Preamble: This is not an edition war declaration. The examples and opinions below reflect only the opinions and experiences of the author and make no clams to be universally correct in any shape or form. Thank you in advance for not threadcr***ing.
Let me start by stating that I had played and enjoyed several editions [2nd (with few 1st books thrown in mainly OA), 3rd and 4th] The key point was treating each as its own thing, bringing slightly different but all around enjoyable experience. Yet, of the editions I had played I most like 2nd AD&D. This is my thoughts of why someone might prefer a given edition and still enjoy playing the rest.
Media: when I was growing up the Internet and cable TV were still in establishing themselves. Instead I used to read books 3 or more hours in a given day. Nowadays those two as well as video games are the influencing media, and the RPG market takes notice of the trends. Now, hold! I am not postulating that D&D is like a video game, just that video games as well as other new media had changed the expected experience (DMG2 gives advice of tracking accomplishment as a way of engaging the player)
Game evolution and its target audience. Related to above. IME during the 80 and 90, there was more time to game. 1st ed had competition mainly from the game-books (you know, Bloodsword, Fighting Fantasy, The way of the tiger). During second Internet and game consoles started to appear, but still were secondary in time consumption. During 3rd ed, people begun to spend prodigious amount of time online or on their consoles. Current handhelds are very portable, as well as net(local or global) capable. This had had some effects on the evolution of D&D. Older editions (1st and 2nd) tended to have slower advancement rate, one get to use the same abilities several adventures in a row before advancing. As anecdotal personal example I remember running RttToH (skipping the original tomb) for a group of 6 players, and none managed to get level up! Not even the thief!
Early Groups: When I started rpging the people composing my group were my childhood friends, people I had known for more then 8 years. Those were people I used to hang out with on daily basis. There was a much greater cohesion in this type of close group. There was no problem of power gaming since we all wanted more or less the same power level. If everyone agrees to start from 3rd level or start with 17 in their prime prerequisite there is no power gap. Later on, when people started moving for college and work, more and more often I would play with pick up groups. Eventually make friends with the people whose gaming style is completable with my own, but it took time to learn each other preferences. On a related note, a bad experience can sour ones outlook for a particular game. In high school I chanced on somebody whos DM style consisted in rolling d20 on 11 or more you succeeded, oh did I also mention that giving(bribing) him magic cards would result in increasing your PC stats to godly levels. Most Dms I met are very nice people, but I can see how similar experience can turn off a person from a game.
Early experiences: By that I mean that when one start playing everything seems new and exciting. Defeating your first ogre or troll... ah the memories. With time thought players get more and more proficient in recognizing and gouging strengths and weaknesses of monsters. I have collected multiple monster compendiums and books for the purpose of having something new and unexpected for the players, but still it is hard to replicate the initial experience.
Game as written vs game as played. I do not want to get bogged down in examples here, so let me focus on single one: M-U. While I admit that high level mages are force to be respected few campaigns last long enough (IME) to elevate them to truly staggering levels. Also before 3rd ed it was very easy to disturb the spells as illustrated in this example from drg 173:
“[...] foes can disrupt spellcasting by throwing almost anything at the caster: small sacks or pouches with flour in them, light (nondamaging) pebbles, even mud pies. The act of dodging a blow, which occurs if a spell-caster wants to apply his armor class bonus from dexterity to prevent his being struck, negates his spell-casting.” [FONT=Times New Roman, serif] [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Or as stated in one of my favorite novel: “casting a spell is like trying to recite a epic poem in a foreign language while balancing on a top of tree in a middle of a storm”. In my recollection m-u used to hoard their spells and needed the rest of the party to help them so they can get off a spell safely.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Established expectations or Fitting a square peg in a square hole of different size. [/FONT]
There is a difference between editions and when a player or DM get introduced to edition they have not played, initially they often try to apply what the already know and can get disappointed when things do not go the way they expect. For example, when I switched to 3rd ed from 2nd it took time to grasp that some things that to me seemed like power gaming was assumed practices. Take character ability generation for example. In 2ed DMG there is a section about playing “hopeless” characters that is pc with scores below average (3rd tried to do something similar in an article “Wise As An Ox, Strong As An Owl” drg 284). Since ability scores have to be higher before starting to make a difference in play char with 8 and another with 12 in a non class requisite score were mechanically similar and it fell on the player to rp them differently. In 2ed I had seen fighters with str of 14 and/or wisdom of 8, not in 3rd or at least not for long (they died off). In 4th that would be even more suicidal by RAW. I am not saying one is a better system, just that they make different assumptions. When this clash of assumption goes off people may get turned off a system before they understand it better.
Status quo vs balance. Or as I like to call it run from the wolves defeat the bears. Later systems are more balanced and have more guidance of how to pair the characterizes with level appropriate challenges. In previous edition that was not a given and it was up to the players to decide whether to make a stand or run. A group of 9 level character can be facing a group of gargoyles in one encounter and in another 25 level lich (Example taken from [FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]Ex Keraptis Cum Amore, Dun 77)[/FONT]. While the later is definably harder then the former both present challenge due to limited resources. Due to their (more) limited number of spells, spell casters did spend some battle not using spells, in favor of saving them for “rainy days”. This come close to my image at the time of what a heroic adventure should look like, based on the books I had read.
Established mastery vs new rules. For the moment lets ignore the monetary investment. While now I find 4th game to run with less preparations then 3rd, but at first it required a time consuming initial time investment in order to learn the system well enough to run it in a satisfactory manner. But after years of running 3rd I could spend less time preparing for 3rd since I did not need to reference the rules as often.
Also while I can still use more material I not necessary need it to have fun time. After over a decade of running games I had gotten well on the way of establishing my own style of gaming. I am not trying to sound arrogant. It is that after the experience I had it becomes more and more easy to come with ideas for the next adventure of campaign. As well as after running for years I become proficient in the amalgam of settings (mostly from FR and GH) that I call my campaign world. New DM may still need to establish their settings, while long time DM usually have such a long back log of ideas and unrealized adventured to keep them busy for months if not years.
Accumulated loot. Or sunk cost is not always a fallacy. If you already have a lot of resources for a given edition you may not want to discard it or re-buy it as official conversion. Even fan conversion may not be perfect since due to system assumption difference a (close enough) conversion may not be possible.
"The wisdom of one generation is the common sense of the next": Things that have been found to be broken/disliked are already house ruled. 1Ed DMG has such a good advice that most of it has been reiterated and expanded in one form or another over the years. I like that book, but think I would have been even more impressed if I read it in 1989 instead of 2009. Many of its revaluations have since become the common practice.
Point of introduction and cherry picking. I started D&D in 1998. So I did not see the many mistakes and early problems. Nor was I aware of the earlier ousting of Gygax. What I saw was a good game, which I enjoyed playing. Initially I had few resources, Running with only the DMG and an intro box as well as few dungeon magazines (no PHB). Imagine that you did start the 4ed this September with the essentials and MM3, when some problems have been fixed after years of experience. Well I imagine I had similar experience around 1998, a lot to choose from what had withstood the test of time.
In conclusion let me reiterate: I like all editions that I have played. The above are my musings why I like running one game/edition more then the others.
Let me start by stating that I had played and enjoyed several editions [2nd (with few 1st books thrown in mainly OA), 3rd and 4th] The key point was treating each as its own thing, bringing slightly different but all around enjoyable experience. Yet, of the editions I had played I most like 2nd AD&D. This is my thoughts of why someone might prefer a given edition and still enjoy playing the rest.
Media: when I was growing up the Internet and cable TV were still in establishing themselves. Instead I used to read books 3 or more hours in a given day. Nowadays those two as well as video games are the influencing media, and the RPG market takes notice of the trends. Now, hold! I am not postulating that D&D is like a video game, just that video games as well as other new media had changed the expected experience (DMG2 gives advice of tracking accomplishment as a way of engaging the player)
Game evolution and its target audience. Related to above. IME during the 80 and 90, there was more time to game. 1st ed had competition mainly from the game-books (you know, Bloodsword, Fighting Fantasy, The way of the tiger). During second Internet and game consoles started to appear, but still were secondary in time consumption. During 3rd ed, people begun to spend prodigious amount of time online or on their consoles. Current handhelds are very portable, as well as net(local or global) capable. This had had some effects on the evolution of D&D. Older editions (1st and 2nd) tended to have slower advancement rate, one get to use the same abilities several adventures in a row before advancing. As anecdotal personal example I remember running RttToH (skipping the original tomb) for a group of 6 players, and none managed to get level up! Not even the thief!
Early Groups: When I started rpging the people composing my group were my childhood friends, people I had known for more then 8 years. Those were people I used to hang out with on daily basis. There was a much greater cohesion in this type of close group. There was no problem of power gaming since we all wanted more or less the same power level. If everyone agrees to start from 3rd level or start with 17 in their prime prerequisite there is no power gap. Later on, when people started moving for college and work, more and more often I would play with pick up groups. Eventually make friends with the people whose gaming style is completable with my own, but it took time to learn each other preferences. On a related note, a bad experience can sour ones outlook for a particular game. In high school I chanced on somebody whos DM style consisted in rolling d20 on 11 or more you succeeded, oh did I also mention that giving(bribing) him magic cards would result in increasing your PC stats to godly levels. Most Dms I met are very nice people, but I can see how similar experience can turn off a person from a game.
Early experiences: By that I mean that when one start playing everything seems new and exciting. Defeating your first ogre or troll... ah the memories. With time thought players get more and more proficient in recognizing and gouging strengths and weaknesses of monsters. I have collected multiple monster compendiums and books for the purpose of having something new and unexpected for the players, but still it is hard to replicate the initial experience.
Game as written vs game as played. I do not want to get bogged down in examples here, so let me focus on single one: M-U. While I admit that high level mages are force to be respected few campaigns last long enough (IME) to elevate them to truly staggering levels. Also before 3rd ed it was very easy to disturb the spells as illustrated in this example from drg 173:
“[...] foes can disrupt spellcasting by throwing almost anything at the caster: small sacks or pouches with flour in them, light (nondamaging) pebbles, even mud pies. The act of dodging a blow, which occurs if a spell-caster wants to apply his armor class bonus from dexterity to prevent his being struck, negates his spell-casting.” [FONT=Times New Roman, serif] [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Or as stated in one of my favorite novel: “casting a spell is like trying to recite a epic poem in a foreign language while balancing on a top of tree in a middle of a storm”. In my recollection m-u used to hoard their spells and needed the rest of the party to help them so they can get off a spell safely.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Established expectations or Fitting a square peg in a square hole of different size. [/FONT]
There is a difference between editions and when a player or DM get introduced to edition they have not played, initially they often try to apply what the already know and can get disappointed when things do not go the way they expect. For example, when I switched to 3rd ed from 2nd it took time to grasp that some things that to me seemed like power gaming was assumed practices. Take character ability generation for example. In 2ed DMG there is a section about playing “hopeless” characters that is pc with scores below average (3rd tried to do something similar in an article “Wise As An Ox, Strong As An Owl” drg 284). Since ability scores have to be higher before starting to make a difference in play char with 8 and another with 12 in a non class requisite score were mechanically similar and it fell on the player to rp them differently. In 2ed I had seen fighters with str of 14 and/or wisdom of 8, not in 3rd or at least not for long (they died off). In 4th that would be even more suicidal by RAW. I am not saying one is a better system, just that they make different assumptions. When this clash of assumption goes off people may get turned off a system before they understand it better.
Status quo vs balance. Or as I like to call it run from the wolves defeat the bears. Later systems are more balanced and have more guidance of how to pair the characterizes with level appropriate challenges. In previous edition that was not a given and it was up to the players to decide whether to make a stand or run. A group of 9 level character can be facing a group of gargoyles in one encounter and in another 25 level lich (Example taken from [FONT=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]Ex Keraptis Cum Amore, Dun 77)[/FONT]. While the later is definably harder then the former both present challenge due to limited resources. Due to their (more) limited number of spells, spell casters did spend some battle not using spells, in favor of saving them for “rainy days”. This come close to my image at the time of what a heroic adventure should look like, based on the books I had read.
Established mastery vs new rules. For the moment lets ignore the monetary investment. While now I find 4th game to run with less preparations then 3rd, but at first it required a time consuming initial time investment in order to learn the system well enough to run it in a satisfactory manner. But after years of running 3rd I could spend less time preparing for 3rd since I did not need to reference the rules as often.
Also while I can still use more material I not necessary need it to have fun time. After over a decade of running games I had gotten well on the way of establishing my own style of gaming. I am not trying to sound arrogant. It is that after the experience I had it becomes more and more easy to come with ideas for the next adventure of campaign. As well as after running for years I become proficient in the amalgam of settings (mostly from FR and GH) that I call my campaign world. New DM may still need to establish their settings, while long time DM usually have such a long back log of ideas and unrealized adventured to keep them busy for months if not years.
Accumulated loot. Or sunk cost is not always a fallacy. If you already have a lot of resources for a given edition you may not want to discard it or re-buy it as official conversion. Even fan conversion may not be perfect since due to system assumption difference a (close enough) conversion may not be possible.
"The wisdom of one generation is the common sense of the next": Things that have been found to be broken/disliked are already house ruled. 1Ed DMG has such a good advice that most of it has been reiterated and expanded in one form or another over the years. I like that book, but think I would have been even more impressed if I read it in 1989 instead of 2009. Many of its revaluations have since become the common practice.
Point of introduction and cherry picking. I started D&D in 1998. So I did not see the many mistakes and early problems. Nor was I aware of the earlier ousting of Gygax. What I saw was a good game, which I enjoyed playing. Initially I had few resources, Running with only the DMG and an intro box as well as few dungeon magazines (no PHB). Imagine that you did start the 4ed this September with the essentials and MM3, when some problems have been fixed after years of experience. Well I imagine I had similar experience around 1998, a lot to choose from what had withstood the test of time.
In conclusion let me reiterate: I like all editions that I have played. The above are my musings why I like running one game/edition more then the others.
