15 replies to this topic

[Anomaly]

The Biggest problem I have with 3rd Ed. is what they did to magic users, and (already at low levels at a dissadvantage) gave them a severe chance of failure to casting spells.. (not only do they have to deal with Saving throws and the lack of number of spells memorizable)..

What ... ? IIRC, you have arcane spell failure if you are wearing armour without the still spell feat. Without armour, there is no spell failure, like in 2nd edition. When a magic user is hit, she does not automatically fail her casting like in 2nd, she must make a Concentration check. Moreover, INT bonus now give spell bonus to mages, unlike 2nd edition. The XP table is more advantageous. Overall, mages are more powerful in 3rd than in 2nd.

3rd edition is a great improvement over the 2nd edition. It takes time to get used to it, but once the new habits are taken, it is really difficult to go back.

[berelinde]

Opinions are like... bellybuttons. Everyone has one.

3E is more complicated, and there is a learning curve, but there is a lot that's good about it, too. I like the multiclass rules in particular, and the fact that no race is barred from any class. When 2E came out, everyone thought it was horrible compared to 1E. Too much to remember, and what's with this THACO business? If there is ever a 4E, it will draw criticism for not being 3E. That's the way it goes.

As for the decline in popularity, you'll have this. (shrugs) It isn't 1983 anymore. I just got back from the hobby shop, and it was just as crowded as ever, so someone must still be playing.

[Miloch]

I think this last post here sums it up:

Yes indeed, the heretical AD&D rules are the ones that were put out by WotC [a card company] and Hasbro [a toy company]! The non-heretical rules are those that were put out by TSR - a fantasy role playing [for the most part] company. If E. Gary Gygax had intended Clerics to get multiple attacks, or for people to routinely create Ftr/Th/Ftr/Mage/Ftr/Th/Cl/etc characters, he would have allowed such in AD&D.... but he didn't.... Slapping together some hellish mix of the d20 system with ridiculous numbers of feats and skills and calling it by a name you bought for it's marketability hardly counts as designing an AD&D game.

Personally I wouldn't even dignify 3.yech with the name AD&D - it is simply the powergamer's spawn of Hasbro.... but ...ummmm. I digress <sheepish grin>

Not that 2e is that great either, but it has slightly less of a toy company feel to it.

[cmorgan]

I went into Barnes & Noble this past week (*not* a hobby shop by any means) and discovered an entire shelf of FR and DragonLance sourcebooks, handbooks, etc., etc. -- I was amazed that things had progressed so far. Not sure I am comfortable with all of it, but when Swords and Spells, Grehawk, and Blackmoor were standard, Gygax was still actively campaigning with his friends - and when they came up with stuff that was new and different (Tenser's Transformation, Melf's Acid Arrow, etc - heck, even the concept of Paladin ) it was looked on as wicked cool fun new stuff to explore. I know somewhere along aout the Fiend Folio, 2E became a little cumbersome. Old Dragon mags have cartoons about it (along with cool pics like a stick carrying picket signs, entitiled "Staff of Stiking"), and I am afraid those of us in college in the late '80s began messing with Traveller, GURPS, heck even Paranoia, because too many folks we played with became more rules lawyers than anything. I moved over into the CRPG world because playing was a repeat of Avalon Hill Axis and Allies (the real one, with over 400 cardboard counters, a huge thick rulebook, and 2 hour "turns" that meant a good gaming session waited until Scout Camp staff meetings, where you could play from 7 pm to 3am for 5 days straight, and actually get some semblance of forward movement.

Long reminising way (fun for me, boring for you ) of saying "new things can be fun and challenge you, if you let them".

[Tempest]

I've played both 2E and 3.XE, and I feel the main difference is that 2E was all about trying to anticipate every possible situation and come up with ways to do that situation. 3E is much more flexible-it's far easier to improvise, adapt, make custom rules and variants depending on your specific needs, and is generally a more adaptable, malleable set of rules, as governed by DM fiat. If the DM decides a race of elves unique to their campaign setting rely on a different mix of weaponry as their traditional weapons (say, sea elves, who have no use for weapons like the longbow), it's easy to change. Want a new and freakish monster? Haul out a template or two and apply them to the critter of your choice (and I've created some truly strange-and deadly-creatures this way).

In the end, I prefer 3E simply because it's so easy to adapt and use, especially if you're fond of increasingly bizarre settings, campaigns, and creatures like my group of DnD friends are-we've had parties include everything from lycanthropic nymph bard/druids (+10 level adjustment *really* hurt on that one, though), to stone giant paladins and half-dragon centaurs, and campaigns that plunged into inter-planar wars and even a rather silly trip into a distant section of the Prime via spelljamming where we determined that a shot from a heavy laser rifle did 3d6 points of damage and that a powered combat exoskeleton was merely the equivalent of a suit of full plate mail in most cases, though it did an excellent job of defeating spells. And the party's druid ended up taking one of those rifles home with her, the mage having invented a spell for the occasion to recharge its power source.

Simply put: you couldn't do things like that in 2E without a whole lot of work.

[Miloch]

Simply put: you couldn't do things like that in 2E without a whole lot of work.

Eh... why not? You'd have to make up new rules either way to cover most of that stuff. Even though the last part of your post sounds less like xD&D than Traveller (something else I messed around with briefly in the 80s).

[Tempest]

Yeah, but we saw no need to really make up new rules when we just improvised and adapted existing ones-it's what we like about 3E. And that last part of what I said was more of an example of just how bizarre my friends and I are liable to take things-it was a purely light-hearted campaign, poking lots of fun at Star Trek, Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, and all that other goodness-it was a fun side trip where all the rules got turned upside-down and all bets were off. But my point is: we didn't really have to come up with much in the way of new rules-we simply adapted existing ones to cover the new situations. We added new lines of proficiencies (we called them spellwarped weapons, since our crew of magic-based adventurers obviously had no understanding of the advanced technology), gave the weapons a few special rules of their own (running out of power, overheating, and a couple other things), and boom-we had our druid packing a laser rifle (which, when the party returned home, was thought to be a magical artifact by everyone else, even though it technically didn't qualify as magical).

Eh, sorry for going off on the tangent, but you get my point-we were able to go into all sorts of wierd and unexpected situations and not have to spend days coming up with new rules for everything.

[Miloch]

Anyone remember Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace? It had some rather "bizarre" rules as I recall and yet was based off 2e. At the time though, I think there was a 2e supplement for those rules, just as there is for 3e and 3.5. So I guess my point is, I don't really see the difference - both versions either have supplements to cover "unconventional" rules, or, as you say, you can just improvise on the fly.

[Alas, I think one of my 5-1/4" diskettes for this game got scratched or something and the game is now abandonware, so I guess I'll have to resist the urge to fire it up and see if it's still as fun as I recall it was .]

[Bluenose]

I've been through the change in rules editions more than once and with more than one game, and I'm not as bothered by it as many people. There are always people who will prefer the older edition, just as some people will jump into the new edition with both feet and without looking back. Like Berelinde I remember the criticism there was when 2nd edition came out and we had to dump our old 1st edition rulebooks - unless we were happy playing 1st edition and decided not to update. I'm even old enough to rmember waiting outside my local game store (closed now for about 15 years) with my friends so that we could get hold of copies of the new AD&D MM and DMG, while wanting to know how long we'd have to wait for the PHB.

In my opinion the actual core mechanic of 3rd edition, the D20 roll, is superior to it's equivalents in older editions. There's a great consistency in rules mechanics which simply wasn't there in older editions where die rolls to-hit, for thief skills, and for NWPs all used different mechanics. When it comes to teaching someone to play it's much easier with the new rules for them to grasp this, and the idea that I would have to explain THAC0 again makes me shudder. I don't dispute that there are increased options which have increased the complexity of the system, but the basic mechanic the rules work by is simple to understand and I find that it's easier to make a rules judgement than in older editions that will satisfy both the players and myself as a DM.

To address a few specific points, there's no reason to dispose of all your old modules and other supplementary material. The modules will need converting, and unless you're familiar with 3rd edition you'll find that hard, but it can be done. Examples on the WotC web site include conversions of Tomb of Horrors and White Plume Mountain. Background lore remains as useful, though some has been updated with new supplements - that also happened between 1st and 2nd edition, and even within those editions.

I can also point out that in the earliest versions of the rules even fighters only had one attack per round, so the idea that clerics shouldn't strikes me as being unnecessary.

I'll also point out that EGG allowed players to multiclass in his original games, so it's not a new phenomenon. He was much more concerned with a fun game than with playing strictly by the rules, and it wasn't uncommon for them to add new material at the table.

I'll also suggest that while earlier editions did sell extremely well, they are now competing with a broader range of alternatives. Consoles have become cheaper and more accessible in relative terms, while having increased capablities. There are many more television channels than used to be available in the heyday of AD&D, which also attract potential players. While I don't believe that this applies elsewhere, in England at least D&D is in competition with Warhammer, and many people who might have been D&D players in the 1980s now play Warhammer. Part of me is surprised that there's still so many D&D players at all, considering how some other hobbies of the late 1970s/early 1980s have fared.

[NiGHTMARE]

It's funny that there are so many people who hate Wizards/Hasbro and rave about TSR, considering that for most of its life TSR was run by Lorraine Williams, a woman who absolutely hates roleplaying games and who thinks people who play them are sad and pathetic .

Edited by NiGHTMARE, 28 April 2007 - 08:22 AM.

[oralpain]

The differences between 3E and 2E are less a matter of mechanics and more about flavor, balance, and personal preferences.

I personally prefer 2E because it's less prone to power inflation, balance is less forced, the art work (in general) is more plausible, DMs are encouraged to adjucate more and rely on the rules less, and psionics do not come off as just another type of magic.

Some people dislike AD&D for exactly the reasons I like it.

[Delight]

I like 2nd Ed because of weapon speeds, and armor class modifiers against different types of weapons - at least it had some realism. Also, armor and weapon graphics were based on real (functional) armor and weapons not some spiky fantasypunk ones. Basically BG1 paperdolls = AD&D and weird BG2 ones = D&D 3rd ed.

[Luchaire]

Not to drag this up from too far in the depths, but I just stumbled on this thread...

I've played D&D in all its incarnations since the late 70s. Each edition is nearly different enough to be a separate game altogether, deserving different titles. Each succeeds in different ways at different things. Whether one is better than another is largely subjective, but 1st edition will always have a warm, soft spot in my heart, born of nostalgia. Most of the best times of my teen years involved 1st edition (2E came out when I was a senior in HS), and role-playing in general... I will always associate good, clean and safe fun with weekend long, sleepless, pizza-and-mountain-dew stuffing, marathon gaming sessions in a friend's basement with 6-8 other people.

Anyway, I forgot the point I was trying to make.

Oh yeah... they're all good in one way or another. 1E just happens to be the "goodest".

[Axil]

Grew up with 1st edn , played through 2nd Edition and 3rd and 3.5 edition though I also played Runequest as well ( now there's a system). Then joined Games Workshop and worked on some of their IP (Warhammer FRP 1st edn and talisman mainly ) so you could say I am a little bit of a veteran.

With regards D&D 2nd Edn (AD&D) it had one major flaw - it's out grew itself and had so many little addons, rule ammendment etc that from a DMing point of view it was an absolute nightmare to run any campaign as you had people constantly quoting their favorite little rule at you. 3rd Edn for all that did wrong was consistent enough that the DM was put back in charge.

[oralpain]

With regards D&D 2nd Edn (AD&D) it had one major flaw - it's out grew itself and had so many little addons, rule ammendment etc that from a DMing point of view it was an absolute nightmare to run any campaign as you had people constantly quoting their favorite little rule at you. 3rd Edn for all that did wrong was consistent enough that the DM was put back in charge.

The DM has always been in charge of his or her game, unless the DM allowed things to get out of hand.

All editions of D&D and AD&D have a massive case of rules bloat. So what? The DM picks what works for his/her game, then lets the players know.

I currently DM primarily 2nd edition game, with several 1E and "2.5"E influences (as well as some house rules). There are dozens, if not hundreds of rules I have ignored or replaced. If a player has a suggestion, or a problem, that player is free to argue their case out side of the game. However I am under no obligation to change anything, regardless of what rules they quote. It's my game first, the player's game second, and the original author's game last. All editions have encouraged this.