Edition Wars – Does the edition you play really have an impact on the game?

[Sunseeker]

Sure, I think it does, because the presentation of the game affects the way you think about it, which affects the way you visualize things, which of course affects the way you play. The degree to which this actually matters to you really depends on who you ask.

 

[cmad1977]

Of course.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ccs]

2: Should the players know the rules? It depends on the players. If I don't have a clear idea of my chance of success I twitch. Badly. I think at my table I and one other player would hate not knowing the rules and would reverse engineer as much as possible - and at least one would be happier without.

(Should the players know the Monster Manual? No.)

In a group (my Sunday game for ex) where everyone takes a turn as the DM how would that even work?
How would that work when I'm just a player in someone else's game? Like say the CoS game at the local shop.

 

[ccs]

The rules/edition matter.
I will decline to play games if they use a rule set I dislike. Specifically 4e. Whatever you claim, you're not a good enough DM & you're story is not good enough to overcome my dislike of the AEDU system.
My order of preference: 1e, 5e/PF, 3x & 2e (3x: If we've access to PF, there's no need for this. 2e: adding crap to 1e, but I'll survive.), BECMI/Compendium. 4e? I'd rather do laundry.

Knowing the rules as a player?
I'm going to know the rules. If I don't? I can't make/lv a character. I can't decide what I'm going to do on a turn/how I intend to do it. What spells to take or cast. etc etc etc.
And sometimes? The rules themselves inspire a character (and no, not always from an optimization PoV)
Ex; My 5e Warlock
1) I had a backstory for a character while reading this class that just screamed Warlock to me.
2) Mechanically I wanted to try out this class, this edition. In particular I wanted to see if I could make a viable warlock who doesn't use Eldritch Blast. Almost a year later I'm quite pleased with the character I've made.
If I didn't know the rules? I'd never have been able to make this character (mechanically) & probably wouldn't have thought of it backstory wise.

 

[Campbell]

System Does Not Matter makes sense from a particular perspective. I don't believe it is really an argument that system does not literally matter though. There is a particular vein of role playing game design, popularized by Vampire - The Masquerade that defines role playing games so strictly that there is really only one system that all role playing games fall under. It's pretty much a thin veneer over freeform roleplaying. The basic conceit is fairly simple. The GM has a story in mind before play even begins. During play the GM presents a situation. Players declare actions for their characters. The GM decides what the fallout of those actions will be with an eye towards his plot. The key element here is that players are supposed to pretend that the presented game rules matter. There will be dice involved sometimes, but that is simply to maintain the illusion that players decisions and what's on the character sheet matters. It does not. It might be taken into consideration, but that is ultimately up to the GM. A convenient short hand for the way these games operate is Stat + Skill = Whatever. The Whatever meaning a number the GM pulls from his butt, and can arbitrarily change if it suits his or her purpose before or after the roll.

The key selling points of Stat + Skill = Whatever games is not the game, but rather copious amounts of setting material that fans can pore over. Actual Play is focused on trying to puzzle out what the GM wants players to do, providing color or characterization, and applying elaborate setting knowledge. Don't get me wrong - these roleplaying games are still games. They just happen to fundamentally be the same game. It's a play style that is pretty close to a tabletop version of Zork.

Other examples of this philosophy of role playing game design include Numenera, Shadowrun, Legend of the 5 Rings, and AD&D 2e - especially towards the end of its life cycle. Planescape, Dark Sun, and Ravenloft were pretty much TSR aping White Wolf. 5e seems to push this way sometimes, but there is some respect for OSR related play styles.

 

[Ratskinner]

System Does Not Matter makes sense from a particular perspective. I don't believe it is really an argument that system does not literally matter though. There is a particular vein of role playing game design, popularized by Vampire - The Masquerade that defines role playing games so strictly that there is really only one system that all role playing games fall under. It's pretty much a thin veneer over freeform roleplaying. The basic conceit is fairly simple. The GM has a story in mind before play even begins. During play the GM presents a situation. Players declare actions for their characters. The GM decides what the fallout of those actions will be with an eye towards his plot. The key element here is that players are supposed to pretend that the presented game rules matter. There will be dice involved sometimes, but that is simply to maintain the illusion that players decisions and what's on the character sheet matters. It does not. It might be taken into consideration, but that is ultimately up to the GM. A convenient short hand for the way these games operate is Stat + Skill = Whatever. The Whatever meaning a number the GM pulls from his butt, and can arbitrarily change if it suits his or her purpose before or after the roll.

The key selling points of Stat + Skill = Whatever games is not the game, but rather copious amounts of setting material that fans can pore over. Actual Play is focused on trying to puzzle out what the GM wants players to do, providing color or characterization, and applying elaborate setting knowledge. Don't get me wrong - these roleplaying games are still games. They just happen to fundamentally be the same game. It's a play style that is pretty close to a tabletop version of Zork.

Other examples of this philosophy of role playing game design include Numenera, Shadowrun, Legend of the 5 Rings, and AD&D 2e - especially towards the end of its life cycle. Planescape, Dark Sun, and Ravenloft were pretty much TSR aping White Wolf. 5e seems to push this way sometimes, but there is some respect for OSR related play styles.

I must say my experiences with OSR play (and my increasingly vague memories of the early 80's) don't indicate any great difference at all. Does it matter if the GM "pulls the number from his butt" during play, days earlier when writing the adventure, or if he gets it from a published adventure designer who pulled it from his butt? I don't feel my experience changes much one way or the other. Is it somehow less of a railroad if the adventure starts at the entrance of a well-defined dungeon? My experiences with "sandbox" GMs (even back in the day) lead me to perceive that "playstyle" as existing mostly in the DM's self-conception of his creative process, not in play from the player's perspective. At best, it is a difference in scale, not character, IMO.

I tend to think of the trend you seem to be noting mostly as one related to the marketing and audience perception of rpgs, not really any profound change in design. I believe players became enamored of the idea that they were "creating a story together" or whatever else you might find in the introduction section of those game. Heck, for that matter, efforts like the Forge were a response to the disappointment players felt when these games routinely failed to deliver on that promise.

Now, that being said, I do feel that system matters, but the traditional rpg structure doesn't usually vary in structure enough to stop the kind of effects you seem to be alluding to here. At best, it tweaks the experience one way or another. (Which can be very effective at evoking settings, etc.) My experiences with every edition of D&D (to get back to the original topic) have been relatively similar, with 4e being the outlier (I found the detail/intensity of the tactical game distracting). I have played and ran an (apparently) very wide variety of other rpgs with wildly different structure, so my sense in this regard may be colored by those comparisons. To really "break" the general habit of rpgs (which even my beloved Fate falls very close to) seems to require breaking that basic structure.

 

[Tony Vargas]

/System/ does matter.

Specific edition of D&D? Not so much. 3e & 4e, by far the most player-oriented editions, are probably the most distinct from the pack, with 5e going back to the TSR Tradition pasture to graze with the sacred cows. But they're all still D&D. You still kill things for exp & treasure. You still roll d20s quite a lot in the process. You still have hps and 'miss' because your target was lumbering about in heavy armor. :shrug:

Now Call of Cthulhu vs Spawn of Fshawn, or FATE vs FATAL - those are system differences that would matter quite a bit.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Five year old thread, folks. Many of the people before you aren't posting anymore.

 

[Manbearcat]

System Does Not Matter makes sense from a particular perspective. I don't believe it is really an argument that system does not literally matter though. There is a particular vein of role playing game design, popularized by Vampire - The Masquerade that defines role playing games so strictly that there is really only one system that all role playing games fall under. It's pretty much a thin veneer over freeform roleplaying. The basic conceit is fairly simple. The GM has a story in mind before play even begins. During play the GM presents a situation. Players declare actions for their characters. The GM decides what the fallout of those actions will be with an eye towards his plot. The key element here is that players are supposed to pretend that the presented game rules matter. There will be dice involved sometimes, but that is simply to maintain the illusion that players decisions and what's on the character sheet matters. It does not. It might be taken into consideration, but that is ultimately up to the GM. A convenient short hand for the way these games operate is Stat + Skill = Whatever. The Whatever meaning a number the GM pulls from his butt, and can arbitrarily change if it suits his or her purpose before or after the roll.

The key selling points of Stat + Skill = Whatever games is not the game, but rather copious amounts of setting material that fans can pore over. Actual Play is focused on trying to puzzle out what the GM wants players to do, providing color or characterization, and applying elaborate setting knowledge. Don't get me wrong - these roleplaying games are still games. They just happen to fundamentally be the same game. It's a play style that is pretty close to a tabletop version of Zork.

Other examples of this philosophy of role playing game design include Numenera, Shadowrun, Legend of the 5 Rings, and AD&D 2e - especially towards the end of its life cycle. Planescape, Dark Sun, and Ravenloft were pretty much TSR aping White Wolf. 5e seems to push this way sometimes, but there is some respect for OSR related play styles.

Good post.

System matters and it matters in very important ways. I think one of the easiest ways to demonstrate this is the following:

System 1:

1) Very focused GMing ethos. Very transparent, simple, yet robust procedures of play and resolution mechanics. Well-integrated reward cycle.
2) A clear directive to “follow the rules” which constrains GM latitude.
3) The predicate of the game’s design being that the synthesis of 1 and 2 perpetuates genre coherent action and archetypal PC actions as a result of merely playing the game.

System 2:

1) Very broad/abstract GMing ethos (“have fun…make an exciting story”). Granular, complex, sometimes-at-tension procedures of play and resolution mechanics that may come with unintended, downstream knock-on effects (mechanically or to genre expectations). Mildly incoherent or somewhat askew reward cycle.
2) A clear directive to the GM to “ignore the rules or the results of them as you see fit” which emboldens ultimate GM latitude over the action and resultant fiction.
3) The predicate of the game’s design being that GMs drive games, rules get in the way as often or more often than they help, and players are there to casually soak up a good time no matter how it is derived.

Those two systems are different in a myriad of ways. The play (and prep) experience for the GMs, for the players, and the actual output of play are quite distinct from one another.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Do you remember Animaniacs? "Good Idea, Bad Idea?" I find myself thinking about it, right now, for some reason.

System 1, System 2 ...

The play (and prep) experience for the GMs, for the players, and the actual output of play are quite distinct from one another.

Sure, as a GM, for instance, I could pick up System 1, and deliver a System 2 experience to my players - I won't say 'easily,' my 'prep' experience might be quite different & it depends on what experience the players want, but I could do so with confidence.
I wouldn't claim the reverse.