What D&D has Been to Me (or You)

[Jack7]

This is personally how I see previous editions of D&D.


Original Editions - An odd mix of Wargaming and Fantasy, still pretty heavy on the Wargaming. Wargaming was becoming personalized and individualized, concentrating less on the grand sweep of armies, but of the movement and actions of small, specialized teams of "adventurers."

AD&D - The "Art of Adventuring." To me AD&D represents adventuring as an Art Form. Fantasy, literature, myth, imagination. Anything could happen. Characterization was stressed. Role-play was preeminent. It was a Greek game, and was mostly mythical. AD&D was a "Nerd Game."

2nd Edition - The only edition I never played, or even saw (except I once briefly, and I mean for about 3 minutes, scanned a fiend's book). I never saw it played, owned it, or used it. So I'm unqualified to say.

3rd Edition - The "Science of Adventuring." To me the 3rd Edition represented adventuring more as a science, rather than an art, and oftentimes as a legal enterprise. Planning, rules, strategy, measurement. Things happened because they were supposed to. Systems were stressed. Rule-play was preeminent. It was a Roman game, and was mainly engineering. 3rd Edition was a "Geek Game."

4th Edition - "Superhero Fantasy-Adventuring." To me 4th Edition represents, overall, fantasy adventuring as more of an effort to create a superhero milieu and an opportunity for characters to become superheroes. Nothing happened without a power being employed. Personal power was stressed. Complexity was preeminent. An information age game. 4th Edition was a "post-post modernist game" or a sort of transhumanist-fantasy game.


To me all of these various versions of the game represent to some large degree the nature of the society and time and creators that produce them. Yet to some lesser or greater degree these games represent, at least to some sub-segment of the general population, what the creators wish their society and time and age to become.

You're welcome to give your own opinion on what these various incarnations of the game have represented to you, and your opinions on these matters.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Okay, I'll bite. But I leave out the Original, BECMI, B/X, and RC versions as I haven't played them at all or not enough to form an opinion.

AD&D, 1st edition: The fight for survival. You enter the dungeon? Don't rely on being able to see the light of the day again. Everything and anything in there might kill you. It had a near Lovecraftian atmosphere, as your character did things and entered places that no sane being would. If you leave the dungeon, put your dice aside, they aren't needed under the sun.

AD&D, 2nd edition: You leave the dungeon and see trees and green, red roses, too. There are towns and cities with thousands of people. The focus shifted from dungeon adventuring to living in and interacting with the background of the games world. You forgot your dice? No problem, we won't be using them anyway as we marvel at the intricate background or the world.

D&D, 3rd edition: The world describing language. You want to know how long the village blacksmiths needs to forge a sword for you? Which quality he can deliver? No problem, the system gives you the answer. Want to convince the baron to pay more for your service? The answer is just a few die rolls away. Characters become scientific experiments, thus enhancing the meta-game aspects. Player talk more about their characters' minutiae than the adventures.

D&D, 4th edition: Don your jerseys, we're playing against a team of orcs. Teamplay is enforced, death at low levels isn't as imminent as before. Outside of the dungeon the rules support drops dramatically - time to bring back your old player skills from the older editions. 4e is essentially two games at once: a highly detailed tactical combat system and a rather care-free ruleless RPG.

 

[Jack7]

Jan, I liked your description of AD&D as, "The Fight for Survival." I thought that was very, very accurate.

I thought this was a great observation on 3rd Edition: "Players talk more about their characters' minutiae than the adventures."

And I thought your analysis of 4th Edition was very interesting.

 

[David Howery]

I'll just sum it up as 'the best hobby I've ever had'...

 

[wingsandsword]

Basic D&D: I tried to start playing D&D with the Black Box version of Basic D&D in '91, but my friends and myself just couldn't piece together THAC0 worked (we were 13, and reasonably bright, but it just didn't make sense to us), so we gave up on D&D. I do wonder how many kids tried to get involved with D&D but found the rules too daunting.

I played a couple of games of Basic D&D in later years run by a DM who was running for the retro/nostalgia appeal, since his normal game at the time was 2e (it was in '99). It was fun, but seemed really limited in terms of what characters could do, since spell lists were tiny, there were no "skills" so no hard rules on what characters knew or didn't know, and the options in combat were essentially to move, attack, or cast a spell (if you knew any).

It felt like the tabletop equivalent of an 8-bit console RPG: good for a little fun but once you had played almost anything else you'd know the difference and miss the options and depth.

AD&D 2e: The first D&D I ever really played at length. It felt rich and complicated, but the rules felt outdated even at the time. I only knew a couple of DM's who played 2e using the RAW. Almost every DM I knew heavily house-ruled the game. Some had a homebrew alternate skill/proficiency system, others completely re-wrote the multiclassing/dual classing rules, some changed the initiative and movement rules, others created chimeras blending 1e, 2e, Basic D&D and a pile of house-rules into something they still nominally called 2e.

Going from any one campaign to another meant essentially re-learning the game. Everybody played it, but very few were happy with how it was in RAW/stock configuration.

D&D 3e: A breath of fresh air. Unlike the morass of various incompatible house-ruled editions of 2e, most DM's used 3e mostly as-written and it was good to have everyone more-or-less on the same page.

Within less than a year every game I knew of had converted from 2e to 3e. DM's might have huge piles of homebrew feats and Prestige Classes and spells, but people were speaking the same language of D&D, instead of twenty only vaguely compatible dialects.

The big flaw was that D&D 3e was not Powergamer-safe. It would work wonderfully if the PC's weren't trying to abuse/break the system and were having a fun, relaxed time. The potential abuses in the rules (usually involving multiclass combos or being very literal with the wording of spells or feats) were huge, and I saw some people make the rules beg for mercy they bent and twisted them so hard.

D&D 3.5e: An overzealous bug-fix for 3e. It plugged the various holes I saw in 3e, but changed a lot of other little things too. It was complex and intricate, but well balanced, especially at lower levels. At higher levels combat could become ridiculously complicated and prohibitive, so I generally ran campaigns from 1st to 10th level, and 11th+ level characters were NPC's or for one-shot games.

It's biggest advantage, like 3e, was that it was so widely adopted. I knew veteran 1e players who had played AD&D with their group since the early 80's that switched over to 3.5e. Anywhere I went where there was gamers, everybody knew 3.5e. It might not be their favorite game, or their favorite edition, but everybody spoke it.

It was like the Common Language of editions.

D&D 4e: It wasn't inherently bad, but it was horribly presented. It got off to a bad start with the infamous "not fun" marketing, and throwing out a lot of beloved setting material/fluff like the Great Wheel. If it was marketed better, and kept more "legacy" fluff, and the initial releases had more of the traditional "core" races and classes, and other steps to bridge the gap, it might have been received better.

It's big downsides were that it was so unlike editions that came before in the feel and style, like it was designed to be a balanced and playable fantasy RPG first and foremost, and then afterwards slap the D&D name on it, and the way it was presented forced a schism in the fanbase. The edition wars it created were a big problem. Now there wasn't a common language anymore. There were two completely incompatible editions out there with strong fanbases and just walking up to a bunch of gamers.

This was the first edition I'd seen where I'd seen DM's tell me they just plain couldn't translate their homebrew settings to 4e, or at least do it faithfully to the setting. I'd seen a homebrew setting that started out as a 1e AD&D setting the author started working on in his spare time as an undergrad, and transitioned to 2e AD&D in grad school, and had turned eventually into a thriving, hugely well documented and lavishly fleshed out 3e and later 3.5 game with lots of homebrew materials. . .and he looked at the 4e core books and realized that the setting just wouldn't be the same in 4e as it had been in 1e through 3.5e. If he was going to run 4e, he would want to write up a completely new setting to use 4e from scratch instead of just update the setting he'd been running for almost 20 years.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

4e is essentially two games at once: a highly detailed tactical combat system and a rather care-free ruleless RPG.

Spot on observation. I'd XP you if I could!

 

[Jack7]

It was like the Common Language of editions.

I thought that was a very interesting observation, as were your points about "dialects" with AD&D. Actually I thought the dialects of AD&D made it much more interesting and flexible a game than the "all the rules the same approach" of 3rd.

Then again this may be a generational thing. Modern Geeks (and again I'm not using the term disparagingly, merely descriptively) it has been my observation tend to favor and like cohernce and predictability, whereas I come from different era, and was playing when D&D and AD&D had first been invented, and that was a very different age in general mindset.

I'd say that for the most part we looked at technology, society, culture, and even down to things like gaming very differently back then.

* * *
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Another thing that occurred to me today while walking through the woods with my dog and thinking about guerilla tactics and fighting in forested areas was this:

The Original versions of D&D approached combat much like bargaining ancient armies.

AD&D, on the other hand, was more like modern combat from let's say the Napoleonic era to World War II. I don't mean marching men in line formation, or fighting in trenches, or Blitzkrieg tactics. I mean AD&D combat was much like the beginning of the era of modern Special Forces, where small, specialized, highly trained teams of soldiers were employed for special missions. The Adventurers or the Adventuring Party was a, "Special Forces Team." Each member had highly specialized capabilities and was employed most fully when his particular specialization was most needed. And like the WWII Special Forces member he relied heavily on his gear and technology and training, though in this case technology was magic or miracles, unless you were a Thief or Ranger or Fighter. Then it was mostly training. But like in WWII, despite training and special abilities - like those of a Paladin, it was an awfully dangerous affair. In the Second World War Special Forces might have been highly trained and valuable soldiers, they were still largely expendable. And far more often than not they were sent into combat zones where they were overmatched, with the hope that their specialized training and gear and experience would even the odds. But they were still sent on plenty of seemingly "hopeless missions." This was the same basically, with the AD&D Adventurer, where he often went into areas and places, and against enemies who overmatched him greatly. It was the Adventurer's (SF) job to even the odds, not the job of his Commanders, or in this case, the job of the game designer or DM.

2E I didn't know, but from what I've heard of the skill system I'd say it extended that SF combat analogy up to about the Vietnam War era. Skills and training packages were gaining more and more importance.

By 3rd Edition you're starting to see the transition to truly Modern/Contemporary Special Forces where both training and gear become ultra-specialized, and magic (the technology of the game) becomes highly systemized and regulated and predictable. Magic becomes entirely predictable and useable in the same way as say, "a shaped charge." By 3E the game had become essentially magic-science, and the use of magic therefore had basically lost the wild and dangerous and unpredictable nature it had in AD&D. For instance in WWII bombs had fuse charges, and magic too had that same sort of unpredictability and dangerous unreliability as WWII bombs. But by 3E you see magic as being basically analogous to modern bombs with electro-mechanical charges and remote triggering devices. Magic had become "tamed" and predictable and was naturally expected to work as designed, not a potentially wild and dangerous proposition. At the same time you were developing "smart-magic." Magic that was surgically controllable, as opposed to the AD&D/WWII era magic of 500 pound explosives and carpet bombings. Because everything, from magic to combat was becoming a matter of "technical expertise and precision."

By 4th Edition you see, at least as far as combat goes (and I'm talking combat models here), you see two very, very modern combat principles: ubiquitous force projection (in the form of every man projecting maximum combat force), and universal force protection (the defensibility of every soldier, or in this case, adventurer). That is it is no longer good enough to make fighters fight, but fighters must project maximum force offensively, but even traditionally non-combatant team members must project maximum force with "powers" (magical or otherwise) compensating for the fact that non-fighters should (according to this combat theory) project real combat force. At the other end of the scale things like "balance" assure that the Adventurers (read modern SF) are no longer sent on suicide missions, or seeming suicide missions, and instead are sent against forces for which the combatants (Adventurers) are basically better equipped, better trained, and better powered than their foes.

Adventurers have gone from being (in the AD&D model) not just forces capable of Special Offensive capabilities, which you expend on missions no one else could possible accomplish, but Special Assets which you have spent too much time and energy and treasure on equipping, training, powering, and developing to risk losing on suicide or risky missions. Instead the tactic moves from the AD&D model of "these are our best assets, so let's risk them because no one else could do the job" to one of the contemplator Special Forces ideal of "these are our best assists so we're not going to risk them unless we know they are gonna destroy any enemy they encounter."

The AD&D combat model was one of, "These Adventurers are like Special Forces, and because that's what they are it is their job to survive the impossible, that's what we trained them for. It's their problem." (Not the DM's problem or the problem of the game designers.)

By the time you get to 4E, the combat model has switched to one of, "These adventurers are Special Forces, and because of that we don't risk them in desperate situations and hope they survive based on their own ingenuity and wit (because, hope is not a plan), but instead it is Command's and the commander's job (read the game designer's and DM's) to assure that they go into combat at least even, but ideally well overmatching their enemy.

With AD&D the main combat consideration was "Force Projection." By the time of the development of 4th Edition the game had adapted the entirely culturally popular and imminently contemporary combat conceptions of "Force Projection balanced against Force Protection."

This is in my opinion why combat is such a tedious and cumbersome affair in 4th Edition. Combat is not just primarily an offensive action but is also equally an Force Protection, or defensive action as well. Effectively doubling combat times.

Well, I gotta hit the hay. Interesting observations you guys have made.

 

[Shades of Green]

For me:

OD&D, BECMI and AD&D 1E: These rules I haven't played, though I did read the books eventually. I did play some of the BECMI adventures, though, and they were usually very cool in concept (X1: Isle of Dread is a good example of this) but quite sparse in "flesh" - it was the GM's job to flesh them out.

AD&D 2E: This was the first edition I've ever played; back at the day, most people simply referred to it as "D&D", or at most, "AD&D", as 1E was VERY rare here in Israel (no internet shopping back in the 1980's/early 1990's so we played almost exclusively games translated into Hebrew and published locally). At the time we had TONS of fun with it. Also, back in the day, most AD&D 2E supplements were rare here so we played AD&D 2E rules with BECMI adventures and mostly with homebrew stuff. In retrospect, however, these rules haven't aged well IMHO, and now they feel quite clunky and not so elegant - everything had its own independent subsystem, THAC0 was cumbersome and so was descending AC. One thing I must say, though, was that I LOVE the 2E Monster Manual - so much good flavor text and adventure hooks!

D&D 3E: At first, a welcome improvement from 2E. Ascending AC and combat bonuses, as well as a more sound skill system, were much easier to use than the equivalent 2E subsystems. Later on, however, this system started to feel heavy in terms of GM prep time. It also started to feel a bit too detailed in terms of options and stats. It's best feature, IMHO, was the OGL - which sparked a renaissance of small-time gaming publishers.

D&D 4E: I haven't played this edition, but I did read it's "test-drive" rules. It seems to have many innovative features, but it also feels a bit grindy (at least from reading the "test-drive" rules).

BFRPG: A breath of air to GM after D&D 3E. Everything is simple, while the systems are much more elegant than the ones in AD&D 2E. Prep takes 30 minutes at most for fun adventures rather than 3 hours or more in 3E. Much easier to manage, and not too many stats - just as my (role-play-centric) spouse likes it.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Old-school D&D re-imagined and re-designed into a thing of beauty with a horror orientation. Very elegant rules, a lot of atmosphere and several innovations. Extremely good artwork. My current favorite.

 

[Mercutio01]

Original Editions/Basic - Have a copy of the boxed set but haven't played it. I've read through it a bunch of times for ideas and to see how it was built. I have played Mentzer Basic and own a nice copy of that with original crayon and all. It's quick, simple, and fun to play, but my experience with it is pretty much limited to dungeon crawls

AD&D - Own the PHB and DMG. Played it, but found it a bit too difficult in practice, especially when looking at things like weapon speed. The attack matrices felt like they gave too much power to the DM, and I just overall didn't enjoy it as I did Basic.

2nd Edition - The first edition I played chronologically. My first real introduction to D&D and gaming in general. Started this in the Boy Scout troop I belonged to at the time (we later played "Price of Freedom," "Battletech/Mechwarrior," and "Morrow Project.") The THAC0 concept bothered me for awhile, and then I played 1E and became thankful for THAC0 for awhile. I even tried DMing for the first time, although I didn't do so well. For me, this was D&D writ large, and some of my fondest gaming experiences come out of 2E as that was my primary system for years, until...

3rd Edition - I totally wasn't a fan at first. It felt like some sacred cows had been sacrificed (Thief percentages, Save vs. and, yes, THAC0). Then I played in a few games. I was a convert. It was everything 2E was for me, but better and more coherent. Unified mechanics for just about everything, no more roll under, roll over, subtraction, and different dice for seemingly similar actions. If 2E was some of my fondest experiences, 3E was most of the rest of them. Then I started DMing, and spending 4 times as long to prep as I spent playing, and I just didn't have that kind of time to really sink into it. That led to the promises of...

4th Edition - Simplified DM mechanics to make it easier to prep, pick up, and play. The card mechanic intrigued the hell out of me. Promise of a 3d character generator, character sheet, integrated VTT that would allow me to play with my old gaming friends that had spread across the country...they were speaking my language. Then finance issues hit close to home (directly at home, actually), and computer programs were so much vaporware. I got to DM, and it really was easier and more fun from my perspective behind the screen. Then I started playing, sans online tools. Creating characters became a chore on the order of 3E DM prep. Each character felt pretty much identical to the next, with minor differences in numbers all that really seemed to separate them. Still playing it (especially since I spent so long to make some of the characters, you're darn tootin' I was going to use them), but not a fan any longer. Moved to...

Pathfinder - All of the good things I remember about 3E. Most of the same hang-ups. Still playing it. Still liking it as much as I did 3E, still don't really have the time to sink into DM prep that it requires for me to feel decently prepared.

In general, I've moved away from straight D&D as rules-light is having a bigger and bigger appeal to me. Between that and some of the indie-games which have a serious sexy factor by really leveraging the gaming social contract so that players and GM agree to work together to drive narrative and add to the fiction of the game (I'm looking at you, Slasher Flick, Apocalypse World, and ICONS), I find my love of gaming is exhibiting itself in a new fashion, generally outside traditional D&D, although some of the OSR types of games, Old School Hack in particular, seem to scratch both itches equally, which is nice.

All that said, I'm very, very much hopeful for 5E, and really want them to succeed at the design goal to appeal to players of all editions.

 

[Jack7]

Later on, however, this system started to feel heavy in terms of GM prep time. It also started to feel a bit too detailed in terms of options and stats.

It felt that way to me too. 4E as well.

In general, I've moved away from straight D&D as rules-light is having a bigger and bigger appeal to me.

I hear ya.

All that said, I'm very, very much hopeful for 5E, and really want them to succeed at the design goal to appeal to players of all editions.

Me too.