D&D SHOULD NOT have a defined atmosphere/style *Semi Rant*

[molonel]

I'd just like to point out that my beard, when I deign to grow it, comes in quite grey, and I hated 1e with a passion.

My beard is also quite gray. I loved 1e, but bailed after 2e came out.

 

[Akrasia]

Except that all of your arguments concerning the flavor of 1e are driven by the unbalanced nature of the rule set. I'm not making this stuff up, I'm merely pointing out the natural conclusions one must draw based upon what you have said.
...

You have a strange habit of reading into my posts things that I do not actually state. I'm not sure why you do this. It strikes me as sadly immature.

...
I know what you have said about your experience. That's enough to draw conclusions...

Then you've drawn the wrong conclusions, or have read things into my comments that I didn't actually write.

I will try to be clear on this: when I played 1e AD&D (years ago, and more recently by PbP), I did not experience the 'wildly unbalanced' features that you continually harp on about. Maybe this was because of the players with whom I gamed. In any case, the 'balance' issues that disturb you so badly did not affect my enjoyment of the game. People played a fighter or ranger because they wanted to -- not in order to exploit certain rules and advantages.

Instead, I remember a certain style of play. Indeed, a style of play I continue to experience to this day, with 3e (my two campaigns), C&C (my last campaign), and WFRP (hopefully my next campaign).

Apparently not, since the "flavor based" arguments you make later in the exact same post go back to the mechanical issues related to CR. You don't even understand what your arguments are at this point....

Ummm... the only 'flavour' point I made that arguably went back to CR was the magic item issue. But this is rather trivial. I dislike the CR system and the ubiquitious magic items. I also dislike many other features of 3e -- both in terms of its look and flavour, and in terms of its mechanics. But I can change much of it if I want to.

All this I noted in my earlier posts.

Complainint about dungeonpunk art is minor, so minor that it is trivial and silly to do so. I did.
...

I disagree. For some people the art and look of a product has a definite impact on their enjoyment of that product.

Again, you make the mistake of supposing that your perspective is universal. I am sorry to tell you that it is not.

... Caveats that you don't seem to be able to connect the dots between....

More amusing arrogance.

I connected the dots just fine. What I continue to find mysterious is why you can't understand the notion that people have different subjective responses to certain things.

...
You mean, my experience with the "old school" elements of the system based upon actual game play in recent years, possession of the actual books and adventures in question, and the perspective of having played the system at two different points in my life? You can look back through rose-colored glasses all you want about 1e, but it doesn't change the fact that what you are remembering isn't the system as it was. Based on your comments and assertions concerning what you regard as "old school", you are remembering the system as you think it was pumped up with nostalgia...

I think you're going into 'arrogance overload' here.

(I did play recently in a PbP 1e campaign, btw. I also have many of my 1e AD&D and B/X D&D modules with me, and recent ran two in my last campaign).

Really, if you want to know what I mean by the '1e AD&D flavour', I strongly recommend you look at the Goodman 'Dungeon Crawl' classics, or some of Necromancer's stuff -- especially the 'Wilderlands' products. They sum up what AD&D flavour is pretty well, IMO.
And those products are all designed for 3e -- which shows that 'flavour' (at least what I understand 1e flavour to be) can be distinguished from 'rules'. Just go to their websites and look around.

Or 1e AD&D modules like U1-3, UK1-6, G1-3, D1-3, and B/X modules like B10, X1-5, and so forth. I don't see why one couldn't run those modules with 3e -- or GURPS for that matter. (Although in both cases a lot of translation work would be needed.)

Your "perspective" is flawed by the fact that your factual basis is wanting. You state that "3e is different from 1e in this regard", when it isn't. ....

Rubbish. You're imagining things here.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I think it is primarily a fear on my part on the amount of supported material that a 3rd Party Publisher can provide for their game system vs. the amount of material that WotC can dish out.

That's the hazard of being in the minority.

 

[Kain Forestwalker]

Ok, I'm kinda new here so, please don't rip me a new one. I'm am 22, I started playing D&D about 2 years ago, and being that my gaming group was made up of me, my very best friend, and a bunch of guys that played 1e and 2e from pretty much the dawn of D&D, we started off playing 2'nd ed and then after a few months switched to 3/3.5. And to tell the truth, It was not a huge step. I do like 3/3.5 a little bit better, however. But you were talking about atmosphere. I think that D&D has all the atmosphere you could ask for, I mean you could play a world where viking like people are fighting an war with a culture that is very African like. I mean the storyline can go anywhere: horrors form space, dragons, no dragons, good natured orcs, a world with no elves, anything. I do feel that the 1e/2e were "powergameable". Most of the other gamers I play with will tell old "war stories", they fought and defeated gods, some that became gods themselves, however most even to this day stay away from psionics because "it was too unbalenced", or feel the class and/or race kits were also, this all way before 3'rd ed. I do also feel that storyline and "good" RPing should come before all else. Thank you.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Ok, I'm kinda new here so, please don't rip me a new one.

Hey, welcome to the boards!

And don't worry, here on ENWorld, all new ones come pre-ripped!

 

[Qlippoth]

I'm not doubting it, what I'm doubting is that unless you are forcing people to participate in a poll, aren't all polls voluntary? Even if as in a random sample you are asking a computer list of random people, they still have the choice of participating. So, if only opinionated people are going to answer an on line poll open to all, why does a random sample poll not have that same problem?

I'll try my hand; I work in market research (where do you think the wings on my avatar come from? ).

The thorny issue here is: if we want a remotely-useful estimate of what edition the greater population of EN World members (both posters and lurkers) prefer, we need to make sure each EN World member has the same likelihood to be asked the question. The previously-mentioned poll indeed was available to anyone who logged on to EN World, saw the topic name listed, clicked on the topic, read the question, and opted to answer. Those responses may very well be a good barometer of the opinions of those who jumped those seemingly small hurdles, but they likely don't represent those of the following:

1. Anyone who hadn't logged on to EN World while the thread was "hot";
2. Anyone who logged on but, for whatever reason (multitasking at work, pressed for time at home, carrying pumpkins for the SO, etc.), didn't see the poll thread while they surfed EN World;
3. Anyone who saw the poll thread listed but chose to ignore it;
4. Anyone who clicked on the poll thread who didn't read the question;
5. Anyone who read the question, then went off to other threads; &
6. Anyone who read the question, didn't vote, and instead "Viewed Results".

Now (assuming everyone, myself included, is still awake), we see that the poll likely ignores the opinions of those in the above 6 categories. Can we still say that whatever % split the poll achieves is representative of all EN World members? Not really. We don't know what magnificent combination of random events leads a specific individual poster to vote on an EN World poll.

But (if I may at last approach your question), yes, all polls (except those administered at gunpoint) have that same problem. The issue here is one of methodology: a sample is not random if the pollster isn't choosing who gets asked the question.

If I somehow had the ability to choose a proportionate, random sample taken from the population of all EN Worlders, odds are I'd get a lot of "non-respondents": people who no longer visit EN World; people who visit EN World but don't like receiving unsolicited requests (or "spam"); people who will nonetheless read the question but prefer not to respond; etc. Randomizing the process won't guarantee results--I may very well not get enough of a response from the sample to make an estimate about anything--but it does attempt to account for the (undeniable) variability in EN World's population.

I think I'll have another beer now.

 

[francisca]

Most of the people I know who enjoy 3e enjoy the game in a different manner than how they first enjoyed playing roleplaying games...as they've matured, the way they enjoy their hobby has matured. For others -- it seems they want the game to replicate the feel of being 12 years old and sitting around a comfortable basement rolling some dice with some buddies on a lazy saturday afternoon. That's a tall order for any set of rules.

And there are greybeards like me, who still like to run/play 1e and B/X, but DO NOT run games like we did in middle school. If you were to go to my private message board and read the PBP stuff, I don't think you'd be able to tell the in character dialog for the 1e game from the 3e game. From a plot and flavor perspective, my current 1e game has more in common with the 3e game I was running 2 years ago than my 15th fighter slogging thrugh B2 back in 1983.

I have no doubt that there are old farts still running the old version because they never got a chance to make Tiamat their bitch the first time around in the 80s. But that isn't representative of all of us who still run the old versions. Please find a narrower brush.

 

[Umbran]

Akrasia and Storm Raven, I hope you don't mind this - I suggest you both stop and breathe for a little while. After that, if you choose to continue, out of respect for others who wish to continue civil discussion, you should both probably do two things -

1) Refrain from attributing mental or psychologcial states (like arrogance) to other posters.

2) Make sure that you can find direct quotes to back you up whenever possible.

 

[Umbran]

But (if I may at last approach your question), yes, all polls (except those administered at gunpoint) have that same problem. The issue here is one of methodology: a sample is not random if the pollster isn't choosing who gets asked the question.

To be more accurate, the issue isn't actually methodology - the issue is the ability to estimate error. A pollster who chooses who gets asked has at least a snowball's chance in Hades of being able to get at least a vague estimate on the error introduced by the polling method. Technically, what we lack is the ability to estimate a confidence level in the results of a volunteer poll. Without a confidence level, we cannot have confidence in the results, you see.

The problem isn't that the volunteer poll isn't random. The problem is that we don't know how random it is. We can guess at reasons why it might not be random, but if we actually knew, we could use that information to correct the results.

 

[Piratecat]

Akrasia and Storm Raven, time to give it a rest, please. This thread isn't about your disagreement, so I'd appreciate it if you agree to disagree and quit sniping at one another.

Thank you! Please email me if this is somehow a problem.