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Er, to completely avoid the whole "Just how old school is 4e?" conversation, I'll just respond to the OP.
Yeah, I've seen it too. 1E, BECMI and OD&D (plus their clones) have all gotten a lot of attention lately. I think it was the designers and many others (including me) discussing not just 3e vs. 4e but 4e vs. all previous editions. It was a reminder that they were there. Then a few people posted "Yeah, we're still playing _E, and it's a blast." Which was probably a kind of "That never occurred to me" news to a lot of people, who may have assumed that playing pre-3E wasn't an option (outdated, no groups, whatever).
I'll also just toss a data point out there too. I'm trying to get an RC group together to run some of the old school quests. That's a direct result of 4E being "not D&D" to me once I tried it. I've never played RC before (started with 2e) but I want to see what everyone's talking about.
__________________ I don't "tell stories" when I play D&D. I adventure. Afterward, when the gold is counted and the bodies piled high, we may tell stories about how it all went down. Or not.
I like how some people seem to be confused about simple topics.
Person A: I think that 4th edition has brought back the feel of 1st edition.
Person B: Your 1st edition games had 9000 Trolls with a billion hit points?
Me: WTF?! Somebody obviously missed something.
Feel and mechanics are not the same thing. My players, both in their 40s, consistently liken 4th edition to 1st edition because of the fact that they can do fun and tactically interesting things in combat. Whether it's in combat or out of combat, it "feels" like 1st edition for them. It's not all of the mechanics. It's the feel that the mechanics lend the game. Minion rules actually help to make a 1st edition feel to these players. It's not that the mechanics are like 1st edition. How is that still hard for some people to grasp? If the game doesn't feel good to you, then you're doing it wrong. If it doesn't feel like 1st edition, then you obviously have different memories of 1st edition than the many people who say that 4e reminds them of 1st. Get over it.
I've also noticed that there have been a lot more posts about the old editions. I think that it's because a lot of people have gotten nostalgia because of the fun that they've been having with 4e. I've never played 1st edition, and I don't want to because mechanics are actually important to me and I don't want to deal with that system. I will say that one of my players told me on Friday that he thought that, mechanically, 4th edition was the best edition of D&D because he thought that it actually did what D&D was trying to do all along.
So there were 30+ hit point kobolds at 1st level that took a steady beating for 5+ rounds to kill, and you could get back spells and hit points by resting for 5 minutes between fights in 1E? That really doesn't match up with what I know and have heard of about 1E.
Again, it's really a better discussion for a separate thread. If there is one, I'll post to it tonight or tomorrow.
__________________ "Conversely, I'm amazed at the number of people queueing up to tell people that don't like 4e that they are wrong. Why can't people just agree to disagree, and get on with actually playing the game?" --Delericho
If there's one dragon, it's a solo monster.
If there's five dragons, they're standard monsters.
If there's a dozen dragons, either most of them are minions or your DM is tired of the campaign.
--Lizard
For me, my dissatisfaction with 3E had me both looking forward to 4E and pining for 2E AD&D at the same time. I'd actually like to run a 2E game at some point in the future, with a few choice houserules stolen from 3E and 4E to be sure.
I think the 4e mood and gameplay are similar to OD&D and AD&D.
That hasn't been my experience with 4e at all, unfortunately, and so far I've played in quite a few games under 4 different DMs.
I raised this with a friend of mine and his thoughts were that the "OD&D feel" that gets touted about 4e is more in relation to the ease of DMing it. From what I've read there does seem to be truth in that.
However, I tried playing 2 PCs last 4e session (one player couldn't make it because he was on honeymoon ... where's the dedication? ) and my head almost exploded trying to keep track of all the different powers and how best they could be utilised. Never before had I felt like I was playing Book-Keeping and Accounting more than that evening.
So there were 30+ hit point kobolds at 1st level that took a steady beating for 5+ rounds to kill, and you could get back spells and hit points by resting for 5 minutes between fights in 1E? That really doesn't match up with what I know and have heard of about 1E.
Ha! This is very funny Shazman, but kind of missing the point. Old-school "feel" has very little to do with rules (in fact I'd argue very few of us 1E vets were even playing by the 1E RAW), and more to do with atmosphere, game objectives, and DM focus (as in, focusing on facillitating a fun game as opposed to focusing on the rules). By your argument, if I added 30 hp kobolds and healing surges to my 1E game, it suddenly wouldn't feel like 1E anymore.
Its certainly true that the 1E players handbook contains no Warlords, wizard implements, or Fortitude defense-enhancing cloaks. Its also certainly true that has nothing whatsoever to do with the "feel" element a lot of us are talking about.
Regardless of that, there are plenty of threads with testimonials from folks who have caught a great big whif of old-school from their 4E games, so those threads are probably a better place for that discussion.
My curiosity was more toward whether that feel was fostering an increased interest in older editions, not whether that feel existed. It may indeed be that folks want to continue with that feel, but with the simpler rulesets of 1E or B/X, or it may be that being attacked by a horde of those 30hp (or 1hp minion) kobolds from Keep on the Shadowfell brought on a wave of nostalgia for the horde of 2-5hp kobolds from Keep on the Borderlands, or it may be completely coincidental.
It just seems like a notable increase to me...
__________________ "There are few problems a well-placed fireball cannot solve. Now, tell us more about this... orphanage?" - Balfour Grimstaff
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That hasn't been my experience with 4e at all, unfortunately, and so far I've played in quite a few games under 4 different DMs.
I raised this with a friend of mine and his thoughts were that the "OD&D feel" that gets touted about 4e is more in relation to the ease of DMing it. From what I've read there does seem to be truth in that.
However, I tried playing 2 PCs last 4e session (one player couldn't make it because he was on honeymoon ... where's the dedication? ) and my head almost exploded trying to keep track of all the different powers and how best they could be utilised. Never before had I felt like I was playing Book-Keeping and Accounting more than that evening.
Exactly. I just don't see that "old school" feel in 4E.
Hmmmm... I'm not planning to do any DM-ing in the immediate future, and with 3 games I'm playing in my plate is full. But in my idle moments when I think about trying to DM some 4E, the first thing that occurs to me is ... "you know, I'll bet the GD series would really *work* as a starting point..."
So yeah. I do find that 4E is making me dig out old material and look at it again. I think it's because D&D is fun again in a way it hasn't been in a very long time, and that makes me think about the adventures that rocked my world when I was a new gamer. Giants. Drow. Kuo-Toa. Tharizdun. Iggwilv. Hommlet. All that jazz.
Plus, it gives me an excuse not to do anything about it for a while - "gotta wait until I get Frost Giants!"
__________________ Old School, New School... School's out, kids.
I've looked back myself to pre-2E rules in search of a good pick-up game, and found it in LL/RC. I still play and run 3.x (Pathfinder these days) and love it, being my "campaign game" of choice, but I find myself using LL for one-shot games or to fill spare time, as in "Dinner was good; Wanna kill some orcs?".
I began playing D&D with AD&D2, so no much for nostalgia here (I've always found 2E rules horrible, altough some of its campaign settings were great). I've also played and run quite a bit of HackMaster, which I still enjoy if played without quirks/flaws. Nevertheless, I never was a "D&D person", always prefering other rulesets as Runequest or Fudge, and I got hooked by 3.5 with the Age of Worms adventure path.
I don't know what all this says about me, but I'm sure it'll be nothing good
games like labyrinth lord or castles and crusades do remind me that there was a reason (besides a satanism scare) that people turned out in tens and twenties at game tables throughout the seventies and early eighties, and looking back to the old while thinking about the new is a good way to remind us just what was popular about those games to those people who weren't smitten with die-hard gaming, but just those who wanted a fun experience at the table.
...since OSRIC there's been a slowly increasing tide of new blogs, new sites, and more modules appearing in the OOP websites like Dragonsfoot and Knights & Knaves. I don't think it's been linked to 4e - I don't recall a large blip - maybe a small one - around the time 4e came out.
This is what I've seen, too; I think the "resurgence" started prior to 4e, and has been quietly gathering steam for some time. It's definitely becoming more visible, lately, though, and seems to be expanding beyond the "niche" sites.
__________________ "You want to play "Semantics and Lawyers"? Go ahead. We'll be busy kickin' ass and chewing Stygian Black Lotus- the best!" - Predavolk
This is what I've seen, too; I think the "resurgence" started prior to 4e, and has been quietly gathering steam for some time. It's definitely becoming more visible, lately, though, and seems to be expanding beyond the "niche" sites.
Honestly, I think it started with 3e. It's just taken a while to get this far.
For me, I've been re-considering 1E and OD&D recently due to a sense of "freedom/maneuverability" as I remember it (and the overall speed of combat). I like combat in such settings, but personally not when it could take 60-90 minutes to complete a single battle. Let me fight, move on, explore, interact, overcome!
I'm (obviously) not Shazman, but I think the people who see 1e in 4e are stretching things as much as the people who see WoW in 4e are.
I agree.
I honestly see 4e as extremely different from AD&D, not only in the mechanics but in the feeling. 4e is, IMO, far more removed from AD&D than 3e was and 3e already felt like a wholly different game to me (even if it maintained an appearance of similarity).
I honestly see 4e as extremely different from AD&D, not only in the mechanics but in the feeling. 4e is, IMO, far more removed from AD&D than 3e was and 3e already felt like a wholly different game to me (even if it maintained an appearance of similarity).
I agree, and for the life of me cannot figure out if this is good or not.
Fourth edition introduced a lot of good concepts, but I think it ultimately lacked something in execution. They got a lot of things right, and much of their ideas had noble intentions (replacing rarely-used and poorly defined concepts with new, revamped alternatives) but in the process of revamping and "fixing" everything the smoothed out the quirks that gave the system character.
Take a case-in-point: alignment. The nine alignments are synonymous with D&D (yes, I know BECMI used 3 alignments) to the point of it being part of the brand (I'm sure more than a few people would get a reference to Chaotic Evil, even if they weren't hardcore D&D players). However, alignment was never used satisfactorily; no matter how hard the designers tried, they never got people to agree what the alignments meant. This grew worse when game-mechanics became tied to alignment (paladins, smite evil, druidic neutrality). Sensibly, alignment needed some fixing and that's what they did. They removed game-mechanics from alignment, untethered classes from it, and removed "neutrality" as a concept to come up with five decently defined alignments. However, in doing so, some of the wonky charm alignment had was lost. For some, that is no loss. For others, its a symbol of D&D's change from LG paladins N Druids, and CG rangers facing LE demons and CN Slaad.
Third edition attempted to bridge the gap by keeping some of the wonky nostalgia even as the game changed around it. Vancian casting (heck, the spells per day table!), 9 alignments, the Great Wheel, Greyhawk, half-orcs, Bards, Monks, and Bronze Dragons. Sure, saved changed and AC went upwards, and many spells looked different, but I could take a 5th level elven mage in 1e and make him a 5th level elven mage in 3e and they would look roughly the same. In 4e, this is no longer true. He has more hp, a different magic system, healing surges, different racial traits, etc.
In a vacuum, all of the 4e changes are good and justified. Each fixes a common complaint players have had (not all players, but a large group) but it almost feels like too many cooks in the kitchen; by the time their done, you have Quiche Lorraine when all you wanted was bacon & eggs.
Perhaps 4e went too far. Perhaps they did everything right, but by doing so lost anyway. The whole is larger than the sum of its parts; perhaps some of those god-awful game elements like alignment or Vancian casting defined D&D more than any are willing to discuss. Those who love 4e will no doubt disagree, and they are also right. 4e players smoother and is better balanced (and easier to run) than any edition of D&D before it. There are some great ideas in it others would consider very "un-D&D" (like dragon-men or PC half-fiends). But it has lost some of those "sacred cows" that defined D&D to others. Logically, it made sense to change them. Emotionally...
I'm not knocking 4e, I run it and play it. But it feels different; much different than the D&D I ran in 2e or 3e. Not better, not worse, different. Perhaps too different for me. I enjoy it, but there is something, deep inside me that feels a sense of loss for all those annoying sub-systems, alignment arguments, and fire and forget magic spells.
Maybe its that sense that is bringing people "home" to older D&D?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ant
I raised this with a friend of mine and his thoughts were that the "OD&D feel" that gets touted about 4e is more in relation to the ease of DMing it. From what I've read there does seem to be truth in that.
I agree with your friend. The ease of DMing, the freeform rules, and the relative elegant simplicity of the game all create a "1E feel" within a 4e game. Much more than could ever be captured in 3e.
3e, to be fair, was certainly closer to 1e in terms of sacred cows and familiar terms.
If one compares the editions subjectively, 4e is very close to 1e (or, rather, very much closer than 3e).
If one compares the editions from familiar terms, 3e is very close to 1e (or, rather, very much closer than 4e).
If one compares the editions in terms of rules mechanics, neither 3e nor 4e are "close" to 1e.
Ergo, it comes down to what is fun for you. If it's the "feel" of 1e, then 4e is your cup of grog. If it's the familiar world and terms, then 3e is it.
Actually, the best system to capture 1e feel and familiar tropes is, well, 1e. Barring that - 2e.
Brilliant, eh? And that is why I'm not Intelligence Penalty.
1E. It's the new 4E.
Um, as an aside, I have a great amount of respect for those folks who stuck with 1e through thick and thin and still play it regularly. There is a very large part of me that would very much like to do just that. I think you'll also note that these folks, by and large, don't hurl dispersions at 3e or 4e players (though they might at 2e gamers). The 1e crowd just seems more - I don't know - mature and yet casual.
1E: Old s(c)h(ool).
2E: Stepsons of the gaming world. 3E: Fun to Play. 4E: Fun to DM.
Um, as an aside, I have a great amount of respect for those folks who stuck with 1e through thick and thin and still play it regularly. There is a very large part of me that would very much like to do just that. I think you'll also note that these folks, by and large, don't hurl dispersions at 3e or 4e players (though they might at 2e gamers). The 1e crowd just seems more - I don't know - mature and yet casual.
That's because they hang out at Dragonsfoot. You're at ENWorld, where a certain amount of tolerance to 3e and/or 4e is more or less required, lest you implode, explode, or get banhammered.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nikosandros
I agree.
I honestly see 4e as extremely different from AD&D, not only in the mechanics but in the feeling. 4e is, IMO, far more removed from AD&D than 3e was and 3e already felt like a wholly different game to me (even if it maintained an appearance of similarity).
I really, really hate to ask this - but since we have like 10 other threads about this on the forum, and it's clear nobody's budging with the same arguments, I will. Could we just accept that, for quite a few folks, 4e feels a lot like RC/1e, even if you have no idea why they'd feel that?
) and my head almost exploded trying to keep track of all the different powers and how best they could be utilised. Never before had I felt like I was playing Book-Keeping and Accounting more than that evening.
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