What *feel* did OD&D/Basic D&D/1E/2E have compared to 3E?

[Zappo]

It's hard to decide how much of the feeling of each edition is due to the age and experience I had at the moment, and how much is due to the game itself.

For example, I recall OD&D being new, exciting and full of freedom - but that's mostly because until then I had only played videogames and maybe HeroQuest. Looking back now, I'd scratch the "new" bit, stare in disbelief at the "full of freedom" bit, and remark that "exciting" is a skill of the DM not of the system. Great introductory game, though. I had noone to teach me the game, so I had to read all the rules and be the DM. If I had to start with a game as complex as 3E, maybe it would have taken me longer to start enjoying myself that much. The industry needs some simple games for total newbies who don't have access to other experienced players. It doesn't matter if they are very limited, they will still be wonderfully varied when compared to Scrabble and Monopoly.

2E was The Game Of Cool Settings, and The Game Of Having To Maintain Balance With An Iron Fist Without Even So Much As A Velvet Glove To Soften The Blows. Sometimes I read people who complain of 3E's focus on balance, and I wonder what the hell they are thinking. When playing 2E, I had to waste so much time in preventing any of the players from dominating over the others, depending on the what new book had been bought, that the actual adventure-making suffered because of it. We still had fun, because of the awesome Planescape setting, but when 3E was published I was almost ready to dump the entire system and start writing one of my own. To sum up the feeling of 2E: wonder and frustration at the same time.

3E has the feeling of "thank the gods, I can finally stop wasting time on making the system work and get on with the gaming instead". That, and genuine freedom; if something is disallowed, there is a good reason. Otherwise, it is allowed - and the system doesn't break. Vanilla settings, but who cares, once I have Planescape, I have Planescape forever.

 

[GlassJaw]

new to OD&D. not new to D&D and roleplaying.

ask them if you can't go back...

You can go back but it's still not the same. The reason why "the red box" was so amazing is because it was what most people started with. Everything was new and shiny and wonderous. The "newness" goes away, regardless of what version you are playing.

I'm not saying that it's not fun to go back and play the older versions, just that it won't be the same as when you first played D&D.

 

[VirgilCaine]

And the Trampier PHB cover is the all-time best cover in terms of capturing the "true spirit" of D&D!


Nonetheless, despite the "Mr.Clean" rules, some good worlds: Darksun, Planescape, and Ravenloft. Far more original stuff than you see nowadays (e.g. Darksun didn't give a crap about "not using all the official rules"; one of Eberron's main boasts is that it can do this).

And WHAT is on the cover?

[Elvis ripoff]Before Eberron did anything, Dark Sun did everything...[/Elvis Ripoff]

 

[Gez]

The ultimate in thread necromancy: raising threadjacks!

Cinematic? What? :\

If you mean turning combat into a tactical wargame "cinematic", then okay (in my books, constantly worrying about whether "doing x" will "prompt an attack of opportunity" is the antithesis of cinematic).

Here's what you can do for making AoOs cinematic:
1. Ignore them for PCs. PCs never provoke AoOs.
2. Ignore them also for important NPCs.
3. Keep them for mooks. Mooks are mooks, and when they fight, they do clumsy maneuvers that attracts AoOs.

Let the players do what they want without worrying about AoOs (unless they really do something stupid and you want to punish them for being so silly), and let your NPC do what they want without worrying about AoOs either -- except they can suffer the consequences if they are mooks, they will still not worry about it.

 

[Terwox]

I started when third edition came out.
Most of my friends didn't, and had played for awhile longer...
it always felt to me like 3rd edition must have sucked a lot of life out of magic -- my friends were creative people, (as most d&d'ers are of course,) and were always talking about all the things you could do with magic, playing mages and wanting to do things, that 3rd edition wouldn't really let you do. Yeah, it made the game more balanced... but it came at the expense of a lot of cool factor.
I can't really remember any examples at the moment, though... I didn't play second, anyway. Oh well.
I don't have my book yet, but I'm confused why people who want loose rules aren't playing the new white wolf system -- it's not great, but it's been developed... I dunno. I guess I can see the difference, but I'm not big on the tons of house rule department... eh, must go to class, can't clean up this rambling.
oh well. 3.5 is fantastic, and you can do plenty with it. The tight magic is a little pesky, though, although it makes things a lot more clean, and prevents "DM: you can't do that with that spell. Player: Why not!?" type of conversations... I'm just not sure if the cost is worth the benefit.

 

[kigmatzomat]

OD&D: didn't really touch it. Played one of the chainmail variants in college but it was ... empty. The rules just didn't feel like they did enough. Might have been the third-generation xerox so not sure.

Basic D&D: So two dimensional. Few options, felt constrained. If you tried to do something flashy the rules gave you no guidance resulting in either yelling or head scratching.

AD&D 1E: Ahhh, fond memories. Enough rules to extrapolate out the creative actions and Oh! The wonderous loopholes! Campaigns varied from deep character development to Monty Haul. (No middle ground, it seemed...)

AD&D 2E: Streamlined, but kind of to death. It felt....loose with little wobbly bits everywhere. It wasn't a bad game, not too hard to learn and felt better than most of the percentile-based fantasy games but it showed its lack of design concept when other systems did coherent revisions (SR2, fer instance).

D&D 3E: Oh bliss! D&D with a coherent total design! Algorithms for clean extrapolations, rational relationships, decent character flexibility, it was a happy day for D&D. GMing was much easier and became more of a science than a dark art, thanks to CRs and ELs. And ITEM CREATION!!! Why did it take two decades for item creation!?!
The game brought back the wide-open feel of 1E, the option for nifty things, and a general sense of entertainment. Sure, there were some complicated rules but many people ignore them. Others have added more, but thanks to d20 they can share or publish them and create a shared userbase.

d20: the fragmenting. d20 is a good/bad. Good because it means the system will *never* go out of print. The SRDs are now and forever in the public meme. It stimulated a lot of creative people and I'm certain the cottage d20 industry will be around for a long time. Bad because it creates a large number of subsets, many of which have serious differences. Not bad for gaming, but hard on the industry as a whole since the whole small-run products take a disproportionately large percentage of the market and discourage the larger publishers.

 

[RFisher]

First, I do think the rules matter to an extent. Second, it is true that each edition has had its own feel if played verbatim. That's been covered adequately.

But, in my experience, the group (& the DM in particular) creates it's own feel & this is generally stronger than the influence of the rules system.

It's also a good point that the feel drifts. OD&D + Supplements + SR influences = a different feel than straight OD&D M&M/M&T/tU&WA only. OAD&D + UA + *SG + Dragon mag influences = a different feel than straight oAD&D MM/PHB/DMG only. AD&D2e + PO + splatbooks + Dragon mag influences = a different feel than straight AD&D2e MM/PHB/DMG only.

 

[skinnydwarf]

I guess it's similar to the first part of a great movie series, like Star Wars, or Indiana Jones, or Matrix... no wait, scrap that, Matrix was not a series.

First part was something new, wonderful, exciting, but the second and third part were great entertainment as well, just lacking the novelty of the first, this certain something, which is hard to describe, which makes you feel special for being part of it, for having been there.

Still, many people prefer the second or third over the first.

Bye
Thanee

What third movie? The was no third Matrix movie. They are still working on it. I hear the plot is going to be how the good guys discover that what they *thought* was the real world is just another level of the Matrix, just another level of control. They are going to really escape from the Matrix and win the war. The story about how they would win the war by beating Agent Smith, and how Neo had *real* magic powers, that was just an awful, awful rumor. It never happened!

To get back on topic, I agree that the different editions had different "feels." I started in 1993 with second edition. I always liked the blue woodcut art in the PHB, it really gave a "classic" feel to the game. I had some good DMs, and lots of fun playing 2e. Games were often fast-paced and rules light, mostly because we ignored a lot of the stupid rules. The mechanics never made sense to me. When was higher better, when was lower better, what the heck does my rod save have to do with jumping over a cliff?

It wasn't long before I moved on to other games and better rules, however. I would often return to 2e. Ryan Danceys theory of network externalities has a lot of truth to it- everyone knows the D&D rules, so my groups always went back to 2e. Then I would remember how much I hated the rules and swear off D&D again.

When I started reading about 3e, I fell in love, because I thought "they fixed everything I hated about D&D!" The rules make sense! Saving throws make sense! Monsters have abilities! You could really have unique characters within a class! It was awesome.

I have been playing 3e almost exclusively ever since. Sure, there are lots of rules, but I like the fact that the rules cover so many situations. It makes my life easier as a DM, even though I play rules light. I use most of the basic rules to handle most situations, even if there are more complicated rules for the situations. Take the flight rules. Ohmygod, that is way too much work for my table! Wyverns are attacking? Ok, they swoop down, and attack as they pass. Then they spend a round or two turning around, and attack again.

Though sometimes I miss the "rules light" aspect of earlier editions, even though I hated the mechanics so much. Thus, I am really interested in Castles and Crusades.