An Examination of Differences between Editions

[Celebrim]

Although grapple's doing its best!

-The Gneech

Quite. There are a few places that seem to be more complex than the average gamer wants to deal with, and grapple would be a case in point. Likewise, there is at least one place that still regularly offends with its inelegance - the turn undead rules.

But, compared to how previous editions handled grappling and turn undead, we are still in those cases dealing with a more elegant, less flaky, more widely applicable, and more easily understood rules.

I'm personally happy with the existing rules for grappling, but then I cut my teeth on 1st edition and so my tolerance for such things is naturally higher. To me the very fact that such comparitively clear, flexible, and straightforward rules as the grappling rules are seen as frustratingly complex and difficult to understand just shows how clear the rules have gotten elsewhere.

 

[Rothe]

...

Mind you, we stopped giving xp for treasure during our OD&D lifetime too (c.f. the 1,000,000gp gem mentioned above...)

Cheers

Same here, we ditched xp for gold, or I should say never used it. Which most likely largely eliminated the need to soak up gold in training costs. And we also gave xp for getting past monsters etc. by guile, stealth, parley etc., so the lack of gold xp was not as much of a problem in xp or motivation to do things besides kill. But again, we had no one trying to abuse such "open" interpretations so a bright-line rule kill=xp was never needed.

 

[painandgreed]

I'm not sure how much has changed between editions since as editions changed, so have I aged. Each edition I associate with an age group and I can't really tell if thing have changed because of the editions or age. The one thing I have noticed is less house rules. 1E and B/E had lots of house rules either because people didn't like the rules, they were self contradicting, or didn't exist. With 2E, most of the major changes to the system seemed to be inclusions of the most widely used house rules you would normally find with 1E. House rules still existed but the three ring binders became more unwritten rule clarifications. Even with 3E, I can remember thinking that some of the 2E house rules I had seen have been incorporated. Now there hardly seems to be any house rules in comparison with 1E. In 1E things like intitiative varied from group to group, in 3.5E, everybody seems to use the the same thing unless they use the hold over 3E rules.

 

[RFisher]

There are certainly changes in the way I play RPGs because I have grown, learned, changed, & am in a completely different station of life. In fact, I think those things are a big part of why I tend to prefer classic D&D today. If 3e had been around in the early 1990s, I'd probably have preferred it to classic D&D or AD&D. Classic D&D tends to be a better fit for how I play today.

Yes, clearest. And, most comprehensive (the fewest things which would come up in regular play for which there is not already a resolution).

Although it could be argued that being as clear & as comprehensive as 3e would be counter to goals of older editions. (At least the non-Advanced editions.) The game was meant to be a base set of guidelines that you built upon & changed. As Mike Mornard has said: They thought making up the rest & changing the rules was a huge part of the fun. Even Gygax himself didn't play strictly by-the-book. (Steve Marsh has said that AD&D looks more like Law Shick's oD&D house rules than Gary's.)

(Just as a for example that comes to mind, that intellectual nerds with runny noses had a better sense of smell than wolves. You don't know how happy I was to see the 'scent' ability, so I'd not have to fight that battle again.)

() Is that a 2e thing?

 

[Celebrim]

Although it could be argued that being as clear & as comprehensive as 3e would be counter to goals of older editions. (At least the non-Advanced editions.) The game was meant to be a base set of guidelines that you built upon & changed. As Mike Mornard has said: They thought making up the rest & changing the rules was a huge part of the fun.

Alot of my point is exploring the question of, "Do better rules necessarily make for a better game?" I think in theory that they can, but as I've been trying to show, better rules can have some unintended negative consequences depending on what you actually want from the game.

() Is that a 2e thing?

No, its a AD&D thing based on the chances of noticing the presence of an invisible creature. An owl or bat (with super-sensitive ears and used to hunting in total blindness) or a dog or wolf (with keen hearing and a sense of smell one thousand times keener than a humans), had according to the chart to determine if an invisible creature was detected by them a far less chance than a sickly nerd with a runny nose (because the table was primarily based on intelligence). To me, clearly this chart was intended for humanoids only, but invariably some PC would get all in my face because a dog was barking loudly while thier PC was sneaking around invisibly and demand that I follow that table.

I really loathe rules lawyers.

 

[an_idol_mind]

One item that was prominent in basic D&D but faded quickly through AD&D and 3e was the focus on the players learning as they went. The basic set I cut my teeth on included an introductory adventure to teach me how to play/DM, and then had an expanded version of that adventure for a larger group. The players were expected to be new to the game, and didn't have to read any rules beforehand; the DM was expected to explain the rules as they came up during play.

I believe AD&D 1st edition mentioned a style of play along those lines, but even then the players were expected to have a grasp on the rules found in the Player's Handbook. I don't recall 2nd edition or later products ever suggesting that the players didn't need to know the rules.

I've used the basic D&D model of throwing new players to the wolves without them being familiar with the rules for quite a while now. I introduced someone new to the game in this way not too long ago. Interestingly, one of the veteran players at that session -- someone I've gamed with for 7 years now -- admitted that she still hadn't gone through the rulebooks. I find this style of play makes things go pretty quickly, and it obviously cuts down on rules arguments. On the other hand, it means that if the DM doesn't know a rule, it gets overlooked entirely.

 

[howandwhy99]

One item that was prominent in basic D&D but faded quickly through AD&D and 3e was the focus on the players learning as they went.

I think this a very important element, if not the central aspect of the game. It isn't just the game rules learned however. (in our game, that isn't really necessary at all) Instead, it's the world in which the characters play. As long as the players know as much as the characters do about it, it will always be new and vibrant for them. Not to mention staying in character is much easier.

Learning allows one to bring fresh eyes to a situation. It sparks creativity that certainty cannot. So when exploring around nothing is ever "off limits". Everything is at least potentially doable rather than "the rules won't let me". Learning by acting out a hypothetical situation, in the character of a person you get to create, is so fundamental to FUN, I'm at a loss as to how it can happen without it. Knowing everything about the world means it's time to stop playing. (thankfully most worlds are endlessly changing).

 

[Reynard]

This is one I noticed when my regular 3.5 group met on Sunday for a long dungeon crawl session. I was aware of it, but as I am currently re-examining my 1E and 2E books, it really struck me.

The PCs (5th level) ended up having to "hold the pass" Spartan style against a horde (60 or so) mutant orcs (I used Grimlocks, but that's neither here nor there; they were all CR 1) and their mutant giant (Ettin) ruler. The PCs fought valiantly, burning through spells and hp as they should have been. Eventually, the PC goblin rogue was able to sneak around and make with the stabby versus the ettin, opening up the situation for the PCs to destroy the leader and cause the remaining orcs to flee back into their warrens. Overall, it wasa good battle, lots of fun with an epic feel. Despite the use of 3.5 specific abilities and rules, I think the battle would have run much the same way in any edition (I don't use the battleboard unless absolutely necessary). So, that's not what the difference was.

After the fight, the PCs had a chance to rest and the players asked, since they were deep in the bowls of the dungeon and still had a long way to go to get home, if I would calc XP. Sure! I have never been big on requiring training times, etc... so I went ahead and did it.

With no bonus XP for roleplaying or the like, the PCs each got @ 2500 xp. That's half a level. From one encounter. In 1e or 2e, each PC would have gotten somewhere around 350 XP for the same exact encounter and would require about 2x as much to go up a level. Wow.

 

[Dr Simon]

I've seen alot of tweaking of the rules in 3rd, but nothing like what was common in 1st. Nor have I the experience of whole sections of the rules being reutinely ignored by almost everyone, as they were in earlier editions. Nor do I have the experience of experienced players not knowing whole sections of the rules because they were too confusing to understand, to bothersome in actual play, and reutinely had been ignored in every group that they were in.

Amen to that - I've had my 1st Ed. DMG for, what, 25 years now (eek!), and it's only through discussions on this board that I've even noticed the existence of some rules that I must have just glossed over as too much fiddle to work with. A few years ago I played in a group who were still running 1st Ed (with a dash of 2nd), and there were a few moments where I thought that the DM was running some strange house-rule, then discovered later that it was an official DMG rule!

With no bonus XP for roleplaying or the like, the PCs each got @ 2500 xp. That's half a level. From one encounter. In 1e or 2e, each PC would have gotten somewhere around 350 XP for the same exact encounter and would require about 2x as much to go up a level. Wow.

I understand that the 3rd Ed designers deliberately changed things so that people got to play the higher levels, but the increased rate of advancement is a complaint by some. I've really noticed it at mid-level onwards (about 8 up) where players don't really get much time to learn all the new things that their characters can do before they're saddled with more options (poor them!). It's no wonder you get complaints about all the modifiers in 3rd Ed.

On the other hand, as a player of a 1st Ed fighter watching the XPs accrueing oh-so-slowly from 35000 to 70000 in that crucial gap between 6th and 7th level, whilst the thief and cleric hop up levels practically one per adventure, I can see why they did it.

The easy fix, of course, is to (a) divide award XP by some value or (b) multiply required xp by some value. Either will slow the rate of progression if that's what you want.

 

[S'mon]

For 3e we divide XP by 2, giving advancement rate about 1/6 sessions.

For C&C and B/X D&D I generally don't give treasure XP per se, but will give up to x5 or even x10 regular monster XP; x10 if there's a major goal achieved at the same time. This gives similar advancement to 3e at 1/2 XP (1/6 sessions) at low level, slower later.