The "Smell Test"

[Mercule]

Statistics are Fun!

Awesome. I'd totally XP you, if it was turned on. Thanks, anyway.

 

[Blackbrrd]

What's the AD&D 2nd edition called? It's the one I played until I got about 20 and it's the one I think of as D&D.

4e brought some great things to the table, but ended up feeling too gamey and combat felt like chess.

I thought 4e was the second coming but I hated the bazillion feats and the more or less clunky character creation and the extreme itemization. Now I just want something simple and fun.

 

[Mercule]

What's the AD&D 2nd edition called? It's the one I played until I got about 20 and it's the one I think of as D&D.

That's the 1e/2e option. I lumped them together because, for most of the run you could pick and choose which rules to use from which edition. I claimed to be running 1e, and generally referenced the 1e DMG, but I used the 2e thief and cleric along side the 1e ranger that got the 2e stealth tables attached. The books had a different feel to them and the Gygaxian prose was gone, but the rules were pretty fluid -- rather like the 3.0 to 3.5 transition.

 

[Mercutio01]

I just had to say that I really like the phrasing of this poll (and WotC had a similar phrasing in its playtest feedback). I have played 3E the most of any edition, but identify strongest with the very end of 1E and beginning of 2E.

 

[Libramarian]

The core of DDN is intended to be simpler and stripped-down; look at it as an modern recreation of Basic/Expert D&D. It is likely that we'll also see an "Old School" module to give it more of an AD&D feel: more random elements in general, class/race restrictions, weapon vs armor type adjustments, longer natural healing times, XP for treasure, easier spell disruption, no at-will magic, expensive & difficult magic item creation, etc.

If that turns out to be the case, then it would start smelling better to me, sure. So far their "old school module" (ignoring background and theme) is quite lame. I actually like backgrounds quite a bit.

I much prefer the per-round group initiative as well. Primarily because it just tends to run faster, but also because everybody takes their turn at once instead of waiting. I like to run it in the "phased" style of Basic D&D, where you resolve ranged attacks, then movement, then melee, then magic in that order for each side. Segmented movement and casting times as written in AD&D 1e are too fiddly and time-consuming for my liking.

I really hope they take another look at group initiative for core. I'm not entirely sure how individual initiative evolved, but it would be pretty funny if it was because they thought it was more realistic, and then to make it faster they stopped rerolling initiative every round, creating cyclical individual initiative, which feels the least realistic of all.

I was doing this when I ran the playtest if I didn't have a good reason for the monster to attack a specific PC. I usually just made it part of the attack roll; if the d20 came up odd is was one PC, and if it came up even it was the other PC.

For my playtest I convinced a friend with almost no experience DMing to run it, so I could get both the player's perspective and observe how a new DM uses the rules. One thing that struck me is that they never considered using dice to determine the state of the gameworld unless the rules said to do so. They thought they had to decide by pure fiat anything not covered by the rules. So the monsters never broke morale, because they didn't want to end a combat purely by fiat, and monsters tended to attack the PC with the highest AC and HP, because they didn't want to decide that by fiat and be a dick about it. I'm pretty sure new DMs have to be taught to think of the dice like a tool, rather than just part of the rules.

I think it's quite likely that it will replace AD&D as my preferred version of D&D; I love the feel of AD&D and how quickly combats can be resolved, but it's hard for me to look past many of the clunky rules and arbitrary restrictions after years of playing the WotC incarnations of the game. Also, I find that I'm usually more enthusiastic about running an AD&D or Basic/Expert D&D game than are my players.

My players are just about begging me to get back to running our Isle of Dread/Dwellers of the Forbidden City AD&D campaign, so I think we're done playtesting until they make some significant changes.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually i am not surprised, 2nd edition people are liking this playtest.
And i am glad it resounds that well with 3rd edition people.
And 4th edition people are at least split, even slightly positive.

not that this polls is a proof of the success, but it is at least a small one.
They have created a bas system, that seems fun for most.

And if you consider, that the tactical module is for the most part non existant, you could also call it a success there.

 

[PinkRose]

Great poll.
And exactly how I've been reading the forums as well.
4e is 50/50, 3e is pretty ok, and 90% of 2e are excited by it.
Sounds about right to me.

 

[Old_Skool]

For the most part it smells good. But I'm getting a sardine-like aroma from the at-will spells, high hit point values, and damage-no-matter-what stuff.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

The play test smells more like the AD&D that I learned with than 4e does, but that's a strike against 5e in my book.

See, some of us have a wider comfort zone when it comes to what 'feels like D&D.' So long as I'm rolling dice, killing monsters and taking their stuff, I feel like I'm playing D&D. Everything else is just how well the edition does those things.

 

[Mercule]

The play test smells more like the AD&D that I learned with than 4e does, but that's a strike against 5e in my book.

The poll is not about whether you like it or not, just whether it "feels" like whatever D&D feels like to you.

If AD&D defines your gut-level of what make D&D, but that makes you want to drink bleach, you'd still check "smells fishy" if the playtest felt like a different game and you loved it.

Is it D&D? Not "do you like it?"