D&D General Dnd and what has changed

[Charlaquin]

Exactly

 

[Charlaquin]

Can we not have edition wars yet again?

We aren’t…

 

[Zardnaar]

Big change is d20 mechanics from 3E and hit point bloat and timing down.
All modern D&D is more complex than 2E but laid out better. 2E is easier to run but harder to understand.

Other big change is complexity. Peaked with 3.5 and 4E.

Modern complexity scale

5E, 5.5. 4E. 3.0. 3.5. Last 3 can be rearranged depending on how you play/preferences and how many books you use. More moving parts more complexity.

Grit factor has been toned down espicially with 4E and 5E. Hit point attrition has been emphasized. 4E was high hp low damage 5E high HP high damage relative to pre 4E. Both are high HP Regain.

3E sits in the middle between ye ole gritty and 4E-5E. Can be played more casually and vaguely reminiscent of late 2E. More books added higher level you go. Has the most options and playstyle variety depending on how DM runs it or what books are used. Its all over the place really your experience will depend on the DM more than say 4E and 5E which have more defined playstyles imho.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So I peaced out of DnD with the introduction of 3rd ed. I understand it did well, then 4th came out and bombed and now there is 5th ed. What has changed?

3E added a unified resolution system, commonly shorthanded as the "d20 system," in which you roll a d20, add relevant bonuses, and compare that to a target number.

That includes combat, skill checks and other rolls.

IMO, that and the open gaming license (and now the Community Commons license) are the biggest changes WotC made to D&D, but there are lots of others, including various tonal changes, etc., reflecting the company's evolving understanding of its audience.

 

[môrgondír]

Maybe the OP is seeking a Jon Peterson historical treatment of all of the differences, who was responsible for them, and how those differences are subtly moving the older concepts of the game in nuanced directions.

I've only read the first edition of 'Playing at the World' - does any historical writer cover D&D from 1989-ish to present?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Incidentally, one of the favors WotC (well, Ryan Dancey, who should probably have a statue of him in Waterdeep or something) did by putting the game out into an open license is that if you don't like any given version of D&D (well, maybe not 4E), you can go back to it, because a ton of retroclones recreating older versions of D&D are on the market today.

So WotC basically enabled you to be able to buy tons of new content for 1E, for instance, which TSR was determined to make unthinkable in the 1990s.

I personally play and run both 5E and various old school flavored games as a result of this.

 

[Deset Gled]

Maybe the OP is seeking a Jon Peterson historical treatment of all of the differences, who was responsible for them, and how those differences are subtly moving the older concepts of the game in nuanced directions.

The OP is a game designer who wants to "check this community out to see if it is a good fit" before he he decides if he wants to share any details about his new RPG with us. Ostensibly, our collective responses to his questions so far have not been sufficient.

 

[Clint_L]

For me, 5e felt like a very comfortable return to D&D for someone who played the heck out of 1e, played a little 2e here and there, and dabbled in 3e. I basically took 4e off - it feels like the outlier, to me. For some folks in a good way, and it has a lot to recommend, but it wasn't my jam and felt unfamiliar. But 5e got me in a big way, so if you are coming back I think you'll find that the essence of the game feels familiar.

 

[môrgondír]

It seems that in order to address the question, you'd need either first-hand experience of all the intervening periods in question, or perhaps a huge stack of multi-sourced anecdotal evidence from someone(s) who had, or perhaps both of those.

I love reading history, but I don't have the wherewithal or the skill to do the research necessary to write it. I'm curious about the periods that I missed entirely (2nd edition, 4th edition), but I wouldn't attempt to acquire them or their ancillary materials in order to discern how they're different from the ones of which I have direct experience.

And I feel like an outsider pretty much everywhere, but I'm curious about communities themselves, so I tend to poke about the periphery.

 

[Reynard]

I think the trajectory has always been toward trying to create consistency from the chaos of early D&D. Even much maligned THAC0 is an attempt to escape tables and rely on simple arithmetic, and the further unification of most systems under the d20 was an effort to "make it make sense." Beyond that, it is just stuff people thought up that they thought was cool. Remember, game designers and writers and artists are all just nerds trying to write better elves. Beyond the math, it is all stories.