For 4vengers: What is your preferred fallback edition?

[The Fighter-Cricket]

"Unfortunately, all the 4th edition games are filled up, because it's just so popular"

I had to laugh a bit.

In a sad way.


Oh man, no easy choice. I think that having played 3.x for years it now puts me of so much that I would be more willing to play 2nd Edition (even if I loathe ThAC0). I polled for 5E because I haven't tried it out yet and maybe i will find it interesting.

(Maybe I can sneak out from the convention to see if they play 13th Age on the second floor?)

 

[cavalier973]

I voted for 5e because it's the only edition I haven't played yet.

Well, okay, I also have never played 0e. I'm not even sure what that's supposed to be. Chainmail?!

Also known as "The Little Brown Books". "0e" was, I believe, supplementary rules to Chainmail at first.

If you haven't yet, I recommend a series of Youtube videos by Matthew Colville called "Making a Fighter in Every Edition of D&D". He is up to AD&D 1e, so far.

Since I'm plugging him, anyway, Colville also started writing a series of pulp fantasy called "The Ratcatchers". The first book is "Priest", the second is "Thief". He hasn't gotten to the third book yet, but I'm pretty sure it will be called "Fighter" or "Warrior" or something, based on how the first two books went. I enjoyed them.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Basic (in all forms) gets high watermarks from me for being a clear, consistent game with sparks of flavorful, inspiring low resolution setting material. I still find it a shame that the advanced branch with its focus on minutia was the part of the family that won out. I would still prefer Dungeon World, 13th Age, or Shadows of the Demon Lord though. I'd be willing to play 5e or AD&D, but I don't think I could go back and play 3.x.

You haven't read/played Holmes Basic then... It was rather clearer than the mud that was '0e', but that isn't saying much. There are still a dozen theories about how hit points work based on what Holmes wrote (in retrospect its clear enough, but you have to bring in your knowledge of later editions to understand it). The later versions of Basic are pretty concise and well-written games, and Holmes was getting there, but he was only halfway from mud to clarity.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Also known as "The Little Brown Books". "0e" was, I believe, supplementary rules to Chainmail at first.

If you haven't yet, I recommend a series of Youtube videos by Matthew Colville called "Making a Fighter in Every Edition of D&D". He is up to AD&D 1e, so far.

Since I'm plugging him, anyway, Colville also started writing a series of pulp fantasy called "The Ratcatchers". The first book is "Priest", the second is "Thief". He hasn't gotten to the third book yet, but I'm pretty sure it will be called "Fighter" or "Warrior" or something, based on how the first two books went. I enjoyed them.

0e or just "Dungeons & Dragons" isn't EXACTLY a supplement to Chainmail. It assumes you HAVE Chainmail (and also a copy of Avalon Hill's Survival game), but it is a game in its own right, and if you didn't have those things you could still play, though you'd have to extrapolate some to work the combat system. In any case the rules were VERY incomplete, sometimes contradictory, had LARGE holes in them, and are highly ambiguous, so making up the missing bits of combat is hardly a major issue.

It was largely a 'taught game', you found someone that had played, and that person learned from playing with someone that played in a con with Gary Gygax. Once you actually played, then the 'rules' were just some stuff that made the game convenient for the DM so he didn't have to make up quite as much stuff. It was fun, but invariably people who just bought the books and tried to play came up with some completely different off-the-wall type of game. This is why there were things like the "West Coast D&D" and "East Coast D&D" that weren't even really the same game. Arduin Grimoire was a supplement put out by the west coast players, and we couldn't even understand most of it.

Holmes Basic and the first couple of modules cleared up some things and by 1977 when the MM came out there was a fairly standard 'consensus' game, but it wasn't until the DMG was released that it was 100% clear how Gary's version of the game worked to us who didn't actually go to cons (because we were 14 at the time).

 

[cavalier973]

Poll results so far:

D&D 0e 2 7.69%
D&D Basic (B/X and BECMI) 8 30.77%
AD&D 1e 1 3.85%
AD&D 2e 2 7.69%
D&D 3e 0 0%
D&D 3.5 3 11.54%
D&D 5e 10 38.46%

 

[Manbearcat]

This one is tough for me because I have been a huge fan of every single one of these editions (save 0e) and have GMed each of them an absolutely absurd amount. I'm going to do like other folks and cop out a bit, but I'll put a vote in here.

When I GM D&D it is for two very different purposes:

1) Heroic/Romantic Fantasy campaigns where genre-coherent story emerges organically over the course of years merely by following the rules and being creative and proactive.

2) A grim expedition into a nasty dungeon/wilderness locale that is meant to test players' skill and nerve as they try to (a) survive at all and (b) come away with as much loot as possible. This is going to be the time investment of a single evening.

The only D&D (brand) I will GM for agenda 1 above is 4e. Neck and neck with 4e for 1 is Dungeon World with Cortex + Heroic Fantasy and 13th Age (in that order) a wee bit down the line. I would run Burning Wheel for [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION], but my normal group wants a lighter rules system (and I tend toward that direction as well).

The group that I run 2 for has historically been partial to Basic (by the book) and my house ruled 1e. However, I've gotten them into Torchbearer and the results have been terrific. Consequently, with that buy-in, it will be my new go-to for 2 above.

So...to bring it back around to the poll. Sans TB for 2, you're probably looking at Basic. So there is my vote.

 

[RadioKen]

Presumably since the games are already scheduled I'm not going to be running any of them. Which is not inherently a big deal, except that a convention you rarely know whether your GM is going to be any good. Still, assuming everything is equal except the system, I'ma go with the White Box.

 

[JamieEvan]

I voted for D&D Basic. The reason is the same as Cambell said:"Basic (in all forms) gets high watermarks from me for being a clear, consistent game with sparks of flavorful, inspiring low resolution setting material".

 

[pemerton]

Burning Wheel? It's an entirely different kind of roleplaying, altogether.

But in its inspirations/further reading lists includes both AD&D (2nd ed, from memory) and 4e (in the list at the end of the Adventure Burner).

It's clearly trying to occupy the same general space as D&D, RQ, Rolemaster etc - ie fantasy RPGing focused on the exploits of a band of ne'er do well adventurers.

 

[pemerton]

Although I'm the solitary AD&D 1st ed vote, I can certainly see the appeal of Basic for those who want a dungeoneering-type game. But I'm not much of a dungeoneer (as player or GM) so would be playing AD&D while trying to minimise the dungeoneering elements.