Raven Crowking said:
Since I am currently involved in rewriting the D&D rules to include everything I like from various editions, I am curious about what others like about various editions and why?
1) D&D has always been a rules light system. That wasn't apparant to me until I tried to DM in latter generation systems. The preparation burden in other systems was way to high for the still of referring I was acustomed too.
2) D&D traditionally has non-brittle PC's that can take alot of abuse, and combat that resolves itself quickly. This allows for all different styles of play from hack-n-slash to melodrama, and tends to allow gamers of very diverse tastes to cooperate together in the same game. It's a little something for everyone, especially in the hands of the right DM. The system rarely gets in the way.
3) Starting character creation is very quick (if you start at 1st level), which let you get new players into the game in a minimum amount of time.
4) The game is well known, which makes it easy to find players. Also, this goes back to #2, in that the game typically doesn't provoke really strong distaste in as many players as many other systems (it probably doesn't have as strong of fans either, and for the same reason).
5) It has the classic, proven, RPG mechanics of levels, hit points, six ability scores, vancian magic, etc. I don't think that these get nearly as much appreciation as they deserve. The older I get, and the more game systems I try, the more I realize how appropriately gamist these mechanics are.
Third edition is my favorite. It brought all the following improvements to the game which in my opinion should be a part of any consensus version of the game:
3rd Edition Pro's: iterative attacks for all classes, bonus spells for arcane casters, unified skill system, unified combat system, cinematic combat system, standardized math, named bonuses, unified ability damage, improved poison resolution, fatigue system, attacks of oppurtunity, simplified advancement rates, advancement not tied to wealth, better balancing between classes (particularly fixing underpowered cleric and rogue classes), better thought out (but still not perfect) spell levels, unified magic crafting rules, superior cantrips, ability scores for all monsters, improved balance between races, somewhat cleaner spells and spell lists, improved familiar mechanics, NPC's and PC's better balanced
Still Problems In 3rd: Multi-classing is improved but not fixed, shapechanging (a problem for most systems) in some ways less well done than 1st editon, no core rules on cinematic flight/pursuit, extremely problimatic social conflict rules, non-spellcasters start lagging at high levels and class balance isn't perfect, crafting rules are a joke, profession skills inadequately described, some physical skills mysteriously missing from game (running and carrying burdens, for example), macro-scale economics and warfare systems still not as robust as they might be, core feats not nearly diverse enough, CR system problimatic, LA system even more problimatic, tiny creatures still not handled well (game doesn't scale down easily, unlike say GURPS),
Cons In 3rd edition: High levels obtained too quickly (game breaks at around 20th level, why rush to get there?), advancement in general too rapid (feels rushed too much time leveling up), too many separate bonuses at high levels of play, proliferation of far too many classes outside of core (PrC's especially to blame), prestige classes, equipment too important to high level play forcing a burden on giving out massive amounts of treasure which should have been elimenated by separting treasure from XP, 3.5 broke a few things which worked better in 3.0 for no apparant reason (and certainly no consistant reason), significant power inflation beginning with 3.0 that only got worse as the game moved to 3.5 and beyond, some absolute brokenness allowed into the game especially as splatbooks are combined, epic rules to handle game breaking at around level 20 less than well thought out, game play default style almost the same at 3rd level as 16th (very Diablo like scaling), high level characters more brittle than previous editions
The other editions are harder to speak about because many of the good things carried over, and much of the problems were fixed. More on them when I get the time.
) And for me, strong archetypes are something I grew up with in my fantasy literature. Not the same kind of archetypes that are induced by character classes...but I think many will agree that Conan, Fafhrd & Grey Mouser, Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas and Gimli are archetypes in their own right (along with types like Elric and Corum, Kikaha and Jadawin/Wolff, Kaine and a few others), which made it easy to work with the archetype/classes system D&D presented to me.
