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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5776313" data-attributes="member: 22424">I started with Basic D&D, which was great. The game was quickly expanded to Expert and Companion sets, though we never did reach the Master set.Instead, we moved to 2nd Ed just after it was published, which was pretty much the same game, just bigger and, we thought, better. (Although, in hindsight, many of the so-called improvements in Advanced are actually nothing of the sort. But that's a topic for another day.)Anyway, I played 2nd Ed for many years, before moving on from that group at about the time I went to university. There, the group I joined played Vampire primarily. I didn't play D&D again for some years.Eventually, we came back to D&D, again with 2nd Ed, but it was not long before 3e hit. And it was a revelation - here was the game I hadn't known I'd always wanted! This was, of course, the way things should always have worked! For me, at least.A few years later, 3.5e hit and we adopted it immediately. It was, on balance, a distinct improvement. (Although, again in hindsight, many of the so-called improvements are nothing of the sort.)However, as the years passed, the weaknesses of 3e became increasingly apparent. The amount of prep was painful, especially at higher levels, and indeed the math itself started to break down quite badly at those higher levels. So, when 4e was announced, I was ready for it. And I applauded WotC's decision to break the game down, fix the underlying problems, and rebuild. I thought (and hoped) we'd get fundamentally the same game, just better.Unfortunately, while they used what I still maintain was the right approach, the game that resulted was not to my taste. More than anything else, I felt hugely disappointed with the missed opportunity. I have run exactly 2 sessions of 4e, neither of which went well. After that, I decided that I'd play it, but I wouldn't ever run it again. And, since I'm primarily a DM at heart, that was basically the end of it.When Pathfinder came about, my initial reaction was rather cold. Because they weren't going through the process of breaking down and rebuilding the game, their ability to fix the fundamental flaws I see is very limited. When Pathfinder was released I read it, and it was an improvement. But it just wasn't 'better enough' to compel me to switch and abandon my years of accumulated system mastery.So, I've been ready for a new edition for some time. I'm happy for them to take one more crack at building a new version of the game. But what I want is a game that is fundamentally D&D, but that is also an obvious and significant improvement over 3e - enough to compel me to switch. Whether or not they'll actually achieve that... we'll see. I'm hopeful, rather than confident.</blockquote>

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