Which Edition(s) do you regularly play?

[Drowbane]

Guess you just can't satisfy everyone no matter how you parse these polls.

He also separated out 3.0 and 3.5, which are definitely the same edition.

You can't please everybody. WotC should know this

 

[haakon1]

I put 3.5e

I put 3.5e, but it's a bit more complicated than that.

1) I run a 3.5e campaign on email. It's been around over a decade, through AD&D, 3e, and 3.5e ever since it came out. I use source materials from AD&D, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder for it.

2) I run a 3.5e "live" campaign that's hard to schedule and rarely meets (at most 3x a year, darn adult responsibilities!), but has been going on (just not often) for years.

3) I play in a 4e "live" campaign that meets only slightly more frequently (3-6x a year?). I'm hoping we will "upgrade" to 5e, as I never liked or really "got" 4e.

4) The most recent game I actually played in was Pathfinder, at Paizo Con, so a one-shot.

5) My most recent RPG purchases were for Pathfinder, more edition agnostic Kobold Quarterly stuff, and a "Song of Fire & Ice RPG" sourcebook (by Green Ronin) that I'll raid for non-edition specific NPC's and plots. I can't even remember the last time I bought something from WOTC.

 

[drothgery]

I checked 4e and 3.5, because '4e with Essentials' is, of course not an edition (and 3.5 is; new core rulebooks with different, 1 for 1 replacements for 3.0 material were printed, and there were nearly as many breaking changes from 3.0 to 3.5 as there were from 1e to 2e). If I could wave a magic wand and make everyone in my tabletop group like 4e, that's all I'd play, but I value gaming with them more than gaming in the edition I prefer.

 

[Desdichado]

IME- and I admit, I didn't look at your link, but this holds true every time I have engaged in the debate on this one- the folks who call Essentials a revised edition tend to be those who haven't actually played in a game that uses the "4e classic" stuff and Essentials stuff together.

In contrast, 3.0 and 3.5 aren't meant to work together; one is explicitly a replacement for the other.

I think how they are "meant" to be played and how they are are two different questions. B/X, OD&D and AD&D were also meant to be separate games, but clearly many players back in the day (including me and my group) saw little difference between the various older D&D versions and freely mixed and matched material between them to taste. I've played in many ways 3e and 3.5 (and now Pathfinder--and Trailblazer and d20 Modern and d20 Star Wars, for that matter!) the same way--material flows pretty freely between similar systems regardless of whether or not the designers "mean" for one to replace the other. At the end of the day, if I don't see enough of a substantive difference between the product that is meant to replace the older product, there's a good chance I may not pick it up, or integrate its changes into my game, regardless of what's meant to be done.

 

[Desdichado]

To add another wrinkle, although I most consistently play in a 3.5 game, I most consistently buy Pathfinder stuff, because I like their setting material, especially, and because I like to raid their adventure path chapters for ideas for NPCs, locations, maps, and plots and whatnot. I also tend to buy Pathfinder system books on pdfs, since at $9.99 a pop, they're worth it for the art alone... which I frequently extract, print out and show the players in my 3.5 games!

So, it's a bit more complicated that merely "what do you play." If you ask me what I play vs. what I buy, you get two pretty different answers.

Although I do like and kinda really agree with the notion that Pathfinder isn't really its own game, it's a well-marketed set of houserules for 3.5. Heck, back in the day, Paizo didn't even really dispute that. I still remember the Pathfinder ad that said "3.5 thrives!" referring to Pathfinder itself.

And I've borrowed a few Pathfinder rules as houserules into my 3.5 game; specifically the skill consolidation, the CMB/CMD simplification, and some of the archetype options to give the old classes a bit of a sprucing up.

 

[prosfilaes]

Although I do like and kinda really agree with the notion that Pathfinder isn't really its own game, it's a well-marketed set of houserules for 3.5.

Only if 3.5 was a well-marketed set of houserules for 3.0.

 

[Desdichado]

Only if 3.5 was a well-marketed set of houserules for 3.0.

Well, yeah.

When 3.5 launched, it was frequently disparagingly--and IMO accurately--called The Andy Collins House-rules Books.

Pathfinder is the Jason Buhlmann Houserules Books. :shrug:

Naturally, you're right. They're all minor iterative variants of the same game, and in both cases, a few things were fixed, a few things were broken, a lot of things that needed to be fixed weren't, and a lot of things that should have been left alone were changed.

The change from 3e to 3.5 and the change from 3.5 to Pathfinder--at least from a system update standpoint--are remarkably similar to each other. The whole thing had a vast feel of deja vu.

I will note, however, that the way it was handled from a PR perspective was very different.

 

[TerraDave]

On Essentials...

They were marketed as new entry products that were fully 4E. But could also replace it. If that is clear.

There was substantial and long going (and seemingly never ending) errata to pre essentials 4E to bring it in line with essentials...so compatibility was maintained, in a way.

There are player options in Essentials that are strictly superior to those in pre Essentials material, even with all the errata.

The Essentials Rules Compendium did replace the PHB and DMG as a rules reference. The Essentials Monster Vault did replace the Monster Manual (and beat it up and took its lunch money and looked good doing it).

To use Essentials materials you had to use a later, online version of the Character Builder and Monster Builder (these are important in the 4E context).

If you looked at one of the Essentials "Hero of" books and the PHB, you would see more differences between them, then, say, the 1E and 2E PHBs.

Of course...pre essentials options remained popular, and as time went on, WotC got back to supporting that, or at least some of it.

So I guess you could say it was not a "new" edition...but it was something.

 

[Reynard]

Well, yeah.

When 3.5 launched, it was frequently disparagingly--and IMO accurately--called The Andy Collins House-rules Books.

Pathfinder is the Jason Buhlmann Houserules Books. :shrug:

Naturally, you're right. They're all minor iterative variants of the same game, and in both cases, a few things were fixed, a few things were broken, a lot of things that needed to be fixed weren't, and a lot of things that should have been left alone were changed.

The change from 3e to 3.5 and the change from 3.5 to Pathfinder--at least from a system update standpoint--are remarkably similar to each other. The whole thing had a vast feel of deja vu.

I will note, however, that the way it was handled from a PR perspective was very different.

And, of course, the two (PF and 3.5) were created for entirely different reasons. Interestingly, PF has, over the course of the last couple years, become much more like 3.5 than PF initially was -- it is becoming supplement bloated and heavily erratta'd and starting to veer into end of cycle material (Big equipment guide). While this isn't necessarily a bad thing -- some people love that stuff -- I hoped that PF could avoid the usual D&D cycle and concentrate on other things as it matured: additional settings, an increased focus on (non-AP) adventures, and "idea supplements" for oth players and GMs rather than rules supplements. I get it that a publisher has to print books in order to survive; I just wish those books weren't reams of new classes, spells, items,etc...

 

[Ahnehnois]

I hoped that PF could avoid the usual D&D cycle and concentrate on other things as it matured: additional settings, an increased focus on (non-AP) adventures, and "idea supplements" for oth players and GMs rather than rules supplements. I get it that a publisher has to print books in order to survive; I just wish those books weren't reams of new classes, spells, items,etc...

I have a very hard time seeing a publisher that didn't put out regular rules supplements being successful. Settings and adventures and are virtually useless for anyone running a homebrew game (which I imagine would be most people). Even those who do use published settings have plenty of established ones to choose from, and Paizo isn't likely to secure rights to any established settings. Rather than support several of their own, they've pretty clearly decided to make one kitchen sink setting and pimp it as much as possible. They've been relatively successful by doing so, but not enough to throw away their main draw: the rules.

Rules bloat can be problematic, but I think it's inherent to the rpg business.