Edition Wars – Does the edition you play really have an impact on the game?

[Celebrim]

Some.

Rules matter.

But how you think about and how you prepare to play a system is more important to determining how a game plays than the system. This is because the rules of the game are only a small part of what makes the game. Very important procedures that people engage in without consciously thinking about it are usually undefined in the rules (and certain undefined in all editions of D&D). Likewise, what constitutes the game itself - what D&D thinks of as a module (of play) - is not expressly defined by the rules. In this way you see huge divergence between two tables running the exact same rules (to say nothing of D&D's tendency to acquire house rules). It's quite possible to have 1e and 3e tables that have more in common with each other than they do with other tables with the same rules.

 

[Lylandra]

In my experience, Edition influences combat (options, complexity and length) and what sort of out of combat magic/abilities you can use (rituals for everyone, but rather expensive vs. lots and lots of utility for magic users only vs very limited amount of spells at all). For the rest, at least in my campaigns, what kind of edition we play is nearly irrelevant.

 

[aramis erak]

It's not like you can stop a player from buying a Monster Manual and reading it on their own time, anyway. I would walk from any GM who tried to tell me what I could and could not spend my own money on and what I could and couldn't read when I'm not actually at the game with him/her. It's common courtesy to NOT spoil yourself for a game you're playing in, but having the wherewithal to outright FORBID someone from doing that? Madness.

As would I. It's a fools errand, the poison of the Gygaxian Kool-aid.

 

[pemerton]

System Does Not Matter makes sense from a particular perspective. I don't believe it is really an argument that system does not literally matter though. There is a particular vein of role playing game design, popularized by Vampire - The Masquerade that defines role playing games so strictly that there is really only one system that all role playing games fall under. It's pretty much a thin veneer over freeform roleplaying.

<snip>

A convenient short hand for the way these games operate is Stat + Skill = Whatever. The Whatever meaning a number the GM pulls from his butt, and can arbitrarily change if it suits his or her purpose before or after the roll.

The key selling points of Stat + Skill = Whatever games is not the game, but rather copious amounts of setting material that fans can pore over. Actual Play is focused on trying to puzzle out what the GM wants players to do, providing color or characterization, and applying elaborate setting knowledge.

Good post.

The "system" you describe also very much underpins the idea that someone would take (say) the 5e Grappler feat, even though mechanically it's quite underpowered and so won't actually deliver much grappling action, because the feat "is the right fit for my character".

In these games, the numbers and labels on the PCs sheet aren't actually there to govern resolution in any mechanical sense - they're just a jargonistic filter for colour that the GM is meant to have regard to in framing and in resolution.

The same approach underlies the suggestion seen in some recent threads that a 5e ogre can push a tree over onto the PCs even though the rules for encumbrance and STR checks don't seem to allow this, because "that's what ogres do".

Consider the GMs that are running System 1 and System 2 above. They're going to very much prefer one of those two players (as we see some System 2 GMs often call the first of the two players depicted above all sorts of derogatory names!).

Are you doubting that only a munchkin would get worked up about how the STR mechanics interact with an ogre's tree attack?

Clearly you're one of those pushy power-gaming types!

 

[Lanefan]

System matters quite a bit to me. I want to just be able to play - simple char-gen, limited amounts of gype to have to remember*, let the DM worry about the rules most of the time, and let 'er rip.

* - when playing 3e, for example, I constantly forgot to use combat feats mostly because I forgot they existed - fighters are supposed to be simple!

It's a good point . . . but would you then as a player would you then challenge your DM if your knowledge of the MM didn't apply in their game? i.e. if they'd varied the monster sufficiently to make your out of character knowledge useless? Or subverted what you knew (but your character shouldn't have known)?

Just curious!

I second this question.

Lan-"kool-aid, anyone?"-efan