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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
4e Compared to Trad D&D; What You Lose, What You Gain
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7532342" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>My response would be that ONLY 1e out of those 4 is 'traditional' D&D, and even it is on the outer edge of the core traditional phase of D&D as defined by [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]. 1e certainly has the rules and procedures in the forms he talks about such that you CAN play D&D as it was originally conceived. It also allows for something different, epitomized by the OA book, and then finally by 2e, which is to say a more 'story game' or dramatically driven game. </p><p></p><p>I'm not sure I hold with [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s idea of the evolution of the game (or devolution according to many). Things like XP for treasure, and a hard focus on things like henchmen, wandering monsters, hex crawling, etc. did fade some with time, but it seems to me it was more in the service of trying to achieve a wider range of narrative experiences than some vain quest to turn D&D into a 'sim'. There were always a few people who played kind of like that, but I don't think it was a vast tension. Not like OSR vs modern RPG play is today. Some people liked rules that they felt produced 'realistic' results, but everyone always recognized that they were playing a game and that some sort of narrative considerations (IE making the PCs playable in some sense) was an element of the game. Even people who loved Aftermath (a very hard-core game of gun realism) had to make some concessions if they wanted to keep playing for long.</p><p></p><p>So, I would see the 'LARPing phase' as simply an extension of a trend which started early in the game's history. It wasn't even a very distinct phase, but 2e certainly was not 'traditional D&D' in its sensibilities and catered to it (though oddly enough it retained pretty much all the 'stuff' required to do old school dungeon crawls if you wished, though some of the details were poorly explicated or left to implication). </p><p></p><p>3e and 5e are totally different beasts. They have little to do with traditional D&D or even with AD&D in general really. 5e does drive close to the sensibilities of 2e in many respects though, and might be seen as a sort of less incoherent D&D with stronger story elements, though sadly little in the way of mechanical support for that (system matters). </p><p></p><p>3e was just a mutant hairball thing. I suspect the designers THOUGHT they were polishing 2e's chaotic rules mess, but they so amplified spell casting and created such a huge THING with the skill system, that it just warped off in its own direction. If it is like 2e, it is like 2e hyped so much that it just melts... IMHO WotC wrote 4e because fundamentally 3e was just unmanageable and impossible to push in any real direction.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7532342, member: 82106"] My response would be that ONLY 1e out of those 4 is 'traditional' D&D, and even it is on the outer edge of the core traditional phase of D&D as defined by [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]. 1e certainly has the rules and procedures in the forms he talks about such that you CAN play D&D as it was originally conceived. It also allows for something different, epitomized by the OA book, and then finally by 2e, which is to say a more 'story game' or dramatically driven game. I'm not sure I hold with [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s idea of the evolution of the game (or devolution according to many). Things like XP for treasure, and a hard focus on things like henchmen, wandering monsters, hex crawling, etc. did fade some with time, but it seems to me it was more in the service of trying to achieve a wider range of narrative experiences than some vain quest to turn D&D into a 'sim'. There were always a few people who played kind of like that, but I don't think it was a vast tension. Not like OSR vs modern RPG play is today. Some people liked rules that they felt produced 'realistic' results, but everyone always recognized that they were playing a game and that some sort of narrative considerations (IE making the PCs playable in some sense) was an element of the game. Even people who loved Aftermath (a very hard-core game of gun realism) had to make some concessions if they wanted to keep playing for long. So, I would see the 'LARPing phase' as simply an extension of a trend which started early in the game's history. It wasn't even a very distinct phase, but 2e certainly was not 'traditional D&D' in its sensibilities and catered to it (though oddly enough it retained pretty much all the 'stuff' required to do old school dungeon crawls if you wished, though some of the details were poorly explicated or left to implication). 3e and 5e are totally different beasts. They have little to do with traditional D&D or even with AD&D in general really. 5e does drive close to the sensibilities of 2e in many respects though, and might be seen as a sort of less incoherent D&D with stronger story elements, though sadly little in the way of mechanical support for that (system matters). 3e was just a mutant hairball thing. I suspect the designers THOUGHT they were polishing 2e's chaotic rules mess, but they so amplified spell casting and created such a huge THING with the skill system, that it just warped off in its own direction. If it is like 2e, it is like 2e hyped so much that it just melts... IMHO WotC wrote 4e because fundamentally 3e was just unmanageable and impossible to push in any real direction. [/QUOTE]
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