Publishing Update and the other two thirds

Publishing Update:

"Everything Ends" will appear in the inaugural issue of A Capella Zoo. It should be due out around October-ish.

As for the rest of D&D 4th Edition, overall I think things went in a real good direction. The Monster's Manual, especially, was great. They did a lot of things in it that make the life of the DM a lot easier: no more rolling HPs for monsters, no more guestimating monsters to match the level of the party, hell 4th edition even includes lore data. The artwork in there is pretty great too. My only real complaint with the Monster's Manual is more of a semantics thing--I don't care for the Demons and Devils concept; I much rather liked the 2nd ED Tanar'ri and Baatezu...but really that's a nerd-point that matters little in the grand scheme of things.

As for the new Dungeon Master's Guide, I didn't find it to offer much for the old Hat DM like myself. It has a lot on world creating, encounter creating, and even a little on crowd control (as in how to control your players at the gaming table). I think, had I found the book 18 years ago, when I was starting out in D&D, I would have become a good DM a lot faster. It's well put together, but since they dumped a lot of the former DMG stuff into the PHB (magic items and the like), there really isn't as much in the DMG that an experienced gamer needs to have.

So overall, D&D 4th is a clear triumph over the clunky garbage of 3rd and 3.5rd, but I still think WotC is missing the boat on the Role-Playing aspect of D&D. It was there before 3rd edition, and I'm certain that the miniature rules are what's currently destroying the Role-playing nature of the game, but mechanically, it seems like the game will run pretty clean. I just wish they would have included more non-combat related spells/powers/abilities, or Perhaps one thing that should have been in the DMG: a guide on how to create your own powers and the like.