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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Why do people still play older editions of D&D? Are they superior to the current one?
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<blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 7573004" data-attributes="member: 14159"><p>Well, I don't want to re-ignite the Edition Wars (which was the main reason I stopped posting at ENWorld regularly). . .but suffice it to say that there are a LOT of players who strongly disagree with the idea that 4th edition is in any way even <em>vaguely </em>related to 3rd edition or <strong>any </strong>predecessor edition.</p><p></p><p>One reason it was so controversial, besides as you mentioned its marketing that actively alienated many players and told many players that they were playing D&D "wrong" and 4e would show them how to play it "right", was that it seemed custom designed to divorce D&D from its entire history both in terms of setting/lore "fluff" and game rules "crunch".</p><p></p><p>Also, many players stick with 3.5 because they didn't just see 4e as being utterly alien to D&D (to the point that if the same game had been released by another company, under another name, nobody would have thought of it as being anything but an odd d20 fantasy variant). . .and they didn't go to 5e because they see it as stripped down, dumbed down, and gutted of options and flexibility.</p><p></p><p>I can appreciate that 5e at least looks and feels more like D&D than 4e ever did. . .but I don't play it because it removes so many options and so much functionality from the game.</p><p></p><p>When I played 2e, I'd describe my character concept to the DM. . .and we'd work together to come up with something that worked to describe it. . .even it it was often a hideous chimera of kits, optional rules, Skills & Powers variants ect. . .but it could be done. In 3e and 3.5e, I could come up with a character concept and with multiclassing and prestige classes, feats, skills, various races and templates I could create the character. In 4e, we quickly learned that such intricate customization was verboten and that characters were much less flexible. . .and while 5e isn't as much of a straitjacket to creativity as 4e was, it's nowhere near as versatile as 3.x or even 2e (it's got better mechanics than 1e or 2e, but not the intricate customization that 2e had by the late '90's).</p><p></p><p>I play 3.5e because to me, and the people I play with, it's the peak of D&D evolution and is far more versatile, flexible than any edition before or after and we can play whatever setting, whatever world we want and have such a vast library of classes, races, feats, spells ect. to work with. . .and a system that is designed to make the game highly customizable in ways no other edition ever could.</p><p></p><p>I've heard it argued that people stick with the edition they started with. I started with "Black Box" basic D&D, then moved on to 2e in college. . .and we dropped it quickly when 3e came out, and moved to 3.5 not long after it came out, because in each one I saw continuous progress and improvement from the game, things that worked better and allowed me and my friends to play better games.</p><p></p><p>We never saw that from 4e or 5e, we saw a U-turn in game development at 4e, and while 5e was an improvement from 4e, it wasn't as good as 3.x (but better than 1e or 2e).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="wingsandsword, post: 7573004, member: 14159"] Well, I don't want to re-ignite the Edition Wars (which was the main reason I stopped posting at ENWorld regularly). . .but suffice it to say that there are a LOT of players who strongly disagree with the idea that 4th edition is in any way even [I]vaguely [/I]related to 3rd edition or [B]any [/B]predecessor edition. One reason it was so controversial, besides as you mentioned its marketing that actively alienated many players and told many players that they were playing D&D "wrong" and 4e would show them how to play it "right", was that it seemed custom designed to divorce D&D from its entire history both in terms of setting/lore "fluff" and game rules "crunch". Also, many players stick with 3.5 because they didn't just see 4e as being utterly alien to D&D (to the point that if the same game had been released by another company, under another name, nobody would have thought of it as being anything but an odd d20 fantasy variant). . .and they didn't go to 5e because they see it as stripped down, dumbed down, and gutted of options and flexibility. I can appreciate that 5e at least looks and feels more like D&D than 4e ever did. . .but I don't play it because it removes so many options and so much functionality from the game. When I played 2e, I'd describe my character concept to the DM. . .and we'd work together to come up with something that worked to describe it. . .even it it was often a hideous chimera of kits, optional rules, Skills & Powers variants ect. . .but it could be done. In 3e and 3.5e, I could come up with a character concept and with multiclassing and prestige classes, feats, skills, various races and templates I could create the character. In 4e, we quickly learned that such intricate customization was verboten and that characters were much less flexible. . .and while 5e isn't as much of a straitjacket to creativity as 4e was, it's nowhere near as versatile as 3.x or even 2e (it's got better mechanics than 1e or 2e, but not the intricate customization that 2e had by the late '90's). I play 3.5e because to me, and the people I play with, it's the peak of D&D evolution and is far more versatile, flexible than any edition before or after and we can play whatever setting, whatever world we want and have such a vast library of classes, races, feats, spells ect. to work with. . .and a system that is designed to make the game highly customizable in ways no other edition ever could. I've heard it argued that people stick with the edition they started with. I started with "Black Box" basic D&D, then moved on to 2e in college. . .and we dropped it quickly when 3e came out, and moved to 3.5 not long after it came out, because in each one I saw continuous progress and improvement from the game, things that worked better and allowed me and my friends to play better games. We never saw that from 4e or 5e, we saw a U-turn in game development at 4e, and while 5e was an improvement from 4e, it wasn't as good as 3.x (but better than 1e or 2e). [/QUOTE]
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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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