A simplified D&D? Aren't you all forgetting something...

[Kae'Yoss]

yes, several times.

i wanted to GM In Nomine, but they all wanted to play AD&D2. only one player out of a group of seven showed up for those sessions. when i gave up and another GM in the group started up a new AD&D game, they all came back. :\

more recently, i've tried a couple of times to run a Star Wars d20 game for a D&D3e group. only about half of the group would show up to my games, but they'd all show up when D&D was on the agenda. :\

and i don't blame them. if a GM wants to run a game that i don't enjoy, i have no problem telling him i'm "sitting out this one," and "i'll see y'all when the next campaign begins." i like hanging out with my friends, sure, but not if i'm not going to enjoy the experience. i can hang out with them under different circumstances, anyways.

Well, it's their choice. If they don't want to play something, then they shouldn't play it. But at least tell the GM you don't want instead of just letting him stand in the rain. That's rude.

 

[DragonLancer]

2nd ed AD&D was alright. In ways I found it much simpler and easier to run than 3.0/5.

No AoO's, feats, sunder, bull's rush...etc. D20 is a good system just over complex in places, with an upgraded power level when compared to 2nd edition.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't DnD basic supposed to be presented as simplified?

 

[woodelf]

yes, several times.

i wanted to GM In Nomine, but they all wanted to play AD&D2. only one player out of a group of seven showed up for those sessions. when i gave up and another GM in the group started up a new AD&D game, they all came back. :\

more recently, i've tried a couple of times to run a Star Wars d20 game for a D&D3e group. only about half of the group would show up to my games, but they'd all show up when D&D was on the agenda. :\

and i don't blame them. if a GM wants to run a game that i don't enjoy, i have no problem telling him i'm "sitting out this one," and "i'll see y'all when the next campaign begins." i like hanging out with my friends, sure, but not if i'm not going to enjoy the experience. i can hang out with them under different circumstances, anyways.

Wow. Color me surprised. I mean, i'm not surprised that not everyone wants to play every genre or system. But i am surprised that they wouldn't be willing to accomodate a friend for a few sessions. Have you tried explaining it as a tradeoff?: you don't particularly like running D&D, but you're willing to do it because everybody else prefers it, but you'd like to, once in a while, run a game that you *do* like? After all, just as much as player shouldn't be expected to show up to a game they won't enjoy, a GM shouldn't be expected to run a game they won't enjoy. At least not all the time.

 

[Pants]

2nd ed AD&D was alright. In ways I found it much simpler and easier to run than 3.0/5.

No AoO's, feats, sunder, bull's rush...etc. D20 is a good system just over complex in places, with an upgraded power level when compared to 2nd edition.

Yeah, it is pretty simple. Going by just the core books there wasn't a plethora of rules, feats, and skill points to go over when creating the class. Me? I LOVE the added options over the inflexible core 2nd edition classes, but to a newbie it can be very intimidating. Add in rules for AoO's, Bull Rushing, Spellcasting, Movement, etc etc and you have a not very simple game.

So, yeah I'd say 2nd edition is a lot 'simpler,' but it's is mired in overly complex rules. Sure there aren't that many rules to memorize, but the way the existing rules are handled is... stupid. I hated the 2e saving throws then and I hate them now. THAC0 is needlessly complicated, but not that bad. Rolling for initiative and rolling for surprise was mindbogglingly dumb. The thief's skills were poorly implemented, racial level limits sucked, multi-classing and dual classing bizarreness. Ugh. It is a very simple system (once you wrap your head around it), but IMO it is also a very stupid system.

However, if I had absolutely nothing else to play and I was desperate for gaming, I would play 2e. I had fun with it before, I think I could still have some fun with it now.

 

[Saeviomagy]

1: Get rid of Thac0, I mean all you have to do is reverse Ac and have attack values go up instead of down. You would also have to make all combat bonuses and penalties match.

2: Remove level limits and default racial class restrictions. I support class restrictions only if the campaign setting supports it.

Wouldn't you be better off just using 3.5 and throwing out half the rules?

What drives me nuts the most is this, our group has been playing 3.0/3.5 since the first day it has came out. None of us know the rules enough not to have to constantly look up DC's and other mechanical issues dealing with the various feats and combat moves.

We used to play for months without having to crack open the players guide in earlier editons. The people who DM in our group were very familiar and comfortable with the rules.

Either that, or the rulebook didn't actually help with that sort of stuff.

I mean the only reason you need to look up DC's in 3rd edition is... they exist.

In 2nd ed, no matter how hard or easy it should be to track someone, you still had to roll under your wisdom to do it.

In 3rd ed, there's a table to work out the DC.

OR you, the DM, can just go "hmm, 3 days later and in the snow - I reckon that's about a 25."

15 is average. 10 is easy. 20 is hard. Simple, huh?

I also thought kits, eventhough most were unbalanced, were better than Prestige Classes. In 2nd edtion you started out as a fledgling character based on your concept. If you wanted to be a ninja you began as a fledgling ninja.

Of course the fact that you had 'ninja' written on your sheet either
a) Meant absolutely nothing, except the pride of having 'ninja' on your sheet

b) Meant you were far better than any character, just 'cause you'd written 'ninja' on your sheet

Nowadays, it probably means you gave up some abilities in order to have other, more ninjalike abilities. And of course you can still do a).

 

[d4]

Wow. Color me surprised. I mean, i'm not surprised that not everyone wants to play every genre or system. But i am surprised that they wouldn't be willing to accomodate a friend for a few sessions. Have you tried explaining it as a tradeoff?: you don't particularly like running D&D, but you're willing to do it because everybody else prefers it, but you'd like to, once in a while, run a game that you *do* like? After all, just as much as player shouldn't be expected to show up to a game they won't enjoy, a GM shouldn't be expected to run a game they won't enjoy. At least not all the time.

having multiple GMs in the group can be both a blessing and a curse.

it's a blessing because it means one person doesn't have to GM all the time and can have a chance to play.

it's a curse because the players pretty much have final choice of what games we're playing. for example, i want to GM Mutants & Masterminds, but i'm only getting lukewarm responses from the group. if i was the only GM, i could probably convince them to give it a try, at least for a little while. but since the group also has two or three other GMs, all who want to run D&D -- a game that everyone can agree on and wants to play -- we end up playing D&D all the time. if it comes down to a vote between my M&M campaign and someone else's D&D campaign, i'm going to lose... :\

 

[JoeGKushner]

2nd Edition was okay.

However, once Kits were introduced.... once Skills & Powers were introduced... the horror... the horror...

Took me a long time to switch over to 3rd edition, but once I did... well heck, I've got over three hundred reviews in this database alone!

 

[MerricB]

I liked Skills and Powers and the other Player Options books. They were the basis of one of the best D&D campaigns I've ever run.

However, the reason I liked it is why I like 3E better: it allowed more variation for player characters. 3E gets the rules working better, and allows more development as characters increase in level. (S&P has my favourite version of 2E's non-weapon proficiency system, but 3E does the skill system better as well).

Of course, I was playing with a group of people who weren't min/maxers. So, S&P opened up options to them as to their characters, but wasn't abused by them, either.

I began a S&P campaign about a month before 3E came out, knowing that we'd change over to 3E as I got the books. The cleric of the group was actually a Champion from Spells & Magic, and there were similar little tweaks for the other PCs.

When 3E was released, we discovered that the core of those characters could be modelled using the new multi-classing system, along with the skills and feats system of 3E.

Now, with 3.5e, I'm discovering the joy of entirely new classes, which do things that the traditional 3e system of multi-classing, feats and prestige classes don't handle as well as they might.

Does all of this come at a cost? Absolutely. 3.5e is a very powerful system, but it's also very complex if you want to use everything.

At its heart, 3.5e is a very simple system, but the ability to customise monsters and characters adds a lot of overhead to the game. And then more options are added to that, further complicating it.

For instance, consider the fact that monsters now have ability scores. This adds extra steps onto creating monsters - you need to account for their ability scores. Then, the fact that they have (say) a Wisdom rating means that spells like touch of idiocy are feasible - and more complexity arises.

That's where I'm conflicted about how good 3e actually is. I love the system for my own purposes, but I worry at how complex it can seem to new players.

The consolidation and simplication of the task resolution rules from 2e seems to have been overtaken by a wealth of options that make the end product... daunting.

Cheers!

 

[Akrasia]

All of this debate is great it continues to build my desire for C&C by pointing out the good and bad of all current and previous editions of D&D. They all have had things I liked and other things I hated, from what I've read in various post C&C takes many of the things I liked from all versions and rolled them into one. Will I like everything in it? Probably not, but I hope to find more I like and less I dislike than in the current system.

Yeah, I am hoping for the same thing.

I like the d20 mechanic, and various other aspects of 3.x.

But I miss the faster pace and smaller "prep time" (esp. for DMs) of earlier editions of D&D (especially B/X or RC D&D).

Hopefully the C&C will combine the best of both worlds -- the Reese's Pieces of FRPGs.