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<blockquote data-quote="mhacdebhandia" data-source="post: 2735401" data-attributes="member: 18832">This argument is pretty weak. I'm none of the latter and I prefer Third Edition. As far as I'm concerned the &quot;charm&quot; of either edition of AD&amp;D is nonexistent, because I don't find contradictory hodgepodges of arbitrary rules charming.The fact that Third Edition is a big machine doesn't alter the fact that it's a big, elegant machine. That systemic elegance is far more appealing to me as a &quot;philosophical type&quot; of gamer because it means everything just works and I don't have to make it work by applying houserules and arbitrary judgement. Judgement which is arbitrary because neither version of AD&amp;D possessed any kind of systemic principles from which you could derive the &quot;proper&quot; solution to a problem; you can see Gary Gygax himself on these very forums admitting that First Edition included rules which he himself never used or thought were appropriate for the game, included merely to appeal to a certain kind of verisimilitude-obsessed gamer.Cases like this exist in both editions of AD&amp;D because neither were designed to be systemically coherent. This does not make them bad games - but it does mean that they cannot lay any claim to logical superiority, because their appeal relies on their mutability! Mutability and elegance are opposed values in game design - the more coherent and elegant a system is, the less room there exists for changes and messing around to suit an individual gaming group because this degrades coherence if not handled carefully.You can't compare AD&amp;D to Third Edition D&amp;D on this level. You can only compare them on the level of whether they do what you want them to do - and personally, I prefer to buy games which are complete systems when I buy them.I also like the world Third Edition assumes, because I'm not in the least bit interested in emulating fantasy fiction - I'm interested in playing a roleplaying game. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="mhacdebhandia, post: 2735401, member: 18832"] This argument is pretty weak. I'm none of the latter and I prefer Third Edition. As far as I'm concerned the "charm" of either edition of AD&D is nonexistent, because I don't find contradictory hodgepodges of arbitrary rules charming. The fact that Third Edition is a big machine doesn't alter the fact that it's a big, [b]elegant[/b] machine. That systemic elegance is far more appealing to me as a "philosophical type" of gamer because it means everything just works and I don't have to [b]make[/b] it work by applying houserules and arbitrary judgement. Judgement which is arbitrary because neither version of AD&D [b]possessed[/b] any kind of systemic principles from which you could derive the "proper" solution to a problem; you can see Gary Gygax himself on these very forums admitting that First Edition included rules which he himself never used or thought were appropriate for the game, included merely to appeal to a certain kind of verisimilitude-obsessed gamer. Cases like this exist in both editions of AD&D because neither were designed to be systemically coherent. [b]This does not make them bad games[/b] - but it does mean that they cannot lay any claim to logical superiority, because their appeal relies on their mutability! Mutability and elegance are opposed values in game design - the more coherent and elegant a system is, the less room there exists for changes and messing around to suit an individual gaming group because this degrades coherence if not handled carefully. You can't compare AD&D to Third Edition D&D on this level. You can only compare them on the level of whether they do what you want them to do - and personally, I prefer to buy games which are complete systems when I buy them. I also like the world Third Edition assumes, because I'm not in the least bit interested in emulating fantasy fiction - I'm interested in playing a roleplaying game. ;) [/QUOTE]

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