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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mneme" data-source="post: 5494233" data-attributes="member: 59248">True.  Original D&D was pretty decent.  3e had enough interesting stuff to do simulationist story oriented gaming if you were willing to swallow the crunch.  And 4e is very nice if you're willing to keep track of conditions in combat as well as story.1e and 2e were pretty terrible, though.The railroading, you mean (as 2e D&D was pretty much the first RPG that mistook GM fiat for story-gaming)?  Pass. (G,D,R)Ok, in all seriousness, no version of D&D was much more than a set of rules for combat; all have been playable, and all have been flawed.  The versions -have- varied in terms of how much and what else they gave you -- and while they have never really varied from their gamist core (2e was farthest, due to its treasure rules among other things), they've varied a lot in terms of what else they give you and what additudes they pushed.OD&D was pretty much pure gamism, though if had enough lacunae that the GM could push whatever agenda she liked.BEMC I can't really speak of.AD&D1 was an incoherent mess, but most of its insane accumulation of rules were attempts at simulationism.AD&D2 I mostly ignored, but again, it seems to have been a big push towards sim (while keeping far too much of the accretions of AD&D1)D&D3 Was a big step forward towards sanity -- but kept the emphasis on simulationist rules from its forebears, with lots of rules and pseudo-balance regarding roleplaying, RP restrictions, and rules intended to simulate the game world in every detail (not to mention making every single creature in the universe use the same character creation rules).  And, of course, it kepts a lot of the silliness inherent in the Gygaxian AD&D rules (and spells) while strenghtening the core of the game and getting rid of sacred cows like variant progression, negative armor class, etc.D&D4, by contrast, is gamism with a side of nar and a second side of simulationist rules.  Gone are the rules that force you to play your character a certain way (barring the "don't be evil" ignorable official rule).  Gone is the pretense of the rules dictating every single aspect of reality from when the characters need to sleep to exactly what they do when they cast spells.  Instead, the emphasis of the rules is on functional play in and out of combat -- in combat, letting the players act with confidence while still being able to try anything that makes sense; out of combat, letting the players contribute to telling the story they want to tell while continuing to give the GM tools to decide what the odds should be.  Of course, it's not going to scratch the itch of players for whom D&D3 (maybe barring really stupid spells; perhaps E6?) was the perfect system.  And it's far from perfect even taking into account its goals; too many pointless feats and powers, all the incoherence regarding weapons/implements, etc.  But more, in 4e the rules are supposed to define the ground rules and then let you layer story on top of them, not provide a foundation for story with various roleplaying restrictions and such as in earlier editions -- there's nothing stopping you from playing a 3e style paladin or as a GM making an issue of players deciding not to have their characters sleep for days (heh.  Turn it into a skill challenge!) or whatnot.  But in 4e, that's not what the rules are for.</blockquote>

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