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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6141836" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is interesting. It also paints, for me at least, a certain sort of picture of the fighter player - not only is s/he not looking for a lot of mechanical decision-making, but s/he is fairly relaxed in terms of broader impact on the direction of the game.The reason I say that is because, in AD&D, a fighter PC can have quite a big impact on the direction of the game, due to the importance of his/her resilience and damage output, whereas in 3E I feel this is reduced. And I think a player who cared more about those sorts of macro-level issues of control/impact would notice this.It's not intended as edition-warring. But I find in many of the posts on this thread (and not just this thread) an assumption of an unargued consensus that 3E inherited the AD&D mantle and 4e then cast it off. I have no doubt that some people - due to their habits of play, their expectations, the amount of effort that they put into item crafting or spell selection or learning the rules at all, etc - found the transition pretty smooth. You gave an illustration in your post; Ahnehnois gives another illustration in his discussion of the fighter that I've just quoted.But for others playing with different approaches or expectations, the differences between AD&D and 3E can be fairly marked; and likewise the resemblances between AD&D and 4e. As someone who had ceased to GM AD&D in favour of GMing Rolemaster, what struck me about 3E at release was how different it was from AD&D, and how much it had steered into classic 80s "check based on attribute + skill" territory, but without giving up on hit points. And what struck me about 4e at its release was how much effort had been made to build a game that would take the hit point "heroic fantasy" model and generalise it across the rest of action resolution, which for me promised to realise the idea of heroic fantasy RPGing first conveyed to me by the flavour text of Moldvay Basic.I don't think any one type of experience is privileged or "default" (least of all mine!). That's really all I was trying to say.</blockquote>

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