Which edition change changed the game the most?

[Crazy Jerome]

I disagree. I think that this is a mistake by people not reading the full section of the DMG on Encounters. If you read the 3.0 DMG (can't state whether of not this is true of 3.5), it gives two types of encounters: tailored and Status quo.

Yep. 3E introduced the myth of "balanced encounters". That is, people gave it a cursory read or took someone elses' word of what it said, and have been making hay with it every since. It was so ingrained, that when 4E arrived, the myth intensified.

Some of the big changes in the game are in peoples' heads, more than the game itself.

 

[howandwhy99]

I was one of the votes for 2E. Mainly because of how I view the earlier games design intent, not because of the published mechanics that match up a great deal to these earlier games.

2E made the guidelines for creating a code behind a screen into rules known to everyone at the table, but left an incomplete game. Everyone then used the rules until a point was reached where the rules didn't cover something. This was typically NPC behavior like conversation. That's when the DM improvised.

I think the earlier games were more like a group puzzle game, a cooperative simulation game with the rules constructed by the ref and hidden behind a screen. When the players attempted something not covered by the code then the referee said yes, but added these to the code for future non-contradiction. It was like a situational puzzle where the players were in the position of not knowing when they were programming the puzzle as they went along.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

4e. Like the irresistible force and the immovable object, 4e isn't even in the same universe as its predecessors.

 

[tuxgeo]

. . .

But if we look at what 2e was the day before 3e came out, and what 3e was the day before 4e came out, the differences still make 4e vastly different in playstyle from 3e than 3e was from 2e (if that sentence makes sense!).
. . .

Yes, that sentence makes sense.

Remember that "different" officially requires the word "from" to differentiate between alternatives being compared, while "more" officially requires the word "than" to differentiate between alternatives being compared; and, remembering that, paraphrase your sentence and recast it thus:

". . . the differences still make 4e [vastly] more different from 3e [in playstyle] than 3e was different from 2e."

(In this recasting, you may be able to see that the word "vastly" is superfluous, because "more" makes your point sufficiently clear, and "vastly" adds nothing but "empty-calorie" emphasis to it: plenty of heat, but no additional light.)

 

[M.L. Martin]

As Prof. C. has pointed out, the 1gp = 1xp rule disappeared when 2E debuted. (IIRC, it was an optional rule in the 2E DMG).

It didn't fade completely, though. I was reading through the Al-Qadim Arabian Adventures handbook a couple of days ago, and several references in the kit descriptions appear to assume that the rule's still in play.

 

[Hussar]

4e. Like the irresistible force and the immovable object, 4e isn't even in the same universe as its predecessors.

Honestly, I really don't get this.

3e is far closer to 4e than to 2e. Right down to how you create characters. Heck, 3e makes the 4 character party the default, whereas previous editions generally pegged it at between 5-8 PC's. 3e presumes a 1 year campaign, thus rewards for play are all pegged at getting you from 1st to 20th in 1 year of play. 3e presumes a specific range of wealth and bases all design decisions ON that presumption. 3e presumes fungible magic items, prior to that, magic items didn't even have a PRICE in 2e.

You cannot even convert modules 1:1 from 2e to 3e (although, funnily enough, 2e to 4e works pretty well) as monsters are designed based on the 4 man party and not based on a single PC.

3e opens the monster manual up to players for character races.

You want to talk cosmology changes? 2e DIDN'T HAVE DEMONS OR DEVILS. Not at all in core and not for quite some time beyond that. People bitch about the changes to the cosmology 4e made, but, hey, this? This right here? How's that for all you Planar fans? Not a single lower planes denizen to be found.

The list of changes between 2e and 3e is massive. Every single facet of the game got changed. Compared to the changes between 3e and 4e? Not even close.

 

[nightwyrm]

You want to talk cosmology changes? 2e DIDN'T HAVE DEMONS OR DEVILS. Not at all in core and not for quite some time beyond that. People bitch about the changes to the cosmology 4e made, but, hey, this? This right here? How's that for all you Planar fans? Not a single lower planes denizen to be found.

Well, to be fair, 2ed just called them tanari and baatezu due to moral guardian hysteria.

To throw my 2 cp into this thread, it seems to me that 2e->3e changed a lot of the underlying assumptions of the game and its game engine, but most of that change was hidden to the casual eye because the designers painted everything over so it had a surface resemblance to 2e. For 3e->4e they changed a lot of the user interface and didn't bother to paint it to look like 3e, but the engine that runs the game is very similar to 3e. (I got some weird car model analogy going there...)

 

[Dice4Hire]

4e. Like the irresistible force and the immovable object, 4e isn't even in the same universe as its predecessors.

Explain.

If you can.

 

[kitsune9]

I see most of the poll went for 4e. I can definitely see the argument for it, but I went with the release of 3e. Just sayin....

 

[billd91]

Honestly, I really don't get this.

3e is far closer to 4e than to 2e. Right down to how you create characters. Heck, 3e makes the 4 character party the default, whereas previous editions generally pegged it at between 5-8 PC's. 3e presumes a 1 year campaign, thus rewards for play are all pegged at getting you from 1st to 20th in 1 year of play. 3e presumes a specific range of wealth and bases all design decisions ON that presumption. 3e presumes fungible magic items, prior to that, magic items didn't even have a PRICE in 2e.

You cannot even convert modules 1:1 from 2e to 3e (although, funnily enough, 2e to 4e works pretty well) as monsters are designed based on the 4 man party and not based on a single PC.

3e opens the monster manual up to players for character races.

You want to talk cosmology changes? 2e DIDN'T HAVE DEMONS OR DEVILS. Not at all in core and not for quite some time beyond that. People bitch about the changes to the cosmology 4e made, but, hey, this? This right here? How's that for all you Planar fans? Not a single lower planes denizen to be found.

The list of changes between 2e and 3e is massive. Every single facet of the game got changed. Compared to the changes between 3e and 4e? Not even close.

You don't get it because you have a radically different assessment of the changes between 2e and 3e that he does. Frankly, I find your assessment of them as mind bogglilng as you find his.

I have managed to convert 1e and 2e modules to 3e quite easily. While I have used some creative license from time to time to change the nature of an encounter, I have found that a 1-1 conversion works in the vast majority of cases. The only way your statement makes sense to me is to assume that you've never actually tried to do it and have, unfortunately, taken someone else's word for it.

The other issues you mention in the post above are largely tangential to the in-play experience that I see them as being largely irrelevant or, alternatively, the easiest element of the game to fix by simply adjusting the XP award rate or awarding XPs for achieving story goals rather than simply killing things - things DMs had been doing long before 3e appeared on the scene.

So you may not get JRRNeiklot's analysis, but I don't get yours either.