4th Edition D&D immediately resulted in me losing interest in the game. And I completely agree with Skip here–after I bought the Players Handbook, I couldn’t stop thinking that it was such a blatant rip-off of MMORPGs, and WOW in particular.
Now with all the rumors circulating about 5th edition, or whatever the hell they are calling it, it will be interesting to see what kinds of adjustments are made.
I’m with Bart–first edition is just fine.
Well, it’s nostalgic, at least! 
I’ve played all editions, and have been adaptable to them all.
Though I sort of hope this will finally be the edition available in e-book format.
If they are wise, they will do that. Just think of all the space we’ll all save!
And the backaches avoided from carrying around a bunch of rulebooks!
As such, we still play 3.5. Why tamper with perfection?
HAHA Exactly! A loyalist Bart. I dig that. Although I loved some skills and powers when it came out.
In retrospect, that’s probably what broke 2E.
I agree completely.
*Sigh!* Now I’m going to have to dust off those old 2E books.
Kevin, I still like Second Ed., but I have good memories from the group on that one
I still dream of THAC0 on occasion
I grew up with Bart’s editions, and tend to stay with the baby that brought me in. I remember when I gave up RPG’ing for a stretch and came back and couldn’t figure out what this “THACO” was everyone was talking about…
Totally with Bart. It was all downhill from 1st ed!
You and Skip are not the only one’s who felt it was Like WOW on paper. My DM never switched over for that very reason.
I started on 3.5 and we are still working on getting a new group together and it will be 3.5 for us. Don’t get me wrong I played 4.0 and it was ok but that was probably because when we tried to play 4.0 we had friends with kids that were playing with us as well and they could at least follow 4.0.
I should also admit that I did like parts of 4.0 around spells and things of that nature. At least the feeling that I didn’t run out of spells and then had to go hide in a corner was nice but since I usually play a healer some of healing spells in 4.0 were so messed up (you mean I have to hit my target to successfully heal someone… we are soooo screwed).
So overall general mixed feelings. I do have pretty much of all of the D&D books except for 3.5 which I sold when moving to 4.0 (but I have the pdf files for most of them so not a huge loss).
I played them all up til 3.5. 4th edition does nothing for me.
2nd Edition has the most nostalgia for me, as that was the one that had the most game-time with me geeky buds. The older editions (especially before 3E) were far more lethal, and you really had to work to get anywhere. Made that 14th level wizard really worth something!
I probably played 2E the most as well.
4th Edition finally fixed the game. 3rd was broken in so many places, it almost reached Palladium level. Three major points: Grapple rules (did anyone ever get these?), class balance (or total lack thereof), BAB (sounds fun? not if you’re multiclassing, it ain’t, and that’s what you did A LOT in 3E, because nobody played a base class beyond Level 6). Pathfinder tried to fix some of the most gruesome problems with 3E but ultimately it failed (for me, at least). And even if Pathfinder was a bit better than 3E, it still wasn’t the clean and nice makeover 4E was. Yes, of course it was totally different from 3E, that was what made it great and brought me (and my players) back to D&D. It was like a slick and new version of 2E, feeling-wise, with rules that made actually sense.
Finally, a group of 1st level characters was somewhat in balance. The mage wasn’t totally useless compared to the fighter and the cleric wouldn’t risk a lengthy discussion if he did something other than cast a healing spell. Clerics, Healers in general, were actually fun to play. And this was because they took so much Inspiration from computer games, which is brilliant. It was so easy to introduce players new to PnP to the game. Also, it was kind of “full circle”, since computer games took so much from PnP.
Yes, it was like “OMG, that is like WoW on paper!” and we loved it because of that. Minion rules alone would have been reason enough for 4E. I remember once, a DM of ours pitted our group against a horde of Goblins in 3E. It was horrible. Each turn took hours and after several rounds my mage was out of spells and basically sat this one out. And it was strictly number calling each round, because giving descriptions of each maneuver would have further slowed down the round. And nobody wanted that.
I did the same thing in 4E and it was quick, fun and inspired the players to no end to elaborate on their actions. Combat in 3E is so bad in comparison, I almost feel like making fun of a handicapped person. In 3E basically everyone rounds up around the monster and hits it with the same kind of attack over and over again until the monster is down (throw in a spell or two if it takes too long). In 4E there’s combat movement, different tactics and dynamic actions and everyone contributes something in every encounter, it’s almost unfair to compare those two editions.
But the community kept on whining and crying. Oh boo-hoo, this is not the overly-complicated mess of contradicting rules and bizarre multiclassing I was used to. Now my little Sister actually understands the rules and gets into the game, having fun, I don’t want other people to understand MY game! Boo-hoo-hoo, you money-grabbing bastards, boo-hoo-hoo.
Quit whining and play Pathfinder you crybabies!* I mean, really, there IS an alternative to 4E, why do you keep on coming back to WotC, crying about their newest edition?
Are they in love with Wizards? Can’t they move on? I don’t get it. Why is it so important to be a customer of this specific publisher? If they don’t want to sell you products, LET THEM. ESPECIALLY if there is another product that does *exactly* what you want it to do.
But, strangely enough, WotC caved in. They downgraded 4E with Essentials and now they seem to be hellbent to re-invent the wheel by messing up a clean and fun system, based on player input (a really, really, dumb idea, IMHO). I got so many people playing D&D with 4E, I really doubt those same people would want to play a game as unnecessarily convoluted as 3E/Pathfinder. Essentials (really misleading name, btw, because it sounds like “less”, although it is actually more) was too much already.
Whenever I see people “defending” 3E and using rules arguments to make their point, I shudder and think “I don’t want these guys to have any influence on the rules!”. And that’s why I don’t have high hopes for 5E.
The problem with 4E was not its ruleset (which is, IMHO, mostly perfect). The problem was, they decided to omit an updated Open Gaming License. 3E was such a success not because the rules were so great but because it had hundreds of additional titles from third-party-publishers. This resulted in a massive product presence in any gaming store (and on the net) with countless compatible supplements. With 4E there was no such thing and I believe that was a really bad decision in the whole design/publishing process.
*to be perfectly clear: I think it’s OK to prefer 3E/Pathfinder (although I really, really, don’t understand why anyone would do that to themselves), to each its own. But, really, Wizards didn’t destroy D&D with 4E, they tried to do it with bad marketing decisions. And, no, 3E is not easier, more logical or “better suited for role-playing” (ooh, I love that one) than 4E.
Also, anything I write is totally IMHO, even if it makes perfect sense to me.
PS: I’m really sorry for the wall of text, but I needed to get this off my chest.
Vent away! That’s what a board like this is for. It’s always fascinating to hear other people’s insights on the topic, particularly when it’s done peacefully.
I couldn’t have said things better myself. I really enjoyed playing a caster in 4th edition (I took a look at trying to play one back in 3.5 in college and it just seemed kind of useless once I ran out of spells, especially since melee never run of our spells).
As for grapple, you should have seen a good friend of mine’s gnome monk back in 3.5. Yes a a gnome monk, named Nibbles. He had such a huge minus to grapple it was so bad we just had to laugh about it.
In all honesty I am at the point where it has been so long since I have played and it is so hard to find a regular group (now that I am not in college) that I could really careless about which edition I play and more about just playing.
I have to admit that if I wasn’t playing with a bunch of guys that know the rules intimately, I’d never remember the rules and not know what I’m doing at all. So, from that standpoint, 3.5, while wonderful for our group, could be frustratingly confusing if all of our players were like me, with my lack of any sort of memory.
Played basic, expert, advanced (AD&D), & a little 2e. Got out & moved on to systems that made more sense to me – the Chaosium system, especially Glorantha/Runequest, was what we liked.
Never played 3e or 3.5e so I can’t compare thos versions. Played 4e for about a year and found it to be soulless; just not my thing really. As I don’t play WoW, I can’t speak to comparisons between 4e & WoW. I did feel, however, that it was very ‘videogame-esque,’ if you will and found the combat to be just a long as in any other edition.
l also felt that in WotC’s attempt to ‘balance’ the game, the characters became a little more vanilla or cookie-cutter. I never really had a problem with over-powered characters in any edition I played for the simple reason that my friends & I followed the spirit of the game & not the rules as written.
Kato
Back in ’78, I bought three little pamphlets called Dungeons and Dragons. I guess that was the 0th edition… those, and two supplements (Gods, Demigods & Heroes, and the Arduin Grimoire, never approved but very useful) were all that were needed. Of course, there were a lot of new character classes and ideas in Strategic Review (later The Dragon magazine), so I had all of those, up through about Dragon # 42.
Then I went to college, and never really played again. Sold all the stuff to a collector after I got my Ph.D. That crappy First edition? Made it so 6th graders could play. Really ruined the game…
I guess all this just makes me a grumpy old man. Now, get off my lawn!
No Pathfinder fans here? Personally as a DM I really liked a lot of the changes they made in 4e, but as a player I found the classes to be very blah and similar. WotC lost my business to Paizo and I’d be really surprised if that ever changed. Can’t beat the attention to the fans you get with Pathfinder. I’ve had at least a half dozen of my threads responded to by Jason or James personally. Plus, IMHO Pathfinder has everything that made 3.5 great but fixed most of the balance problems and has severely curbed the Class/PrC bloat with their Archetypes. Who needs a whole new class when 2 or 3 changes are all that are needed? Not to mention how their books are so much nicer in quality and substance. I rarely ran a 3.5 published module due to plot holes and sub-par writing, but I’ve ran numerous Pathfinder adventures and I’m currently gearing up to start their new pirate themed Adventure Path!
Sorry didn’t mean to gush on about Pathfinder, I’m just a really big fan of the work Paizo does. Great comic, I’m having a blast catching up with the archives and really getting attached to the characters!