the Lorax
First Post
I've been playing D&D (under one name or another) since the very end of '79. The following is a bit of a recap of my experience with D&D along with my group and my thoughts on comming 4th edition.
For me, AD&D was a much appreciated upgrade to the 3 book set from the old White Box, and the Basic and Expert sets. Everyone could finally look at the same versions of the "rules", and everyone was in blissful ignorance.
From my perspective, 2nd edition was unlooked for and unappreciated - nothing changed in any meaningful way, my old yellow boardered DM screens were about as useful as they had been. For me however, the my gaming had opened up new horizions, as I met many of my best friends in '89, at least half a dozen of which I still game with. Slowly the game creeped away from 1st edition, until Skills and Powers and other books of its time really took the game to new (again, unasked for) levels of complexity. TSR tanked, very little support information, or heck even news of what the heck was going on was getting out. Everyone was satisfied, but always looking for ways to squeeze a dime out of a nickel.
When 3rd edition came out, most of my gaming friends eagerly adapted. Exploring the new edition with renewed interest in the game. Here was a version that embraced usage of a single mechanic to resolve everything. High was always good, and all actions were resolved using a d20. No more d10 for initiative (or d6 before that), d% for thief skills and d20 for attacks and saves. Multi-classing was much cleaner. Everyone was happy.
3.5 came out, and there was grumbling. Everything that you though you knew you had to double check. Especially spells. Many things seemed to change just because the vocal minority cried loud enough to be heard on message boards. For the most part though, most of the changes fixed issues, or attempted to stop abuses. At length, everyone was accepting.
4th edition is now rearing its head. Nobody in any of my play groups are looking forward to it. I actually like some of the things I'm hearing, but am a bit confused. The Core Rulebooks will be here by summer 2008, but frome everything we keep hearing, basic nature of the rules are still in flux. I'm not sure how you can manage to playtest rules that are still being rewritten as I write this and have completed books ready by this comming summer, but maybe things happen faster in the game rules publishing circles than I believe they do. I have mountains of 3.0/3.5 referance materials, and have not asked for a new version, nor was I looking for one any more than I was looking for a completely revised version of Microsoft Word.
4th edition sounds like it will be a cool edition - I may well even play it at some point. For now, I have 3 good 3.5e campaigns that I am wrapping up, and I dont plan on looking to use 4e for my next group of campaigns - and my campaigns usually last for a couple of years.
I'm REALLY happy with the Pathfinder books, the adventures/settings are really nice, and seem to be very well suited for ripping apart and using piecemeal if that what you wanted to do (and sometimes I do). That stuff alone should keep me going for a while.
I have source books that I have used almost nothing from, I'm looking at the game I use to pass the time in the company of good friends and see no compelling reason to "upgrade" and be forced to learn a new tool set, even if those new tools may help me run the game.
For everyone else out there, I wanna know, why do you (or don't you) want to do 4e?
For me, AD&D was a much appreciated upgrade to the 3 book set from the old White Box, and the Basic and Expert sets. Everyone could finally look at the same versions of the "rules", and everyone was in blissful ignorance.
From my perspective, 2nd edition was unlooked for and unappreciated - nothing changed in any meaningful way, my old yellow boardered DM screens were about as useful as they had been. For me however, the my gaming had opened up new horizions, as I met many of my best friends in '89, at least half a dozen of which I still game with. Slowly the game creeped away from 1st edition, until Skills and Powers and other books of its time really took the game to new (again, unasked for) levels of complexity. TSR tanked, very little support information, or heck even news of what the heck was going on was getting out. Everyone was satisfied, but always looking for ways to squeeze a dime out of a nickel.
When 3rd edition came out, most of my gaming friends eagerly adapted. Exploring the new edition with renewed interest in the game. Here was a version that embraced usage of a single mechanic to resolve everything. High was always good, and all actions were resolved using a d20. No more d10 for initiative (or d6 before that), d% for thief skills and d20 for attacks and saves. Multi-classing was much cleaner. Everyone was happy.
3.5 came out, and there was grumbling. Everything that you though you knew you had to double check. Especially spells. Many things seemed to change just because the vocal minority cried loud enough to be heard on message boards. For the most part though, most of the changes fixed issues, or attempted to stop abuses. At length, everyone was accepting.
4th edition is now rearing its head. Nobody in any of my play groups are looking forward to it. I actually like some of the things I'm hearing, but am a bit confused. The Core Rulebooks will be here by summer 2008, but frome everything we keep hearing, basic nature of the rules are still in flux. I'm not sure how you can manage to playtest rules that are still being rewritten as I write this and have completed books ready by this comming summer, but maybe things happen faster in the game rules publishing circles than I believe they do. I have mountains of 3.0/3.5 referance materials, and have not asked for a new version, nor was I looking for one any more than I was looking for a completely revised version of Microsoft Word.
4th edition sounds like it will be a cool edition - I may well even play it at some point. For now, I have 3 good 3.5e campaigns that I am wrapping up, and I dont plan on looking to use 4e for my next group of campaigns - and my campaigns usually last for a couple of years.
I'm REALLY happy with the Pathfinder books, the adventures/settings are really nice, and seem to be very well suited for ripping apart and using piecemeal if that what you wanted to do (and sometimes I do). That stuff alone should keep me going for a while.
I have source books that I have used almost nothing from, I'm looking at the game I use to pass the time in the company of good friends and see no compelling reason to "upgrade" and be forced to learn a new tool set, even if those new tools may help me run the game.
For everyone else out there, I wanna know, why do you (or don't you) want to do 4e?