The D&D Edition Complexity Thread- How do you order Edition Complexity?

[Vigdisdotter]

Being new to the website, can someone explain the acronyms to me? What are
Holmes, B/X (Holmes / Moldvay) and BECMI (Mentzer - Cyclopedia)?

 

[HarbingerX]

See Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set - Wikipedia

These are all versions of Basic D&D.

Holmes is the first 'basic' D&D after Original Dungeons & Dragons (OD&D). B/X is Basic/Expert which is the second basic edition. BECMI is Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal which was later collected together into the Rules Cyclopedia.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Being new to the website, can someone explain the acronyms to me? What are
Holmes, B/X (Holmes / Moldvay) and BECMI (Mentzer - Cyclopedia)?

Older versions of D&D. Scroll up 3 or 4 posts.

 

[Minigiant]

One other thing to think about is how the base complexity to run the game effectively. Like the minimum amount of complexity to create an effective D&D experience. 4e has a bunch of customization options but a player doesn't need most of them to play the game as planned (provided you fixed the math). You couldplay 3.Xwith simple terms, rules, PCs, monsters, and NPCs but you'd have to lock out 75% of the game and not really play D&D. AD&D and earlier had a lot of unconnected rules and confusing language but once you got it you have D&D and don't need to add more.

I can't rank it though.

 

[Wiseblood]

One caveat...if I went back to play 3.5, I would use ONLY the later books, and exclude the core. The core was where 90% of the imbalance was. Games where your casters were beguilers and warmages were actually pretty fun.

Interesting, back in the day I always wanted to limit players to the core books. I think your idea is better.

 

[Lanefan]

Spealing of option paralysis, 3.x is also rather complex because of the sheer magnitude of customization elements and their effects at the table. Even just in the core books there's dozens of feats and a laundry list of spells, and that's before every splat book used feats as an easy page filler. Keeping it all straight, let alone keeping track of which are worthwhile is a cottage industry itself. It's very complex. I'd almost say it's the most complex.

In the other hand both editions of AD&D are pretty complex as well for different reasons. Both share the classic issue of disparitive rules for different actions, but 1e has EGG's purple prose and poor organization, while 2e is easier to read, but brings in added elements (namely making NWP essentially standard; even if they were labeled optional in the PHB, they were almost universal in use and subsequent books assumed their use) and had a ton of options throughout its lifespan. Both are pretty complex, but less so than what 3.x turned into.

From the player side, I found 3e far more complex than 1e; where my measuring stick was how often I had to refer to my character sheet (or the PH) during the run of play to look something up.

For warrior-types in particular, the ever-changing bonuses, buffs, feats, etc. made 3e an absolute mess compared to 1e; at least the way I was used to playing 1e. For wizard-types the difference wasn't as glaring but was still present.

And level-up in 1e for any class is massively simpler than 3e. No spending ages figuring out feats and feat tracks, no worrying about assigning skill points; in 1e the level just gives you what it gives you.

1e's complexity is mostly on the DM side.

 

[Li Shenron]

If the evaluation should be based on "applying 80% or more of the intended and non-optional rules" then I actually think 5e would be the least complex at all, because you can choose to play very low-complexity PCs only in 5e and still be within the "intended and non-optional".

 

[zztong]

Complexity: Least < OD&D - 1e/2e - 4e - 5e - 3e/3.5e - PF2 - PF1 > Most

I'll note that my ranking of complexity isn't my ranking of how enjoyable I have found each version. Also, I'm okay with not having a kitchen-sink set of rules and often find that to be freeing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Least - RC - 2E - 5E - 1E - 4E - - - - - - 3E - - - PF1 - Most

Not rating OD&D for similar reasons to others.

4E is more complex than 1E solely because of the nightmare of reactions, interrupts and immediate actions and so on that can happen, particularly above 11th level with the older 4E classes.

 

[Ratskinner]

For me, least to most:

Basic * 5e - 3e - 2e - 4e - 1e

*I find most Basic editions simple in structure, but often with large gaps or weird quirks like indoor/outdoor measurement. So Basic and 5e kinda float around each other in different ways, in my head.

4e to me is odd because it looks simple, but in practice there were so many moving parts. 1e drops below 3e for me because of all the oddball rules subsystems (google the 1e combat flowchart....yeesh). There's no easy equivalent to setting a DC, and tables, tables, tables for so many things. Both 2e and 1e suffer from all the weird measurement issues, IME.