How does each edition shine?

[the Jester]

If you were going to assemble a "D&D Jazz Edition" that harvested the best of each edition and fused them into a beautiful bastard child, what would you want to take from each edition? How does each shine in your opinion? What systems can you see fusing together, reworking, or inserting as is? Would you replace anything wholesale with something completely homebrewed?

 

[Mercurius]

OD&D - emphasis on ad hoc play
BECMI - simplicity, tiered play
1E - Gygaxian obscurities
2E - wealth of settings
3E - core mechanic, feats
4E - stream-lined rules, tiered play, powers, rituals

 

[mmadsen]

OD&D - emphasis on ad hoc play
BECMI - simplicity, tiered play
1E - Gygaxian obscurities
2E - wealth of settings
3E - core mechanic, feats
4E - stream-lined rules, tiered play, powers, rituals

I think Mercurius makes some good points. My ideal system would provide a d20-like framework, but faster and looser, for smooth ad hoc play. Any spelled-out class abilities would be modular, like the Fighter's bonus feat list, and they wouldn't simply confer static bonuses; like 4E powers, they'd have a right time and a wrong time to use them.

 

[justanobody]

OD&D-3rd A socioeconomic system that encourages resource management and planning.

Ergo the system needs to have a reason to have money.

 

[MINI]

OD&D - simplicity of what are dubbed in 3.5 as paragon classes
BECMI - cannot speak for this edition
1E - class expansion to things like monks, cavaliers and so on; more options
2E - realtive ease and flow of combat and play
3E - oceans of splat books and the real freedom of character building
4E - powers and overall connectivity of rules

 

[DaveMage]

OD&D = ? (I never played/read)
BECMI = Great intro to roleplaying games
1E = Great Adventures
2E = Great Settings
3E = Great Rules
4E = Cinematic Play

 

[Team-Preston]

OD&D: Rules-light, geared for free-form/ ad hoc play.
BECMI: (skipped)
AD&D 1E: Gygaxian Flavoring. More rules.
AD&D 2e: Lots of more rules and the resultant drift away from ad hoc play.
D&D 3.0/ 3.5: Unified mechanic. Drifting further from OD&D and ad hoc play.
D&D 4E: Shift toward unified RP and System play. Drifting even further from OD&D and ad hoc play.

My opinion is that in every step away from OD&D that you get, you have a resultant addition of rules/ system/ mechanics...getting further away from free-form/ ad hoc play.

In the former roleplay and system were completely two separate entities and roleplaying was heavily encouraged, while playing the system (metagaming) was strongly discouraged. Now with the advent of 4E, the two are cemented as part of D&D.

One can argue that it is largely reversed: playing the system is a big part of 4E and RP varies greatly from group to group (from little to no RP to roleplaying things to the hilt...as in all previous editions.)

To each his own.
Cheers!

Jeff Preston

 

[mmadsen]

OD&D - simplicity of what are dubbed in 3.5 as paragon classes
BECMI - cannot speak for this edition

The edition nomenclature has changed over the years, but, as I understand it, people are now using OD&D to mean Original D&D, meaning the three little books and their supplements, and BECMI to mean Basic, Expert, etc., meaning the boxed sets that ran "parallel" to Advanced D&D.

 

[jdrakeh]

Chainmail - Simple initiative/turn system that makes sense.
OD&D - Defaults to six-sided dice, One-line monster stat blocks
BECMI - Tiered play based on character level
1E - Character progression balanced for long-term play
2E - Nothing rules-wise, really.
3E - Unified, intuitive, roll high, core mechanic.
4E - Different systems of magic for different types of casters.*

*I realize that previous editions of D&D ostensibly had different systems of magic, though aside from semantic naming conventions they all worked pretty much the same way in terms of mechanics.

 

[darjr]

OD&D - emphasis on ad hoc play
BECMI - simplicity, tiered play
1E - Gygaxian obscurities
2E - wealth of settings
3E - core mechanic, feats
4E - stream-lined rules, tiered play, powers, rituals

I really like this thread, I really like Mercurius list.

I'd only add that I sometimes want the 'neophyte' low levels of earlier editions, but I am really enjoying the cinematic style of 4e. What can I say, I want to eat the cake.