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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Beginning of the End" data-source="post: 5470474" data-attributes="member: 55271">It's a lengthy question that I can't do full justice to in this post.But for me, when I'm talking about D&D (as opposed to some other fantasy roleplaying game) I'm talking about a commonality of experience which can be primarily analyzed from two perspectives:(1) As a player, do the core classes play in a fundamentally similar fashion?(2) As a DM, if I set up an identical situation will it result in fundamentally similar gameplay?For example, let's say I take a fighter, a magic-user, a cleric, and a thief from OD&D and I put them in a fight against a troll.Now, I do the same thing except this time with the AD&D1 rules. The encounter looks pretty much the same: The AD&D1 fighter has abilities virtually identical to the OD&D fighter. The AD&D1 magic-user has spells pretty much identical to the OD&D magic-user. And so forth. The troll also is basically identical, too.This holds true in AD&D2, BECMI, and D&D3. Are there differences? Sure.Now, to the basic gameplay of OD&D you can add a lot of elements and I'll still see D&D: Give fighters proficiencies and feats; give new spells to the magic-user; introduce a plethora of new classes; tack on a skill system. Underneath all the new bling, though, the core gameplay is still there.Now, let's turn to D&D4 and dial-up the same encounter: Now every single class has completely different gameplay. Even the troll's regeneration no longer works the same way.I write this as somebody who has interchangeably used material across OD&D, AD&D1, AD&D2, BECMI, D&D3, and D&D4 in various combinations: Prior to 2008, if I fed similar classes, monsters, and situations into the system, I got back out gameplay that was all pretty much identical. A few big changes here and there (the variable effectiveness of sleep is a big one), but still basically the same game. The same isn't true of 4th Edition.I take an encounter designed for 3rd Edition and I plug it into OD&D, the encounter basically works the same way. I take an encounter designed for AD&D2 and I plug it into 3rd Edition, and it basically works the same way.I plug an encounter designed for 4th Edition into OD&D and it doesn't work the same way.I encourage everyone to give it a try: Grab Caverns of Thracia and do a straight monster-for-monster conversion from OD&D to 3E and 4E; see how it plays. Grab Keep on the Shadowfell and run it in OD&D and 3E swapping goblin-for-goblin and kobold-for-kobold; see it how plays.I have played and run in these games. I speak from both theory and experience.One of these things is not like the others.</blockquote>

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