Damn, evidently my "token" ran out (whatever that is) and I lost my multi-quote response. Oh well, I'm not one to try to re-create the wheel...Anyways, I really like Irda Ranger's response so I'll respond to that:
Rule-Set vs. Game-Style arguments are like Nature vs. Nurture arguments. You always have both, and they aren't mutually exclusive, but it's the end result you care about.
4E Rules + Old School Style = Different Game than (1E Rules + Old School Style).
You mix different ingredients, you get a different bread. That's just how these things work.
Well said, and I agree to all the above.
For me I don't think it's possible to get the game I want using 4E rules, even if I play it with Old School Style. And I tried. I tried running B2 using 4E rules and it just wasn't the same. It "worked", in a sense, but it wasn't what I was looking for. For other people it will be good enough, and for others even trying to run B2 with 4E rules is "one step forward, two steps back." As with so many things on the Internet, YMMV.
Well, I am just starting my first 4E campaign, so we'll see how I feel after a few sessions, but my sense is that 4E "corrected" a lot of what I didn't like about 3E--which I liked better than 2E and 1E--and with some of its own tricks added to mix.
Yes.
Here is one attempt. There are others. Arguably Castles & Crusades is very much an attempt at this too, though I am on record disagreeing with certain choices they made.
The main problem with games since OD&D is that the designers weren't content with making the rules that existed easier and more streamlined. They kept adding new twists and complexities as well (
e.g., Exceptional Strength, Attacks of Opportunity, Critical Hits, Tumble, etc.), so instead of 25 slightly-unintuitive-but-useable rules you have 300 really well engineered rules. If you just went back to OD&D and converted over what was there to current state of the art
without adding any of the additional complexity that came later, I think you'd have what you're looking for.
I actually agree with this, for the most part. This brings out another spectrum of game preference: simple to complex. The complexity-junkies loved 3E, because it enabled all sorts of options, while still resting on a nice core mechanic (2E was equally complex, if not more so, but without the core mechanic that allowed for greater complexity without getting lost in a ton of "Rules & Options"). The "new twists and complexities" aren't inherently wrong, imo, but indicate of a certain style of play.
So every gamer, in my opinion, exists along a spectrum of complexity preference, from OD&D to BECMI to 1E to 2E to 3E. Where does 4E lie? I think between BECMI and 1E (or maybe between 1E and 2E) which is why like it. But, as I said, I would also be open to a hybrid of OD&D's simplicity and improvisational style and 4E's core mechanic and fun gimmicks (I like the Powers system, as well as Defenses, for example, but am not as much into all the complexities of combat and anything that requires miniatures; I like miniatures, I just don't want to NEED them).
As for your last sentence, you're probably right. Of course you could also say the contrary: start with 4E and strip out any unwanted parts and, voila, there it is. I'm going to start with 4E and see how I (we) like it, play the learn-as-we-go game, and see if anything gets in the way. We'll play what we want to play; it might come down to me making my own version of "Basic 4E." We'll see.
