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Why do people still play older editions of D&D? Are they superior to the current one?
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<blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 7572875" data-attributes="member: 6669384"><p>To answer the original question, the answer is yes, they are better. For some.</p><p></p><p>Each set of game mechanics has it's features and limitations, and it's a question of which appeals to you.</p><p></p><p>1st and 2nd edition AD&D were open ended and in many ways quite simple to play. No dice rolls for a skill, and skills were in the "you have it or you don't" form. They existed for role playing purposes and not much more. Building a character took ten minutes. Advancement was paced so you left the "squishy and easily killed" levels pretty quickly, then spent more time on the higher levels. Time enough at each level, in fact, that you had a chance to explore who or what the character was.</p><p></p><p>3rd edition, and by extension, Pahfinder, standardized the game mechanics, bringing essentially everything down to a single D20 roll. Numerous tables and charts, necessary for D&D, Basic and AD&D were rendered obsolete. The additions of detailed skills and feats made character creation and advancement far more flexible. By contrast, characters now took more than 10 minutes to create. While many had found AD&D advancement too slow at higher levels (double current EXP to advance a level), advancement in 3rd was quick and regular. Perhaps too quick for some, which lead to Pathfinder's option to choose advancement rate. Prestige classes added to the flexibility and capacity to fine tune character development. </p><p></p><p>4E was not my favorite, so bear with me if my critique seems unflattering. It seemed like an attempt to move the computer game World of Warcraft to the tabletop. Many concepts from WOW were codified in 4e: The Tank, DPS, etc. In that sense the succeeded brilliantly, except that without the computer to do the bookkeeping, tracking which effects ended when became a headache. The first books returned a level of simplicity to character design: You chose a class and a role, and that pretty much dictated every advancement choice from there in. In that sense it was very reminiscent of AD&D. They introduced, through the Powers concept, the idea that everyone had some type of near-supernatural ability: Most combat powers did more than one thing, with many of the secondaries often hard to rationalize. But the scale of most powers was such that it returned the game to a tighter frame, where you seldom had to deal with anything that would be "off the battle mat". In 3rd edition, a longbow's range could allow a character to shoot over three hundred feet, which if plotted out at five feet per one inch square, was five feet on the board, which was well beyond the size of the board. Spells like Fireball started at 900 feet (400 + 100 per caster level), which would require a table top over 15 feet long.</p><p></p><p>5th edition tried to be all things, taking parts of all the previous editions, If they happened to take aspects that you liked then it was just about perfect. If they saved the "wrong" parts (in your opinion) and left the good stuff behind, then it was far from perfect, and to some it seemed to fall short of anything enjoyable. But to those who like what it offers, well, they'll like what it offers.</p><p></p><p>So yes, we play earlier editions because they are superior, at least for us.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Greenfield, post: 7572875, member: 6669384"] To answer the original question, the answer is yes, they are better. For some. Each set of game mechanics has it's features and limitations, and it's a question of which appeals to you. 1st and 2nd edition AD&D were open ended and in many ways quite simple to play. No dice rolls for a skill, and skills were in the "you have it or you don't" form. They existed for role playing purposes and not much more. Building a character took ten minutes. Advancement was paced so you left the "squishy and easily killed" levels pretty quickly, then spent more time on the higher levels. Time enough at each level, in fact, that you had a chance to explore who or what the character was. 3rd edition, and by extension, Pahfinder, standardized the game mechanics, bringing essentially everything down to a single D20 roll. Numerous tables and charts, necessary for D&D, Basic and AD&D were rendered obsolete. The additions of detailed skills and feats made character creation and advancement far more flexible. By contrast, characters now took more than 10 minutes to create. While many had found AD&D advancement too slow at higher levels (double current EXP to advance a level), advancement in 3rd was quick and regular. Perhaps too quick for some, which lead to Pathfinder's option to choose advancement rate. Prestige classes added to the flexibility and capacity to fine tune character development. 4E was not my favorite, so bear with me if my critique seems unflattering. It seemed like an attempt to move the computer game World of Warcraft to the tabletop. Many concepts from WOW were codified in 4e: The Tank, DPS, etc. In that sense the succeeded brilliantly, except that without the computer to do the bookkeeping, tracking which effects ended when became a headache. The first books returned a level of simplicity to character design: You chose a class and a role, and that pretty much dictated every advancement choice from there in. In that sense it was very reminiscent of AD&D. They introduced, through the Powers concept, the idea that everyone had some type of near-supernatural ability: Most combat powers did more than one thing, with many of the secondaries often hard to rationalize. But the scale of most powers was such that it returned the game to a tighter frame, where you seldom had to deal with anything that would be "off the battle mat". In 3rd edition, a longbow's range could allow a character to shoot over three hundred feet, which if plotted out at five feet per one inch square, was five feet on the board, which was well beyond the size of the board. Spells like Fireball started at 900 feet (400 + 100 per caster level), which would require a table top over 15 feet long. 5th edition tried to be all things, taking parts of all the previous editions, If they happened to take aspects that you liked then it was just about perfect. If they saved the "wrong" parts (in your opinion) and left the good stuff behind, then it was far from perfect, and to some it seemed to fall short of anything enjoyable. But to those who like what it offers, well, they'll like what it offers. So yes, we play earlier editions because they are superior, at least for us. [/QUOTE]
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