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Message: <blockquote data-quote="radferth" data-source="post: 4421960" data-attributes="member: 5791">Some random additional observations on the editions:1st) Some folks seem to scorn it as unplayable.  That seems a bit harsh.  We all played it fine when it was that or OD&D.  It's not very playable as written, with every odd subsystem in use, but it wasn't really designed to be played that way.  The DM is expected to make house rules and on-the-spot rulings for all sorts of things.  It couldn't be published today without a major clean-up, but it's not unplayable.2nd) Not that different from first before all the kits and splatbooks and option books made each individual campaign virtually unrecognizable.  The campaign focus that many have mentioned seems to me to more of a TSR publishing strategy than anything inherit to the system, but was definitely a real phenomenon.  And I must give a huge thank you to 2nd ed's experience point system, which drove me to free-form experience after 2 weeks of trying to use it.  No other single thing has had a stronger positive effect on my DMing.3rd)  I love the tactical aspect of third edition, and I was usually the only one at the table to think so.  Many folks (not so much in this thread) have commented that character builds took precedence of tactics.  This way most definitely true in most games that I played, but I once again argue this was not inherent in the rules themselves.  I remember one combat when my character passed up running in the room to make an attack to stand a a tactically advantageous bottleneck.  Not only did the other players question my decision, most of them seemed to have no idea what I was doing.  My theory is some interaction of the initiative system and human nature led to the majority of players thinking in terms of "how can I deal the most damage on my turn" to the exclusion of other factors.4th)  There are a lot of good things in it, but one disappointment I have is that, in combat, my point of view differs greatly from my character's.  I am thinking in terms of encounter powers and daily powers, when in most cases may character would not be.  Combat was highly abstracted in all edition (which I like), but in previous ones, it was not too much of stretch to image my character was making the same tactical decisions that I was.  In 4th, it _is_ too much of stretch.One last observation: the nature of RPGs is flexible enough that a determined DM could make most any of these systems suit any of the mentions design goals, it just takes more work in some cases.</blockquote>

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