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Define "___-edition feel"?
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<blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1452593" data-attributes="member: 10201"><p>Um, that's the VW Beatle--the original is the Bug, the new is the Beatle. But we all knew what he meant.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, the Clark quote seems like as good of a place to hang my thoughts off of as any other. First of all, i'm mostly with Psion on this one: there is no one, distinct, feel to any of the editions, or, if there is, it often is missed by the players. I say this because i've played all 3 editions, with varying levels of supplements and houserules for each (including playing all 3 of them "by the book"), as well as a bit of OD&D (Basic through Companion levels, and read Masters and Immortals), and got distinct feels for each of them, and yet the feels i got from them don't seem to match what others are saying.</p><p></p><p>Part of this is probably that i'm judging the rules only. In twenty years of RPing, i've bought a grand total of 4 D&D scenarios [hell, i've probably got fewer than a score of scenarios for all of my 100+ RPGs combined], of which i've only ever read two of them, and only even considered running 1 of them (but i never quite figured out a good way to work it into the campaign)--the other was Tomb of Horrors, and i knew before i bought it that i'd never run it. I don't think i've ever played a commercial scenario (for any game system), either. Likewise, i'm not much of a prepackaged-setting person, at least where D&D is concerned. I fell in love with The Known World, and still want to complete a collection of the Gazeteers, but i never was particularly interested in gaming in it. The only setting i ever really bought over the years was SpellJammer, and even then i never bought any adventures or novels for it. Other than the FR bits that they crammed into mostly-non-FR supplements i wanted (such as the original Draconomicon), i really didn't buy setting-oriented stuff, and never read any novels or scenarios. So, for me, D&D was always about the rules. With that in mind:</p><p></p><p>AD&D1: This was what i started with. [well, mostly, i'd been introduced via the Basic Set, and tried to run a game with it, but it fell apart, and the first game i ran, as well as the first campaign i was in, were both AD&D.] By the time i started playing, the 6 core books were out, and that's the way it stayed for quite some time. To me, AD&D1 is characterized by a solid, reasonably-balanced, but not very versatile, core ruleset, upon which groups bolted the additions they wanted. These additions were a mixture of Dragon material, house rules, and 3rd-party add-ons [the original Arms Law, when it was still a D&D supplement, was one of the most popular around these here parts], and no two games i ever knew used the same set of rules. And, Gygax's posturing aside, no one ever questioned whether anyone's particular iteration was "D&D" or not. So, 1st ed, to me, is wild variability in rules [for both good and ill], stemming from a relatively simplistic core (essentially no mechanical support for RPing, skills outside of combat, and quite a few other areas), combined with *lots* of add-ons, most of which increased the complexity, though often less than they increased the options. The hardcovers that came out after the "core 6" further emphasized that feel, being mostly rules collections, often not really compatible with each other, often showing obvious evolution (the non-weapon proficiencies system from Oriental Adventures, through the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, to the Wilderness Survival Guide), and usually being themed (Unearthed Arcana being the notable exception).</p><p></p><p>AD&D2:AD&D 2nd ed was the era of "everybody uses the same rules" for me. From talking to other players, it sounds like my game, with a pretty significant set of house rules, was quite unusual--most groups i knew during 2nd ed's hayday ('89-'95, or so) pretty much played "by the book", including as many of the "Complete ..." handbooks as were out by then. If it was published by TSR, we used it, but not nearly as much inclusion of houserules, 3rd-party stuff (such as the Role-Aids line), or Dragon material. And by "we," i mean the various groups i knew about, not just my games. As for the feel of the rules themselves, what most lodged in my consciousness was how they differed from AD&D1, which can basically be summed up as much more RPing-oriented. The inclusion of the "Habitat/Society" and "Ecology" sections in every monster entry is probably the best example of this. But it's also the edition from which i remember the most spells that fit the "cool, but what would i ever do with it?" category--spells that make sense given the magic paradigm, and fit into a magical society, but have little-to-no use for adventuring. [To be clear, i *love* those spells--one of the things i miss most about D&D3E is all the spells that are useless in a typical dungeon or combat encounter.] Also, AD&D2 is for me a job half-done: it was masterfully cleaned up compared to AD&D1, with a lot more of the rules consistent with each other, but it still suffered from some rough bits (NWP being one of the worst) and inconsistencies (thief skills vs. tracking vs. NWPs). It also was better-presented, having about the same complexity as AD&D1, but seeming much less complex, and easier to grok.</p><p></p><p>Oh, i never played the Players' Option books, and only really read them years after i'd stopped playing D&D of any stripe. So i don't really have an opinion on that. Perhaps, if the first one to come out had been anything but PO: Combat & Tactics, i would've given them a look, and maybe used them. But the *last* place i wanted more complexity or options was combat, so i gave it a quick flip-through in the store, and then passed on it and never looked at anything else in the PO/DMO series.</p><p></p><p>D&D3E: (and presumably 3.5E, but i've only read it, not actually played it, so i might have missed any shift in feel) If i had to sum up D&D3E in two words, it'd be "video-gamey". Another way of putting it would be that it's much more mechanically focused. The two elements that most influence its feel for me are the complexity of the rules, and the game-ness of the rules. Moreso than previous editions, it feels very concerned about artifical constructs like balance, and thus you get lots of mechanics that favor balance over verisimillitude (the paladin pokemount being the most egregious example of this i can think of). It feels more like a computer game, with carefully-quantified options at every turn, and clear-and-present limitations on exactly what you can and can't do. And I know i'm probably gonna start a flamewar with this one, but core-book D&D3E is definitely the most complex of any of the editions (just looking at the core 2-3 books)--there's *way* more mechanical complexity to just about everything. Yes, it's got a unified underlying mechanic, but the sheer volume of detail is still much greater. It is also the most combat-oriented of the editions, with combat emphasized over just about everything else (look at monster descriptions, frex, or the distribution of feats--or the fact that wizards are way more combat-worthy in 3E than any previous edition). All of these things remind me more of Final Fantasy than of previous editions of D&D.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="woodelf, post: 1452593, member: 10201"] Um, that's the VW Beatle--the original is the Bug, the new is the Beatle. But we all knew what he meant. Anyway, the Clark quote seems like as good of a place to hang my thoughts off of as any other. First of all, i'm mostly with Psion on this one: there is no one, distinct, feel to any of the editions, or, if there is, it often is missed by the players. I say this because i've played all 3 editions, with varying levels of supplements and houserules for each (including playing all 3 of them "by the book"), as well as a bit of OD&D (Basic through Companion levels, and read Masters and Immortals), and got distinct feels for each of them, and yet the feels i got from them don't seem to match what others are saying. Part of this is probably that i'm judging the rules only. In twenty years of RPing, i've bought a grand total of 4 D&D scenarios [hell, i've probably got fewer than a score of scenarios for all of my 100+ RPGs combined], of which i've only ever read two of them, and only even considered running 1 of them (but i never quite figured out a good way to work it into the campaign)--the other was Tomb of Horrors, and i knew before i bought it that i'd never run it. I don't think i've ever played a commercial scenario (for any game system), either. Likewise, i'm not much of a prepackaged-setting person, at least where D&D is concerned. I fell in love with The Known World, and still want to complete a collection of the Gazeteers, but i never was particularly interested in gaming in it. The only setting i ever really bought over the years was SpellJammer, and even then i never bought any adventures or novels for it. Other than the FR bits that they crammed into mostly-non-FR supplements i wanted (such as the original Draconomicon), i really didn't buy setting-oriented stuff, and never read any novels or scenarios. So, for me, D&D was always about the rules. With that in mind: AD&D1: This was what i started with. [well, mostly, i'd been introduced via the Basic Set, and tried to run a game with it, but it fell apart, and the first game i ran, as well as the first campaign i was in, were both AD&D.] By the time i started playing, the 6 core books were out, and that's the way it stayed for quite some time. To me, AD&D1 is characterized by a solid, reasonably-balanced, but not very versatile, core ruleset, upon which groups bolted the additions they wanted. These additions were a mixture of Dragon material, house rules, and 3rd-party add-ons [the original Arms Law, when it was still a D&D supplement, was one of the most popular around these here parts], and no two games i ever knew used the same set of rules. And, Gygax's posturing aside, no one ever questioned whether anyone's particular iteration was "D&D" or not. So, 1st ed, to me, is wild variability in rules [for both good and ill], stemming from a relatively simplistic core (essentially no mechanical support for RPing, skills outside of combat, and quite a few other areas), combined with *lots* of add-ons, most of which increased the complexity, though often less than they increased the options. The hardcovers that came out after the "core 6" further emphasized that feel, being mostly rules collections, often not really compatible with each other, often showing obvious evolution (the non-weapon proficiencies system from Oriental Adventures, through the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, to the Wilderness Survival Guide), and usually being themed (Unearthed Arcana being the notable exception). AD&D2:AD&D 2nd ed was the era of "everybody uses the same rules" for me. From talking to other players, it sounds like my game, with a pretty significant set of house rules, was quite unusual--most groups i knew during 2nd ed's hayday ('89-'95, or so) pretty much played "by the book", including as many of the "Complete ..." handbooks as were out by then. If it was published by TSR, we used it, but not nearly as much inclusion of houserules, 3rd-party stuff (such as the Role-Aids line), or Dragon material. And by "we," i mean the various groups i knew about, not just my games. As for the feel of the rules themselves, what most lodged in my consciousness was how they differed from AD&D1, which can basically be summed up as much more RPing-oriented. The inclusion of the "Habitat/Society" and "Ecology" sections in every monster entry is probably the best example of this. But it's also the edition from which i remember the most spells that fit the "cool, but what would i ever do with it?" category--spells that make sense given the magic paradigm, and fit into a magical society, but have little-to-no use for adventuring. [To be clear, i *love* those spells--one of the things i miss most about D&D3E is all the spells that are useless in a typical dungeon or combat encounter.] Also, AD&D2 is for me a job half-done: it was masterfully cleaned up compared to AD&D1, with a lot more of the rules consistent with each other, but it still suffered from some rough bits (NWP being one of the worst) and inconsistencies (thief skills vs. tracking vs. NWPs). It also was better-presented, having about the same complexity as AD&D1, but seeming much less complex, and easier to grok. Oh, i never played the Players' Option books, and only really read them years after i'd stopped playing D&D of any stripe. So i don't really have an opinion on that. Perhaps, if the first one to come out had been anything but PO: Combat & Tactics, i would've given them a look, and maybe used them. But the *last* place i wanted more complexity or options was combat, so i gave it a quick flip-through in the store, and then passed on it and never looked at anything else in the PO/DMO series. D&D3E: (and presumably 3.5E, but i've only read it, not actually played it, so i might have missed any shift in feel) If i had to sum up D&D3E in two words, it'd be "video-gamey". Another way of putting it would be that it's much more mechanically focused. The two elements that most influence its feel for me are the complexity of the rules, and the game-ness of the rules. Moreso than previous editions, it feels very concerned about artifical constructs like balance, and thus you get lots of mechanics that favor balance over verisimillitude (the paladin pokemount being the most egregious example of this i can think of). It feels more like a computer game, with carefully-quantified options at every turn, and clear-and-present limitations on exactly what you can and can't do. And I know i'm probably gonna start a flamewar with this one, but core-book D&D3E is definitely the most complex of any of the editions (just looking at the core 2-3 books)--there's *way* more mechanical complexity to just about everything. Yes, it's got a unified underlying mechanic, but the sheer volume of detail is still much greater. It is also the most combat-oriented of the editions, with combat emphasized over just about everything else (look at monster descriptions, frex, or the distribution of feats--or the fact that wizards are way more combat-worthy in 3E than any previous edition). All of these things remind me more of Final Fantasy than of previous editions of D&D. [/QUOTE]
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