Games with "terrible" follow-up editions

[Aldarc]

Apart from things that have already been mentioned:

• 7th Sea, 2nd edition

7th Sea 2E pretty much killed any further interest in playing 7th Sea at all, whether 1E or 2E, among my prior gaming group in Austria. I backed it for access to the entire catalogue of 1E pdfs, but the 2E books have basically been gathering dust.

 

[James Gasik]

Made it into Warcraft, the table top edition. It was the first, and so far last, edition that I didn't even bother buying the core books for. 4E may have been a fine game but it wasn't D&D.

I hear this comment a lot. And what exactly is Warcraft-like about 4e? It's a grid-based, turn-based, strategy game. It has abilities on cooldowns of 5 minutes and 8 hours, respectively, where Warcraft abilities are generally refreshed in seconds. I don't see playable Trolls anywhere. You roll dice, which Warcraft does not.

So the only point you can use to compare the two is that classes have roles? That's always been true, it just wasn't codified. Are Rangers main healers or guys who protect the back line in D&D? No? They do damage? Ok.

Are Wizards best used for blowing stuff up? That sure wasn't true in 3e, where crowd control was king.

The Fighter was always supposed to be the guardian of weaker allies, but had no real ability to control the battlefield outside of vaguely defined rules for engaging opponents in 1e (with punishing rules for leaving melee), or 3e's AoE rules and Feats.

So now he has a built in way to force enemies to focus on him. Sounds like he just got better at doing the thing he was always intended to do, with his ability to wear heavy armor. I guess we can add this as a second comparison point- you can generate a sort of "aggro" on enemies. Which isn't really new either, Kender could taunt enemies back in 1e.

Basically, 4e was almost nothing like any MMO that has ever existed. And if you want to say it's like a video game, a better example would be something like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics- but even there, you field a small army, not 4-6 characters.

Plus, it's easy to draw a line from early computer RPG's to those games...which were based on early D&D, which began life as a supplement to a wargame.

It's ok if you don't like 4e, but your specific objection is not well stated, I'm sorry to say.

 

[Eltab]

The "rainbow do-it-all chart" for Gamma World vol3 put me off trying to play that series of adventures. It was too different from the D&D-inspired GWvol2. (Somebody is solo-running the "Rite of Passage" adventure from the v2 Box Set on an EnWorld thread now.)

When GWvol4 came out, I used that as the foundation for an amalgamation rulebook of my own. Which nobody but me can figure out, alas.

But as we have seen in years since, Gamma World is becoming a concept with iconic monsters and tableaus that can be converted into new rule systems as they are invented.

 

[Aldarc]

Basically, 4e was almost nothing like any MMO that has ever existed. And if you want to say it's like a video game, a better example would be something like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics- but even there, you field a small army, not 4-6 characters.

Plus, it's easy to draw a line from early computer RPG's to those games...which were based on early D&D, which began life as a supplement to a wargame.

To add upon your point:

Most of the (indie) game designers who are citing 4e D&D as a heavy influence on their games are not likewise typically citing WoW or other MMOs as influences. Instead, these designers are often citing turn-based JPRGs (e.g., Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, Chrono Trigger, etc.) or CRPGs among their video game influences.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

@eyeheartawk Just want to say this is a really interesting thread so far!

 

[grankless]

To add upon your point:

Most of the (indie) game designers who are citing 4e D&D as a heavy influence on their games are not likewise typically citing WoW or other MMOs as influences. Instead, these designers are often citing turn-based JPRGs (e.g., Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, Chrono Trigger, etc.) or CRPGs among their video game influences.

Never thought about that point, but it's a good one. As someone who has played a lot of MMOs and read through most 4e books but not gotten a chance to run it yet, I genuinely have no idea where the MMO comparisons come from.

 

[Aldarc]

Never thought about that point, but it's a good one. As someone who has played a lot of MMOs and read through most 4e books but not gotten a chance to run it yet, I genuinely have no idea where the MMO comparisons come from.

Matt Colville recounts a bit about it in some of their YouTube videos and Twitch streams.

World of Warcraft (2006) was perceived as a threat to some tabletop gaming groups. Some believed that WoW was drawing away their potential pool of players. It's also worth pointing out that WoW's popularity was on its rapid ascent at this time, with Wrath of the Lich King (2008) experiencing the height of WoW's popularity. This is not to say that WoW wasn't on the mind of the developers of 4e, but I don't think that their goal was to turn D&D into WoW or a MMO. But as WoW was the big game in the market at the time, some detractors of 4e saw a lot of WoW (or anime, which was another issue) in things that they didn't like (e.g., non-traditional races, explicit class roles, powers, etc.).

But now that the dust has (mostly) settled, I think a lot of 4e retrospection by fans and game designers has brought the discourse about 4e and video games closer in line with these other tactical turn-based video games rather than with WoW or MMOs. I personally think that this is great as I want to see more JRPG and CRPG-influenced TTRPGs. I would also like to see TTRPGs influenced by MOBAs and how they design characters, but that is a discussion for another time.

 

[Bluenose]

I prefer PF2 to PF1 (I also prefer 4e to 3.x), and I consider PF2 the spiritual successor to 4e

Honestly I don't think there's going to be a single entry in this thread where there aren't people who prefer the version that "ruined" the game in its previous incarnation. Which I suppose is a large part of why we have "Edition Wars", because it's hard to have a war when everyone is on one side.

 

[LongTimeLurker]

Paranoia: The Fifth Edition was an abomination.

 

[LongTimeLurker]

I hear this comment a lot. And what exactly is Warcraft-like about 4e? It's a grid-based, turn-based, strategy game. It has abilities on cooldowns of 5 minutes and 8 hours, respectively, where Warcraft abilities are generally refreshed in seconds. I don't see playable Trolls anywhere. You roll dice, which Warcraft does not.

So the only point you can use to compare the two is that classes have roles? That's always been true, it just wasn't codified. Are Rangers main healers or guys who protect the back line in D&D? No? They do damage? Ok.

Are Wizards best used for blowing stuff up? That sure wasn't true in 3e, where crowd control was king.

The Fighter was always supposed to be the guardian of weaker allies, but had no real ability to control the battlefield outside of vaguely defined rules for engaging opponents in 1e (with punishing rules for leaving melee), or 3e's AoE rules and Feats.

So now he has a built in way to force enemies to focus on him. Sounds like he just got better at doing the thing he was always intended to do, with his ability to wear heavy armor. I guess we can add this as a second comparison point- you can generate a sort of "aggro" on enemies. Which isn't really new either, Kender could taunt enemies back in 1e.

Basically, 4e was almost nothing like any MMO that has ever existed. And if you want to say it's like a video game, a better example would be something like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics- but even there, you field a small army, not 4-6 characters.

Plus, it's easy to draw a line from early computer RPG's to those games...which were based on early D&D, which began life as a supplement to a wargame.

It's ok if you don't like 4e, but your specific objection is not well stated, I'm

Yawn.