Goblinoid Games
First Post
That last part mirrors my own experience when I returned to the older editions. One of the things that I picked up while running 3e was an appreciation for the "behind the curtain" stuff; basics of game design and understanding *why* specific rules exist or are written the way they are. When I started playing older editions, again, I took that attitude and applied it to the older editions, too, asking "why is this set up this way?" If you do that and you approach the game on its own terms, it often makes sense of rules and approaches that may not have made sense, before. (I touch on this in my "Considering OD&D?" musing.) I have a better understanding and appreciation of the game than I did when I was younger, and I think I do it a lot more justice, these days.
Which, IMHO, is another argument against the idea of some Darwinian evolution of PnP RPGs. Rules are just rules, and there is certainly logic behind them no matter what edition you're talking about. Rules can only be qualitatively better compared to other rules, all in the eye of the beholder, not quantitatively better.