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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ebenmckay" data-source="post: 4230575" data-attributes="member: 61438">I started playing DnD when my older cousin introduced me to 1e in the early 90s.  After playing a couple sessions I was hooked to this strange thing called an "arrpeegee" and I went out and bought the 2e books (black covers). It was a lot of fun (especially the "Combat and Tactics" book), but some of the rules seemed overcomplicated or arbitrary (THAC0? Demihuman level limits?).Then 3rd ed came along and said "you're right! Some of those rules WERE overcomplicated and arbitrary! Here's an elegant new edition which addresses all of those issues! And look! A unified artwork style!"I was in heaven. 3.0 was a godsend.  It felt like 1e and 2e in the places that mattered, but sleeker and sexier in the mechanics. I bought splatbook after splatbook (except for the campaign settings; I preferred making my own) and my library grew.Then suddenly 3.5 came out! Wha?! You mean to say that my library of 3.0 books is obsolete? "Too soon," I cried, and ran into the arms of another.  For Exalted (mostly 1e) and WEG Star Wars and 2e-4e Shadowrun and GURPS and Scion and Mage and others were there, promising more, promising an end to the advancement plateauing of levels and HP, promising character points.I strayed.  I missed 99% of the 3.5 experience.  I impulsively swore I wouldn't come back, wouldn't be contrained by (ugh) levels again.Then an old board game crept back into my attention.  A good old simple out-of-print game called Warhammer Quest.  I played, hesitantly at first.  It grew on me. Levels. HP. Classes. Non-unified character ability mechanics! Hack...AND Slash!  Suddenly all that nostalgia of my first brush with 1e hit me.  I felt like a kid again.  Suddenly I wanted to kill waves of monsters in a dimly lit corridor in a forgotten underground maze.My friend Matt announced he had purchased the World's Largest Dungeon module.  I said why not?  I rolled up a cleric.  There was hacking... AND slashing.  It was a blast.Then I heard the rumour that there would be a 4th edition in the next few months.  I looked it up.  I loved what I saw.  I had to know MORE.  Fantasy swords-and-sorcery was alive again, it was something I craved again.If I had been hardcore invested into 3.5, I'm sure I would've reacted to the announcement of 4e just as I had to the announcement of 3.5.  I'd've raged against the change, against the obsolesence of all those books.  Sure, my books would've still been usable, but all I'd have to look forward to in terms of future content for my yesterday's-news edition of the game would be unstable and unbalanced homebrews whipped up by 12-year old online posters with an unhealthy Dragonball Z fixation or who had just seen a Predator movie for the first time.  Or the tired sighs of the players who wanted the hot, new edition and felt restricted by my wish to play with the books I'd invested in.So to me, the preview of 4e feels just like the first time I cracked open a 3.0 book and saw all the elegant solutions to the last edition's mishandlings.  I am excited.Whoo, that went longer than I expected.</blockquote>

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