What is the essence of D&D

[Garthanos]

I thought 1e was clear

LOL

 

[Tony Vargas]

LOL

OK, y'got me. Clear /about that one specific thing/.

 

[Garthanos]

But, again, not a lot of point to them. Especially pre-E, when so many items did little beyond provide a fairly minor daily power - and the number of item dailies you could use were limited by Milestones.

Tadah and the players can have the items they want ... and even shock shock make them comes down to being a faux problem across the board. Which is what I said earlier when I commented about letting people buy as many healing potions as they wanted.... it wasnt going to derail anything. Mr optimizer can have his fun. Mr I want to make my items can have his fun. I let them combine items into bigger cooler items too.

 

[Garthanos]

To me the really boring magic item isnt because of its power... its when it lacks story.

 

[Tony Vargas]

To me the really boring magic item isnt because of its power... its when it lacks story.

5e has some cute little tables that can spark ideas like that.

 

[Garthanos]

5e has some cute little tables that can spark ideas like that.

anything like the random dungeon ones in 1e?

 

[Tony Vargas]

anything like the random dungeon ones in 1e?

I don't think so.....

...y'know, I remember the random dungeon tables of 1e more clearly...

#oldmanisold

 

[TheCosmicKid]

There was a lot of outright nonsense spewed throughout the edition war, I'm not going to refute years of it in detail. If there's a particular bit of outright nonsense you'd like to hitch your wagon too, though, I'd go ahead and refute it for the nth time.
I'm a sucker that way.

Which is why I haven't enumerated it. Believe it or not I'm trying to avoid yet another edition war conversation. What would happen if I put my flag down on a particular objection: "Some players didn't like 4E because of reason R"? I can only imagine you'd come back with "Reason R is nonsense because of X, Y, and Z", right? But then what? What would you have actually "refuted"? Are you claiming that the players who cite reason R are lying or mistaken about their own motives? Because what they say doesn't make sense to you? Really? No. Irrespective of whether or not you can make sense of it, it is still the case that some players didn't like 4E because of reason R. If you dismiss reason R as nonsense, you are wrongly discarding evidence about why players didn't like 4E. Reason R could be "4E is a bad edition because the earth is flat" and it would still be relevant to the question.

I see the rest of your post, but again, this is the real problem: you are not giving credit to the testimony of people who say things contrary to your narrative. When you see reason R, it's not constructive in the slightest to try to "refute" it. It might defend the benighted honor of 4E, and it might reduce the objectors to irrelevant simpletons. But it actively leads you away from understanding.

 

[Zardnaar]

Which is why I haven't enumerated it. Believe it or not I'm trying to avoid yet another edition war conversation. What would happen if I put my flag down on a particular objection: "Some players didn't like 4E because of reason R"? I can only imagine you'd come back with "Reason R is nonsense because of X, Y, and Z", right? But then what? What would you have actually "refuted"? Are you claiming that the players who cite reason R are lying or mistaken about their own motives? Because what they say doesn't make sense to you? Really? No. Irrespective of whether or not you can make sense of it, it is still the case that some players didn't like 4E because of reason R. If you dismiss reason R as nonsense, you are wrongly discarding evidence about why players didn't like 4E. Reason R could be "4E is a bad edition because the earth is flat" and it would still be relevant to the question.

I see the rest of your post, but again, this is the real problem: you are not giving credit to the testimony of people who say things contrary to your narrative. When you see reason R, it's not constructive in the slightest to try to "refute" it. It might defend the benighted honor of 4E, and it might reduce the objectors to irrelevant simpletons. But it actively leads you away from understanding.

It's an old technique they have been using since 2008.

RPG equivalent of fake news.

The main problem with 4E IMHO is the class design, it alienated a lot of people.

 

[Campbell]

In general denying people's experiences and preferences is a huge problem in message board conversations of all types. It never feels good, and I am sorry that people had to deal with it. Personally I also experienced it from the other side when I talked about why I like games like Fourth Edition (not so much anymore), Apocalypse World, Moldvay B/X, and more recently Pathfinder 2. That experience does not diminish your own in any way. We should all make more of an effort to really hear each other out.