D&D General Lethality, AD&D, and 5e: Looking Back at the Deadliest Edition

[Hussar]

Initially I posted a long post with lots of examples and tangents. But it was way too much of a TL;DR so I deleted it all, going instead only for the bullseye items.
/snip

If this is your edited post, good god, did you write a novel?

 

[Hussar]

We can discuss, but it never ends well. I'll say something and you won't like how I phrase it and the thread gets shut down.

You may disagree with other people's opinions, but they are entitled to their opinion. Other than that, I'm not getting into edition wars.

Yes, because, inevitably, someone posts something as a fact about the edition that is simply an artifact of how they approached the game and not the game itself.

It's just like this AD&D discussion. Yes, I don't think AD&D was actually all that lethal. I found 3e to be far, far more lethal.

In combat.

But, again, so much of that is tied up in how we approached the game and our own idiosyncratic takes on the game. And I've been very clear that I recognize that and I've also tried to be clear about how my approach to AD&D resulted in it being less lethal - primarily playing modules which results in a LOT of magical treasure which drastically increased the power of the PC's - often using pets/henchmen to pad out the party and then taking care of those pets/henchmen to make sure they stayed loyal (raise a couple of troopies from the dead and you REALLY improve morale - a generation approach to character generation and die rolling - even a different interpretation of the item saving rules. All these things I've been very clear about and can point to as reasons for my opinion.

OTOH, we've got, "4e is the most combat focused D&D edition". When that's challenged by the actual text of the game, people don't say, "well, it's because that's the way we played 4e (although, to be fair, that did come up later with @Maxperson's point about where the needles are)" They say it like it's an actual fact and that people who actually played the game are wrong.

We can talk about 4e. If you find your opinions are often being challenged, perhaps it might be a good idea to show how you arrived at those opinions rather than insisting you are "entitled" to that opinion and we should always accept your opinions as facts.

 

[Clint_L]

But, when someone talks about 4e, it's, "4e is the most combat oriented game." There's not even an attempt to pretend that this is just a personal experience with the system. It's nothing but fact statements that are expected to be taken as gospel truths. And an immediate argument if any counter experiences are offered. Any suggestion that perhaps a person's experience with 4e had more to do with how they approached the game rather than the game itself is immediately rejected.

Please go back and read the post to which you responded. I posted nothing about the quality of roleplaying in 4e. I commented that it was the most combat-oriented edition IMO. "IMO" means "in my opinion," so there's your acknowledgement

that this is just a personal experience with the system

Yet you immediately launched into a tangent about the relationship between 4e and 5e re. RP, as if rebutting me.

I wasn't (and am not) criticizing 4e, but you took my comment as a criticism, ignored the "IMO," and reacted with an unrelated argument. And when I clarified that I was not criticizing 4e and unequivocally am not interested in an editions battle, you persisted. I did not engage, and am not engaging, because I do not hold the beliefs you seem to be ascribing to me, and I don't want to argue about editions. Let me suggest that you are extremely defensive about 4e, and if it is even mentioned, you seem to assume ill intent and cannot let it go.

The heart of my argument is that RP is more central to the game now than ever before, and I think it is related to the rise of actual play shows and their effect on D&D culture. That is all.

 

[Oofta]

Yes, because, inevitably, someone posts something as a fact about the edition that is simply an artifact of how they approached the game and not the game itself.

It's just like this AD&D discussion. Yes, I don't think AD&D was actually all that lethal. I found 3e to be far, far more lethal.

In combat.

But, again, so much of that is tied up in how we approached the game and our own idiosyncratic takes on the game. And I've been very clear that I recognize that and I've also tried to be clear about how my approach to AD&D resulted in it being less lethal - primarily playing modules which results in a LOT of magical treasure which drastically increased the power of the PC's - often using pets/henchmen to pad out the party and then taking care of those pets/henchmen to make sure they stayed loyal (raise a couple of troopies from the dead and you REALLY improve morale - a generation approach to character generation and die rolling - even a different interpretation of the item saving rules. All these things I've been very clear about and can point to as reasons for my opinion.

OTOH, we've got, "4e is the most combat focused D&D edition". When that's challenged by the actual text of the game, people don't say, "well, it's because that's the way we played 4e (although, to be fair, that did come up later with @Maxperson's point about where the needles are)" They say it like it's an actual fact and that people who actually played the game are wrong.

We can talk about 4e. If you find your opinions are often being challenged, perhaps it might be a good idea to show how you arrived at those opinions rather than insisting you are "entitled" to that opinion and we should always accept your opinions as facts.

I'm not engaging in edition wars.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The heart of my argument is that RP is more central to the game now than ever before, and I think it is related to the rise of actual play shows and their effect on D&D culture. That is all.

I definitely think that the rise of twitch, YouTube, and shows like Critical Role have had an influence on the way people who are new to the game - 5e (which is most people) think of how they are supposed to play the game.

 

[Hussar]

I definitely think that the rise of twitch, YouTube, and shows like Critical Role have had an influence on the way people who are new to the game - 5e (which is most people) think of how they are supposed to play the game.

Yeah, I could see that. We all kinda learned how to play from watching others. Most of us, even back in the day, got introduced into gaming by someone else - a buddy had a group and you joined. Even those of us who started "cold" as it were - still developed playstyles that were influenced by things like Dragon magazine and the books we were reading. I'll freely admit to having zero experience with OD&D. It had no direct impact on my play experience. I didn't play it, read it or play with anyone who had played it. So, any impact it had was at a remove of a couple of steps - I started with Moldvay Basic - so the rules and the culture had had a decade or so to ... what is the right word... percolate? through the community.

Probably my biggest gaming influences that I can think of would be Dragonlance and the 1e Unearthed Arcana, both of which came out about the time I started running regular campaigns instead of playing.

 

[Clint_L]

I think there's an irony that Matt Mercer is often associated with 5e and the new-fangled playstye, when he sure looks like an old school DM to his core. That is someone who cut his teeth on AD&D, for sure.

 

[Garthanos]

4E tried to use the rules of the game to improve the play experience.

Turns our people prefer to ignore the rules as much as possible and free form improv.

Saw more climactic deaths in 4e than any previous edition ... and fewer anti-climactic oops...you just died to a "minor encounter" or a random save or die...

AD&D was constant deaths.

 

[Hussar]

I don't want to argue about editions.

Just as a point of irony here - I would point out that this entire thread is predicated on arguing about editions.

As I said, I was arguing against your "most" characterization. Your point stands quite well entirely without that little aside. It's entirely unneeded and, additionally, it's pretty difficult to prove.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Saw more climactic deaths in 4e than any previous edition ... and fewer anti-climactic oops...you just died to a "minor encounter" or a random save or die...

AD&D was constant deaths.

You were clearly playing AD&D wrong. You were suppose to do things like...

-create and use a ten to thirty step SOP that negated sudden surprises/traps/ambushes/etc.

-ask your DM dozens of questions about the world every session. Either to manipulate them into ruling in your favor or to gain a better understanding on how they would rule.

-have at least a dozen henchmen/hirelings/minions/etc. to be the red shirts of the group.

-run away from any unneeded fight that you couldn't instantly win.

-avoid engaging with rule systems whenever possible. Instead, you would use free form negotiation to bypass the rules/ alter the fiction to favor you.

-operate under the assumption that you do WHATEVER it takes to succeed in your task, as neither the game or DM was expected to give you mercy.