1E and 4E are similar? Really? (Forked from: 1E Resurgence?)

[crash_beedo]

So everytime we sit down and play 4E, it brings up these feelings of old school goodness, but that's not completely explained by some limited connections to the 1E experience... and then it hit me!

The Heroic / Paragon / Epic approach (with demigods and whatnot) seems to feel straight out of BECMI (or BECM, more accurately). The changing nature of the types of adventures for Paragon and Epic feels much like Mentzer's Companion and Masters sets to me. Every time I consider 4E it feels like a throw-back game - but now I can see it's not so much (for me at least) a throwback to 1E as it is to Basic/Classic D&D and BECMI.

And by all means, continue with the invocation to Sata... err, agreeing!

Agreeing on an internet forum will eventually lead to dividing by 0. According to my Calculus professor in college, that's an invitation for Satan to come out of the ground.

 

[ExploderWizard]

So everytime we sit down and play 4E, it brings up these feelings of old school goodness, but that's not completely explained by some limited connections to the 1E experience... and then it hit me!

The Heroic / Paragon / Epic approach (with demigods and whatnot) seems to feel straight out of BECMI (or BECM, more accurately). The changing nature of the types of adventures for Paragon and Epic feels much like Mentzer's Companion and Masters sets to me. Every time I consider 4E it feels like a throw-back game - but now I can see it's not so much (for me at least) a throwback to 1E as it is to Basic/Classic D&D and BECMI.

And by all means, continue with the invocation to Sata... err, agreeing!

I see the connection as a purely "tiers of play" analogy but the feel is entirely different.

In the Mentzer Companion set the challenges got tougher but also broadened in scope. There was land to claim, a dominion to set up, and political intrigue and open warfare were as much a part of the experience as facing tougher bad guys was. The masters set was more of the same, but the political stakes were larger and the consequences of success and failure more far reaching.

D&D 4E pretty much keeps raising the stakes on the outcome of challenges but only from the personal conflicts of the PC's and thier foes. The PC's get tougher and so do the bad guys. The numbers get bigger but everything else stays the same.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I know this is really subjective, but I begin to wonder if people aren't seeing what they want to see regarding the similarities between these two vastly different systems.

This.


RC

 

[thecasualoblivion]

What hasn't been said in this thread is the reverse of the 1E/4E thing, which is how dissimiliar 3E was from the feel of 1E.

 

[JeffB]

Although I think we should flame a little more... Agreeing in something is not well looked upon here

Agreed.

err...I mean....[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3ripSM"]THIS[/ame]

Every time I consider 4E it feels like a throw-back game - but now I can see it's not so much (for me at least) a throwback to 1E as it is to Basic/Classic D&D and BECMI.

Yeah this the same for me as well. I don't see the similarities with 1E so much as a seeing 4E as O/B/X on steroids, so to speak.

This is hard for me to put into words ( so please bear with my rambling mess that follows) but there was a far looser feel to the fantasy of OD&D and later B/X- not just rules, but themes of the game- the structure of the "fantasy world" was different- as AD&D came about and the game "matured" much of the fluff and flavor of the game became as tied into to the AD&D experience as the rules themselves- all the naming conventions, the alignment system and the way the planes worked for example- all that fluff became narrowly focused and as much "D&D" as Armor Class or Hit dice. AD&D became it's own brand or type of Fantasy.

O/B/X didn't have those underlying strong "brand themes" (though later BECMI would). It was a mix of all kinds of fantasy influences. 4E has gone back to more of that OBX style classic hodgepodge of fantasy themes/influences vs the classic AD&D defintions we have known the past 30 years or so, and I suspect this is an issue many have with 4E (and may or may not realize it), though I'm sure it's not the only reason for many.

Now some of those influences in 4E are def in the camp of more modern fantasy, as well as modern cinema and not the SAME influences of OBX obviously, but it's a similar end result. I for one (as much as I am a die-hard GH fan,) really enjoying this "re-imagining" because it reminds me of when I was a kid and what our OD&D and later B/X games were like. It was a hodgepodge of influences from D&D abut there was alot of earth mythology, whatever fantasy fiction we managed to get ahold of to read, other game material like Arduin, etc mixed in too (I remember being extremely influenced by watching the old Charleton Heston movie El-Cid, and added a medieval spain like culture into our games).

This hodgepodge is the kind of thing that 1E tried hard to reign in- Gary (and others) made it quite clear the AD&D game needed more structure in rules and the types of worlds created for AD&D, and this narrower focus/structure in AD&D (and 2E, and 3E) lasted a very long time.

Like many of the original D&D players who B&M'ed day in and day out that D&D was not modelling the way (for example) elves, halflings and magic worked in the LOTR trilogy, nowadays many D&D fans are not liking this new "mix" that goes against what has come before. Personally, I'm loving it (and I thought I wouldn't)

 

[Raven Crowking]

This is hard for me to put into words ( so please bear with my rambling mess that follows) but there was a far looser feel to the fantasy of OD&D and later B/X- not just rules, but themes of the game- the structure of the "fantasy world" was different- as AD&D came about and the game "matured" much of the fluff and flavor of the game became as tied into to the AD&D experience as the rules themselves- all the naming conventions, the alignment system and the way the planes worked for example- all that fluff became narrowly focused and as much "D&D" as Armor Class or Hit dice. AD&D became it's own brand or type of Fantasy.

See, I tend to think of a game where you can encounter crocodiles, bears, and dinosaurs, or wander off into faerie, as being a tad bit more generic -- a tad bit less "tied into.....all the naming conventions" than a game where you can only encounter "visejaw™" crocodiles, or wander into the "Feywild™".

AD&D includes a host of extremely generic creatures, including a host of extremely generic real-world creatures and a host of creatures that arise from actual mythology and folklore, in order to help create "a far looser feel to the fantasy".

As soon as you Change™ Everything™ To™ Undo™ The™ OGL™ you have stepped, IMHO, out of generic fantasy and into something else.

YMMV, of course.


RC

 

[JeffB]

Well, first of all, I don't use the silly 4E names for monsters

Second, I'm not talking about monsters, I'm talking about the fantasy world.


To me, X2 (for example) fits 4E alot better than AD&D or 3E, because AD&D/3E have very narrow definitions of how the world "is" whereas 4E is alot more inclusive and expansive and not so set in stone. If you've seen the re-write of X2 trying to fit it into AD&D (2E) you''ll maybe see what I mean. What I saw of Paizo trying to shoehorn X1 into post wars GH was much the same kind of thing.

Back to X2- those pocket planes could be part of the feywild or the shadowfell and work much better in the (lack of ) cosmology of 4E (or O/b/X) than 1/2/3E where you have set planes that are comprised of X types of planars with Y alignment, etc etc etc. This is very much how alot of OD&D (LBB) games were because there was little structure or focus built in yet. B/X continued along this same loose line, by having Clerics without gods, vague cosmologies, etc.

I know I'm not explaining myself all that well, but I'm not up for an argument, just saying thats the kind of similarities/compatabilities in OBX and 4E *I*find/experience.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Well, first of all, I don't use the silly 4E names for monsters

Second, I'm not talking about monsters, I'm talking about the fantasy world.


To me, X2 (for example) fits 4E alot better than AD&D or 3E, because AD&D/3E have very narrow definitions of how the world "is" whereas 4E is alot more inclusive and expansive and not so set in stone. If you've seen the re-write of X2 trying to fit it into AD&D (2E) you''ll maybe see what I mean. What I saw of Paizo trying to shoehorn X1 into post wars GH was much the same kind of thing.

Back to X2- those pocket planes could be part of the feywild or the shadowfell and work much better in the (lack of ) cosmology of 4E (or O/b/X) than 1/2/3E where you have set planes that are comprised of X types of planars with Y alignment, etc etc etc. This is very much how alot of OD&D (LBB) games were because there was little structure or focus built in yet. B/X continued along this same loose line, by having Clerics without gods, vague cosmologies, etc.

I know I'm not explaining myself all that well, but I'm not up for an argument, just saying thats the kind of similarities/compatabilities in OBX and 4E *I*find/experience.

I totally understand where you are coming from. The undefined nature of a lot of stuff is where 4E made a great move. Having that sit next to the huge pile of exacting rules involving the PC's totally ruins it. Its kind of like a plate with a piece of delicious pie (the freeform cosmology/abilities for NPCs and monsters) sitting next to a turd ( combat rules/things relating to the PC's).

 

[Umbran]

Agreeing on an internet forum will eventually lead to dividing by 0. According to my Calculus professor in college, that's an invitation for Satan to come out of the ground.

Ah, but you see, your calc professor was not a physicist. It happens all the time in Quantum Mechanics. Rather than have the devil come out of the ground, we simply "renormalize" - one way to think of it is that we change the coordinate system so that what looked to be zero (or infinite) isn't really what it seemed.

 

[Umbran]

As soon as you Change™ Everything™ To™ Undo™ The™ OGL™ you have stepped, IMHO, out of generic fantasy and into something else.

Because, as we all know, fictional genres are defined by the licensing terms, rather than the tropes?