Sado said:
That's a good question. How radically did 3E depart from earlier versions? I really only got into D&D when 3E came out. How different of a game is 3E from the previous edition? I know it had the same ability scores and a lot of the same termionolgy, but how much changed?
It's a pretty radical break. While it keeps certain 'core features' -- classes, levels, hit points, Tolkien-esque races, alignment -- it also includes a lot that breaks with previous versions of D&D. Some of the most significant changes include: feats, skills (though simpler skill systems were in RC D&D and AD&D), easy multiclassing, more common magic items (and much easier crafting rules), completely different combat system (3e is much more tactical and detailed than ealier editions), a very different power scale (level advancement is much faster in 3e; also, in pre-3e versions of D&D, the power increases per level tapered off significantly after level ten or so, whereas they do not in 3e), prestige classes (though antecedents existed in 1e and RC D&D), and many other things.
In my own view, D&D 3e is effectively a
new game -- a new system with an old label. My 'simple test' for this is that it is
very difficult to convert pre-3e material into 3e rules (it requires
a lot of work), whereas it is very easy to convert material between different versions of pre-3e D&D (e.g. 1e AD&D to 2e AD&D, or 1e AD&D to RC D&D).
This is
not a bad thing (despite the fact that people strangely freak out on these boards whenever I make this point). Rather, my point is that the similarity between 3e D&D and pre-3e D&D is about as strong as the similarity between AD&D and Tunnels and Trolls or MERP. Or, to put the point in another way, when I first read the 3e books I thought: "So, they revised D&D to be like Rolemaster!" (Note: different people had different associations when reading 3e -- e.g. some people thought it obviously borrowed from Runequest, others GURPS, and so forth. 3e borrowed from many different games, but it was clearly a radical departure from pre-3e D&D.)
Again, the fact that 3e is effectively a 'new game' IMO is not a bad thing, especially since there were many systems back before 3e that I preferred to AD&D (e.g. MERP, Rolemaster, Runequest, etc.), and some of my favourite features from those other systems were incorporated into 3e. (Despite that, 3e is still not my favourite version of D&D -- I prefer the RC version, or C&C if it counts, but my own tastes are neither here nor there for the purposes of my point.)
In short, the changes were pretty radical.
As for Rasyr's question, It'll be interesting to see if the 3e diehards join the people who still play 1e and OD&D over at Dragonsfoot.org once WotC 'upgrades' to 4e. Today's hip gamer is tomorrow's grognard.
