Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5977230" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>Lol! That's funny, because it's the exact opposite of what's true. </p><p></p><p>Classic D&D was barely playable, /at all/, without house rules (even if those house rules consisted of little more than informally ignoring all the bits that didn't make sense). D&D's long dependence on the Vancian model made it worthless for emulating the vast majority of fantasy fiction, and all myth/legend. It's dependence on the cleric for healing also dictated a very specific playstyle. The range of characters playable was stunted by oddball armor/weapon proscriptions and hard-coded class-exclusive restrictions on fairly common adventuring tasks like spotting a tripwire or tracking a band of orc raiders through the wilderness. </p><p></p><p>That said, it was very easy to play classic D&D in a lot of styles and with wildly different characters and settings <strong><em>with extensive house rules</em></strong>, because the community back then was very accepting of house rules - 'variants' as I recall them being called. House rules and DM snap decisions were the norm, so there was little to no resistance to them from players. 3e (abetted by the internet) changed all that, and the RAW became sacred, and what you could do with D&D, itself, contracted greatly (though, at the same time the d20 OGL opened up the core system to a much wider range of things beyond D&D).</p><p></p><p>And, in 4e, there's a skill system where leveling /really/ maters (unlike 2e's proficiencies and 3e's ranks where you needed to pour proficiencies or ranks into a skill just to remain OK for your level, while all your other skills became increasingly worthless). And casters don't need to memorize non-offensive spells, they get utilities automatically, and can learn and cast rituals without having to trade-out combat spells. That made the game much better at doing /both/ combat and non-combat. </p><p></p><p>The 'sweet spot' in question was the narrow range of levels at which prior eds of D&D tended to have some semblance of class balance and had the best chance of being fun for everyone at the table. It's not a narrow range of play styles, it's a narrow range of levels /at which the game worked/. In earlier eds, the game worked at levels from 4-7 or even 2-10 or so, but was always a pain at 1st and fell apart by the teens. 4e worked from 1-30, an unprecedentedly broader range of levels than ever before. </p><p></p><p>It also worked with a much broader variety of play styles, since you could alter campaign pacing without wrecking class balance, and could use a more varied mix of archetypes without trashing party effectiveness - most particularly and obviously by having leaders (healers) of varied archetypes (sources) and moving daily healing resource from the healer to the character being healed. It also gave the most sophisticated out-of-combat challenge design and resolution system to date (sadly broken though it's first iteration indisputably was).</p><p></p><p>5e is supposed to try to take the best from all editions, and 4e has a lot of 'bests' to contribute. Miss-characterization of the positive aspects of 4e only does the development of 5e a grave dis-service. The edition war is over, 4e is dead, but there are still a lot of goodies to be looted from it's body.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 5977230, member: 996"] Lol! That's funny, because it's the exact opposite of what's true. Classic D&D was barely playable, /at all/, without house rules (even if those house rules consisted of little more than informally ignoring all the bits that didn't make sense). D&D's long dependence on the Vancian model made it worthless for emulating the vast majority of fantasy fiction, and all myth/legend. It's dependence on the cleric for healing also dictated a very specific playstyle. The range of characters playable was stunted by oddball armor/weapon proscriptions and hard-coded class-exclusive restrictions on fairly common adventuring tasks like spotting a tripwire or tracking a band of orc raiders through the wilderness. That said, it was very easy to play classic D&D in a lot of styles and with wildly different characters and settings [b][i]with extensive house rules[/i][/b], because the community back then was very accepting of house rules - 'variants' as I recall them being called. House rules and DM snap decisions were the norm, so there was little to no resistance to them from players. 3e (abetted by the internet) changed all that, and the RAW became sacred, and what you could do with D&D, itself, contracted greatly (though, at the same time the d20 OGL opened up the core system to a much wider range of things beyond D&D). And, in 4e, there's a skill system where leveling /really/ maters (unlike 2e's proficiencies and 3e's ranks where you needed to pour proficiencies or ranks into a skill just to remain OK for your level, while all your other skills became increasingly worthless). And casters don't need to memorize non-offensive spells, they get utilities automatically, and can learn and cast rituals without having to trade-out combat spells. That made the game much better at doing /both/ combat and non-combat. The 'sweet spot' in question was the narrow range of levels at which prior eds of D&D tended to have some semblance of class balance and had the best chance of being fun for everyone at the table. It's not a narrow range of play styles, it's a narrow range of levels /at which the game worked/. In earlier eds, the game worked at levels from 4-7 or even 2-10 or so, but was always a pain at 1st and fell apart by the teens. 4e worked from 1-30, an unprecedentedly broader range of levels than ever before. It also worked with a much broader variety of play styles, since you could alter campaign pacing without wrecking class balance, and could use a more varied mix of archetypes without trashing party effectiveness - most particularly and obviously by having leaders (healers) of varied archetypes (sources) and moving daily healing resource from the healer to the character being healed. It also gave the most sophisticated out-of-combat challenge design and resolution system to date (sadly broken though it's first iteration indisputably was). 5e is supposed to try to take the best from all editions, and 4e has a lot of 'bests' to contribute. Miss-characterization of the positive aspects of 4e only does the development of 5e a grave dis-service. The edition war is over, 4e is dead, but there are still a lot of goodies to be looted from it's body. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base
Top