A post no one asked for 
But one I've been thinking on since posting on another thread about coming here to discuss a hobby I like, and my likes / dislikes. While been doing other systems more and more lately, most of my TTRPG history has been D&D, so focusing on this here.
I'm also interested in other people's views / likes / dislikes of the various editions, how they got there etc - I won't necessarily reply to a lot, but will read them with interest. Was thinking of making this a (+) thread but not sure it applies if putting in some dislikes as such, but I do want to try and avoid edition warring if possible - people will have subjective thoughts on editions which may not line up with how they actually were supposed to work, just how they experienced it, and I'm more interested in the experience than trying to debate what was supposed to occur as such.
Anyway, without further ado:
Basic D&D - late eighties - my first exposure to D&D, finding a Basic D&D rulebook at school library, was quite an eye opener - being able to play a game that is inspired by fantasy settings that I love to read about - even has Halfling in there Didn't get to play a lot, as relying on a library book, and convincing some friends to play as well, and it was mainly dungeon crawling which we enjoyed running our newly created characters through, and otherwise me having fun doing up maps in our old maths workbooks and imagining what monsters would go where, depending on the dungeon level (1st level of dungeon has this, 2nd level that etc) - but was fun thought excercise.
Then we had to move town, where new school library wasn't so well stocked as such despite being bigger, had enough issues socialising in new town as a kid that D&D dropped off for a few years. Though during this period I Was able to start reading Forgotten Realms books (generally avoiding Drizzt novels for some reason, but read likes of Spellfire, Avatar trilogy, Maztica Trilogy, second Moonshae Trilogy).
Advanced D&D- 2nd Edition - then I had ability to find a group in later school years where people were playing D&D on a regular basis and you were able to join in - fantastic. Was around time of the revised format i believe, which caused a bit of confusion with differing art covers, but main game was the same. Even better one of the groups was playing in the Forgotten Realms, which I Felt I knew somewhat of now so was keen to play in - even if some knowledge was out of date (e.g. finding that Zhentil Keep was apparently sacked).
It was fun to play, THACO was a bit counter intuitive but tables etc were there to help get handle on it and it flowed reasonably from there. Got to choose classes for all races compared to Basic which was cool, though the class restrictions / limits funnelled towards certain races. Main thoughts / feelings here was that levelling was slow, and game was quite deadly (especially when just got fireball and do it in a tunnel and misjudge just how far away you need to throw it to avoid blowback on to the party - some of us survived at least), and at one point I tried rogues out because levelled faster at least, but it did feel a bit of a grind at times seeing any marked improvement, and don't think I had a campaign last long enough to go beyond 5th level for a wizard at least, despite choosing races based on getting to higher level. Knew that if I ever rolled stats well enough for it, would have to play a Paladin by virtue of how tough the requirements were, wouldn't get much opportunity otherwise.
Later on Baldur's Gate came out, and was a fantastic game to play, that with it's sequel and offshoots gave me more mastery into 2nd edition, even if some tweaks were made to sort of bridge the gap to third (especially for BG2).
Bit of a gap when went to university, by the time I came back to playing group:
Third edition had arrived - a new edition! First time really encountering the buzz for when a new edition was introduced, and gaming group was definitely keen to move over. Felt like a natural evolution from 2nd edition, maintaining the feel but smoothing out some kinks:
Shifted from the counter-intuitive THACO to a more intuitive feel, no more class limits / restrictions, and a unified level progression, saving throws also using similar system to everything else rather than percentile.
Through play, levelling was a lot faster, and still maintained a certain level of deadliness with saves vs death occurring. We had fun learning the system, though it was one that really rewarded min/maxing as such - and some spells were quite powerful - e.g once can cast Bull's Strength / Cat's Grace etc at beginning of day, but some quirks quickly led to:
3.5 - a bit annoying that this came out so soon after Third's release, but feeling overall across group was had to move over, even if did nerf some of our favourite spells. From then on kept with third edition (ignoring brief forays into other games) - lots of memories from this game, from the continued reward of system mastery, causing some issues if balancing play for those who min/max vs those who don't, having fun with Sorcerers where didn't have to worry about memorizing spell slots, and the 1 level behind in spells didn't seem to hurt too much, and once had Greater Invisibility, Fly and likes of Fireball etc felt quite strong / towards OP, but good fun. Also had good times with Druids, Sword and Board fighters and others, and both played and started DMing a chunk as well.
When DMing enjoyed sandbox play with some published adventure bits interspersed, and had great fun using the FR products -think I bought pretty much every one that was released, but particularly remember the core campaign book, Serpent Kingdoms and Silver Marches well - playing a lot in the latter two regions - and are three books I regret parting with, have started getting in PDF again but not quite the same.
One rule that I should have really moved away from playing RAW (but I erred a lot to RAW) was new characters coming back 1 level below the lowest level party member, at times through bad luck / bad play (latter was rare but did happen) could lead to a spiral with characters 5 levels apart in a party, causing all sorts of balancing issues.
Over time we did start tiring of the system, didn't like the min/maxing that occurred at times (more a player issue than system issue in hindsight, but i was younger then), and so we were quite interested when subsequently:
Fourth Edition arrived - felt came at a reasonable point, and seemed to resolve some of the issues of third edition, I can't recall lethality side of it, but didn't reward min/maxing so much, and classes were quite balanced, with similar amounts of options available, and seemed a good shift, albeit more than a simple evolution, quite a bit was revisited / changed, but were keen to try.
We gave it a good couple of years, but over time while it didn't reward min/maxing / system mastery, it did punish if a player tried to play their character against their role - I recall strikers who tried to tank that didn't go well, healers that didn't want to heal etc that caused real problems - again in hindsight more a player problem (one in particular who seemed determined that should play a class from a given role but not play the role - should have dealt with that behaviour) - and classes began to feel samey, with everyone getting similar suite of options each level, everyone with suite of daily, encounter, at will powers - the flavour wasn't enough to offset the mechanical feel / driver of it. We did like the introduction of Warlord class though - really enjoyed that. Eventually though the system combined with other life goings on reduced the enjoyment of D&D, and we just stopped, and did Board Game nights instead - though this eventually tapered off as well.
An interlude of a few years year, before eventually feeling itch for playing again, and some of the people I used to play with (not the problem players fortunately for me - arguably I had failed there as a DM and left it for another DM to deal with, or just not invite for new campaigns that they started), and I went to:
Pathfinder 1st edition - really didn't feel much different to third edition for me, too long since to see any real changes, but fell back into it easily, played a Sorcerer again, and I guess looking back it was probably better balanced against the other classes from how combats went, but was good to get back into and we completed a campaign using this and had good fun.
Then shortly after than the Pandemic arrived, and a chunk of free stuff became available, and we tried:
Fifth Edition - 4th edition had very much stopped any of us trying fifth edition when it came out - I had stopped playing altogether anyway, but the other group also didn't want to try Fifth. But with the Starter Set available for free on Roll 20, and my kids being interested in D&D now as well after joining in on board games, so in two different groups gave the Starter Set a go, and found we quite enjoyed it. Felt more harkening back to third edition than fourth, levelling seemed even faster again (part of this I think is how quick the first couple of levels go by for introducing the class features etc), and game even less lethal than before. It felt like spellcasters weren't as OP as third edition - Fireball for example started higher, but never reached the heights of third edition where at high levels doing 15+d6 as such, though still reasonably strong. Classes had changed somewhat - Wizard was more like the Sorcerer now, and the new Sorcerer quite different - I've ended up not playing either myself, despite the long history of playing arcane spellcasters, and tending to go for other classes when playing, and DMing wise seen a reasonable spread of different characters played.
Doesn't quite have the same level of reward / punishment that other editions had, with bounded accuracy helping there I feel - meaning whether min maxed or not still fair chance of hitting opponents. Have played in a couple of campaigns, and run Shadow of the Dark Queen / Tyranny of Dragons both through to completion, (these days I don't feel I have the time for prepping sandbox play, and the published adventures make it a lot easier - usually only need to spend 10-15 minutes before each session to get head around what coming up, and only a couple of times had to call a session short while determining what would happen as a result of what party did when doing something out of left field that I need to work out impacts of - party did well at times in short cutting / finding novel approaches through things - especially for Tyranny, Shadow was somewhat more rail roaded).
My kids have joined other groups as well through online play, my eldest especially playing a lot more D&D than I ever did, but all still enjoy it.
For my group, we are trying a few other systems at the moment (first Star Trek Adventures, when will be giving Soulbound a go, and I would like to try and run WFRP 4th edition), but will return to fifth edition, but likely to be after the revised books come out - I'm interested in the revised books, as still enjoying Fifth edition, but like some of the tweaks / changes they are making, e.g. the weapon changes giving a bit more variety.
I find it interesting that has lethality has come down, levelling has sped up, when think it should possibly be other way round - if levelling is fast, shouldn't matter so much if characters die more frequently. I like fifth edition, but I think would have liked a bit more of the variety of choices that Third edition gave, and miss all the campaign stuff.
If I Was to play other than fifth, would tend to be third or pathfinder that I would go back to, and not any of the other editions.
Anyway, that is my journey, interested in hearing others
But one I've been thinking on since posting on another thread about coming here to discuss a hobby I like, and my likes / dislikes. While been doing other systems more and more lately, most of my TTRPG history has been D&D, so focusing on this here.I'm also interested in other people's views / likes / dislikes of the various editions, how they got there etc - I won't necessarily reply to a lot, but will read them with interest. Was thinking of making this a (+) thread but not sure it applies if putting in some dislikes as such, but I do want to try and avoid edition warring if possible - people will have subjective thoughts on editions which may not line up with how they actually were supposed to work, just how they experienced it, and I'm more interested in the experience than trying to debate what was supposed to occur as such.
Anyway, without further ado:
Basic D&D - late eighties - my first exposure to D&D, finding a Basic D&D rulebook at school library, was quite an eye opener - being able to play a game that is inspired by fantasy settings that I love to read about - even has Halfling in there
Didn't get to play a lot, as relying on a library book, and convincing some friends to play as well, and it was mainly dungeon crawling which we enjoyed running our newly created characters through, and otherwise me having fun doing up maps in our old maths workbooks and imagining what monsters would go where, depending on the dungeon level (1st level of dungeon has this, 2nd level that etc) - but was fun thought excercise.Then we had to move town, where new school library wasn't so well stocked as such despite being bigger, had enough issues socialising in new town as a kid that D&D dropped off for a few years. Though during this period I Was able to start reading Forgotten Realms books (generally avoiding Drizzt novels for some reason, but read likes of Spellfire, Avatar trilogy, Maztica Trilogy, second Moonshae Trilogy).
Advanced D&D- 2nd Edition - then I had ability to find a group in later school years where people were playing D&D on a regular basis and you were able to join in - fantastic. Was around time of the revised format i believe, which caused a bit of confusion with differing art covers, but main game was the same. Even better one of the groups was playing in the Forgotten Realms, which I Felt I knew somewhat of now so was keen to play in - even if some knowledge was out of date (e.g. finding that Zhentil Keep was apparently sacked).
It was fun to play, THACO was a bit counter intuitive but tables etc were there to help get handle on it and it flowed reasonably from there. Got to choose classes for all races compared to Basic which was cool, though the class restrictions / limits funnelled towards certain races. Main thoughts / feelings here was that levelling was slow, and game was quite deadly (especially when just got fireball and do it in a tunnel and misjudge just how far away you need to throw it to avoid blowback on to the party - some of us survived at least), and at one point I tried rogues out because levelled faster at least, but it did feel a bit of a grind at times seeing any marked improvement, and don't think I had a campaign last long enough to go beyond 5th level for a wizard at least, despite choosing races based on getting to higher level. Knew that if I ever rolled stats well enough for it, would have to play a Paladin by virtue of how tough the requirements were, wouldn't get much opportunity otherwise.
Later on Baldur's Gate came out, and was a fantastic game to play, that with it's sequel and offshoots gave me more mastery into 2nd edition, even if some tweaks were made to sort of bridge the gap to third (especially for BG2).
Bit of a gap when went to university, by the time I came back to playing group:
Third edition had arrived - a new edition! First time really encountering the buzz for when a new edition was introduced, and gaming group was definitely keen to move over. Felt like a natural evolution from 2nd edition, maintaining the feel but smoothing out some kinks:
Shifted from the counter-intuitive THACO to a more intuitive feel, no more class limits / restrictions, and a unified level progression, saving throws also using similar system to everything else rather than percentile.
Through play, levelling was a lot faster, and still maintained a certain level of deadliness with saves vs death occurring. We had fun learning the system, though it was one that really rewarded min/maxing as such - and some spells were quite powerful - e.g once can cast Bull's Strength / Cat's Grace etc at beginning of day, but some quirks quickly led to:
3.5 - a bit annoying that this came out so soon after Third's release, but feeling overall across group was had to move over, even if did nerf some of our favourite spells. From then on kept with third edition (ignoring brief forays into other games) - lots of memories from this game, from the continued reward of system mastery, causing some issues if balancing play for those who min/max vs those who don't, having fun with Sorcerers where didn't have to worry about memorizing spell slots, and the 1 level behind in spells didn't seem to hurt too much, and once had Greater Invisibility, Fly and likes of Fireball etc felt quite strong / towards OP, but good fun. Also had good times with Druids, Sword and Board fighters and others, and both played and started DMing a chunk as well.
When DMing enjoyed sandbox play with some published adventure bits interspersed, and had great fun using the FR products -think I bought pretty much every one that was released, but particularly remember the core campaign book, Serpent Kingdoms and Silver Marches well - playing a lot in the latter two regions - and are three books I regret parting with, have started getting in PDF again but not quite the same.
One rule that I should have really moved away from playing RAW (but I erred a lot to RAW) was new characters coming back 1 level below the lowest level party member, at times through bad luck / bad play (latter was rare but did happen) could lead to a spiral with characters 5 levels apart in a party, causing all sorts of balancing issues.
Over time we did start tiring of the system, didn't like the min/maxing that occurred at times (more a player issue than system issue in hindsight, but i was younger then), and so we were quite interested when subsequently:
Fourth Edition arrived - felt came at a reasonable point, and seemed to resolve some of the issues of third edition, I can't recall lethality side of it, but didn't reward min/maxing so much, and classes were quite balanced, with similar amounts of options available, and seemed a good shift, albeit more than a simple evolution, quite a bit was revisited / changed, but were keen to try.
We gave it a good couple of years, but over time while it didn't reward min/maxing / system mastery, it did punish if a player tried to play their character against their role - I recall strikers who tried to tank that didn't go well, healers that didn't want to heal etc that caused real problems - again in hindsight more a player problem (one in particular who seemed determined that should play a class from a given role but not play the role - should have dealt with that behaviour) - and classes began to feel samey, with everyone getting similar suite of options each level, everyone with suite of daily, encounter, at will powers - the flavour wasn't enough to offset the mechanical feel / driver of it. We did like the introduction of Warlord class though - really enjoyed that. Eventually though the system combined with other life goings on reduced the enjoyment of D&D, and we just stopped, and did Board Game nights instead - though this eventually tapered off as well.
An interlude of a few years year, before eventually feeling itch for playing again, and some of the people I used to play with (not the problem players fortunately for me - arguably I had failed there as a DM and left it for another DM to deal with, or just not invite for new campaigns that they started), and I went to:
Pathfinder 1st edition - really didn't feel much different to third edition for me, too long since to see any real changes, but fell back into it easily, played a Sorcerer again, and I guess looking back it was probably better balanced against the other classes from how combats went, but was good to get back into and we completed a campaign using this and had good fun.
Then shortly after than the Pandemic arrived, and a chunk of free stuff became available, and we tried:
Fifth Edition - 4th edition had very much stopped any of us trying fifth edition when it came out - I had stopped playing altogether anyway, but the other group also didn't want to try Fifth. But with the Starter Set available for free on Roll 20, and my kids being interested in D&D now as well after joining in on board games, so in two different groups gave the Starter Set a go, and found we quite enjoyed it. Felt more harkening back to third edition than fourth, levelling seemed even faster again (part of this I think is how quick the first couple of levels go by for introducing the class features etc), and game even less lethal than before. It felt like spellcasters weren't as OP as third edition - Fireball for example started higher, but never reached the heights of third edition where at high levels doing 15+d6 as such, though still reasonably strong. Classes had changed somewhat - Wizard was more like the Sorcerer now, and the new Sorcerer quite different - I've ended up not playing either myself, despite the long history of playing arcane spellcasters, and tending to go for other classes when playing, and DMing wise seen a reasonable spread of different characters played.
Doesn't quite have the same level of reward / punishment that other editions had, with bounded accuracy helping there I feel - meaning whether min maxed or not still fair chance of hitting opponents. Have played in a couple of campaigns, and run Shadow of the Dark Queen / Tyranny of Dragons both through to completion, (these days I don't feel I have the time for prepping sandbox play, and the published adventures make it a lot easier - usually only need to spend 10-15 minutes before each session to get head around what coming up, and only a couple of times had to call a session short while determining what would happen as a result of what party did when doing something out of left field that I need to work out impacts of - party did well at times in short cutting / finding novel approaches through things - especially for Tyranny, Shadow was somewhat more rail roaded).
My kids have joined other groups as well through online play, my eldest especially playing a lot more D&D than I ever did, but all still enjoy it.
For my group, we are trying a few other systems at the moment (first Star Trek Adventures, when will be giving Soulbound a go, and I would like to try and run WFRP 4th edition), but will return to fifth edition, but likely to be after the revised books come out - I'm interested in the revised books, as still enjoying Fifth edition, but like some of the tweaks / changes they are making, e.g. the weapon changes giving a bit more variety.
I find it interesting that has lethality has come down, levelling has sped up, when think it should possibly be other way round - if levelling is fast, shouldn't matter so much if characters die more frequently. I like fifth edition, but I think would have liked a bit more of the variety of choices that Third edition gave, and miss all the campaign stuff.
If I Was to play other than fifth, would tend to be third or pathfinder that I would go back to, and not any of the other editions.
Anyway, that is my journey, interested in hearing others
I also did my first draft of my home campaign world that I still use to this day.
