Total. Nerd. Collision.

So I happened to be reading enWorld this evening - checking out the front page as I often do - and I saw some summaries of playtests for the new 4e D&D posted. One of these was from Ari Marmell - a freelance D&D writer whose opinion I've come to respect on enWorld, if not always agree with. He has some interesting things to say about the new edition speaking as a playtester and, if even half of his reports on the new edition hold true it sounds like it will be a great upgrade.

Then I saw the next playtest report. A guy named John Rogers who I've not seen around enWorld. I mean, the name John Rogers is familiar - writers of DC's "Blue Beetle" comic (possibly the best superhero book DC is publishing right now - or at the very least in the top 3), writer of television, and general observer of politics and popular culture over at his blog Kung-fu Monkey. But that's not...

Wait - it IS the same John Rogers?

And that's when my head exploded in a convergence of nerdity. A total nerdshift - a "nerdularity" if you will.

And if even half of Rogers's claims about the system are true then 4e just moved from a "curiosity that I'll need to check out" to a "must upgrade" for me:

Less prep time for the DM, with no loss of versatility in combat, and plenty of added value and unexpected strategies. Monster design is superior for what I need, which is versatility in the service of storytelling. Trap design in particular made me want to kiss Dave Noonan on the mouth. While roleplaying, we had more freedom, because when you actually need a roll in the roleplaying you're working off a cleaner system, rather than page-hunting for one of the independently designed subsystems.

That, combined with my recent perusal of the "Worlds and Monsters" Preview Book now has me officially excited for 4e. Which sucks. Because word just came out that Wizards is taking over Heroscape and will be releasing the highly anticipated next wave of figures in ... June. And since Wizards is targetting the small game stores they probably WILL hit the shelves in June too - unlike previous Waves which took a while to move from distribution to the shelves at Target.

Budgets suck. But I'm certainly not going to complain that a game company is selling "too much fun", so I'l just have to budget my fun in accordingly. At least this summer won't be boring.