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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4672165" data-attributes="member: 5143">I think it might be inevitable.  The thread topic is essentially "4e does things worse than 3e.  Agree or disagree without saying bad things about the other edition".  It's nearly impossible.  It's heavily opinion based, as you'll see in my answers.  Particularly when you are choosing areas to discuss that the designers(and therefore a lot of fans) feel they made an improvement.I think all styles/themes can be covered in all editions.  Here's my basic take on the advantages and disadvantages of each:1e/2e:There isn't much difference in these editions in terms of what you can do with them, so I'll cover them together.-There aren't a lot of rules so the effectiveness of the combat system is mostly based on the skill of the DM.  Any style that involves tactical battles with a lot of different options was up to the DM to tweak into the system.-There isn't much of a skill system, so anything skill based depend mostly on the DM.  This means whether you succeed on something was mostly based on the ability of the players to convince their DM they could do something.-Flavorful descriptions of spells and abilities mean lots of open ended possibilities for creativity and just as many opportunities for confusion, disagreements, and abuse.-The combat system favored very few battles per day as it was deadly, with very few ways to regain hitpoints.  Any style that involves prolonged fighting against many encounters doesn't work well.3e:-Very codified rules for everything, suggesting that without rules you were unable to do something.  Styles that don't have feats and spells created to support them don't work very well.-Not very good for skill based games as many classes didn't have enough skill points to even participate.  Large skill list made it even harder with the skill points given.  Skills became quickly useless at the higher levels when they were completely replaced by spells.4e:-Same problem in terms of very codified rules as 3e, only made worse by becoming even more codified and the number of options reduced.-Sections of the game encouraged the breaking of the rules and freeform options, which somewhat fixes the codified rules problem while introducing back the "heavily dependent on the DM" problem from 1e/2e.-Better at skill based games in that nearly everyone can contribute and there are no easy to use, free spells that can override skills.  However, the limited number of skills and certain classes still not having enough to contribute in a heavily skill based campaign means its still only good for any campaign with at least a combat every 8 hours of play.Depends on preference and exactly HOW non-combat it was.My preference: 1e/2e if I wanted to rely heavily on player skill, 4e if I wanted it to be a test of skill checks.  3e has too many rules and too many "I win" spells to make a game like this interesting.If it was to involve less than 1 combat every 8 hours, I wouldn't use D&D.My preference: 4e.  Easy to figure out how many combats against zombies would drain them of healing surges; no teleport spells, long term invisibility, and the like ruining the effect of the "oppressive horde we can't escape from" feeling, and minions being perfect for this sort of game.I'm not sure I'd use D&D for this.  It is based around party based fighting.  The rules in all versions work poorly when the number of individuals fighting goes over 20.It might be possible to tweak some rules on to any edition.  If I had to pick an edition, however, I'd use 1e/2e.  Mostly because it would be possible to run a combat against 50 people without it taking hours.No edition does this that well.  If I was forced to pick an edition, I'd use 4e, because I could form an entire party of Martial characters and not need to to houserule healing.If I was making modifications to the system, probably I'd use 1e/2e with some tweaks on the way spellcasting worked in order to fit the campaign.Any edition really.  This one doesn't have a preference for rules, it's all tone.D&D is bad for this because most players assume they are going to kick butt instead of feeling powerless to stop anything.  I'm probably biased in that I'm not a big fan of running away from scary things for 5 hours and eventually dying as a fun time.I'm not sure this counts as a theme.  Even in the Dark Sun games I played in, they were not about surviving for the most part.  They were still about killing monsters and taking their stuff...with a desert.I guess I'd need some clarification about what this theme entails.  Is it just a game where you make a lot of survival checks and have to remember to write water on your character sheet?I'd probably choose 4e off the top of my head.  Healing surges are great for keeping track of things like starvation and dehydration if you use them as an all-purpose "How well am I feeling?" and restrict their recovery until you get food and water.Well, pot-based fantasy requires a lot of munchies nearby and isn't really restricted to an edition.  Besides, the rules get kind of forgotten after a while anyways.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />As for plot-based fantasy, I'd go with 4e.  Predictable math, no powers that let the players derail the plot, accurate monster and trap power levels, and healing surges all contribute to being able to predict the pace and the path of the PCs very accurately.  This enables you to plan epic stories without being worried that all your plans will go to waste.</blockquote>

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