This. I'll happily play a well-run 3.5 game, but I won't DM anything other than 4e these days.
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What is your favorite edition of D&D and why?
- Thread starter Mercurius
- Start date
This. I'll happily play a well-run 3.5 game, but I won't DM anything other than 4e these days.
OD&D (1974).
For one thing, there are almost no rules. It's all rulings. I don't have to look up a bunch of stuff in a book during play, nor waste my time memorizing rules. It's all on-the-fly adjudication. For example, two sessions ago an evil shaman tried to overbear one of the characters and drag them both down into a sacrificial fire pit. I told the player what the shaman was trying to do... leap on him and drag them both over the side. "What do you do?" I asked him... a favorite thing of mine to ask in a role playing game. And at that moment, he could have said anything. He could dodge out of the way, lock into a grapple with him, try desperately to strike the fellow with his weapon, try a spell or any item... anything. And I would adjudicate it as it happened. Very free.
Another big reason is that the game can be tailored to each Ref, and even with a single Ref to each setting. How does spellcasting actually work? Do clerics have to have spell books? Do clerics have to have an *alignment* before 7th level? (The interesting thing here is... traditional clerics worship a god or pantheon and get spells from them. But maybe a junior cleric is a cynical mercenary, and the spells are just ways of manipulating the gods....) It can be however you want it to be. I take joy in the thought of taking the bare skeleton of OD&D and adding the flesh custom tailored to each individual campaign setting or adventure. I can write a one shot that uses the rules in one way, and run a campaign that interprets the rules in a totally opposite way and it's all good... and not confusing because the rules themselves are so sparse, and the action of the game comes not from the rules but from the Ref's rulings.
For one thing, there are almost no rules. It's all rulings. I don't have to look up a bunch of stuff in a book during play, nor waste my time memorizing rules. It's all on-the-fly adjudication. For example, two sessions ago an evil shaman tried to overbear one of the characters and drag them both down into a sacrificial fire pit. I told the player what the shaman was trying to do... leap on him and drag them both over the side. "What do you do?" I asked him... a favorite thing of mine to ask in a role playing game. And at that moment, he could have said anything. He could dodge out of the way, lock into a grapple with him, try desperately to strike the fellow with his weapon, try a spell or any item... anything. And I would adjudicate it as it happened. Very free.
Another big reason is that the game can be tailored to each Ref, and even with a single Ref to each setting. How does spellcasting actually work? Do clerics have to have spell books? Do clerics have to have an *alignment* before 7th level? (The interesting thing here is... traditional clerics worship a god or pantheon and get spells from them. But maybe a junior cleric is a cynical mercenary, and the spells are just ways of manipulating the gods....) It can be however you want it to be. I take joy in the thought of taking the bare skeleton of OD&D and adding the flesh custom tailored to each individual campaign setting or adventure. I can write a one shot that uses the rules in one way, and run a campaign that interprets the rules in a totally opposite way and it's all good... and not confusing because the rules themselves are so sparse, and the action of the game comes not from the rules but from the Ref's rulings.
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
the hemisperes disagree:
Crunchy reason: 4E for streamlining and easing DMing, but still keeping many, many options and D&Disms.
Stylish intuition: 1E AD&D all the way. You read those books, you see what the game is about and should be (if not actually how to play, or, especially, DM it). Its Swords&Sorcery, High Powered Fantasy,Mythology, quasi-historical Wargaming, vocabularly building all in one amazing pastiche.
Crunchy reason: 4E for streamlining and easing DMing, but still keeping many, many options and D&Disms.
Stylish intuition: 1E AD&D all the way. You read those books, you see what the game is about and should be (if not actually how to play, or, especially, DM it). Its Swords&Sorcery, High Powered Fantasy,Mythology, quasi-historical Wargaming, vocabularly building all in one amazing pastiche.
doctorhook
Legend
4E is my favorite. It's the most fun to DM!
Festivus
First Post
As a DM, I love 4E. Offloading some of the tasks to the players allows me to think more about the story and what is going on within. A close second would be Basic Fantasy Roleplaying, which is IMO, a great system for instructing younger kids about roleplaying games.
As a player, I think my new favorite is going to be Pathfinder RPG, but it's a bit too new to say I am in love with it, so I'll stick with 3.5. But really, I don't dig into rules so much, often building "broken" characters that other more CharOp types would cringe at, so any edition works for me. A non-armor wearing cleric! What are you thinking!
As a player, I think my new favorite is going to be Pathfinder RPG, but it's a bit too new to say I am in love with it, so I'll stick with 3.5. But really, I don't dig into rules so much, often building "broken" characters that other more CharOp types would cringe at, so any edition works for me. A non-armor wearing cleric! What are you thinking!
Castles & Crusades is my favorite. Its like if you took 1st ed, ignore the parts most of us ignored, and add a d20-ish unified resolution mechanic. Fairly simple characters, with more options than B/X versions, and I can use all more old modules without converting them beforehand.
I like all the versions well enough, but the later editions with more rules tend to kill immersion for me.
I like all the versions well enough, but the later editions with more rules tend to kill immersion for me.
bouncyhead
Explorer
Hmmm. AD&D/2nd have v positive memories associated with them. I guess that's nostalgia. They probably stank as systems but hey.
Our group has always moved on as the editions have been released (since 1977) without really thinking too hard about it, but appreciating the overall improvements to rules/mechanics.
We moved to 4E and found that we didn't really care too much about the rules after all. It is the implied universe/'D&D feel' that's important to us and we didn't find it there.
One can get obsessive about balance/mechanics/math etc. Especially regarding 3e. I understand, but do not encounter in real(?) life, the myriad imbalance issues that apparently surround 3. We just run our fighters, wizards and clerics, without envious glares across the table, laughing our a**es off when one of us gets totalled by something quick and arbitrary and every so often revelling in a piece of spell-use whimsy or improvisation.
We're giving Pathfinder a try now, mostly because there's a shiny new book, but also because the new Yellow Mold totalled the Sorceror last week in three rounds flat and it made me laugh so hard beer came out my nose.
Our group has always moved on as the editions have been released (since 1977) without really thinking too hard about it, but appreciating the overall improvements to rules/mechanics.
We moved to 4E and found that we didn't really care too much about the rules after all. It is the implied universe/'D&D feel' that's important to us and we didn't find it there.
One can get obsessive about balance/mechanics/math etc. Especially regarding 3e. I understand, but do not encounter in real(?) life, the myriad imbalance issues that apparently surround 3. We just run our fighters, wizards and clerics, without envious glares across the table, laughing our a**es off when one of us gets totalled by something quick and arbitrary and every so often revelling in a piece of spell-use whimsy or improvisation.
We're giving Pathfinder a try now, mostly because there's a shiny new book, but also because the new Yellow Mold totalled the Sorceror last week in three rounds flat and it made me laugh so hard beer came out my nose.
