Discontinuity: 3e and D&D

[Zappo]

(And don't give me any of that '3e still has magic users and elves and dungeons..." rubbish. So did/do a lot of other fantasy roleplaying games!)

Well... and beholders, illithids, magic missiles, cones of cold, turn undead, bags of devouring and gauntlets of ogre strength? And classes, levels, HP, AC, saving throws and getting XP by killing things? Alignments? How many other games have rust monsters? I say that 3E is still D&D by a wide margin.

 

[Quasqueton]

Let's see: the I charge up to the orc and attack with my sword; roll d20, add in my bonuses, compare to the orc's AC; roll d8, add in my bonuses, remove damage from orc's hit points; orc falls dead; loot corpse; get xp.

Take D&D3, remove skills and feats, and you have the same bare bones that you can find in any other edition of D&D. I'm rather amazed at how quickly some people are to point out the differences in the systems. I find comfort and enjoyment in the vast similarities.

3e (and the 'd20' system more generally) is a fundamentally different game from any pre-3 version of D&D (including 'brown booklet' OD&D, Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert D&D, Gygax OAD&D, Mentzer B/E/C/M/I D&D, Allston RC D&D, and 2e AD&D).

Actually, D&D3 is a fundamentally similar game to any earlier edition. D&D3 is no *more* different from AD&D and B/ED&D than AD&D is different from B/ED&D. In fact, D&D3 includes most of the best parts of all the previous editions, and removes most of the worst parts.

So many stories told on this forum (or on the Story Hour forum, by god) can pass for any edition of the game. Its only when you look down at the details of the mechanics do you see the differences.

Quasqueton

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

In a recent thread on how to introduce 3e D&D to a person familiar only with an earlier edition, many posters recommended that it would be best to advise this person to approach 3e simply as a new game. This struck me as eminently sensible advice. Yet, much to my surprise, many people were upset by this sage counsel -- they thought that it implied that 3e was 'not D&D'.

Leaving aside the fact that this perceived 'insult' was nonexistent,

I really, really like your version of revisionist history. Can I borrow some of whatever crack-based derivative you were smoking when you posted this?

The insult was not when people said, "You know, it's a pretty different game. Try and forget most of the rules you remember from 2nd Edition." That's fine - and, I agree, eminently sensible advice. Holding on to 2nd Ed and earlier rules will only get you in trouble.

The insult is when that advice is taken further. Instead of, "Forget your old rules, remember your old flavor," several posters insisted "It ain't D&D no more." In other words, "Sorry, guys, you may *say* that you're playing D&D, but you aren't. You're lying to yourselves. We, your superiors, are in fact playing the only true D&D game. All else is but pale imitation."

In other words, you are simply incorrect. This is an edition war thread, you're just trying to hide it better than most people would.

Feats, skills and AoO were in previous editions?

2nd Edition Skills and Powers, 2nd Edition Non-Weapon Proficiencies, etc. They weren't *exactly* 3E skills and feats, but they share many similarities.

 

[rogueattorney]

Trying to state fact here without any value judgments...

1e and 3e have two completely different design premises with regard to two of the fundamental aspects of the game.

Character construction: In 1e (talking the core rules here, not the proto 2e stuff that started coming out in 1985) almost all of a character's powers and abilities were tied to its class and race. Archetypes were very important. Choosing the class/race of the character was essentially the end-point of character construction. With 3e, class and race are the starting points of character construction. They are essentially templates which guide the choice of skills, feats, and spells. 1e is a very hard and true class system, and 3e is essentially a skill system filtered through a class mechanism.

Combat: 1e was, at its heart an abstract system. 3e is, at its heart a tactical system. Yes, 1e mucks up its purely abstract essence with weapon speeds and the weapon v. armor class chart. However, the one minute round where each die roll represents a whole series of feints, thrusts, parries, etc., is the consumate example of abstract.

I think those two aspects are the two biggest differences between the rulesets, and the biggest reasons for differences in play.

R.A.

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

Hi ya-

Having played 3.x on and off for the last two years, it is not D&D, it uses D&D nomenclatures, but thats as close to D&D this current version gets. In 1E AD&D, combats took maybe 10 to 20 minutes, In 3.x as the characters reach higher level's, I'm clocking in around 1 to 2 hour combat sessions, Why? Because I as the DM need to challange 6 High level characters (10th level to 12 th level) with good and memerable encounters:

"Ya chuck, that Chain Devil really sucked sewer water, those flying chains were killing us and he must have had a couple of levels of Rogue for those initiel sneak attacks"

So it is a ton of work for the DM to prepare an adventure so as to make each and every encounter unique. Remember, we as DM's are there to challange and give good account of ourselves at the game.

All in all, 3.x is not a bad system, complicated as all hell though! D&D starts to get really, really complicated as you expand beyond the three core books into new areas of 3.x what with races books, complete books and so on.

Well thats my 2 marks.

scott

 

[SteveC]

Now that I have your attention...

Okay, the title of this thread was a bit provocative. I actually don't think that there is any 'Platonic Form' of D&D that has not been realised by the 3e version. And legally, "Dungeons and Dragons" is whatever game the owners of the name happen to decide it is....

But anyway...

In a recent thread on how to introduce 3e D&D to a person familiar only with an earlier edition, many posters recommended that it would be best to advise this person to approach 3e simply as a new game. This struck me as eminently sensible advice. Yet, much to my surprise, many people were upset by this sage counsel -- they thought that it implied that 3e was 'not D&D'.

Leaving aside the fact that this perceived 'insult' was nonexistent, I think that this advice was entirely correct -- 3e (and the 'd20' system more generally) is a fundamentally different game from any pre-3 version of D&D (including 'brown booklet' OD&D, Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert D&D, Gygax OAD&D, Mentzer B/E/C/M/I D&D, Allston RC D&D, and 2e AD&D). Indeed, the skill system of 3e appears to have been lifted wholesale from Rolemaster (replace d100 with d20 and you have 3e skill system), and IME running a 3e game feels much more like running a (2e) Rolemaster game than a RC D&D game.

That quibble aside, the tactical combat system of 3e, the introduction of feats, the changes to multiclassing, etc., all manifestly demonstrate radical breaks from earlier versions of D&D.

In short, I think it is entirely appropriate -- and, more importantly, intellectually honest -- to point out that 3e D&D is a fundamentally different game from earlier versions of D&D. It is a different game -- plain and simple. This is not necessarily a bad thing -- obviously lots of people (including most people who post here) prefer 3e over earlier versions of D&D. But to suggest otherwise is simply incorrect.

(And don't give me any of that '3e still has magic users and elves and dungeons..." rubbish. So did/do a lot of other fantasy roleplaying games!)

This is the truth. Accept it.

(Finally, this is not an 'editions war' claim. I happen to like RC D&D more than 3e, but I would take 3e over 2e any day... My point is an empirical one, not a normative one.)

I guess I'm going to have to fundamentally disagree with this premise. 3E/3/5E is very definitely the same game as previous editions, but it's a newer, well, it's a newer edition. Let's take a look at what 3E has:

Classes
Levels
Alignments
Fire and Forget Magic
Armor Class
Hit Points
9 levels of spells
Saving Throws
6 attributes: strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution, charisma...even if it orders them differently
All the same old monsters. Heck it even has the flail snail
Magic Missile
Fireball
Ressurection
...
The point is I could go on forever with the comparisons. This doesn't mean the system doesn't have any differences from previous editions, far from it. It happens to look a lot like the house rules that I and many other players were using years ago.

If you put the 3E/3.5E rules in a time machine and sent them back to 1985 when I was gaming in highschool, I could have picked them up in about 2 seconds.

So to not get caught up in a "yes it is," "no it isn't," discussion let me propose this: tell me what is the key to earlier editions of D&D that made all of them D&D that has been changed in this edition?

 

[teitan]

Cue Diaglo... (Edit: Bah!)

I completely agree. And the fact that it is a totally different game is the sole reason why I now play D&D again.

Amen brutha, Amen.

J

 

[Quasqueton]

Because I as the DM need to challange 6 High level characters (10th level to 12 th level) with good and memerable encounters:

"Ya chuck, that Chain Devil really sucked sewer water, those flying chains were killing us and he must have had a couple of levels of Rogue for those initiel sneak attacks"

So it is a ton of work for the DM to prepare an adventure so as to make each and every encounter unique. Remember, we as DM's are there to challange and give good account of ourselves at the game.

D&D3 forced you to be a better DM? That bastard!

Yeah, I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to go back to earlier editions of the game so you don't have to make memorable encounters, and you could run all combats as "I attack, he attacks".

Quasqueton

 

[Gentlegamer]

Saying that d20 Fantasy is a different game from AD&D is no judgement on it. AD&D was a different game than D&D: different systems and premises.

 

[Kanegrundar]

Hi ya-

Having played 3.x on and off for the last two years, it is not D&D, it uses D&D nomenclatures, but thats as close to D&D this current version gets. In 1E AD&D, combats took maybe 10 to 20 minutes, In 3.x as the characters reach higher level's, I'm clocking in around 1 to 2 hour combat sessions, Why? Because I as the DM need to challange 6 High level characters (10th level to 12 th level) with good and memerable encounters:

"Ya chuck, that Chain Devil really sucked sewer water, those flying chains were killing us and he must have had a couple of levels of Rogue for those initiel sneak attacks"

So it is a ton of work for the DM to prepare an adventure so as to make each and every encounter unique. Remember, we as DM's are there to challange and give good account of ourselves at the game.

All in all, 3.x is not a bad system, complicated as all hell though! D&D starts to get really, really complicated as you expand beyond the three core books into new areas of 3.x what with races books, complete books and so on.

Well thats my 2 marks.

scott

You could just run the game with a different set of monsters suitable to the Level of the party without having to advance monsters either by Hit Dice or with classes. It would be easier and with enough creativity the encounters could be just as memorable...they just may not make quite as much sense.

The complexity of the system is what you make of it. You don't *have* to use all the options in any system. I like the amount of options that 3.5 gives me, but I don't use all of them. It makes it a lot easier to throw something surprising and different at my players each and every session.

Kane