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<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5284366" data-attributes="member: 80487">It usually makes no great difference to me which TSR-D&amp;D edition someone had in mind. The differences that would trip me up tend to be on the other side of the &quot;black box&quot;, in rules that have to do with how material in a scenario is interpreted in more mechanical detail, rather than in &quot;stat blocks&quot; (which can be literally identical).With 3e, differences that at first may be quite subtle tend to create an increasing divergence at higher levels. It can be quite misleading to assume that &quot;an orc&quot; or &quot;a 12th-level wizard&quot; has quite the same position in the scheme of things. Neither simple swapping-in of something by that name from the old game, nor naive &quot;conversion&quot; of numerical factors, is likely to remain satisfactory in terms either of &quot;balance&quot; or of &quot;feel&quot;.It can come down very much to a &quot;port&quot; from scratch, offering little if any advantage over starting with something called something quite other than &quot;D&amp;D&quot;. The amount of space taken up with lists of 3e-specific game jargon can seriously impact what is left for more useful material. I got thoroughly disgusted with this effect when I bought a Goodman Games hardbound collection. Some Necromancer Games products, on the other hand, have given me pretty decent value for money.With 4e, so many basic assumptions are so different that the more something is meaningfully a 4e product, the less I can get out of it. What would fill an hour or more in 4e might take 10 minutes or less in my game. What is next to irrelevant in 4e might be of prime importance in my game, while an &quot;encounter&quot; central to the 4e game simply does not happen.The closer material is to plain fantastical fiction, the more widely applicable it is. A description of some weird &quot;plane of the multiverse&quot;, or the customs and affairs of a strange city, or legendary phenomena of a wilderness region, can be quite handy.Really, I tend to get most use from material that has no direct connection whatsoever to fantasy gaming, or even to genre-fantasy fiction. There is inspiration to be found in such diverse works as Richard Burton's The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night; Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities; Jorge Luis Borges' A Universal History of Infamy and The Garden of Forking Paths; and Louis L'Amour's The Walking Drum.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 5284366, member: 80487"] It usually makes no great difference to me which TSR-D&D edition someone had in mind. The differences that would trip me up tend to be on the other side of the "black box", in rules that have to do with how material in a scenario is interpreted in more mechanical detail, rather than in "stat blocks" (which can be literally identical). With 3e, differences that at first may be quite subtle tend to create an increasing divergence at higher levels. It can be quite misleading to assume that "an orc" or "a 12th-level wizard" has quite the same position in the scheme of things. Neither simple swapping-in of something by that name from the old game, nor naive "conversion" of numerical factors, is likely to remain satisfactory in terms either of "balance" or of "feel". It can come down very much to a "port" from scratch, offering little if any advantage over starting with something called something quite other than "D&D". The amount of space taken up with lists of 3e-specific game jargon can seriously impact what is left for more useful material. I got thoroughly disgusted with this effect when I bought a Goodman Games hardbound collection. Some Necromancer Games products, on the other hand, have given me pretty decent value for money. With 4e, so many basic assumptions are so different that the more something is meaningfully a 4e product, the less I can get out of it. What would fill an hour or more in 4e might take 10 minutes or less in my game. What is next to irrelevant in 4e might be of prime importance in my game, while an "encounter" central to the 4e game simply does not happen. The closer material is to plain fantastical fiction, the more widely applicable it is. A description of some weird "plane of the multiverse", or the customs and affairs of a strange city, or legendary phenomena of a wilderness region, can be quite handy. Really, I tend to get most use from material that has no direct connection whatsoever to fantasy gaming, or even to genre-fantasy fiction. There is inspiration to be found in such diverse works as Richard Burton's [I]The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night[/I]; Italo Calvino's [I]Invisible Cities[/I]; Jorge Luis Borges' [I]A Universal History of Infamy[/I] and [I]The Garden of Forking Paths[/I]; and Louis L'Amour's [I]The Walking Drum[/I]. [/QUOTE]

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