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<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4925964" data-attributes="member: 80487">The D&amp;D brand name has been applied to games so different that someone can easily be enthusiastic about one and find others thoroughly disappointing. It's sort of strange to me that some people should have stuck with 2e and 3e when 4e is the kind of game they really like -- but I'm sure there's plenty of strangeness from each perspective.Some things are matters of degree, so that a really old hand might say of 3e some of what a 3e fan says of 4e. It's a matter not just of &quot;the trees&quot; but of &quot;the forest&quot;. Talk about the new games is strange and stranger to my ears because it's increasingly devoted to concerns, and in jargon, that have more in common with computer games.What &quot;detailed tactical combat rules&quot; meant back when FRP was a spin-off from historical gaming might seem as bizarre to the video-game set as their concept does to &quot;grognards&quot;. Ditto a lot of other things.I don't know about WoW, but 4e definitely does not feel to me like The Fantasy Trip: Melee, or DragonQuest. It's not just a matter of squares instead of hexes -- the whole fundamental set of premises is different. Nor does it feel to me like any other RPG of which I can think offhand in terms of character generation. The amount of attention to combat factors reminds me most of Champions, which however has the context of a lot of rules for all sorts of things.Those games came out almost 30 years ago. They were popular about the same time as Chaosium's RuneQuest, which I think at least one designer of 3e mentioned as an influence. The game certainly evoked for me a sense of &quot;flashback&quot; to a 1980s ethos -- but at least as much a GURPS or a Hero System (4th ed.) as an AD&amp;D one. What I've seen of the late 2e Players Option books seems like a precursor.From what I gather of stagnation of salaries in the field, my guess is that younger folks -- with a different set of formative adventure-game experiences -- led the design and development of 4e.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 4925964, member: 80487"] The D&D brand name has been applied to games so different that someone can easily be enthusiastic about one and find others thoroughly disappointing. It's sort of strange to me that some people should have stuck with 2e and 3e when 4e is the kind of game they really like -- but I'm sure there's plenty of strangeness from each perspective. Some things are matters of degree, so that a really old hand might say of 3e some of what a 3e fan says of 4e. It's a matter not just of "the trees" but of "the forest". Talk about the new games is strange and stranger to my ears because it's increasingly devoted to concerns, and in jargon, that have more in common with computer games. What "detailed tactical combat rules" meant back when FRP was a spin-off from historical gaming might seem as bizarre to the video-game set as their concept does to "grognards". Ditto a lot of other things. I don't know about WoW, but 4e definitely does [b]not[/b] feel to me like [i]The Fantasy Trip: Melee[/i], or [i]DragonQuest[/i]. It's not just a matter of squares instead of hexes -- the whole fundamental set of premises is different. Nor does it feel to me like any other RPG of which I can think offhand in terms of character generation. The amount of attention to combat factors reminds me most of [i]Champions[/i], which however has the context of a lot of rules for all sorts of things. Those games came out almost 30 years ago. They were popular about the same time as Chaosium's [i]RuneQuest[/i], which I think at least one designer of 3e mentioned as an influence. The game certainly evoked for me a sense of "flashback" to a 1980s ethos -- but at least as much a GURPS or a Hero System (4th ed.) as an AD&D one. What I've seen of the late 2e Players Option books seems like a precursor. From what I gather of stagnation of salaries in the field, my guess is that younger folks -- with a different set of formative adventure-game experiences -- led the design and development of 4e. [/QUOTE]

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