D&D General D&D's Utter Dominance Is Good or Bad Because...

[Thomas Shey]

Cute. Apparently politeness is relative.

It was somewhat snarky, but sincere. Seriously, modern incarnations of D&D do not appear to have made big changes in the sense I'm talking. Probably the biggest thing they've ever done is the changes I understand in the modern magic system, and even anything that radical took until D&D 4e, and that was, what, 33 years after the origin of the game? That's not the sign of an adventurous design process.

 

[Reynard]

It was somewhat snarky, but sincere. Seriously, modern incarnations of D&D do not appear to have made big changes in the sense I'm talking. Probably the biggest thing they've ever done is the changes I understand in the modern magic system, and even anything that radical took until D&D 4e, and that was, what, 33 years after the origin of the game? That's not the sign of an adventurous design process.

You don't think the 2E to 3E shift qualifies as "big mechanical changes?"

 

[Thomas Shey]

You are positing that the 2E to 3E jump was not a big change?

Odd.

Its a question of what counts. The addition of feats as a general tool, and the full integration of skills was noticeable--but note those are changes of addition; there was no significant change in any of the already extent core elements.

 

[Reynard]

Its a question of what counts. The addition of feats as a general tool, and the full integration of skills was noticeable--but note those are changes of addition; there was no significant change in any of the already extent core elements.

Thematically D&D is similar (although each individual game focuses on somewhat different things) but mechanically there is a huge difference between how those thematic elements are presented and utilized between 2E and 3E. To say otherwise is more than a little mind boggling.

 

[Imaro]

Its a question of what counts. The addition of feats as a general tool, and the full integration of skills was noticeable--but note those are changes of addition; there was no significant change in any of the already extent core elements.

Please give an example of a ttrpg that has made significant changes from one edition to another? I'm really just trying to understand what would be considered a "significant" change...

 

[Thomas Shey]

Thematically D&D is similar (although each individual game focuses on somewhat different things) but mechanically there is a huge difference between how those thematic elements are presented and utilized between 2E and 3E. To say otherwise is more than a little mind boggling.

Its a question of what's important. To me, it still looked very recognizably the same game with the same mechanical quirks in general as OD&D, and there was a heck of a bigger gap between those two and 2e. It was a better realized version with more character distinction possible, but that's not the same thing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Please give an example of a ttrpg that has made significant changes from one edition to another? I'm really just trying to understand what would be considered a "significant" change...

As I noted, not many have. One that comes to mind here, however, is when Shadowrun went (it later had both of these as options, having shifted back to the original as the default) from its priority system to individual component buys in character generation. This not only made a pretty dramatic difference in the kind of characters you could end up with, it was, shall we say, not very well received in some circles.

The only other one that comes immediately to mind was the change between Mutants and Masterminds 1e and 2e, where again a number of things that were clamped together into power groups were broken out (you could make an argument either way with 2e to 3e, where, while there were less strong changes on the whole, they changed not only the attribute set, but how it was expressed).

Naturally, like most such things you can make individual arguments about what is and isn't "significant". But I contrast it with games where often you could play a later version coming from earlier versions and make minimal errors (though in some cases underutilizing available options); this would have been true with someone going from playing RuneQuest 1 to RQ3, or someone hopping from the 4th Edition of the Hero System to the 6th.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Its a question of what counts. The addition of feats as a general tool, and the full integration of skills was noticeable--but note those are changes of addition; there was no significant change in any of the already extent core elements.

Yeah, it's a question of what counts, and clearly your view of what counts as a significant change is not universally shared.

 

[Campbell]

Sure, there have been a substantial number of changes to D&D over the years but we're talking about over the course of 50 years. That's a lot of years.

Take a look at something like Shadowrun, Vampire, Exalted or Legend of the Five Rings over a 20-year timespan and you will see a much more rapid rate of change.

 

[Oofta]

You are positing that the 2E to 3E jump was not a big change?

Odd.

They changed the math around, but the base concepts were pretty much the same. Some of it depends of course on what supplements you used, the Skills and Powers book for example was almost a 2.5 version.