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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Quixote" data-source="post: 3939204" data-attributes="member: 694">To this day, my fondness for different editions is split between AD&D 2nd edition, Classic D&D, and the d20 System.  I've played and DMed all these games for many a year, and over that time I've made some observations about what each is good for.Classic D&D is the gamer's game, and to this day it remains my system of choice.  I remember the first time that I opened the '94 boxed set (the last version ever published of a true descendant of Original/Basic D&D!) and pulled out those seven different colored Chessex dice, the little plastic red miniatures, the cardboard standup monsters, and the gridded dungeon poster map.  The rules lent themselves well to casual gaming -- your fighter, magic-user, cleric, thief, halfling, dwarf, or elf goes into the dungeon, kills monsters, and takes their stuff.  How?  Move your piece on the board and roll some dice.  Tactical, table-top combats are easy to run (a must for any good game of D&D), and there's exactly as much story as the players put into the game!  Now, granted, my sensibilities here have since been influenced by 2e and 3e.  These days, when I want to run a long campaign, I pull out my copies of the Rules Cyclopedia and the Basic, Expert, Companion, and Masters Sets.  I find that they provide just the right mixture of light rules (read, easy to DM!), tabletop tactics (gotta love that wargamey feel), and opportunity for storytelling and roleplay.For most of the 90s, though, I was definitely caught up in AD&D 2nd edition.  After all, this was the really popular version of the game:  the one that everyone, and I mean *everyone* played.  It was *the* game, period.  Those black-covered 2nd printing rulebooks were just damn cool to hold; the art style was definitive of fantasy gaming; and every single one of those books stressed story and roleplay elements.  Even the most gratuitously rules-laden, power-gamey splatbook from the 2e era was chock full of way more fluff than crunch.  More than any other RPG *ever*, 2e had a feeling, a real mood-setting tone.  The core rulebooks implored DMs and players alike to let stats and rules fall by the wayside in service to roleplaying, something we certainly haven't seen since.  I don't play 2e anymore (although I would certainly love to, given the opportunity), but I have taken from it the sense of style and the feeling that D&D should be a roleplayer's game as much as a gamer's game.As for 3e, I switched from 2e on the very day the new PHB came out.  I kind of regret that decision now.  I thought that 3e was better because it was new and shiny and had a rule for everything and it was all simply roll high on the d20 and there were no more race and class or multiclassing restrictions and-and-and---*gasp*!!!  You get the idea.  It was nice to see options replace restrictions, and for once, tactical combat was spelled out unambiguously.  For the first time, I could run miniatures battles in a way that really made sense (rather than just the ad hoc method that dominated my CD&D games).  After six or seven years of playing 3e, though, I found myself falling into the same trap which has affected so many others.  The game became a chore rather than a pleasure to DM; it was always about the rules (My God, so many rules!  Oh, the humanity!) and never about character or plot; and the anything-goes, character-building mentality started to make the game feel cheap.  For a while, I found myself constantly searching for lighter alternatives (C&C, True20) until, in the end, I just gave up on d20-style games altogether and went back to the older editions.  I knew that the older editions would work.  I still had the fond memories of all those great story-intensive, character-driven games I used to run under 2e and Classic.  And what do you know?  It worked out exactly as I'd hoped.  As soon as I converted my long-running campaign from 3e to 2e, the soul was back into it.  As a DM, switching back to the simpler set of rules was both a feeling of coming home and a breath of fresh air.  It was so invigorating that I was inspired to start a number of other short campaigns using Classic D&D, and these have been just as successful.  I've found my favorite games again.  I've taken that 2e story-heavy sensibility and that 3e tabletop tactical precision and carried them over into my CD&D games, and everything works out just fine.  The perfect balance for me and those I play with.Whatever happened to just playing the game and telling a good story?  3e's rules-heavy approach made it a little more difficult is all.  Not impossible, by any means; just less intuitive and ready-at-hand than it had been in the TSR days.  You have to work a little harder for it: be careful not to let templates and prestige classes and attacks of opportunity and named modifiers and feats and skill synergies get in the way of character-driven interaction.  Finis nuntii.</blockquote>

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