D&D General Which Previous Edition (poll; read OP)

[EzekielRaiden]

I really well and truly do not understand this obsession with marking "4e pre-Essentials" and "4e Essentials" as though they are two different editions.

They are not. They are literally exactly the same game, just with more options. It would be like saying "5e pre-Tasha's" and "5e Tasha's." That's the level of difference we're talking about. There is no sense, literally none whatsoever, in which the Essentials books are any more or less 4e than any other books published for it.

I know this is a silly thing to get so annoyed about, but it just really gets my goat.

 

[Reynard]

I really well and truly do not understand this obsession with marking "4e pre-Essentials" and "4e Essentials" as though they are two different editions.

They are not. They are literally exactly the same game, just with more options. It would be like saying "5e pre-Tasha's" and "5e Tasha's." That's the level of difference we're talking about. There is no sense, literally none whatsoever, in which the Essentials books are any more or less 4e than any other books published for it.

I know this is a silly thing to get so annoyed about, but it just really gets my goat.

For the record I only included both because on this message board I have seen and experienced serious differences in attitude about 4E pre and post essentials.

 

[John R Davis]

Play in an AD&D campaign.
DM a BECMI campaign

Yes this

 

[Stormonu]

I've been wanting to do a 2E campaign for a while here recently. That or a B/X campaign.

I'd still use ascending AC in both (for my players, I have no problem with and prefer THAC0 myself, but most others I've run across hate it).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

For the record I only included both because on this message board I have seen and experienced serious differences in attitude about 4E pre and post essentials.

Ironically, if you sum the two together, 4e is actually the most popular option on the list. I doubt very much that that will last, but it's an interesting surprise that it happened at all.

 

[Stormonu]

Heh. Maybe someone should have broken out 1E pre/post UA, since some (unnamed) folks around here have strong opinions about it.
2E's breakpoint would either be Complete Book of Elves or the Player's Option series.

 

[Audiomancer]

I voted B/X.

I haven’t played that system in almost 40 years. But the discussion threads about the sales figures that Ben Riggs has been posting reminded me what a powerhouse that system was, sales-wise. And it seems to be the basis of a host of OSR retroclones (which I have yet to try).

But mostly, it was my gateway into D&D. It’s where I started, and I think it could be fun to go back and revisit the old neighborhood, as it were.

 

[Jack Daniel]

That's not true at all. Sure, BECMI has more later, but they aren't exactly the same early on. There are notable and significant differences in thief skills, for example.

We have rather different definitions of "notable" and "significant", I think.

There is one significant difference between the '81 rules and the '83 rules that I'm aware of — magic-user spell acquisition, limited under Moldvay and unlimited under Mentzer. That changes gameplay in a way that slightly different numbers on thief skill, cleric spell, attack roll, and saving throw tables do not. (Plus a few minor tweaks to spells: the duration of magic missile, the area of effect for sleep, the time required to detect thoughts with ESP. And blah-de-blah something something encumbrance variable weapon damage.)

Everything else about the two printings remains consistent. They share… well, every other salient feature of the game you can think of. The differences between the '81–'82 rules and the '83 rules amount to minor bits of errata for the most part (especially given the short lifespan of the former). Truly, the consistency in the D&D game between 1981 and its eventual demise in 1996 is far more striking and noteworthy than any changes introduced along the way.

(Also… the thief skill numbers actually didn't change between the Cook Expert Set and the 1983 printings of the Mentzer Expert Set. Since this is always everyone's go-to example, does it mean that the '83 and post-'84 printings of Mentzer Basic & Expert constitute whole different editions of D&D!?)

For the record I only included both because on this message board I have seen and experienced serious differences in attitude about 4E pre and post essentials.

It's a weird decision, man. If you're not gonna split off 1e UA and 2e S&P, there should probably only be six options on the poll — Original, Classic, and 1e through 4e.

 

[Alzrius]

Also… the thief skill numbers actually didn't change between the Cook Expert Set and the 1983 printings of the Mentzer Expert Set.

I'm not sure why, but those images aren't loading for me (I suspect that it has something to do with my browser's security settings, but nothing I toggle seems to work). Would you mind posting them in this thread?

EDIT: Nevermind, I was able to pull up the page source and extract the direct image links. Just in case anyone else has the same problem, here are the Cook Expert Set and Mentzer Expert set images, respectively, linked to previously:

 

[jgsugden]

Having recently played in AD&D and 2E campaigns, I'm not going back that far again. It is just rough compared to today's systems.

I'd recommend we stick with the modern edition to a DM that wants to go old school, but would still play a 3.5 campaign again. There are still hundreds of character designs I never had a chance to get to the table.