I love roleplaying! /slitswrist
The "encounters" sessions are weekly in-store games that happen every Wed across the world, I guess. Yeah, they're basically designed to be played in about 2 hours and every week they'll send the DM the next week's game. Players can basically go to any session and be able to bring their character from a previous game and jump right in (they also have pre-gens which I used). They're pretty hardcore railroad rides, almost like Castle Ravenloft or something, but they're meant to draw new people in. Think you always start the season at level 1 and maybe get to level 3 by the end. Format seems to be, little bit of roleplaying/setup, the party gets MAYBE 2 choices of where to go, then a big fight. They've been doing it for awhile now I guess, but it's usually tied to a new product setting and each story runs about 12 weeks I think. They did one for Dark Sun, this one I think has to do with some "shadowfell" book they put out. The one that starts in August is tied to the new Neverwinter campaign setting. Aug 6th there's going to be a "game day" with a prequel to the next Encounters sessions, so I'm def going to hit that up. If you have a game store near you, go for it. The 2-3 hour time limit is really kinda nice.
As far as 4E goes, I'm digging it I think. I have a good bootleg of the character builder that people are really good about updating, and it makes creating a guy a 5-10 minute affair. It's pretty great. The official D&D Insider sub for $10 bucks a month is kinda brutal unless you've got an actual group going and you share it between friends. I like how the system has been streamlined and the powers and themes are pretty cool (we got a taste of it in the Ravenloft game). Just sorta works which is cool.
One thing I'm not crazy about, but which is completely optional, is the new Fortune Cards that you can buy booster packs of. So a player can have a deck of these fortune cards and every turn in a fight he can either use whatever card is up or discard and draw another. They're free actions n spells n shit that I dunno, just feel out of place. WIZARD$$$!!
BOOK: Haven't started A Dance with Dragoons yet! Well, I read the prologue and thought it was cool, but I've seriously forgotten so much, I think I'm going to try and power thru at least books 2 and 3.