Remathilis
Legend
This is a purely subjective idea, and I'm not sure its full formed (hence ramblings) but perhaps its something...
For S&G, I pulled out my 1e DMG or peruse the words of wisdom. As I did, I noticed something, odd. Something I haven't noticed for a long time...
1.) 1e is random, and its weighted against your PC.
Take a look at character generation. You roll 3d6 (getting a 3-18 split, heavily weighted toward the middle 10-12) for scores. By strict reading, those rolls determine your class (primes and requisites) and race (racial min/max) even your gender (min/max)! You rolled starting hp (leading to magic-users possibly having more hp than fighters!) and starting gold (possibly not even enough to afford good armor or weapons!) and magic-users rolled starting spells (via two contradictory methods, one in the PHB, the other in the DMG). If you were dice lucky (or a horrible cheat) you got the PC you wanted and he would survive the grist mill to greatness. Else, you got to try again when that less-than-stellar PC met his end.
Even beyond chargen, you faced an essentially "random" world. Random encounters, random treasure gen, even monsters had random hp. Your PC had a random chance of getting lost, and NPCs had (essentially) a random chance of liking or disliking you. And that doesn't even begin to factor the still-random elements of D&D (Attacks, Saves, etc).
All of this "randomness" puts the PC typically behind the eight-ball. Most monsters (typically) had more hp, better attacks, and more powers than any PC could possibly bring to bear. This lead to the second observation I noticed...
2.) The trade off for power is reliability.
Why does 4e's Power System Soooooo offend old-school gamers? Because it breaks the most important principal of magic and mundane power:
Magic is powerful, but unreliable. Martial power is reliable, but not terribly powerful.
There are, of course, exceptions to this axiom. Still, compare a fighter with a great sword NOT to an attack spell like burning hands, but to Sleep. Sleep ends a fight before it can begin. Sleep targets multiple foes. Sleep is a TPK in the hands of a foe. However, Sleep is a saving throw away from uselessness. No second effect, no damage nothing. Save Negates. If the creature(s) save against the spell, its done with. Compared to a fighter, who might not be able to end a fight in one round, but he can continue to try to attack every round until he hits with no penalty.
4e changes that balance by making magic more reliable, and making martial more powerful. Its better balanced, but a major shift from this principle which has been with us since the beginning.
It is my belief that these two things create the greatest shift in D&D's style from 1e - > 4e (and each version of D&D in between, the changes show up slowly). 4e bridges power and reliability. 4e encourages a "planned" world where PCs create their characters without a single die roll and allows them a variety of "balanced" choices. 4e (for the most part) removed random encounters, random hp, random treasure for a more "why am I putting X here" approach to adventure design. Lastly, 4e tries to balance the needs of the players against the needs of the DM (1e was squarely in the DM's corner, 3e sat down with the players), all of which can been seen in the evolution of editions (esp latter-day 2e and latter-day 3e) from that "1e feel"
That's my theory. Feel free to pick it apart.
For S&G, I pulled out my 1e DMG or peruse the words of wisdom. As I did, I noticed something, odd. Something I haven't noticed for a long time...
1.) 1e is random, and its weighted against your PC.
Take a look at character generation. You roll 3d6 (getting a 3-18 split, heavily weighted toward the middle 10-12) for scores. By strict reading, those rolls determine your class (primes and requisites) and race (racial min/max) even your gender (min/max)! You rolled starting hp (leading to magic-users possibly having more hp than fighters!) and starting gold (possibly not even enough to afford good armor or weapons!) and magic-users rolled starting spells (via two contradictory methods, one in the PHB, the other in the DMG). If you were dice lucky (or a horrible cheat) you got the PC you wanted and he would survive the grist mill to greatness. Else, you got to try again when that less-than-stellar PC met his end.
Even beyond chargen, you faced an essentially "random" world. Random encounters, random treasure gen, even monsters had random hp. Your PC had a random chance of getting lost, and NPCs had (essentially) a random chance of liking or disliking you. And that doesn't even begin to factor the still-random elements of D&D (Attacks, Saves, etc).
All of this "randomness" puts the PC typically behind the eight-ball. Most monsters (typically) had more hp, better attacks, and more powers than any PC could possibly bring to bear. This lead to the second observation I noticed...
2.) The trade off for power is reliability.
Why does 4e's Power System Soooooo offend old-school gamers? Because it breaks the most important principal of magic and mundane power:
Magic is powerful, but unreliable. Martial power is reliable, but not terribly powerful.
There are, of course, exceptions to this axiom. Still, compare a fighter with a great sword NOT to an attack spell like burning hands, but to Sleep. Sleep ends a fight before it can begin. Sleep targets multiple foes. Sleep is a TPK in the hands of a foe. However, Sleep is a saving throw away from uselessness. No second effect, no damage nothing. Save Negates. If the creature(s) save against the spell, its done with. Compared to a fighter, who might not be able to end a fight in one round, but he can continue to try to attack every round until he hits with no penalty.
4e changes that balance by making magic more reliable, and making martial more powerful. Its better balanced, but a major shift from this principle which has been with us since the beginning.
It is my belief that these two things create the greatest shift in D&D's style from 1e - > 4e (and each version of D&D in between, the changes show up slowly). 4e bridges power and reliability. 4e encourages a "planned" world where PCs create their characters without a single die roll and allows them a variety of "balanced" choices. 4e (for the most part) removed random encounters, random hp, random treasure for a more "why am I putting X here" approach to adventure design. Lastly, 4e tries to balance the needs of the players against the needs of the DM (1e was squarely in the DM's corner, 3e sat down with the players), all of which can been seen in the evolution of editions (esp latter-day 2e and latter-day 3e) from that "1e feel"
That's my theory. Feel free to pick it apart.
