The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - about every edition of D&D

[Herschel]

Simply talking about different editions, or even comparing the relative strengths and weaknesses of different editions, doesn't automatically make for an edition war, you know.

Or am I being foolish in thinking we can remain civil?

Hush, you poopy-headed weasel licker.

 

[delericho]

Hush, you poopy-headed weasel licker.

Good point.

 

[TerraDave]

ambitious...I will just do four editions

ADD1

Good: Flavor, style, and mixing swords and sorcery just right to start making D&D its own genre. Also, probably just enough options in the core (for the time)
Bad: From OD&D to AD&D lots of little things have been added for balance, making the game more complicated, but balance (or having thief that just doesn't suck) remains elusive.
Ugly: too many incompatible systems, especially for sneaking/surprising, and too many rules that people just thought better to ignore.

ADD2
Good: Droped some of those ignorable rules and tried to open the game up to a wider range of styles.
Bad: THACO: an ackward compramise that actually complicated the game while not making it better. Pretty much 2E mechanics in a nut shell.
Ugly: Stripped out the swords and sorcery style in the core, kicking out demons, devils, and assasins while opening the door to the great big supplement mountain which broke many games, wasted a lot of money, and evetually helped bankrupt TSR.

D&D3
Good: Kept, or restored, many of the details and some of the flavour of AD&D, while making the mechanics far more coherent. Plus it launched the OGL.
Bad: Under its shiney surface lurked much of the wonkiness of the old rules, new complications, and a surprising break down in balance just about as bad as before.
Ugly: 3.5

D&D 4
Good: Made game play the real focus, and did more then ever before to improve how the game worked at the table.
Bad: Went so far as to alienate some potential fans, but still didn't quite get all numbers or balance (or flavor) right
Ugly: Seems to be all about big multi-monster fights and kewl powers (even if its not)

 

[Desdichado]

duplicate post...

 

[Desdichado]

duplicate post...

 

[Desdichado]

OD&D

• The Good: Uh... started the trend? Other than its historical position, I can't really think of anything about this game that I'd call a good point.
  
  
• The Bad: See the ugly. I think the problems with OD&D are pretty apparent universally, unlike some other editions.
  
  
• The Ugly: Terrible design. No design. It references stuff that it just assumes readers will know and be familiar with. It forces you to make up at least half the rules yourself, because it doesn't provide anything to cover them. Inordinate reliance on wargaming conventions and expectations. Really; it barely qualifies as a roleplaying game at all by today's standards.

BECMI

• The Good: Complete and simple ruleset. Not hard to score a copy still. Iconic experience for an entire generation of players. Focus started to drift away from wargamey and simulationist expectations.
  
  
• The Bad: Still a lot of arbitrariness and arbitrary limitations. Marketed poorly; seen (unfairly IMO, but still) as an inferior alternative for "n00bs" to AD&D.
  
  
• The Ugly: Dwarf and elf as classes? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Level limits.

1e

• The Good: The iconic edition of D&D for most. Had some classic products.
  
  
• The Bad: Added more rules to the OD&D framework, but they were arbitrary and poorly designed rules. Despite this, the rules also often covered bizarre and arcane questions while still leaving gaping holes in what you'd expect from a ruleset. Lots of arbitrariness. Still required too many houseules... not to tweak to taste, but to literally fix things that weren't addressed or didn't work.
  
  
• The Ugly: About the most poorly organized game ever professionally published. Way too arbitrary. Way too many rules subsets. Way too much broken-ness, especially after the publication of Unearthed Arcana.

2e

• The Good: Settings. Novels. Well, the novels were a good idea, anyway, and I still maintain that. Even if as novels most of them are pretty terrible. The late period splatbooks finally removed some of the feel of limitations, but it did so in a terrible, clunky way. While the idea of splatbooks was good, the actual execution falls below on The Bad or maybe even The Ugly.
  
  
• The Bad: All the problems of 1e, except now with more boring. Politics at TSR caused the removal of too much iconic sword & sorcery material. Tone change to high fantasy. Terrible modules. Terrible splatbooks.
  
  
• The Ugly: Pretty much the same as The Bad. Also, lost a lot of ground for D&D in general; people migrated to other games, and did other things than fantasy.

3e

• The Good: Unified mechanic made the rules easy to master, and easy to fudge even if you didn't. Modular nature of rules subsets. You could easily change the game to get different tone and feel. With a few notable exceptions (like grapple, that I still look up) the rules faded into the background and disappeared. The OGL. Great third party publishers like Green Ronin, Privateer Press, FFG and Paizo.
  
  
• The Bad: 3.5. It fixed a few things, but it broke as many again, and changed a whole lot more for no good reason. Then it rereleased the splatbooks. Naked money grab, and I'm still bitter about it, frankly. Plus, it somehow set the tone for the third parties; Arcana Unearthed got updated to Arcana Evolved. Mutants & Masterminds got a second edition. Even Midnight was re-released as a 3.5 product. Also, continued focus on the wargame. It's more difficult to play 3e without minis and a battlemat than most RPGs I play. Too many D&Disms retained.
  
  
• The Ugly: System has a definite "sweet spot" and it fails to deliver consistent fun outside of that. In particular, high level play is nothing like low and mid-level play. Epic is just flat-out terrible.

No comment on 4e. I don't know enough about it to speak intelligently here.

 

[avin]

I like these kind of topics. Makes people leave the sopa box of their loved editions and recognize there's no perfect D&D edition.

1e

Never played. But if Diaglo can say bad things about editions he never played why can't I say 1E is like DOS?

2e

The Good: Planescape. Monstrous Manual. Dark Sun.

The Bad: Different XP for different classes. Racial limitations.

The Ugly: Thac0.


3e

The Good: It killed 2E (hehehe), fantastic art and presentation, cool looking hardcovers, OGL (Scarred Lands ftw).

The Bad: Forcing us to buy 3.5... lame.

The Ugly: Completely unbalanced at high levels. Munchkin paradise. Useless Fighters.

4e

The Good: Balance (a Fighter doesn't need to play Nintendo DS while his Wizard partner obliterates everything alone), Character Builder. Oh, seeing my caster munchkin friends cursing this, well, is really priceless

The Bad: Combats take too long. Books look like TV set manuals.

The Ugly: Bland fluff. 4E is a beautiful body without a soul. Some traditional fluff being killed just because some designer don't like it. Disbelief suspension is pushed a lot.

 

[diaglo]

I like these kind of topics. Makes people leave the sopa box of their loved editions and recognize there's no perfect D&D edition.

1e

Never played. But if Diaglo can say bad things about editions he never played why can't I say 1E is like DOS?

what edition have i never played?

i've played them all.

 

[Umbran]

I think I'll sit this edition war thread out.

Folks, it is all fine and good if you don't want to take part in threads on certain topics. However, walking in and taking part by announcing that you won't be taking part is kind of silly.

If yo don't like the thread, ignore it. If you feel someone has broken the rules, report it. But don't threadcrap. Thanks.

 

[Herschel]

Maybe the thread can stay level-headed. I suppose it is worth a shot. I'll give my own opinions a roll in about as short a format as I can.

OD&D:
Good: Started it all as D&D (from Chainmail). Box sets for tiers were a nice, cost-effective way to enter the game.

Bad: Limited in scope (to be expected). Fighters were good early, wizards were good later.

Ugly: Couldn’t find dice outside of the boxed sets originally. (The greatest horror of all!)

1E:
Good: Ramped the game up and expanded it in almost epic proportions. Gave us the race/class splits we still see today and set up the classic game worlds. Also gave us classic adventures that taught us not to get too attached to a character.

Bad: Started splatbook rampage with Unearthed Arcana. Tried to “fix” fighters with double specialization.

Ugly: UA also introduced Drow as a PC playable race. (second greatest horror of all!)

2E:
Good: Wonderful settings and THAC0 was the greatest gaming term ever. Artwork expanded almost exponentially. Was the “Golden Age” as general popularity was likely at its highest.

Bad: Got a bit wonky with consistency. Skills & Powers and Combat & Tactics really pushed the splatbook production to full throttle.

Ugly: Expandable Monster Manual was an interesting idea, but three-ring binders are NEVER a good choice.

3E/3.5E:
Good: Gave consistent rules for attack and defense instead of inverse relationships. Also made better mechanics for concealment and incorporeal. Consistent level advancement was much more streamlined. Gave rise to the skirmish game and the marketing opportunity of DDM.

Bad: Gave munchkinism a boost of amazing proportions. Rules bloat was everywhere and splatbooks were seemingly never-ending. Much of the artwork turned ugly and more anime-influenced with over-sized weapons, ears and steroid-laced characters. Redundant bad artwork was everywhere.

Ugly: Really taxed the DM for creation time and headaches. Turned the role-playing portion in to roll playing with the ungodly number of rules and skills for out-of-combat gaming. Didn’t figure out how to have THAC0 work or another awesome acronym or term. BAB sounds like a sheep bleeting. Template madness for half-this-n-that (like dragons) and the new mapping convention for modules was terrible.

4E:
Good: Balanced the game like no other edition. No more being spellcaster’s lackeys for fighting men. Makes DMing fun again and puts the role-playing portions back in to my hands. Skill challenges are a great idea. It’s mechanically a tremendous system. It put players back on an even playing field.

Bad: The original PHB reads like a technical manual. Healing surges are a great game mechanic, but awful from a flavor standpoint. The giant-to-titan advancement really annoys me.

Ugly: Dragonborn and Tieflings as player races. Drow are terrible, and these two new pet races really challenge the Drow for the title of worst player races ever. Certain superior mechanical choices are bad from a flavor standpoint.