D&D 4E Is 4E retro?

[Ashrem Bayle]

I believe the Rules Cyclopedia was a compilation of all of those except the Immortals stuff right?

 

[Boarstorm]

Doh, I even own all those (well, except for the companion set. Never could find it.). Thanks, guys. I never even thought to put all those together for the abbreviation.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I started playing D&D with 3E, so I don't know anything about the previous editions. But hearing about the similarites actually makes me interested in them. They might not all be as bad or bland as I believed them to be...

 

[PeterWeller]

I believe the Rules Cyclopedia was a compilation of all of those except the Immortals stuff right?

This is correct.

I'm also getting the BECMI vibe, and that is awesome. BECMI is still my favorite version of D&D. That might actually change when I get my hands on 4E.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

This is correct.

I'm also getting the BECMI vibe, and that is awesome. BECMI is still my favorite version of D&D. That might actually change when I get my hands on 4E.

Thought so.
I jumped straight from the Basic Set to the Rules Cyclopedia and was blown away.

I wish I still had that book. I've found it online, used but in great condition, for $55. I'd be tempted if 4e didn't look like it was going to scratch this itch for me.

 

[TerraDave]

(B/E D&D in OP includes BECMI and RC)

Hmm. So is the feeling that:

4E is to 3E as BECMI was to the more baroque AD&D

 

[Asmor]

I got that feeling back when they had the podcast talking about monsters, and how they're ditching the idea of monsters playing by the same rules as PCs in favor of exception design, where they can do whatever they need to make monsters fun and interesting (the iconic example, to me at least, is the idea of an ettin which gets 2 initiatives for its 2 heads).

 

[Brother MacLaren]

I'm not seeing it. Too much of 4E is either maintaining or expanding on aspects of 3E that I didn't like compared to BECMI.

Too minis-centric (a problem with 3E, exacerbated in late 3.5 [such as FCII's legion devils] and apparently in 4E)
1st-level PCs are too far above "Normal Man" -- 3E is the maximum I can tolerate for D&D, and even that's pushing it.
Too much focus on character builds and what abilities your PC has (not any worse than 3E, but that's one of 3E's biggest flaws in comparison to BECMI)
Too many temporary bonuses and modifiers (again, not necessarily any worse than 3E, but nowhere near as good as BECMI)
The very existence of "expected wealth by level" and the ability to buy magic items, regardless of how these flaws may have been tweaked
Too much offensive spellpower for clerics

Finally, one of the most important game design elements of any fantasy RPG is how to balance magic against mundane abilities, particularly in terms of the versatility that magic allows. I dislike 4E's approach and will not be switching.

I see 4E continuing the trends that I didn't like in 3E, and removing much of what I did like (e.g. Vancian magic). It just does not look like an appealing game to me.

 

[Dausuul]

I started playing D&D with 3E, so I don't know anything about the previous editions. But hearing about the similarites actually makes me interested in them. They might not all be as bad or bland as I believed them to be...

Bad? Depends on your criteria. Bland? Definitely not.

The editions before 3E were much less orderly and organized than 3E, and there was far less emphasis on "gamist" concerns. Particularly where magic was concerned, the development process seemed to be:

#1: Think of a cool "fluff" concept.
#2: Translate it into game mechanics.
#3: Estimate how powerful it is and put it into the game at that power level.

Whereas in 3E, the process is more like:

#1: Think of a cool "fluff" concept.
#2: Estimate how powerful it should be.
#3: Develop game mechanics to simulate that concept at the appropriate power level.

The result is that 3E mechanics are generally much better balanced (because the mechanics were built from the ground up with balance in mind, instead of having it shoehorned in afterward), but they're often lacking in a sense of... what's the word? I guess I'll call it "vitality." BECMI and AD&D mechanics feel like game-world concepts translated into mechanics, while 3.X mechanics feel like mechanics painted over with game-world concepts.

Case in point, the animate dead spell. In BECMI, there was no Hit Die cap on the number of undead you could control, nor was there a material component to the spell. You could raise literally armies of skeletons and zombies, with the only limitations being the supply of corpses and the number of animate spells you could cast per day. A hundred skeletons, a thousand, ten thousand, if you had the time and the dead bodies, it didn't matter.

Grossly unbalanced at any level, you might say, and you'd have a point. Yet at the same time, it meant that a BECMI necromancer who set out to raise an undead horde didn't have to content himself with a paltry couple dozen. He could raise a real, honest-to-Orcus horde, and proceed to terrorize the kingdom. And that was something a player character necromancer could aspire to (and usually did, if I was the one playing him).

In 3.X, even a 20th-level dread necromancer with maxed-out Charisma can't raise more than 320 skeletons. It's better from a balance perspective, but it lacks the "cool factor" of the BECMI version. 3.X necromancers don't command hordes of undead, they're just guys with a handful of shambling corpses trailing after them.

I wouldn't want to go back to BECMI full-time, certainly not with 4E on the horizon (or at this point, pounding down the nearest hillside with its horns lowered and the earth shaking under its feet), but it's definitely worth looking at. A different time, a different way of doing things.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But still, it gives me this feeling.

This vibe has definately been getting stronger over time, I have to admit. Epic Destinies (which really surprised and impressed me in most of them actually being EPIC, good lord) really helped to cement that feel, for me. It's a good thing, for me.