A question for folks who started with 3E, 4E or Pathfinder: how do earlier editions play for you?

[Mercurius]

It struck me that most of us engaged in conversations about different editions of D&D have been playing at least since 2E, and the "D&D boomers" like myself generally started with B/X or 1E in the late 70s or early 80s, and of course we have the first generation who started with OD&D or Holmes in the mid-70s. But rarely do we consider the alternate: folks that started playing within the last 14 years, since the arrival of 3E, and have since tried out earlier editions.

What struck me is that us "old-timers" who started with TSR D&D don't know what it feels like to be a newcomer, to discover D&D for the first time in the "modern age" of the game. We have decades of memory to fall back on. We remember buying hardcovers in game stores for $12.95 or when the art of Jeff Easley, Larry Elmore, Keith Parkinson and Clyde Caldwell revolutionized the look of the game (not realizing that it was only in the early 80s that TSR could afford such artists!)

So my question is for those folks: How do earlier editions play for you? How would you compare them to 3E, 4E, or Pathfinder? What sort of feelings do they evoke? Is it creepy like visiting an old folks home where they're playing big band, or is it more like coming home for the first time to new realms of imagination and possibility? Or something completely different?

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I started with 1E, so this may not be relevant, but I do know that young 'uns in our group seem to prefer 1e.

 

[Raith5]

What sort of feelings do they evoke? Is it creepy like visiting an old folks home where they're playing big band,

Great quote! More like whispered tales of combats lasting less than 40 minutes.

 

[Warunsun]

I started with 1E, so this may not be relevant, but I do know that young 'uns in our group seem to prefer 1e.

The newer players in your group are going to tend to like what you like. This isn't always the case but it is true a lot. So if you like and praise 1E then it is only natural that they do the same.

 

[Raith5]

The newer players in your group are going to tend to like what you like. This isn't always the case but it is true a lot. So if you like and praise 1E then it is only natural that they do the same.

This may be true for some groups. But from my experience it is particular game elements that require explanation (rather than a whole edition per se). For instance I find with people who have not had previous edition experience with D&D before 4th, it is really hard to explain idea that spell casters have only daily resources, or that high level wizards are more powerful than high level fighters, or that combats in previous editions were relatively brief affairs.

 

[MoonSong]

Ok, words from someone who actually started with 3E/Late 2E (not in the late powercreep supplements late sense, just late as in "nobody gives a $h/t about racial limits and stuff with NWPS always assumed" late). Yes got some 2e before, but it was a very arcane thing, something hard to grasp and understand, then 3e came out and became a "rosetta stone" of D&D for me, for the simple reason it is the same frigging game, except 3.x gives you options -like point buy- and 2e has limits -that nobody cares about- while numbers in character sheets may be different both play exactly the same.

Now I have played 1e too, and it like basic can feel pretty boring -though this is more of a personal thing, I will always get bored with dungeoncrawling regardless of edition, and most of the times I've played the older editions it was dungeoncrawling- but if used to play an ongoing campaign or something other than dungeoncrawling it is very obvious it is the same exact game, just with less options and more limits, but it plays the same. The reason I like 2e and 3.x better, is because the flexibility they provide and because their flavor is something I can relate to, not to mention that they feel the most thematically complete editions, if 2e just had sorcerers,warlords & warlocks, more accessible dualclasssing and was better organized, I wouldn't play any other thing, the same is true for 3.5 if it's point-buy allowed for even lower scores and had less fiddly moving parts -plus warlords-.

All other editions feel thematically incomplete, it isn't I cannot enjoy basic, for example, but it feels like only good for very short campaigns or one-shots. And for 1e, it just feels archaic and clunky at some parts, but like I said, it plays mostly the same.

On short, playing on an older edition feels like playing on a regular game where the DM just arbitrarily decided to ban 95% of the character concepts available.

 

[Argyle King]

I like what appears to be the mindset behind older editions; by that, it feels more akin to sword & sorcery than the somewhat gonzo and over-the-top fantasy of later editions.

However, there are aspects of the rules which are more bare-bones and bland than I would like. Also, having a higher lethality doesn't (in my opinion) mix very well with a system that doesn't have active defenses (things like parry, block, and dodge.) I actually prefer having combat be a bit rougher (being a GURPS fan,) but find the combination of a more deadly game and static D&D style defenses to be an odd (and potentially very unfun) combo.



About me: I started with 3rd. I currently play 3rd and 4th. I have not played 2nd, but find the writing style of 2nd's books to be attractive (for whatever reason.) I only recently started dabbling in 1st.

 

[Halivar]

I started in 3E. While I miss the player character customization of later editions, 1E DM's like a dream. If 5E can run (DM-side) like 1E, while allowing for PC customization like 3E/PF/4E, then it will be the best game ever, IMHO.

EDIT:
To be more specific, I feel like 1E has a more "wondrous" atmosphere. Magic items are not balanced, so that magic sword you picked up could literally be anything. Monsters of any number of HD could show up.

Also, 1E seemed to more naturally fit into the "Points of Light" groove that 4E attempted to evoke.

Bookkeeping for the DM is nearly non-existent. And since monsters are as unbalanced as the magic items, I didn't have to sweat as much making custom monsters. 3.x was more fiddly in custom monster creation, and while 4E did a good job of relieving the burden, 1E completely stripped it away. This monster can kill the whole party in a round? Cool. Throwing it in. Not caring about the survivability of my players was a remarkably freeing thing. I had more fun, and the tension for my players was that much higher, because they knew I was trying to kill them. It also made their victories that much sweeter.

 

[Savevsdeath]

I started at the very beginning of 3E's lifecycle, though I owned AD&D 2nd ed books but had never played until years after i'd already started playing 3.0. Not entirely relevant, but i actually have a recent experience (actually an experience-in-progress) that i think is worth contrbuting to this discussion, as a friend of mine recently invited my to join an online OSRIC game via Roll20. We haven't even started yet, and all the players don;t want to even try it anymore, myself included, because it just looks so incredibly not fun. Character options are nonexistent, the rules are wonky and unbalanced, and worst of all the classes are just not fun.

I made an Assassin just because I was amused to see that it used to be a core class, and when i saw that i'd be level 9 before i'd even have a snowballs chance in hell of successfully sneaking up on anything I got pretty discouraged. On a lark, i recently grabbed the AD&D 2e books again, and i can safely say that i'd rather play literally any modern game than so much as touch that abomination. It had the same problems as OSRIC, but it was even more complicated, and my modern game design sensibilities just kept wanting to homebrew fixes, then i'd realize it was easier to just pretend that editions before 3.0 didn't exist. That's what i'm doing now, though i'm going to play in the OSRIC game anyway just because my friend is running it, but I don't expect to enjoy it very much.

 

[Scars Unseen]

On a lark, i recently grabbed the AD&D 2e books again, and i can safely say that i'd rather play literally any modern game than so much as touch that abomination. It had the same problems as OSRIC, but it was even more complicated, and my modern game design sensibilities just kept wanting to homebrew fixes, then i'd realize it was easier to just pretend that editions before 3.0 didn't exist. That's what i'm doing now, though i'm going to play in the OSRIC game anyway just because my friend is running it, but I don't expect to enjoy it very much.

If it's any consolation, your desire to house rule 2nd edition isn't a product of your modern game design sensibilities. Heavily house ruled games were pretty much the default state of AD&D in my experience.

One game you might want to try out is Castles & Crusades. It's like AD&D filtered through a WotC D&D lens. The classes are still fairly simple(though not quite so much as in AD&D), but because of the way the game is designed, you can pretty much tack on subsystems from any version of D&D(at least through 3.X... haven't tried 4E features) with virtually no change at all.