buzz
Adventurer
I have to wonder if the idea that earlier editions were easier to run comes from:Joe123 said:D&D 3 and 3.5 lack the simplicity (or illusion of simplicity) that Classic D&D had. The game runs slower now than Classic D&D, which in my experience was easier to play and easier to run, (probably owing to the light amount of rules).
1. Aforementioned nostalgia.
2. We all played those editions for 10 or more years, ergo we knew them so well that running the game was a breeze.
3. "Restrictions not options." I can't speak to 2e, but in 1e and OD&D, a fighter was a fighter, a monk was a monk, and an orc always had 1d8HD. Add that monsters has no ability scores, and said ability socres had very little effect on those who had them, there certainly was a lot less work for the DM... but at what cost?
4. There weren't rules for doing a heck of a lot, so when the fighter tried to climb a tree, you either just said "No" or else winged it, which is certianly a lot easier than referencing a book for a climb DC.
5. I don't think anyone I've ever met actually knew all the rules, much less played them as written. To this day, I'm not 100% sure how combat in 1e was really supposed to work, and I don't think we ever used weapon speeds or armor type bonuses or a myriad of other rules from the DMG.
6. Half of the disputes and discussions that bog down games are people conflating memories of how things worked in 2e with thir poor understanding of how they actually work in 3e; thsi is certainly true of at least one of my groups.
I dunno. I have a feeling, another ten or so years down the road, we'll see threads where people fondly remember spiky armor and the original 3e ranger.
