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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 5779096" data-attributes="member: 54707">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.*          *            * 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.</blockquote>

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