Weakness by Edition

[Imp]

1e: various weird, arbitrary restrictions, some of which were easier to chop out and ignore than others

2e: dunno, didn't play it, but I think the 1e problem still applies

3e: prep time. DM especially, but also extending to PC choices. Ow.

4e: theoretical dogmatism – the sense that it has been treated as a proving ground for particular theories about what makes a game engaging, and all other concerns very pointedly ignored

 

[thedungeondelver]

4e: theoretical dogmatism – the sense that it has been treated as a proving ground for particular theories about what makes a game engaging, and all other concerns very pointedly ignored

Damn, I like that.

 

[FriarRosing]

Just from my experience:

1e: The books are so disorganized and jumbled that I feel like finding a starting place in the game is hard. The disjointed and disorganized nature of the DMG alone is enough to keep me away.

2e: Never played it. Sounds rather bland, and all of the various sourcebooks sound terrible.

3e: This is the game I have the most experience with. First off, combat is tedious. Designing encounters and monsters is painful. The skill system, though I loved the idea at first, now seems pointless and lacking in imagination. Too many rules. I personally hate the whole CR business. The various splatbooks really got on my nerves; particularly all of the ones that added things like the Warlock, and the evidently much adored Book of Nine Swords--I just like the system and the classes to all generally do the same thing. The new ideas introduced with those books just seemed like they didn't totally fit the mold. To me, at least. Mainly I feel like DMing 3e for so long before finding other systems has really soured me to it, so I'm not really being objective.

4e: Powers. I find myself hating powers. I wasn't sure about them at first, and then for a while I liked them for the most part, but now I'm tired of them. If there was a way to play the game without powers and without the battlemat I'd probably love 4e. I get their use as a way to fix perceived problems of the older editions, but I think they weren't that great of a solution, and I kind of think that will become more and more apparent as time goes on. Also skill challenges seem unnecessary, but that's not necessarily a weakness, it's just not my thing. I don't like the combat roles. Maybe I'd like it better if it was a somehow combination of combat roles and non combat roles? But now I don't even know if what I'm saying makes sense.

 

[Lanefan]

Can't really speak for 0e, so I'll start at 1:

1e: Too much complexity where it wasn't needed (weapons vs. armour type, weapon speed, etc.), some odd and oft-ignored ideas such as ExP for g.p., arbitrary racial level and class limits used to balance out racial powers, psionics were a mess, bard was a mess, two-classing was a mess, not enough thought given to how spell A might interact with spell B thus lots of need for DM rulings, much of Unearthed Arcana was just broken, lots more minor niggles.

2e: Too obviously an attempt to appease the religious nutballers, also too obviously an attempt to market the game to a younger audience, THAC0 was never necessary, wizardry schools were a mess, later too much repeating bloat, but overall just so bland as to be very forgettable.

3e: Too. Many. Rules. Emphasis shifted from character roleplay to character build, wizard schools emphasized even further, rangers started as pathetic then were errataed and 3.5'ed into pure wackoland, dungeonpunk look and atmosphere, illusions nerfed, too many buffs and other ways to change or increase base stats, hard to kitbash, level advancement too fast, ExP calculation a nightmare if party includes a range of levels, multiclassing was a mess, too many spell nerfs in 3.5 along with poor solutions to unnecessary problems (polymorph, I'm looking at you), sense of mystery lessened as players gain more mechanics info e.g. base attack bonus, and many more. Oh, and bloat bloat bloat.

4e: Balance overkill, reality simulator switched off completely, too focused on the grid (thus, square circles and cubic spheres), advancement sped up from already too fast, bizarre race and class choices at startup, sense of mystery further lost as magic item write-ups now in PH, jury still out on many other things.

Odd, that when I look at what I've just typed it seems obvious I have the fewest problems with 2e, yet of the 4 it's also the system I'd least like to play or DM.

Lanefan

 

[firesnakearies]

1st Edition AD&D and earlier: No Dark Sun yet, so campaign settings were weaksauce.

2nd Edition AD&D: Foolishly wasted time and resources printing supplements for any setting OTHER than Dark Sun.

3rd Edition D&D: Would have been really awesome . . . but they neglected Dark Sun!

4th Edition D&D: Seems great so far, but we'll see whether or not they've come to their senses about the best campaign setting ever . . . Dark Sun!



Seriously though, the pre-3E versions of the game had two glaring problems in my eyes. One was a great deal of meaningless and annoying restrictions on basic character creation choices, like which races could be which classes, excessively strict alignment straitjackets, level caps for demihumans, and things like that. The other was the inexplicable variety of wildly different (and often counterintuitive) mechanical rules systems for various aspects of the game, rather than the elegant uniformity of D20 and 4E.


3rd Edition, though, was (potentially) a total nightmare of powergaming absurdity, due (to a lesser degree) to billions of classes with very modular abilities which could all be mixed and matched in silly ways to create these ridiculous ultra-hybrid "characters" with obscene combinations of capabilities and no unifying concept whatsoever.

Worse than that, though, was the fact that magic items were vastly over-important. Or at least, they very easily could be. At high levels, it mattered much less what your character could actually do, and much more what you had on your gear list. Infinite wands/scrolls/potions (especially healing and the ten thousand buffs!) just made the game a mess. It wasn't about how much an adventure challenged the characters, but just about how much money they had to spend to win.


4th Edition makes me happy. They might have gone slightly too far in the opposite direction in addressing a couple of the issues I raised with 3E, though. Namely, going from near-totally unrestricted multiclassing freedom to what seems to be a rather extremely withered functionality in that area, AND going from effectively unlimited healing per day to a very concrete and unavoidable hard limit which can essentially FORCE a party to stop/rest/retreat/go back to town in mid-adventure.

But I love the new edition! It's my favorite so far, and I don't think it really has any serious weaknesses to worry about. I think that the current crop of R&D folks working on my favorite game are probably the most talented to date, and I have great hopes for the future of 4E.


$

 

[DeusExMachina]

2nd edition: First I played and only played 1 campaign in it for about a year. Biggest problems were the unbalanced splats, not very streamlined systems and rules.

3rd edition: Number crunching was my biggest gripe. Especially when you're the DM. Creating monsters and encounters was a pain, buffing spells and debuffing powers caused constant recalculations of characters in combat, which slowed down to a crawl, esp. on high level.

4th edition: I like 4e a lot sofar. Biggest problem up til now is restricted character creation what with limited multiclassing and very few classes and races being out. This will probably be resolved with a few extra books like Martial POwer and PHB 2.
Other problems are a certain lack of focus on non-combat stuff and a larger focus on the battlemat.

 

[JDJblatherings]

OD&D- A bit disjointed and confused. Seemingly incomplete at times and descriptions could be terribly in-concise.

AD&D- where was that rule again? It really needed an index that worked across the DMG and PHB. Later books served to pull the game in different directions in an in-cohesive fashion...nwps roll high to make your check, roll low to make your check, a positive modifier is good , a positive modifier is bad.

2nd ed AD&D- charts arent' bad. thaco was meant to be a short cut not a solution. As 2nd developed weight of rules crushed the game. Kits, not a bad idea until the power creep got in and kept getting worse.

3rd ed D&D- the math should replace the fun. Character niches totally unprotected to the point classes seem silly now and again. All of the opitions don't really have to get used all the time.

4th ed D&D- some folks think powers is all the character gets to do. There is more then combat and did low, medium and high level fights all have to feel like mid level fights?

 

[firesnakearies]

and did low, medium and high level fights all have to feel like mid level fights?

I consider this a feature, and a very good one!

 

[Nebulous]

4th - slaughtering cows is one thing, but 4th edition kills the whole damned ranch. The consistent rule "blandness" now blankets every class, and now every class looks and feels and plays almost like every other class, except the powers all have different names. Spells that have existed since 1st edition are now gone. Some "fluff" aspects are removed (Perform skills, for example), and the core rules removed certain classes (bards, barbarians, etc.) and added completely unnecessary races (dragonborn, eladrin).

The whole sense of "magic" has been utterly destroyed in 4e. I'm running it and liking the game ok, but the sterilization of magic in the name of balance really, really bothers me. And i loathe dragonborn for some reason. The cover of the PHB is horrible, so much so that i doctored another picture and i'm going to glue it over. Dumb, i know, but i really dislike the cover of that book.

 

[Grazzt]

1e- weird, arbitrary rules and subsystems in some places

2e- some of the same stuff from 1e, with the added bonus of let's rename demons/devils, remove half-orcs, remove assassins, etc

3.x- Tried to remove the DM from the equation. Too much prep time DM-wise. Adventures, rather combats, took too much time (anyone remember the 1e/2e days when you could get through an entire addy in one 4-hour sitting?). Monster and NPC stat blocks...huge PITA. Monsters and NPCs shouldn't have to follow the same rules for construction that PCs do.

4e- In their quest for ultimate balance they've neutered/sterilized the game. Magic (spells, items, etc) doesn't feel "magicky" anymore for starters.

Also- as was mentioned above, milestones are lame, monster hp are bloated. Powers are too much alike (fluff text is different I know; but effects are generally always "deal some damage, impose some condition or move the target") Again- encounters are a time-sink along the lines of 3.x (yes- more rounds means more actions for PCs, but it even says in the 4e DMG that one encounter generally takes about an hour....for the main boss monster, ok...but for some lame ass kobolds guarding the entrance to the dungeon...gimme a break).