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Message: <blockquote data-quote="thecasualoblivion" data-source="post: 4423457" data-attributes="member: 59096">Here's my take on things:1E--Roleplaying a Tactical Wargame1E applied roleplaying to the Tactical Wargame framework. In tactical wargames, your pieces are all expendible and this translated into the deadliness of combat. From a purely roleplaying standpoint, combat was very dangerous and something to be avoided, but the game itself was designed around combat and was mechanically the most satisfying part of the game. This game was new and had more than a few flaws to it, and as has been said before became more focused on roleplaying as time went on.2E--DM is god2E was an evolution of 1E that was fairly compatible and used similar mechanics, but the focus was different. It was built on the DM running the game to tell a story. 2E deified the DM more than any other version of D&D. It all but required it, leaving out rules and game mechanics for a lot of things and instructing the DM to create these things as they came up. While its core mechanics were similar to the deadliness of 1E, the DM was pretty much instructed not to run things that way, and most didn't. 3E--Character Creation is god3E was completely based around character creation. It was probably the biggest flaw of AD&D compared to more modern systems that came up during the last years of AD&D. In response, 3E was created with probably the most compelling character creation rules that have ever existed for an RPG. This being said, the focus on character creation did end up having a negative effect on other facets of the game. A lot of the mechanics 3E kept from earlier editions didn't exactly mesh well with the new changes. Combat tended to disintegrate into rocket tag, especially at higher levels. Game balance was effectively a disaster, which again worsened as levels got higher. DMs were under an incredible burden because of character creation mechanics involved in encounter creation and trying to deal with the game balance problems. 4E--Gameplay is God4E is designed around the concept that how the game plays is the primary consideration. Rules, mechanics, character creation, and everything are all geared towards making gameplay work as well as possible. As combat is the most mechanics intensive part of the game, it gets the most attention. Character creation is not geared to sacrifice combat ability for non-combat ability to a large degree because this creates gameplay problems. 3E's character customizability was stepped back a notch to improve gameplay while still maintaining a good degree of customizability. Non-combat situations have simple and easy to use mechanics, and is a bit light in this regard encouraging the DM to run with it like 2E did. Adventure design and DM preparation are much less demanding.</blockquote>

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