But which edition's version of Ale & Whores?
D&D Name ONE favourite thing about your favourite edition
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
Neonchameleon
Villager
This seems to be a Supers thing. In D&D you're generally playing either a murderhobo, a ruthless treasure hunter, or someone "fighting for survival in a world with the darkest power". In all of these situations you take every edge you can get - and people metagame the same way. In a four colour supers world you aren't. You're being a little more ridiculous and more interested in OTT hijinks and playing someone who wants to help other people. Which means the psychological lure to take every little trick in the book because that's what the game rewards just isn't there - and instead people just want to play larger than life superheroes. (City of Heroes (now cancelled) had the friendliest MMO forums and in game play I'm aware of, I think because of this.)
Teacher Man
Villager
My guess would be all of them!
Dog Moon
Villager
I think all of my favorite books are from 2e [excluding Monster Template Books
] and among those favorite are the Faiths and Avatars books from Forgotten Realms. PACKED with information and abilities to make every Cleric very different from Clerics of different Religions.But as for my favorite aspect, it's Monster Creation from 3.x. I've always liked Monsters and Templates made the Monsters even cooler. Especially Monsters that can have Class Levels added to them. Some people think this adds too much prep time and yes, maybe it does add some, but it's still my favorite part.
Gorgoroth
Villager
Of all the editions I've played, AD&D 2nd edition. Speed of combat that didn't get in the way of the story, but opened it up. Out of combat uses of spells in creative ways for my evoker. Awesome kits and races in splat books.
Not because the rules are that good, or balanced, or even consistent, but despite that, D&D built upon my reading of the Hobbit when I was 13, then LOTR, and opened up a sense of wonder within me, sparked my youthful imagination, and gave me one of the most precious gifts you can have : as an adult, something that makes you feel giddy and excited, as if you were instantly transformed into that lad of yesteryear. That's valuable and precious (indeed).
That's how I felt last night watching The Hobbit with all my old and best highschool friends, together again for the holidays, after being scattered to the four winds. It was a Gathering of Nerds, if you will. And instantly after the movie everyone was also giddy, even some of our girlfriends (not giddy, exactly, but interested, and certainly loved our passion for the topic), eager to play D&D Next playtest sometime this holiday.
In AD&D I had my first ranger, my first paladin, then fifteen years later after trying 3.0 and fizzing out with it, my first wizard evoker who has done some of the most creative things I've ever thought up, as well as the most memorable one-shot character in an evil campaign : Scrubs, the Manbearpig mongrelman (humanoids race book) necromancer whom I RPed as so slovenly disgusting and demented, that even the DM and the other players were aghast at some of the vile, despicable things I achieved and marveled at the pseudo-method acting glee with which I entered his skin. They mention him to this day. The hysterical laughter and drooling speech impediment from the experiments that went into his malformation, his construction at the hands of an evil genius wizard. Even the goblin torturers working for us shied away from the abomination that was this mongrelman. I burn, I shudder, as I pen the damnable atrocity!
PF is overall superior to me, but that's like comparing a modern sportscar to a vintage 80s lambo. The performance isn't the same, by far, but there is nothing that I'd rather own in this life or the next than a yellow Countach if I had to choose. AD&D might corner terribly in comparison, but it's the classic. I don't think PF or 3.5 (definitely not 4) can even come close to competing with the amount of combats one can have while still maintaining a healthy fear of character death that gives the game believability, a jarring and uneven sense of realism that comes from knowing the dice can kill you. It's powerful, almost magical. Dice-based roleplaying. You cared about your character. Now he's dead. That's life. It's absolutely fun every step of the way. The solution isn't to make the game world safe for PCs, it's to make it fun to re-roll new toons and try it again! Give it another go, lad. Better luck next time. Gamblers understand this. Many don't. It's just one of those things I guess, you either get it or don't.
I hope Next can rekindle a good blend of modern and retro vibes while incorporating lots of innovations in an elegant way from other editions, and keep combat fast enough to let the story and exploration pillars have their turn in the sun. For now it's partially succeeding on that front alone (balance of time between the pillars), but still lots of work left and very rough.
Not because the rules are that good, or balanced, or even consistent, but despite that, D&D built upon my reading of the Hobbit when I was 13, then LOTR, and opened up a sense of wonder within me, sparked my youthful imagination, and gave me one of the most precious gifts you can have : as an adult, something that makes you feel giddy and excited, as if you were instantly transformed into that lad of yesteryear. That's valuable and precious (indeed).
That's how I felt last night watching The Hobbit with all my old and best highschool friends, together again for the holidays, after being scattered to the four winds. It was a Gathering of Nerds, if you will. And instantly after the movie everyone was also giddy, even some of our girlfriends (not giddy, exactly, but interested, and certainly loved our passion for the topic), eager to play D&D Next playtest sometime this holiday.
In AD&D I had my first ranger, my first paladin, then fifteen years later after trying 3.0 and fizzing out with it, my first wizard evoker who has done some of the most creative things I've ever thought up, as well as the most memorable one-shot character in an evil campaign : Scrubs, the Manbearpig mongrelman (humanoids race book) necromancer whom I RPed as so slovenly disgusting and demented, that even the DM and the other players were aghast at some of the vile, despicable things I achieved and marveled at the pseudo-method acting glee with which I entered his skin. They mention him to this day. The hysterical laughter and drooling speech impediment from the experiments that went into his malformation, his construction at the hands of an evil genius wizard. Even the goblin torturers working for us shied away from the abomination that was this mongrelman. I burn, I shudder, as I pen the damnable atrocity!
PF is overall superior to me, but that's like comparing a modern sportscar to a vintage 80s lambo. The performance isn't the same, by far, but there is nothing that I'd rather own in this life or the next than a yellow Countach if I had to choose. AD&D might corner terribly in comparison, but it's the classic. I don't think PF or 3.5 (definitely not 4) can even come close to competing with the amount of combats one can have while still maintaining a healthy fear of character death that gives the game believability, a jarring and uneven sense of realism that comes from knowing the dice can kill you. It's powerful, almost magical. Dice-based roleplaying. You cared about your character. Now he's dead. That's life. It's absolutely fun every step of the way. The solution isn't to make the game world safe for PCs, it's to make it fun to re-roll new toons and try it again! Give it another go, lad. Better luck next time. Gamblers understand this. Many don't. It's just one of those things I guess, you either get it or don't.
I hope Next can rekindle a good blend of modern and retro vibes while incorporating lots of innovations in an elegant way from other editions, and keep combat fast enough to let the story and exploration pillars have their turn in the sun. For now it's partially succeeding on that front alone (balance of time between the pillars), but still lots of work left and very rough.
the Jester
Legend
Good priest customization. Specifically, the specialty priests I homebrewed for my game in 2e were excellent, mostly well-balanced, flavorful and each had tons of unique spells.
Wepwawet
Explorer
I don't have a favourite edition anymore All of them have different problems and now I can't decide which one's qualities are better.
But I'd have to answer 4E's play-style: the combats are complex and fun, but the world building and the stories are not set in stone, everything is very flexible and free-form
All of them have different problems and now I can't decide which one's qualities are better.But I'd have to answer 4E's play-style: the combats are complex and fun, but the world building and the stories are not set in stone, everything is very flexible and free-form
CleverNickName
Hero
In BECM, I really appreciated the art by Larry Elmore. I still get a pang of nostalgia whenever I browse through the old Expert Rulebook.
This is probably my favorite thing about 4e as well. The mechanics, the races, the classes, the characters, the monsters, and the cosmology are integrated into a cohsesive thematic whole by the its mythic lore.
It still influences a lot about a number of my game worlds. And you can also tell that it influenced the world of Critical Role too.
Voadam
Adventurer
4e Balanced roles.
PCs were well balanced against each other with well defined teamwork roles from strikers and defenders etc and the monsters were balanced well for their threat levels and had well defined combat roles of their own, such as brutes and artillery and minions and elites, that felt thematic for the flow and strategies in combat.
PCs were well balanced against each other with well defined teamwork roles from strikers and defenders etc and the monsters were balanced well for their threat levels and had well defined combat roles of their own, such as brutes and artillery and minions and elites, that felt thematic for the flow and strategies in combat.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
4e.
It’s hard to choose between the breadth of meaningful customization for players, and all the various widgets like rituals and skill challenges that help fill out out of combat challenges.
It’s hard to choose between the breadth of meaningful customization for players, and all the various widgets like rituals and skill challenges that help fill out out of combat challenges.
FaerieGodfather
Explorer
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition: Player's Option
Hard to pick just one here, as I could have easily gone with Rules Cyclopedia or even 3.PF (if you houserule it hard enough), but this is the version of D&D that occupied the top spot in my heart for the longest.
And the thing I'm going to single out for praise is how the class customization rules in Skills & Powers and especially in Spells & Magic allow you to produce wildly different spellcasting traditions with wildly different casting mechanics and spell lists in a way that no other version of D&D approaches. Using these rules as DM toolkits rather than PC customization options allows a DM to really drill down on what the player-facing elements of their setting mean.
For instance, one of my long-standing homebrew projects is to redefine the AD&D class system, with the standard PHB classes being human classes and all of the playable races in my campaigns having their own selections-- incorporating their standard class and multiclass selections with their lore and with their B/X and 3.X variations.
It'd be a huge, horrible pain in the ass to do in any other edition-- even vaunted Pathfinder with its building block classes and archetypes.
Hard to pick just one here, as I could have easily gone with Rules Cyclopedia or even 3.PF (if you houserule it hard enough), but this is the version of D&D that occupied the top spot in my heart for the longest.
And the thing I'm going to single out for praise is how the class customization rules in Skills & Powers and especially in Spells & Magic allow you to produce wildly different spellcasting traditions with wildly different casting mechanics and spell lists in a way that no other version of D&D approaches. Using these rules as DM toolkits rather than PC customization options allows a DM to really drill down on what the player-facing elements of their setting mean.
For instance, one of my long-standing homebrew projects is to redefine the AD&D class system, with the standard PHB classes being human classes and all of the playable races in my campaigns having their own selections-- incorporating their standard class and multiclass selections with their lore and with their B/X and 3.X variations.
It'd be a huge, horrible pain in the ass to do in any other edition-- even vaunted Pathfinder with its building block classes and archetypes.
Imaculata
Adventurer
In 3rd edition I love the expansion books that focus on a specific climate. There's Sandstorm for desert adventures, Frostburn for arctic adventures, and of course Stormwrack for sea adventures (which I am using for a campaign right now). These books are a fantastic help in creating a campaign that is very different in tone, style and theme than normal D&D campaigns. I especially love the various types of natural hazards that the books provide, and rulings on things like sunburn, hypothermia and navigating at sea.
Garthanos
Arcadian Knight
Well this pretty much exactly
