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I was a long time player and really enjoyed it up to 3 or 3.5. I was thinking of running another game, but I am curious of the state of D&D. I could be mistaken, but I thought I saw Wizards was re-releasing older versions again.

So, are the current versions fun? Bad? Good?

If you like WoW, you'll love 4th edition. If you want to really "wear the long pants" acquire a copy of the first edition rules and some old modules, especially the Temple of Elemental Evil. 1e requires thinking and role-playing, not min-maxing, rules lawyering, and roll-playing.

It is in a state of flux at the moment as the newest iteration is currently in development. You can get the playtest materials for free from Wizards of the Coast if you want to try them out.

If you want to run something like 1st/2nd/AD&D they have re-released them. There are also other games that are inspired by those editions, such as Dungeon Crawl Classics or Hackmaster 5th.

Fourth Edition is a lot of fun, but very streamlined in comparison to older editions. It is one of the best systems for introducing players to pen and paper RPGs.

You can always make rules up as you go as well.

As a final option, if you are really hard up for a rule set and don't want to free form, there is always 3/3.5/Pathfinder, but that should always be a last option, considering how terrible it is.

What I like to say is that 4e D&D is absolutely the best set of fantasy skirmish wargame rules I've ever read. When it comes to combat balance, letting players do cool stuff, and making every fight be just challenging enough that you barely come out alive, 4e is a blast to play.

That said, it doesn't exactly have a ton in the way of rules for stuff that doesn't involve combat/action. If you want to do intrigue and assassination you'll need to have a DM who doesn't mind winging the system by the seat of his pants. I honestly see that as a feature sometimes, since games with a "diplomacy chart" (Pathfinder anyone) can be even more ridiculous once you start getting into non-combat stuff.

In some ways 4e forces players to roleplay more than 3.5, because there's so little rules governing social interaction.

EDIT: just like to add I have only ever played Pathfinder and 4e. I've seen the 5th edition playtest rules in action (about 4 months ago, they probably look nothing like what I saw by this point) and they looked a lot like pathfinder with a fresh coat of paint. I have no experience with the earlier editions, but I seem to gather that they played much harsher and relied on player intelligence/caution more. This could be fun, but it's nothing you can't do in 4e if you want to play loose with the rules. I have never done a "classic dungeon crawl" in 4e, but I think I'd do stuff like make traps/hazards that aren't found in combat do damage in the form of lost healing surges. Whenever I strip healing surges off my players they freak out so much more than hit points for some reason...

Every version has its virtues and flaws, and I enjoy them each for different reasons. I played a lot of 2nd, of 3rd, 3.5, and 4th editions. 3.5 & 4th have more focus on the battle grid and the skirmish minis battle aspect, though of course you can do those things with any edition; we used to play 1st & 2nd ed with a hex map and minis. Earlier editions lend themselves to a bit simpler, more streamlined play, with quicker, more abstract combats. They rely much more heavily on the DM being able to fill in the rest of the session with good rulings, judgment calls, and description. 4th can be very simple and quick for the DM to set up for, as statting and designing encounters is a lot simpler than in 3rd/3.5.

I know I am definitely intrigued by the re-release of the 1st and 2nd editions. I never really got to play D&D, but always wanted to. I know if I did (especially as a GM) I would absolutely like to go old-school and pretend it's the 80's again.

I'll never play 3.5 though, as I can get the same basic experience from Pathfinder, but with new, supported releases.

How well do the re-releases of 1st and second edition play? Are they direct re-prints? I know next to nothing about pre-3.5 D&D.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
How well do the re-releases of 1st and second edition play? Are they direct re-prints?

There are some changes, such as adding in a few missing spells in the second edition and the addition of an illustration, but generally they are the same, only on thicker paper. I've heard that some of the art was a little blurry in the 1st edition reprint, but couldn't say how badly and to what degree. Even then everyone I know that has picked up the reprints has been very happy with them.

I played every edition of D&D

1E - Not balanced, different mechanics for everything, no skills, proficientcies, or feats, only class features determined by charts.

2E - Upgrade from 1E, skills and weapons proficientcies introduced, but a general nerfing of heroes and boosting of monsters.

3E - Upgrade from 2E, Better skill and proficientcy systems, feats intruduced allowing crazy amounts of customization.

3.5E - Still 3E at it's core with some minor game balance changes.

4E - Game Balance enforced through mechanics and heavy handed level restictions and item costs. All magic items nerfed. Class abilites are super awesome though. Rules spread out through too many books. If you've never played the earlier editions of D&D there is nothing wrong with 4E really, but if you were comfortable with earlier editions, some of it just feals off.

5E - Legendary Holy Grail Edition - still in development. Suppossed to have all the goodness of 3.5 with the balance of 4E, and a 1E vibe.

Personally, the early development blogs for 5E killed my interest. A lot of going for the 1E vibe felt like dumping the improvements of 3E and 4E. The goal was to have multiple layers of complexity on characters that could be used side by side so you could have a simpler 1E kinda charecter fighting alongside a more detailed 3E sort of character in the same game. I haven't kept up with the development since I think it's a crap goal. Either the more complicated character will be better, or his additional choices would be useless, to maintain the balance.

My gaming group switched over to Pathfinder, which feels like D&D 3.75. It plays like D&D 3.5 with the special combat rules (grapple,disarm,trip,etc..) using the same mechanic now, instead of a different one for each, and players buffed a bit. Single class characters get rewarded for staying single class, keeping them on par with multiclassed characters better.

 adamsouza wrote:
I played every edition of D&D

How about OD&D, B/X, and BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia? Essentials?

 adamsouza wrote:
A lot of going for the 1E vibe felt like dumping the improvements of 3E and 4E.

My take on the development articles ... there is nothing of D&D Basic in Next and I'm not seeing much of AD&D, either. It's kind of a modular take on 3.5/4E. I'll almost certainly buy Next when it comes out. Just not sure if I'll ever play it.

 Manchu wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
I played every edition of D&D

How about OD&D, B/X, and BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia? Essentials?

I'm not really certain what all those abreviations stand for, but I started with the Red and Blue boxes with the softcover rules, bought and played the various editions as they were relased, and stopped at 4E. Never bought or played the Essentials version as it was still billed as 4E, and we had moved onto Pathfinder at that point.

I'll almost certainly buy Next when it comes out. Just not sure if I'll ever play it.

We are in the same boat. I'll buy it and probably twist my gaming group's arm and wrangle at least one campaign out of it. If were not happy with it, we'll just break out pathfinder again.

I'm in the middle of a DCA/M&M campaign I'm enjoying at the moment, so no rush on my part.

I want it to be good.

"OD&D" = Original, the Woodgrain Box and its reprints; it's going to be reprinted soon by WotC as a "deluxe edition."

Your Red Box (most likely) = Basic, edited by Frank Mentzer. The Blue Box you're talking about is therefore most likely the second book in that series, the Expert set. There were three others: Companion, Master, and Immortals -- hence "BECMI." In 1991, they were collected into the Rules Cyclopedia (minus Immortals).

"B/X" stands for the earlier 1981 Basic and Expert rule sets edited by Tom Moldvay, David Cook, and Steven Marsh. Neither of B/X or BECMI are "first edition" D&D. There's really no such thing, at least in the popular parlance.

There is, however, a such thing as the first edition of Advanced D&D, released at the same time as the first Basic D&D set by Eric J. Holmes in 1977. AD&D was Gygax's vision for the product line. Using the numbering system invented by WotC when it dropped the "advanced" part of the game's name, this is what some people call "first edition."

I would say the state is one of arrested development. While Pathfinder plays fine, it has stuck the PnP community in a rut of OGL. Just as people complain about not enough original titles in cinema and then go and spend all their money on sequels and adaptations, people take the easier route of playing the same old thing with a slightly shinier package.

I suppose the irony of it all is that while lesser critics make the complaint that 4E was an MMO, the truth is that, just as WoW stunted innovation in MMO development, so to has a the OGL stunted innovation in PnP rules sets. While it has had the odd side effect of creating a market for retroclones for those wanting to do something different and/or get nostalgia, it has made much movement forward very slow.

I'm trying imagine what would have happened if a company had been allowed to make Warhammer 40k 2nd Edition, including all the armies and such, while Games Workshop was creating 3rd Edition. Competition against one's older self seems not to produce better products, as competition often does, but has made of game of who can repackage the same thing the best.

Well, there's plenty going on in the world of RPGs. But yeah -- in the pocket dimension of D&D and its clones, Paizo has fostered that same old conservatism that struggles against every new edition. On the other hand, WotC isn't helping matters with their painstakingly slow and confusing development process for Next. The family of Third and Fourth Edition D&D (which includes Pathfinder, kind of like that stuck up cousin that did well and moved to the big city) feels very, very tired to me. That's why I go a'retroclonin' when I play D&D these days.

I've been playing 3rd/3.5/Pathfinder since the release of 3rd edition, and I have to say that I really don't have a problem with the whole OGL trend that arose as a result of those systems. It makes it so much easier to find a game when the odds are good that players already know the basic rules and can jump right into a game, regardless of the genre, without spending a couple of hours in questions, explaining basics, etc.

That's not to say that I don't think RPGs should be advancing in other directions. It's just that I don't see OGL as the bane of P&P games like many seem to.

 Manchu wrote:
Well, there's plenty going on in the world of RPGs. But yeah -- in the pocket dimension of D&D and its clones, Paizo has fostered that same old conservatism that struggles against every new edition. On the other hand, WotC isn't helping matters with their painstakingly slow and confusing development process for Next. The family of Third and Fourth Edition D&D (which includes Pathfinder, kind of like that stuck up cousin that did well and moved to the big city) feels very, very tired to me. That's why I go a'retroclonin' when I play D&D these days.

Next is, unfortunately, showing a lit of signs of being 'designed by committee' and trying to be all things to all people. Some neat ideas, but it's all over the place. :(

 grayshadow87 wrote:
I really don't have a problem with the whole OGL trend that arose as a result of those systems. It makes it so much easier to find a game

That's all well and good except that d20 is built to play heroic fantasy. The OGL explosion goes hand-in-hand with uncritical thinking about genre. Traveller and CoC aren't too much younger than D&D and they're both alive and well. Although neither have achieved the commercial success of D&D, no D&D product of any edition, and certainly not from Third/3.5/Pathfinder, has taken on scifi and horror respectively as well as those games. This is because system does matter and, so far, there is not one system that can do everything or even many things well. Between 2000 and 2006, a lot of people thought d20 was that system.


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 Balance wrote:
Next is, unfortunately, showing a lit of signs of being 'designed by committee' and trying to be all things to all people. Some neat ideas, but it's all over the place. :(

I'm just hoping something coherent will emerge by the print run. Seeing what they've been posting on the website, I think the product will look -- in terms of its art and design -- too much like something out of 4E. Rules-wise, D&D Next seems to be an unintentional manifesto on why 3.5 and 4E are basically the same thing written in two slightly different languages, overflowing with sublimated angst about Eric Mona's kidnapping of WotC's market share.

I enjoyed d20 modern/arcane when i played in a group at university. Thinking of getting the pathfinder starter kit as i enjoyed it when i played last year and i now gave a social group who night enjoy it and lots of spacr and models to play

Following the thread with interest to see if there is a brtter systwm.

 Manchu wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Balance wrote:
Next is, unfortunately, showing a lit of signs of being 'designed by committee' and trying to be all things to all people. Some neat ideas, but it's all over the place. :(

I'm just hoping something coherent will emerge by the print run. Seeing what they've been posting on the website, I think the product will look -- in terms of its art and design -- too much like something out of 4E. Rules-wise, D&D Next seems to be an unintentional manifesto on why 3.5 and 4E are basically the same thing written in two slightly different languages, overflowing with sublimated angst about Eric Mona's kidnapping of WotC's market share.

Interesting. You're the first I've heard this from, as most comments I see seem to go the other way: 43 fans are out in the cold, as few 4e concepts are available in any way.

I was reading some stuff over on rpg.net earlier and it sounds like a big issue is that 1e and 4e are very different games in terms of concepts like character power level. A lot of 1e fans consider the 'meatgrinder' that is 1st level characters in their preferred edition a positive thing. 4e fans are big on every class having meaningful options beyond "I attack!" although some people do consider those options unnecessarily complex.

Neither opinion is wrong, but trying to force the two together seems like an impossible task.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Following the thread with interest to see if there is a brtter systwm.

Well, what do you want to do? Do you want a game that does more of something that Pathfinder did?

 Balance wrote:
You're the first I've heard this from, as most comments I see seem to go the other way: 43 fans are out in the cold, as few 4e concepts are available in any way.

A lot of D&D chat falls into the nasty habit of focusing on a granular level of details -- for example, saying that a key difference between 3.5 and 4E was the elimination of certain alignments -- rather than on the higher-level concepts of play style and design style. In fact, this is probably why the Edition War of 2007-08 was possible in the first place, given that 4E just made explicit most of what WotC assumed in 3.5's design (e.g., magic-focused power gaming). But an example of 4E-style design in Next is the "paths" available under class. Another is the programmatic "recharge" monster mechanic. Yet another is the retention of the short/long rest mechanic. Now, I'm not saying this is a riff on 4E. The most notable 4E element missing from Next is the at will/encounter/daily method of defining a character's choices, and that's arguably the most important thing about 4E.

 Balance wrote:
it sounds like a big issue is that 1e and 4e are very different games in terms of concepts like character power level

The real transformation there takes place between AD&D 1E and 3.0, via AD&D 2E's Player's Option rules. Player's Option was probably the first formal manifestation of what came to be known as splat by the early 2000s, where the need to create new product starts driving power creep. But to even get to the idea of power creep you first need the concept of balance. As far as I can tell, there is no coherent concept of balance in AD&D 1E; that game was still very much about adventurers routinely getting in over their heads rather than WotC's fantasy-based superheroes. AD&D 2E had shed some of what has been called the "pathetic aesthetic" or the 70s and 80s but balance was still not a design focus so I don't think power creep could possibly have been a goal of Player's Option. Rather, I think the idea was to formalize in a published product what had previously been house rules. This trend originates with Unearthed Arcana, at least, but Player's Option was far, far more systematic.

One of the revolutionary changes of 3.0, maybe ultimately the most or second most important change (after the core mechanic concept), was encounter balance. It's not that no one had ever thought of it before or that it was impossible in older editions. It's that Third Edition made is a thing in itself (via CR and relational XP reward calculation) and, more importantly, a goal of good GMing. Learning from TSR, WotC embraced the splat system to great success. Some people claim Player's Option was one of the signs that TSR was doing poorly; it's hard to to say the same for WotC's "Complete ____" line with the gazillion "prestige" classes. The key difference, I think, is that 3.5 players were not just interested in having more options; they wanted better options. They were pushing the concept of balance. The result is that 3.5 ends up being very "breakable" ... but only because Third edition really introduced something that could be broken in the first place.

You can see that 4E is designed to be less fragile in this sense. All the hidden game mastery elements of 3.5 are brought out into the open in 4E. A tanky class build is explicitly called tanky, etc. Class descriptions include build suggestions based on role. DMs are given XP budgets and monsters are categorized into roles. And on and on. PCs were glowing comic book heroes ... long gone were the dingy, shivering explorers of AD&D 1E who faced death at any instant. You know why customers want every level to have some option? Because they expect to use every one of those options; i.e., they expect to survive through 20 levels. That's just a given, most of the time, in Third and Fourth. Not so in earlier editions!

That's a fair point, although I'm not quite sure I see it. The biggest 'common' thing I see between 3rd and 4th is a good separation between 'rules' and 'fluff.' Things are explicitly keyed and there's a lot less spell effects that basically require the GM to make a snap decision. See the lists of standard 'status effects' and such.

I haven't gotten into Pathfinder, so it may have resolve these, but these were my biggest issues with 3rd:

Skill points were fine-grained, possibly too fine grained. I'd prefer replacing the 'Class Skills' concept with a class gaining + to specific skills at various levels.

Multiclassing had a LOT of weird issues. I've seen a lot of possible fixes for this.

Giving classes spell-levels at high level has always felt lazy to me. Giving an 8th level paladin access to 1st level spells really only takes a little pressure off the real spell-caster as they've already got a bunch of first level spells, they're better at them, and 1st level healing is minor scratch & dent repair at that point.

But, you know... Everyone has their list like this. And they're all different.

 Balance wrote:
The biggest 'common' thing I see between 3rd and 4th is a good separation between 'rules' and 'fluff.'

If I take your meaning, this is what I have been calling "deterministic." The idea is, the players (including the DM) can just look up whatever in the book. IMO, this is the single most impactful revolution in roleplaying (I purposefully do not use the word "greatest"). It seems to me that the big name games of the 70s and 80s all assumed DMs/GMs/Referees/etc would constantly make rules calls during play. By 2000, with Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition, that assumption was all but gone and a new assumption, that players would be looking up rules during play, came to be the "common sense." One of the main goals of the Old School Renaissance, as a reaction against the OGL explosion, is to challenge that "common sense." As far as I can tell, D&D Next completely accepts the common sense of 2000.

 Manchu wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
I played every edition of D&D

How about OD&D, B/X, and BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia? Essentials?

 adamsouza wrote:
A lot of going for the 1E vibe felt like dumping the improvements of 3E and 4E.

My take on the development articles ... there is nothing of D&D Basic in Next and I'm not seeing much of AD&D, either. It's kind of a modular take on 3.5/4E. I'll almost certainly buy Next when it comes out. Just not sure if I'll ever play it.

As someone who cut his teeth on AD&D and then spent many years in 3E and 4E, reading the articles about Next have been generally confusing at best and utterly depressing at worst. Due to a clear emphasis on appealing to the portion of the market who hold earlier editions up as superior to more recent fares, it seems rare to even have mention of 4E in those design notes, and even mechanics that are fairly clearly inspired by the most recent edition are worded in ways that almost seem like an effort in obscuring this fact, as though any idea 'tainted' by 4E must be brought about in the most circuitous manner of arriving at it. Like, they have the answer/mechanic they want, but can't admit it stemmed from 4E design/player experience, so they have to do a song and dance and apparently re-weave the thing from whole cloth.

It's really odd to watch a company put so much effort into running away so hard from ideas that I felt were great advances in table top gaming. While 3E still has its charms and I don't hold those who prefer old school versions in contempt, I felt they got so much right with 4E that it's kind of distressing to know so many consider it to be 'the worst thing to ever happen to mankind' or however else its put. My 3E and 4E books sit proudly on a shelf along with my 4E books (along with the remnants of my Palladium days, whatever I decided not to sell when I ebay'd off a good 3/4 of the collection as I was tired of porting them around from apartment to apartment).

For whatever reason, negative opinions of 4E have always broadcasted louder and further than positive ones. WotC is wise not to draw attention between 4E and Next. As far as baiting those who prefer earlier editions, I keep hearing this but it doesn't show up in the rules ... unless by "earlier edition" you just mean 3,5/Pathfinder.

Part of it are the polls specifically seeking feedback on what is 'iconic' D&D, and regular references to the older editions.

It's been months since I paid close attention, but it struck me when I caught up that they wanted to appeal to the old school in a pretty hardcore way.

And it depends on where you are. The forums I've called home for over a decade now are a bastion of 4E love and adoration. The D&D Next thread there is... depressing. They've run play by post tests, others have run live playtests, the results from what they've been given haven't been great. WOTC seems perfectly happy to repeat the mistakes of the past in an effort to reclaim some of the sales of the past. Or at least, cater to mechanics that I feel are mistakes in the name of pandering to a userbase who lap those things up.

I've recently learned from the furor surrounding the open beta for Dark Heresy Second Edition that the dark clouds over a play test are often mere sound & fury. Sometimes the most negative posters are simply trying to come off as far more knowledgeable than they actually are -- and the simplest way, they seem to think, is by posing as a cynical grognard.

It's been a while since I read the "designer diaries" and even longer since I looked over play test materials. So I re-downloaded the playtest materials, got all the updated stuff, printed it out, and sat down with it last night. To be honest, it's actually pretty good.

Now, about this "old school" stuff. Let's be clear. When you say "old school," do you mean Third Edition? When I think "old school," here's what comes to mind:

- mechanics consist of a number of unrelated subsystems
- DM is expected to make constant rules calls, even make up rules on the fly
- adventurers are vulnerable, need to run away as often as fight
- combat is very abstract

D&D Basic and AD&D are the prime examples of "old school" D&D.

And when I think of "modern" RPGs, here's what comes to mind:

- everything is a variation of the core mechanic
- the rules attempt to cover most situations, players and DMs look up stuff in the book
- adventurers are heroes and should be able to handle every encounter as long as the DM has balanced it properly
- combat is less abstract, often lends itself to miniatures

Third and Fourth Editions are the prime examples of "modern" D&D.

So far, my review of the play test material puts Next squarely in the "modern" category of D&D. If you could be more specific, what do you think about Next is "old school"?

 Manchu wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Following the thread with interest to see if there is a brtter systwm.

Well, what do you want to do? Do you want a game that does more of something that Pathfinder did?

I want, ideally, a system which is reasonably simple (I much prefered grapple/etc to all be based on a single mechanic for example), one which is well supported (I love pathfinder's online wiki and beast directory) and one which allows you to easily reward players for RP elements easily (as well as stuff like disarming traps, figuring out puzzles etc).

Though I don't mean to thread-jack.

Do you want to use miniatures?

 Manchu wrote:
Do you want to use miniatures?

I do - I have the Reaper Bones Kickstarter to play with

I would also be interested in some kind of procedural dungeon/adventure generation, but that is not essential.

 Manchu wrote:
Now, about this "old school" stuff. Let's be clear. When you say "old school," do you mean Third Edition?

As I said, I cut my teeth on AD&D, so no, I wouldn't call 3E "old school", though the D20 system was an evolution of many systems found in 2E (to varying degrees of success).

Moving towards more lethal combat with "save or die/suck" mechanics, the return to the old 'linear martial classes, quadratic casters' approach to class design, among other things. Again, the specifics are a bit vague because I spent a few weeks reading articles, playtests and discussions and decided that as a massive fan of 4E, they were very distinctly marketing to a fanbase that did not include me.

3E certainly had many of these issues, but as both a player and a DM, I felt that 3E was a massive improvement over the previous editions, and 4E improved upon that. Obviously they're seeking to reclaim some of the lost marketshare that Pathfinder has picked up, but at the cost of reverting to mechanics (or versions of mechanics) that I have no interest in.

@Forar: It doesn't seem you're actually talking about anything older than Third -- and that you'd prefer to keep playing Fourth. Reading through the playtest materials, I can see a lot of stuff cribbed from 4E. The major exception is the lack of the at-will/encounter/daily structure.

@SilverMK2: Although they're not what I'd call simple games, it sounds like you'd have fun with any of Pathfinder, 4E, Essentials, or D&D Next.