As for the comment…2e is more rules that you can shake a stick at so is easy to turn it in to a “home Brow” game. Don’t get me wrong…I have nothing against home brew game…I my self rather play established games/words. I like to know want my character can and can not do. I’m not a rules lawyer by far(I actually dislike rules lawyers) but like to know the rules and world info(fluff) or at list be able to open a book and research it with out having to pick the GMs brain for 30Min.=P

P.s.
By reading my story being told from the eyes of a Drow…What category duos my champaign story fall in to?

P.s.s.
OMG…”I grok, you grok…lets grok together.”
Thats my favorite quote(and book) of all time.=)

I think that A.D&D 2e was all about attitude and flavour. It’s adventure designer Wolfgang Baur’s favorite system too.

I think it’s because it developed so much personality in a restricted timeframe.

(I’d argue it was evolutionary, in order to stay ahead of the World of Darkness Wave)

I find no fault with anyone preferring it to later versions of D&D, I really don’t. However, so far, preference for 2e has been an accurate indicator of people who don’t share my personal tastes with RPGs.

But I really would love to see the fluff love that 2e got into a game whose mechanics I grok.

I believe this to be leveled at me, & I think that you are correct. Lots of people think that this is a bad thing . . . I really don’t know why. I had never thought of my games as being home brewed, but now that you bring the subject to my attention, you are definitely correct. I think that the game should be your own, and unique in lots of ways, while keeping true to core rules. Maybe this is why I have never tired of Second Edition?

-RIP

The Adv. D&D DMG: This book, while a bad reference book for a game by today’s standards, is a gold mine of Gary’s thoughts on the game and the hobby. Many of the tables are still worth it.

Adv. D&D Dungeonneer’s Survival Guide, THE Underdark reference.

The 3.0 Core books, for nostalgia’s sake and because Monte Cook’s DMG is up there with uncle Gary’s

The DMG II for Robin Laws’ essays and the good ideas sprikled all over the place.

Ptolus (It cost 120$ man!)

Dungeonscape (Because deep down, I’m a Dungeon whore)

Return to the temple of Elemental Evil (The maps are worth it!)

That’s about it…

Okay, not completely. Two of my players are into mutants and masterminds and that may lead to a true20 game, but the liklihood of anything else is right out.

That said, I actually like 3.5, I just get tired of only running 3.5 games and want to change things up on occasion.

4e sounds promising enough that, like Chatty, my 3.5 material may find its way to the “sell me!” pile after 4e comes out.

Paranoia is the perfect Stupid game…. it’s good fun for a few hours but I wouldn’t play a campaign of it.

Then…D20 D&D 3.0 came out…I fell in love with D&D all over again. The wide open skills set ( one of my first characters was a paladin with a maxed out Bluff), the new twist on proficiencies( a Wizzard could use a battle Axe but took a negative on every swing, but he could still use it), its explanation for almost every maneuver you might think of(almost) so I did not have to feel like I am playing a “Home Brew” game and make up some rule. It still had things I did not like(Grapple is a big one) but all in all it was a wonderful system. Easy enough for me to teach my Girlfriend how to play but hard enough to keep my interest and not feel like I’m playing a idiot game. The thought of buy more book for 3.5 turned me off WotC, then came Mutants & Masterminds, Star Wars D20, new Shadowrun edition, ext. Eberron brot me back to my D&D roots, I caved and got my the bare minimum of 3.5 books and tons of Eberron material.

1) To say D&D is about killing and looting monsters leads me to believe that you have ever had a good DM.
2) To compare table top RPGs to Diablo or other MMORPGs makes me think that you have never truly rollplayed and only played hack/slash games.
3) To say you prefer 2e to 3.5 leads me to believe that you prefer “Home Brew” games/worlds.(2e is definably NOT stupid but is definably VERY RETRO)

I have my 4e book on pre-order, I am going to like and dislike some things about the system (I already like a dislike some things) but the main thing to remember is that is not the system that makes a fun, is the group of players you are with that makes it fun.

Major Kudos on this thread…good job.

My main hope for 4e is that the mechanics start to support non-combat activities (not the direction they’re going from what I’ve heard) or the mechanics just get lighter overall, allowing for an easier to run and mod game.

Well, D&D in all its versions has always been a pretty crunchy game, so I could never say it’s going to be mechanically light. But it should end up lighter than 3e, at least. Beyond that, we don’t really know.

But for the mechanics to start supporting non-combat activities, I don’t know where you’ve been reading, but that is most definitely the direction they’re going. There will be extensive non-combat challenge systems, for both skill-based challenges and social encounters.

You won’t have heard about the specific mechanics because they haven’t shown them off yet (except for a small amount of the skill challenge system), but they definitely exist.

jeffx -

I am currently running a 2nd Edition game and don’t see it has retro-stupid or retro.

Well, remember that while the titles may seem degrading, the things they imply are not meant as such. While the “stupididity” of a 2e game usually depends on the DM, I don’t think there’s really any question about 2e’s design sensibilities being somewhat retro.

Heck, just from THAC0 and different XP charts for every class, I can’t even imagine how 2e could not be considered retro (as defined above) by these standards.

I don’t think systems are to blame. I like to story games that have plot and an environment that doesn’t revolve just around the characters. It makes for interesting games. I have done that with the basic set, 1st edition, and 2nd edition. I am guessing I could do it with any rule system. Granted this normally meant writing up lots of house rules to cover non-combat things.

All that said, since I have come back to gaming I have looked into a lot of different rules and have found tons of other rules that match my DMing style more. I just haven’t found one that is a medieval, fantasy and it would be difficult for me to find players. It is hard enough getting a D&D group together consistently.

Good job on the site and the blog postings. Thank you.

The shear amount of published adventure for D&D really helps CDM in his game preparation. But that being said we we’re ready to move on from 3.5 and here comes 4e just in the nick of time…

Just so you know, I have played the following RPGs since the mid 1980′s:

Adv. Dungeons and Dragons (for about 4-5 years)
Marvel Super Heroes (1st and 2nd Editions)
Robotech
Mekton
Gurps (for 8-10 years)
BESM
Cyberpunk 2020 (as a player)
D&D 3.0
D&D 3.5
Iron Heroes (a d20 fantasy derivative)

I abandoned Gurps for D&D 3.0 after reading the Players Handbook and being blown away by the crunch.

However, my core group of 4 (including me) prefers D&D to anything else. And a night of roleplaying even a “bad” game still beats most other forms of entertainment – so I still play it.

But like I say – to each their own. If I even have a point – and I’m not sure I do – it’s just that there are lots of D&D players that never play anything else, and that’s a shame. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone whose favourite RPG was something OTHER than D&D that you could say that about. About the only other franchise with a similarly large following is the White Wolf stuff, and you aren’t going to meet many Vampire players that have never played D&D (in my experience).

I’m prepared to believe that lots of people have tried many games and play D&D out of preference. It’s just that I’ve never actually met any of them.

My main hope for 4e is that the mechanics start to support non-combat activities (not the direction they’re going from what I’ve heard) or the mechanics just get lighter overall, allowing for an easier to run and mod game. I know a group that wants to can make roleplay the main focus of any game but that’s easier done if the system has a low overhead.

If you want to jump from the roof onto a horse to make a thrilling get away, THEN DO IT!!! Want to sword fight your arch-nemesis on a run-away coach, then ON GUARD!!!! The goal is to have fun, and by putting every last thought into a system just seems to dumb it down. And by saying that Oh! You can’t have a swordfight on a moving vehicle because you don’t have that feat isn’t fair. It’s a fantasy game where you play the hero, and by god you should be able to do all of the crazy stuff that heroes are known for!

Actually, limitations like this are what 4e is working to remove.

If you want to have a fight on a moving vehicle, 4e is saying “Dude! That’s awesome! Go right ahead! I may ask you to roll to keep your balance once or twice when you attempt something crazy, like a flying jump kick from one vehicle to the next one, but fucking go for it!”

Seriously, just because rules exist for a situation, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t meant to go beyond that situation and use those rules in new and exciting ways. Rules don’t have to be limitations. A well-designed ruleset can do more to enable creative gaming than having no rules at all.

We’ll see how 4e handles those.

@Gazza: To each his own. I’m not trying to sell 4e to the undecided or the NON-ENTHUSIASTS to borrow your expression, I’m interested in understanding the decisions behind the new game.

And while Diablo and Wow do allow monster murder for loot… neither gives me the satisfaction of creating our own stories around a game engine that brings me a lot of fun.

However, I disliked 2e tremendously (and switched to Gurps)… maybe D&D will follow the Inverse of the Star Trek movie pattern for me and I’ll end up hating 4e.

@ John: Dude! Thanks! How much do I owe you?

@ Lanir: I get a feeling when I read comments from players like you and Gazza that you, like many others, would love to play other RPGs but are often stuck with a group whose majority wants to go for D&D. That must suck… The hobby is too small to attract sufficient players… however, maybe the 4e phenomenon will bring more players in the fold of other games.

First the 4e backlash will make some players want to move away from it and be receptive to other games. Plus maybe as D&D 4e brings in a new generation of tabletop gamers, some will branch out in the wider hobby and discover other games built on different paradigms….

@ Yax: Agreed.

@RipperX: Way cool on your stance on 2e. But I really don’t think WotC is trying to poach on Wow territory… but It’s borrowing rules design elements from it.

However, there will be people who grow tired of the limited scope of MMORPGS. Smart, creative people like we all are here. They will hope that there could be more to this and tabletop RPGs might offer what they are seeking. It did for me when I was reading Sword and Sorcery novels and then I discovered A D&D.

Now, in regards to 4e, I entertained the idea, because quite frankly it gets kind of lonely playing an old system. However, while in my research I didn’t find that it really supported the types of stories that I like to tell, nor does it attract the players that I DM for.

This system seems fully supportive of medium scale warfare, which really doesn’t sound like much fun to me. Combat is just a small part of D&D, and a very small part at that . . . at least with my DMing style.

If I can tell a thrilling story using 2e system, why update? I don’t understand why people have problems with the rules, if you don’t like something, then ignore it for a while and see how it effects the game.

Dungeons and Dragons CAN’T compete with WoW, the fact that they are trying to is silly really. WoW isn’t really a role playing game, no video games are really role playing games because no matter how immersable a video game claims to be, you are still limited by the programing of the thing. Having a fixed rule for everything that a PC can do would be placing the same stupid limitation on a table top pencil and paper game. You can play a game like that all by yourself, and where is the fun in that?

I think that the fact that they are moving away from things that have always been there is a bad direction to go. These things worked! Dragons are always exciting to a gaming group, and it is exciting to try an figure out what kind of dragon that you’ll be facing before you even enter the dungeon.

If you want to jump from the roof onto a horse to make a thrilling get away, THEN DO IT!!! Want to sword fight your arch-nemesis on a run-away coach, then ON GUARD!!!! The goal is to have fun, and by putting every last thought into a system just seems to dumb it down. And by saying that Oh! You can’t have a swordfight on a moving vehicle because you don’t have that feat isn’t fair. It’s a fantasy game where you play the hero, and by god you should be able to do all of the crazy stuff that heroes are known for!

-RIP

When I read a book I don’t care how improbable it is that the good guyss abilities perfectly match the villain’s abilitites. It makes for a good story.

Find a good reason for the mechanics to make sense and you’ll end up with a richer game.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for the nice feedback.