The Inverse Trek Law?

[Raduin711]

1e -"Hey! This things sells!"

2e - "Hey! Let's crank out a new edition and sell some more! whoa. This isn't going the way we thought."

3e - "Hey! This thing sells!"

4e - "Hey! Let's crank out a new edition and sell some more! . . . "

Its all in the wrist, as they say. 1e had the right intention and idea - cool idea begets game and public responds with great sales. 3e essentially did the same thing by way of a reinvention. 2e was bandwagoneering in search of a buck. 4e appears to be similarly motivated. IMO, you are always better off aiming for cool ideas in a game and letting the sales take care of themselves. 2e did not and suffered somewhat for that. 4e again appears to be motivated more by the need to sell games than the opportunity to make a really cool game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, "they are a business," but they are a GAMING business and in a GAMING business there is no substitute IMO for being motivated by cool ideas first and sales only thereafter. We shall see if the inverse works with 4e.

I think 2nd edition had plenty of good ideas... Just look at the settings they put out. After all, that was where TSR's business plan was. Instead of going to the next edition, they went bankrupt putting out so many settings (many of them very creative, just look at DS and Planescape). That doesn't really sound like the business plan of a company that went to 2nd just to search for a buck.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

There's a serious problem with this little gem though. The idea that 2e sucked.

Just posting to say that I'm 100% in agreement with you here! And since that seems to happen rarely, I felt I had to post about it.

I loved 2E. Coming from BECMI D&D, which I loved as well, it was like an expansion. Customizable specialty priests (I STILL miss spheres!), expanded spell lists for wizards and priests, a few more options overall, but still a great familiarity with the system and compatibility with my old D&D stuff...nothing not to love about it. I used core, Complete Fighter, ToM and Arms & Equipment Guide and Complete Psionics, and that was it. And the games were lots of fun. I didn't switch to 3E because I didn't like 2E anymore, but because my friends gave me the PHB for my birthday.

So no, 2E didn't suck in my book.

 

[Dragonblade]

The Trek Law doesn't even apply to Star Trek anymore. The Director's Cut redeemed Star Trek I: The Motion Picture. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home hasn't held up terribly well. Calling Star Trek X: Nemesis weak would be a compliment. And Star Trek XI looks to be ten kinds of awesome.

Indeed, I thought Trek 5 did have some classic quotable lines even though the movie as a whole wasn't that good.

"Jim, you don't ask the almighty for his ID!"

And Kirk refusing the emotional "healing" because his pain defines who he is actually resonated quite a bit with me.

 

[Mercule]

Imo those OD&D splats broke the game. Adding 7th-9th level spells when stuff like teleport and raise dead had previously defined the maximum level of power possible was a major problem. Adding new classes such as thief and paladin when the existing classes - magic-user and cleric - left no niche for them was another.

I like the thief (rogue, whatever). But I'm with you on 7th+ level spells and the paladin.

I'm tingly just thinking about a version of D&D where teleport is near the top of the power heap, instead of in the middle.

 

[Mercule]

Indeed, I thought Trek 5 did have some classic quotable lines even though the movie as a whole wasn't that good.

"Jim, you don't ask the almighty for his ID!"

And Kirk refusing the emotional "healing" because his pain defines who he is actually resonated quite a bit with me.

"What does God need with a starship?"

 

[Set]

I liked 1st Edition, I liked 2nd Edition, and I like 3rd Edition.

I also liked the first *and* second Star Trek movies and didn't like the third *or* fourth.

'Conventional wisdom' is just something somebody said on the internet once. Lazy thinking.

I loved 2E. Customizable specialty priests (I STILL miss spheres!),

I had a system worked up that broke down the 'value' of different HD scales, weapons allowed, Sphere accessed, special abilities (like Turn undead), etc. and had written up significantly different Specialty Priest classes for most of the Realms dieties. Gosh, I miss that. *So* much different than 'I have Earth and War Domains.' Alternate Class Features, Initiate Feats and class options like the Cloistered Cleric and Archivist are finally getting around to reintroducing some of the priestly versatility of 2nd Edition.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I've liked every edition thus far throughout the life of Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[Archade]

I know that we are all speculating wildly since we don't have a full 4e set of rules to judge, but I'm really unimpressed with what I've seen so far. I'm trying *very* *very* *very* hard to keep an open mind, and I will buy a copy of the core books, but the game seems to be more of a radical departure from what I like, than I am comfortable with.

I'll be honest, 2e didn't seem like much of a radical change to me, but I was still using my 1e expansion books, like Unearthed Arcana. 1e to 2e felt to me (in retrospect) more like 3.0 to 3.5 in changes.

What I don't like with 4e is its' radical departure from 3e, a system that on the whole is not broken. I also don't like the wholesale slaughter of the sacred cows that have been in place from 1e.

One of the things I truly liked about 3e is they took sacred cows, left them in place, but tweaked them to make them a fun part of the game. Playing 3e hearkens back to 1e in flavour and tone.

4e may be a great roleplaying game, but to me, it doesn't feel like D&D.

So yes, I agree with the odd/even assessment.

 

[DreamChaser]

What I don't like with 4e is its' radical departure from 3e, a system that on the whole is not broken. I also don't like the wholesale slaughter of the sacred cows that have been in place from 1e.

Hmmm...I agree that 3e isn't broken above 3rd level and below 15th level. There it shines. Before and after things are rocky....in fact, this assessment (that 3e isn't broken within the "sweet spot") is one of the core premises they have commented on with the new edition.

In terms of sacred cows, this has always been hard for me. I will admit to being fairly counter culture and nontraditional. I would argue that many of us came to the game with some of that nontradiitonal / nonconformist mentality (I have yet to see a school with an RPG group made up of the social A-list). But then I watch as the many people hold to the traditional components of the game not because they work or are interesting but because they are traditional sacred cows. I don't get that. That may or may not relate to YOUR reason (I don't claim to know) but I always raise an eyebrow about the sacred cow issue.

Back onto the core topic, the trek issue is clearly artificial and forced. There are more editions than got numbers, there is nothing clear that can declare conclusively that 2e sucked more than any other edition. If one goes just based upon time, it lasted 9+ years which is a pretty good run.

...and yet, D&D's highest point was in the early 1980's, when 1e was in full swing.

And when there were far fewer other choices so if you were going to do fantasy role play, it was D&D or your own.

**begin sarcasm** Perhaps that was the charm. Perhaps 1e sucked so much that everyone just HRed everything but still called it 1e (cause really, who could tell the difference) and because everyone did that, those who played it extensively (I came in at the end of 1e) love it because of some masocistic / Stockholm syndrome-esque rememberance of the pleasant torment it was. **end sarcasm**

DC

 

[Spinachcat]

I tend to find that people like 1e because it was "the good old days" of D&D not because it had anything inherently positive about it. No one knew any better. There were no better games. It was mere years after fantasy role playing was created.

I am always amazed by comments like these by people who have no clue about the early years of RPGs. No one knew any better??? There were no better games???

How utterly ignorant.

The late 1970s when AD&D 1e arrived was a huge time for many amazing and great games with fabulous mechanics and settings. Tunnels & Trolls, RuneQuest, Traveller and others were extremely dynamic and different RPGs and this does not even scratch the surface of RPGs that flourished in the early 1980s when 1e hit its stride.

Do your research. People who "only play D&D" don't know much about the RPG hobby.

Examined under the today's lens, 1e has little to nothing going for it.

Except that WotC is begging the gods that 4e could possibly sell 1/10th as good a 1e. Let us never forget that 1e AD&D is the best selling RPG of all time.

For a game that has "nothing going for it", it surely was amazingly fun to play. 1e drew in crowds of people to try out RPGs. 3e got people to leave the hobby to play WoW.