I guess I really do prefer simplicity

[The Ghost]

With no extra rules, the fighter is BORING. This is why folks move on to play Wizards. They get more rules and more OPTIONS.

Why does the fighter need to be made exciting for you when it is already exciting for me?

Personally, I like having the OPTION of playing a very simple character sometimes and a very complex character at other times.

 

[Wik]

I for one love BECMI and would probably love 0E too. While we can say all we want about reduced options for fighters, I never really found that to be the case in actual play - mostly because combats were shorter (we could go through a dozen in a six hour session and still spend only half the time in combat). Because maybe half the time of the game was spent in combat (I'd actually say it's closer to one quarter, from personal experience in BECMI), the rest of the time, the fighter was doing his own little things - using his strength to lift up doors, and exploring the place. While he was no different mechanically from any other fighter, that didn't bug anyone. After all, it applied to every class in the game.

Each thief had the same thieving skills. The wizards had the same spells (since they'd share spellbooks). The clerics were the only ones with any diversity - they'd each have a few cure spells, and then a few other spells they'd co-ordinate.

The fighter's appeal was for the people that wanted to "hit stuff, and take hits". To be the tough guy. And in non-combat situations, the looser nature of the rules meant that fighters weren't really getting gimped.

 

[Ariosto]

Real play to prep time should be closer to 1:1 IMO. Any less than that, and you are cheating your players. 2:1 certainly wouldn't hurt ...

This depends on just what you're about. A "story plotting" entertainment tends to be most intensive, because "scenes" are meant to have but momentary use. With an original-D&D-style underworld and wilderness, reuse means that prep time pays off longer.

If you've been running a somewhat old-style campaign for a while, then you may have so much already worked out that a given session might not require any special preparation.

Going less gradually, one might work up too much material and "choke" on it or "weigh down" creative play. It is often better, in my experience, to improvise filling in a sketched outline than to look up detailed notes. The best flow comes from comfortable familiarity with the imagined environment, so that one can pay full attention to the players' activities.

 

[Ariosto]

Janx, not everyone happens to share your fixation on "feats". Can you see how it goes with spending more time and energy on the resolution of a fight? That can be a circular process: taking longer demands more interesting number-crunching, which in turn requires more time, so fights get boring, so it takes more rules to "inject excitement" ...

Old D&D depends primarily on real-world tactics, which may not interest you but suits other folks well enough. In addition, you can try any fancy stratagem you like, without needing a "feat"; you're not limited to options someone else has defined.

To some people, the sub-game of "builds" and the sub-game of "combat moves" are just obstacles on the way to the game of adventure. To them, character is not about how many mechanical bonus you've written down on a piece of paper but about what you do in play.

More time and energy spent on accounting means less spent on what's really worth talking about, the stuff of tales to tell.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Regarding prep time; I used to run 1E and 2E almost entirely ad lib. Almost everything invented whole cloth on the fly. I did that a lot because I loved running the game but hated the tedium of prep. I did spend time on it occasionally when I wanted to be sure I had something substantial to fill a specific need for an upcoming session, but otherwise I’d often fill game time with random monster encounters just so I wouldn’t have to “work” at DMing.

For 3E I began to rely more frequently on modules which I’d adapt on the fly. 3E was the system being used when I ran my most successful campaign ever, and the first that I’d started with a definitively anticipated end. (I had no idea WHAT the end would be but by the time PC’s were 20th level I had no intention of carrying that campaign a moment further.)

A system that supports that kind of approach to DMing will naturally find a certain amount of favor with me.

To that I say that it only gets as old and stale as the actual adventures that are run. Oodles of fiddly mechanical differences can likewise entertain and keep things fresh for a certain duration. Once the new shinies are known and used you are back to the same level of boredom as before yet saddled with complexity that no longer provides anything but extra work.

It’s the old Mr. Spock quote: “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.” In days of yore we wanted all those options and abilities, but after getting them many of us found after a time that we were satisfied with our boring, staid, unchanging, limiting class abilities.

Therein lies the dilemma I struggle with. How much simplicity vs. how much diversity do you want?

Exactly so.

I've watched people create D&D3 characters, and what I see is a lot of time and effort put into picking the exact perfect combination of feats, skills, spells, and equipment. You don't *have* to put that much time and effort into those choices

True – but 3E was designed around the concept of "System Mastery". It was decided by its creators that this is where the fun was for the players and therefore you ostensibly should be using it that way – endless fiddling with picky details. It was fun for a time but the new wears off after a while.

Recently I was speaking with the two players I’m most likely to start a new game with (when I can finally pry them away from the damned computer MMORPG’s) about what system I might use and surprisingly they stated that they’d prefer 2E over 3E. One in particular stated that all the options were interesting but when it came down to it they didn’t want to face fussing over things. 2E, by their recollection, relieved them of the burden of fiddling with the mechanical details of a characters ongoing improvement.

The thing with calling them optional is that every single 2e setting, supplement, and splat assumed you were using them.

Actually, I believe that’s not the case. Oly one or two 2E products were produced with that assumption but not a single setting or module was written detailing such optional abilities for NPC's or monsters. That is, they might have listed new NWP's or kits for those who might want to include them, but none of the data throughout would factor those NWP's and kits into things. The practicality however was that they WERE extensively used and therein an additional annoyance – nothing WAS ever statted with the optional stuff. You had to add/modify it all yourself.

While it's true they're marked as optional in the core rules, the moment you move outside the PHB/DMG, they become basically essential. IMO, they're "faux-optional"

I agree, just for a different reason as noted. Also, once you start to use those options IME it’s danged hard to voluntarily drop them until you really, REALLY get sick of dealing with them.

Really, is this really that complicated or time consuming?

No it isn’t. But, if you can explain to me then why it DOES take so long despite the fact that it SHOULDN’T then I’ll have learned something useful.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

The simplicity of OD&D? Do I really want things that [forgive the pun] Basic? Even 1E or 2E, which I have always professed a preference for over OD&D and all other editions may be too complex for me. Why? Well it started with comments I was reading about software - software for character creation/tracking. I sort of decided that it's come to be an abomination. I started a list and came up with 5 elements that I personally want to see out of whatever version of D&D I play.

• It should never need, nor even instill any desire to have software to update a character sheet to calculate modifiers, or track anything else about a PC. For that matter no software EVER should be seen as needed or desired to REDUCE THE BURDEN of running/playing the game. The game should ALWAYS be simple enough to run/play without such added claptrap.
• A character sheet should ideally fit on one side of one sheet of paper, 2 sheets at most excepting perhaps an extensive listing of spells. [Kind of goes along with the previous and following points.]

• 
  I sympathize with you here. Most of my group uses the 4e CB and they talk about how great it is, but I don't see it. Maybe it's because I can whip up a character in 20-30 minutes at most, but I'm seeing this software more as a crutch than anything truly useful.* Also, when an official printed CS has to use tiny itty bitty fonts to fit everything on two sides, I think there are just one or two options too many.
  
  I can't say I share you feelings about simplicity though. Well, let me put that differently: I like simple, elegant games, and I hate arbitrary complexity, but I want options. So far 4e has proven the most elegant and option-rich, though I think it could do without feats, and it has the least amount of arbitrary complexity. Admittedly I haven't played every edition; I started with 2e which was a nightmare on so many levels, followed with 3e which was fun but had waaay too much arbitrary BS and now I play 4e. I've played one session of OD&D which was fun as a one-shot but I don't think it could hold my attention for anything resembling a campaign. Way too limited for my taste.
  
  *Someone once told me that Socrates spoke out the same way against the written word: he thought that passing information along via writing would make us stupid and lazy. It probably did, but I don't think any of us can argue that we're not happier as a result of certain technologies.

 

[Ariosto]

I've played one session of OD&D which was fun as a one-shot but I don't think it could hold my attention for anything resembling a campaign. Way too limited for my taste.

Your taste is as valid for you as mine is for me, but from my perspective the valuation is bizarre. The only "limitation" is a shortage of limits in the form of formal, preset, rigid rules. The variety of possibilities in characters, environments and events is thereby so much greater.

Again, it is perfectly valid so to prefer the manipulation of abstract stuff of which 3e and 4e require so much. If you really think that the rest of the game is somehow more limited in old-style D&D, then you have it basically backwards.

 

[BryonD]

Your taste is as valid for you as mine is for me, but from my perspective the valuation is bizarre. The only "limitation" is a shortage of limits in the form of formal, preset, rigid rules. The variety of possibilities in characters, environments and events is thereby so much greater.

Again, it is perfectly valid so to prefer the manipulation of abstract stuff of which 3e and 4e require so much. If you really think that the rest of the game is somehow more limited in old-style D&D, then you have it basically backwards.

But by that reasoning you should throw away your OD&D books, because compared to my completely freeform systemless game you've added nothing but limitations.

I agree completely that no system "limits" the content that exists within a game. But that is not the only form of limitation. Unlimited variability in content can still be limited in how that content is translated into a mechanical simulation.

I also agree that each taste is as valid as the next. There is nothing remotely implicitly superior about the 3E/4E versions compared to OD&D.

But declaring it backwards to use the term "limiting" requires an inaccurately forced context on the word.

 

[Ariosto]

But by that reasoning you should throw away your OD&D books, because compared to my completely freeform systemless game you've added nothing but limitations.

Wrong!

You might as well say that by your reasoning you should always go for the most procedurally complicated human-moderated game available.

Firstly, you have arbitrarily and wrongly assumed as a premise a hierarchy of values that is not mine. There is no "that reasoning" in place from which your "should" follows.

Secondly, either your "free form" game defines things enough to distinguish them from other things, or it in fact has NO things. The OD&D books are indeed "system-less" relative to darned near everything that's followed, but even some systems are quite wide open.

The essential distinction is the degree to which 3e and 4e are prescriptive rather than descriptive, definitive endpoints rather than preliminary examples. They are "must" and "must not" rather than "could, perhaps".

That is in the nature of creating a complex game of abstract mathematical manipulations. It is not in the nature of creating a complex game of exploring an imaginary world.

I just hope that the quite different phenomena have not been confused by someone who might prefer the latter without the former. "I hate arbitrary complexity, but I want options" could serve as a statement of why I much prefer "0e" to 4e.

 

[BryonD]

Wrong!

The conclusion is wrong, but only because the it was based on your faulty reasoning.

You might as well say that by your reasoning you should always go for the most procedurally complicated human-moderated game available.

Really? What part of my reasoning remotely suggests this?

Firstly, you have arbitrarily and wrongly assumed as a premise a hierarchy of values that is not mine. There is no "that reasoning" in place from which your "should" follows.

Yes there was. You said "The variety of possibilities in characters, environments and events is thereby so much greater". This is a reasoning that demands "limitations" be limited in scope to the "possibilities in characters, environments and events".

The essential distinction is the degree to which 3e and 4e are prescriptive rather than descriptive, definitive endpoints rather than preliminary examples. They are "must" and "must not" rather than "could, perhaps".

I reject this claim as absurd. If you played it that way, then, with all due respect, "there's your problem".

I certainly find it ironic that you started by claiming differing preferences were valid. But you have rapidly moved through falsely describing "limitations" as constraining content, to directly accusing the alternative as being "prescriptive". That is quite a way to come in such short order.