The purpose of D&D's evolution?

[radferth]

Man, did you ever read the brown books? They are almost incomprhensible, with atrocious layout and odious art. I would play GURPS or HARP if it was still OD&D. Besides, OD&D would have been out of print and totally forgotten if it still was the brown books.

I'm surprised to hear Turanil espouse this position (unless it just for Diaglo's benefit), as I have been thinking of C&C as kind of like OD&D with all the incomprehensable bits removed, and some new classes added.

 

[Jupp]

I'm surprised to hear Turanil espouse this position (unless it just for Diaglo's benefit), as I have been thinking of C&C as kind of like OD&D with all the incomprehensable bits removed, and some new classes added.

That impression must come from the fact that you have not read through C&C yet.

 

[I'm A Banana]

D&D is a living, breathing document, flexible and adaptable to the times!

If it wasn't, we'd have stopped playing it 25 years ago. Some of us did.

 

[painandgreed]

Now the question is who has to fear for his job at WotC when 4e comes out

Monte Cook? it isn't so much about getting rid of the job, but rather getting rid of IP and credit to people that no longer have jobs there.

One thing that the continuous versions have done is add in house rules or at least get rid of the need for them. For all the bad things people have to say about AD&D2, whenit came out, every DM I knew (including myself) had a three ring binder of house rules that we could throw away because similar rules (notably a skill system) had been incorporated into the RAW. They may not have been as good as some of the individual systems out there, but they were in the RAW and stadardized instead of a different set of house ruels for each DM.

 

[rogueattorney]

I have always been struck by the irony that the Holmes/Moldvay-Cook/Mentzer branch of basic D&D was always portrayed as the true inheritor of original D&D, when in fact it was mechancially a pretty significant departure from the OD&D system -- genetically, Basic D&D is more of a cousin than a child of OD&D.

And on the other hand, while AD&D was always portrayed as a system radically different from original D&D, it was in fact a clear, direct descendant of the original game. AD&D really just collected and expanded all of the original D&D material that had been scattered accross the little booklets, the Strategic Review, and The Dragon.

????
And which mechanics in later D&D was a "pretty significant departure"? I can't think of a single one.

AD&D on the other hand had a completely different initiative system, different hit charts for fighters and thieves, a base 10 AC instead of 9, different Saving Throw categories, VSM components for spells, different experience charts for every single class, different hit dice for the fighter, cleric and thief, a different monatary system, different costs for armor and weapons (no more 1st level characters running around in plate mail), explicit division of race and class, training costs, 9 prong alignment instead of 3... I really could go on if I wanted to. Not one of those things I listed was changed between the original box and the last version of Basic D&D, which came out in 1995 (exception: The spell and experience chart for magic-users were changed in the Holmes set from the original set).

So, I ask again, which mechanic are you talking about?

R.A.

 

[Timeboxer]

I'm not a particularly cynical person, but of course people get into business to make money.

Well, my point was more that designing et. al for D&D is not the most lucrative business in the world, and there are rather more effective ways to earn money if that's what you're looking for. Even Hasbro appears to not make that much off of the property; not enough worth trumpeting, so far as I've read.

But the cynicism I was referring to wasn't in the idea that designers do it for money -- of course they do, else why do it for a living? It's in the implication (which I may just be reading into the post) that there is a wide gulf between designers and the audience, and that the designers are perhaps arbitrarily adding incremental changes to the game largely to obtain more money from a perhaps unsuspecting audience who want a new and different thing. I think it's important to realize that the designers are (or, perhaps, were) part of the audience, and really do have some sort of desire to make a "better" game, however they might think that should be implemented.

 

[Quasqueton]

No questions about 3e?

I left it out to avoid having idiots drag this thread into an edition war.

So, thanks for opening the door to that dungeon. [/sarcasm]

Quasqueton

 

[Nightfall]

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Why did the chicken cross the road?

What is the other side?

If a chicken dies on the road, and no one else is around, does it become an undead?

Are undead evil?

If undead are evil, why is people enjoy watching movies like "Ghost?"

If Whoopi Goldberg were a D&D character, what would she be?

It's these kinds of questions I find more interesting.

 

[Nightfall]

To get rid of Dave Arneson.



To get rid of Gary.

Psion, as always your humor so concides with mine, it's almost scary.

 

[Rasyr]

The answer of the day!

Now the question is who has to fear for his job at WotC when 4e comes out

Mike Mearls?