs: tank, healer, dps, cc, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if they're also developing some sort of threat system so that your tank must fight for aggro control against healing and dps compatriots. The possibilities are intriguing and I hope the rumors pan out into a complete overhaul of the game.

While they're fixing class roles and balance, they need to also fix death in Dagons & Dagons. To reiterate, I've never played D&D. But if I had, I might have tried to convince my fellow pasty-faced specimans to change the death penalty in our campaign. And the dorks may have politely listened to me while stuffing Cheetoes into their maws. But they probably voted me down.

Dying in D&D is a huge ordeal, a real kick in the junk. Resurrection is a high level cleric spell that costs thousands and thousands of gold pieces according to the game's bible. If you're a first level (or even sixth, for that matter) character and you die, you're done. You can't afford to be resurrected and no one in your party is high enough to cast it for free. You either reroll and rewrite a new character on the spot or you watch everyone else play. Since most dungeon mistresses won't stop the entire game just to get your new character integrated, you will almost always sit on the bench and spectate. It's a stupid game design and so easily amended.

So, as long as they're copying MMOs, they may as well adopt WoW's philosophy on death: a minute or two of inconvenience, a mild hit on your pocket book, both the equivalent of a swat on the fanny. In WoW, you're back to playing within minutes of dying. D&D should do the same: resurrection in the nearest temple (which could be miles and miles away) and a monetary fine of some kind, say 20% of your most valuable item. And if you can't pay, then you owe it, but you still come back. It's all about playing after all, isn't it?

To summarize, the pen-and-paper classic may be getting a revamp of MMO features and I've never played Dagons and Dagons. If you want, think of me as the OJ Simpson of pen-and-paper role-playing games: I deny playing the game, but write and talk like I've played it since I was nine.

Screenshots or it didn't happen.