So guess what popped into stores today?

That’s right, D&D Fourth Edition is here for realz. I’m incredibly happy for WotC, and tabletop gaming in general. My little nerd-ghetto sport has had a rough time of it the last few years, and this is going to be a great big shot in the arm.

I was lucky enough to write two articles about it for Wired, and it turns out they’ve used them today for launch. I wrote them initially eons ago, but time and fortune delayed their appearance until today:

• New D&D Rolls a 20 for Playability - Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition is a fitting tribute to Gygax and Dave Arneson’s original vision of a game built around a story with few mechanical supports. D&D, when it was first released, was little more than a few dozen pieces of paper stapled together. They were the barest bones of a game system, requiring players and DMs to fill in the blanks to create fun experiences. D&D 4th Edition returns to those early roots by freeing the participants from boring mechanics and petty arguments about rules, by allowing them to focus on what’s truly important. Good story, good friends, rolling dice, having fun. What else could be more important, in the real world or the one of Dungeons & Dragons?
• The Miscast Spell: D&D Insider’s Missed Opportunity - If Wizards of the Coast were serious about breaking open the online tabletop market, it would offer players the opportunity to buy hours at varying rates. For folks who only want to play once a week, a handful of hours would buy them all the time they needed. That’s the typical user, and Wizards would still get a decent amount of money from that transaction. The key is that this type of model includes the other two extremes much better.