A thing about d20 D&D I didn't like, and still don't know why it was done...

[Nightfall]

Mh,

no but I wonder if said magic user could make an Eye of Vecna if he had the time and training.

 

[Crothian]

Not exactly the same thing, is it?

I think it is. A wizard cannot make wand of fireballs if he doesn't have the training to cast fireball. Getting a Wizard to cast a cure spell is a little trickier but the basic idea is the same.

 

[Psion]

I read this a lot. Why did any of you play D&D prior to d20, then? Why?

You want my full narrative?
[sblock]
It was fun. It did its job for the day.

But so did my old beat up pickup truck. Wouldn't go back to that, either.

The first house rule I spun myself was the ranger. Why, I asked, did the ranger, supposed master of the woods, lack woodsy secondary skills? Well why not indeed. So I added a house rule to add these secondary skills. It was a hit. I soon learned to change up other things I disliked about the system.

I still enjoyed my games well into 2e but it was the underlying fantasy experience I enjoyed. Though I feel 2e improved many things, the system remained fundamentally inflexible. I was about to quit playing D&D when Skills & Powers came along.

Skills & Powers had the flexibility I was looking for. But it was broken. I found I could fix it by snapping loopholes shut and fixing other fundamental problems. I did so but at great cost. I had a 50+ page document tuning it, plugging things up, making it balanced. S&P had the flexibility that I wanted, but lacked quality control.

The 3e came along. At the time, I was hesitant to move on. In fact, it wasn't until I got the Monster Manual for 3e I truly began to see how much more implicitly flexible the system was. Y'see, in prior editions, I had always preferred my villains to be classes characters... drow and the like. Yeah, you could tack on levels on other sorts of creature, but it was sort of swimming upstream. After 3e, all creatures were characters, so to speak. They had stats, could have levels, etc.

So, in the midst of my 2e game, I decided to start a second 3e game.

After playing for a month, I was hooked and converted my other game. I found the other advantages of 3e. No different dice, rolls and types for different rolls to remember. (I always had one player at my table who would say "is this roll high or low..."). No convoluted nonsensical dual/multiclassing dichotomy or racial level limits, replaced by a system that balances humans against demihumans from level one. All these are more were things that I had seen people house rule around before, but here is was in black and white. No more teaching people your house rules to get them to play. And it had much of the flexibility I wanted from S&P.

I converted my 2e game to 3e game and ran it up to high levels. That campaign lasted for years, and was one of the most satisfying I ever ran.

So, in short, I had fun then. I have more fun now. So, you can call me a "d20 power munchkin dink" (your words), but this weekend I'm going to go play me some Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition (yes). And I am going to have fun. You don't have to like it, but the don't have to diss me for having different values than you. Not that it will change my fun a bit if you do.[/sblock]

 

[Crothian]

I contend that First Edition AD&D supported fewer character concepts. It didn't allow fewer character concepts, but it didn't do anything to help you with them either.

First edition got a lot of support in Dragon magizine. I don't have those so I have no idea how well it mechancially supported concepts. 3.x is a book glut game with so many freaking options from what seems like a hundred different publishers that of course it is going to support things better. The sheer amount of material ensures that.

 

[Nightfall]

Psion,

I give your D&D rant a 9.6 out of 10. I'll see what the other judges say later.

Btw was said campaign in 3rd before or after you tried out Rappan Athuk?

*still would like a response to how a magic user could make ANOTHER eye of Vecna*

 

[Psion]

Btw was said campaign in 3rd before or after you tried out Rappan Athuk?

As stated, if was actually a 2e game started before 3e came out, then converted a month after I started a second game under 3e. RA1 came out a while into it and I did use some of it when we were missing players for a night. I also ran it for other one offs like when I went back home and got together with some old friends. RA has sort of become my choice for "one-off dungeon forays".

 

[Storm Raven]

I read this a lot. Why did any of you play D&D prior to d20, then? Why? I mean, I absolutely hate Rolemaster. Hate hate hate it. Got dragged through it a few times - enough to know I hate it. I don't play it. I won't play it. I didn't grind through it for umpteen years talking nonstop about how I hated it, though.

I don't think he was saying he hated D&D, just the D&D experience point system from the 1e/2e era.

But the answer to your question is that many people didn't play D&D prior to d20, or, more to the point, they abandoned it for other systems. Sure, I cut my teeth on 1e AD&D, and played it for many years. But by the time 2e rolled around, we had put in so many house rules to patch over the inherent weaknesses in the system that it was almost not recognizable as 1e AD&D. And then 2e came out, and proved to be a massive disappointment (for the gamers I gamed with at any rate). So we stopped playing D&D. We looked to systems that did the things that our house rules attemtped to do, but worked them into the game system at the outset - GURPS, Rolemaster, Hero, and so on. It wasn't until 3e came out that I, or my circle of gaming friends thought about D&D at all. Between about 1990 and then, D&D was for the most part (in our view) "that poorly designed game that people play until they find something better". Every now and then, someone would get together a nostalgia type game playing 1e, or try to get a 2e game together to see if we could make it work, and it would last a session or two before we would throw up our hands at patching together the crazy hodge podge of rules, and we would go back to something that made sense, like GURPS.

But we liked what D&D had wanted to be, but failed at. So when 3e came out, we looked at it, and saw that the rules patchwork of 1e/2e had been made sensible. That the rule set hung together well. That the rules were simple where they should be, and broad enough in application to suit a variety of choices. (There has been some backsliding in 3.5e on the simplicity score, but that can be ignored by sticking to the 3e rules in certain areas). We came back to D&D, because 3e addressed the problems that should have been addressed with 2e.

 

[molonel]

(There has been some backsliding in 3.5e on the simplicity score, but that can be ignored by sticking to the 3e rules in certain areas).

Although I like 3rd Edition D&D immensely, I agree with that assessment.

 

[Nightfall]

*sticks with 3.0 wizard specialization*

Psion,

K I must have missed that but thanks for clearing that up. *thinks of RA more as a place to store that which the PCs might need later on in the game*

 

[Treebore]

You go Psion! Isn't that why we all play? You 3E, me C&C, etc... We do it for the fun. That is all that matters. So why the heck we can't talk about things we don't like without resorting to an argument is beyond me.

The bottom line is any of us DM's worth a darn can run a game in any version of D&D and have a darn good time doing it.

Plus, no one plays true old D&D, 1E, 2E, 3E, or my C&C. They play a version house ruled to fit their tastes. Anyone who claims to play 100% purely by the rules are going to have to have me sit at their gaming table for a few sessions before I will believe them.

So everyone has a problem with something, from every version. To get upset because people have problems with things you don't is... well ... silly. Its just a difference of opinion, nothing to get worked up about. Doesn't keep anyone from playing how they like at their gaming table. Only tournament players have to worry about that anal adherence to the rules. Which is exactly why I will never play RPGA/tournament. I had enough "anal attitude" while I was in the Navy in one of the nuclear fields. I sure am not going to tolerate it when I am playing a game to have fun.

Time to go play people. Lets go have some fun.