It's Gencon 2000 again but now you have 2 choices.

[Jabba Von Hutt]

Let me preface this by saying "Please... please be considerate before posting in here". I don't want a flame war in here and if any mod. finds it too heated please lock it and make me sit in a corner somewhere.

OK, I was just thinking back to when I went to Gencon with the release of 3e. And I was wondering if WotC would have handed me both the 3e and 4e editions of the Player's Handbook with a list of the strengths and weaknesses of each system. I won't list them here, you all have been discussing them. Also assume, that they had enough play testing of each system available that you could get a decent feel for each. Which system at that time do you think you would have gone with? Remember you are coming from 2e or earlier.

I know one of the reasons people sticking with 3.x is because of conversion issues with their existing campaign, if that were not an issue would you go with 4e instead?

People now moving to 4e would the initial crunchy feel of 3e have kept you?

In my case even though I will be moving to 4e, I'm not 100% sure I wouldn't have gone 3e first.

 

[redcard]

If it's 2000, and I was given JUST the 3.0 Core Set or the 4.0 Core set, I'd have to go with the 4.0.

I think a lot of people forget that the 3.0 Core Set was similarly lacking when compared to the bevy of 2.0 stuff. I also think this might be locked due to the moratorium rule.

 

[Vascant]

Really what it comes down to is this, I have spent 8 years fixing and changing 3x to my liking... So why change? This is the question WotC failed to answer. I looked back at the 2e to 3e hype and new info period of time and seen how closely it resembled the 3e to 4e hype. They also have not given me a great amount of confidence with the missing of a few milestones (DDI and GSL). In my ways I look at 4e the same as I do Vampire or any other game system, don't know if it is good or bad but I don't see the point of switching from what I enjoy.

So in answering.. Don't know what the pains are in conversions but I do know it is fairly simple to go backwards (I already converted some the Illusion and Orcus Dragon Magazine material to 3.5e).

 

[MojoGM]

That's a very interesting question!

If I had been given the choice, I probably would have gone right from 2E to 4E. But now that I've played 3.0/3.5, I think I'll be sticking with it for awhile.

Not that I don't like what I'm seeing in 4th, because I do (most of it anyway). It looks like a very cool game, it is just a different game than what I am used to. I hope to play 4E at some point, and maybe in the future I'll run it as well, but for now I'm sticking with 3.5

But if 3rd never existed or I had been given the choice? I probably would have gone right to 4th!

At least I think I would have...

 

[JoelF]

I'd pick 3.0 by a long shot. Without re-iterating the various reasons, I simply find 3.x to be a better game than 4.0

 

[Filcher]

In before the lock!

4E, for previously stated reasons.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No question, I'd have picked 4E.

In 2000, 4E, except for the minis/forced movement obsession, was pretty much EXACTLY what I wanted from the next iteration of AD&D. Indeed, when I first heard that there was going to be a 3rd edition of D&D, I imagined what I thought they'd do, and 4E is MUCH closer to than than 3E was. 3E really took AD&D and refined and standardized it, but severely avoided sacred cow-killing. 4E butchers sacred cows left, right and center, and is more like D&D than AD&D in many ways, which is what I expect from a game CALLED D&D, not AD&D.

What's funny is now I have more reservations about 4E than I would have then, because many things I didn't know 3E could do well appeared over the years.

 

[Alikar]

Fourth Edition. No Question.

 

[Cadfan]

I don't know. I didn't like miniatures back then. I also didn't have most of a decade's worth of experience with 3e.

Nowadays I have different expectations from an RPG than I did then. I find the idea of playing a class that's weak at level 1 in hopes of godlike power at level 15 to be abhorrent. I'm more open to miniatures. And I understand a LOT more about the underlying math of the game than I did in the year 2000. In 2000 I understood that THAC0 needed inverted into a regular system that didn't require tables, but I didn't understand all the issues of scaling and frontloading that I understand now.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

My favorite fantasy RPG back in 2000 was Earthdawn (even though 2E D&D got more play). 4E has alot of what I liked about Earthdawn without some of the stuff I didn't like. So I would have definately gone 4e.