I don't think it's about sales, because the newer game lines seem to be selling just fine. I don't play 4E much but I have a dozen hardbacks, several modules, and most of the Essentials line. Plus I have all of the Dungeons & Dragons Gamma World line, both board games, and so on. That's pretty good sales to a person who only dabbles in the game, and I suspect that many others buy product even if they don't play a lot.
I think that the issue is that early editions are a lot easier on the DM but newer editions more fun for the players. I've only run a couple of 4E adventures and I can say that my players simply love the number of options that are presented to them, but I find it to be a bit crazy because I'm used to knowing all of the rules but 4E is more of a "game of exceptions" and so I don't know them all.
This isn't just a 4E-bash, because I noticed some of this in 2E (kits, option books, etc) and 3E (feats). I'm sure part of this is my own fault for not being familar enough with the rules, and given more time all of these options will become easier to remember.
As a player 4E isn't so bad because I only have a single character class and race to keep track of, and while my total number of options is greater than older editions they are still somewhat limited. But as a DM I love to run OD&D, B/X, and to some extent AD&D because it seems like everything is easier for me to keep track of, from monster stat-blocks to NPCs to player choices. The more I can keep track of information, the easier it is for me to run the game. An OD&D monster stat-block might read "orc, AC7, sword, 2 hp" whereas a 4E stat-block has multiple attack choices, different types of orc, orc tactics, and fills up a page or two of text. Hard to "fake it" during an adventure and I have to read ahead and study the monsters like doing homework. Much more prep time for the DM, in my opinion.
As to the topic of this thread, I'm not entirely certain why so many designers are harkening back to the older editions but it's possible that they have grown tired of creating adventures with so much text for monsters, etc, because they always see these adventures from the DM side of the screen. Perhaps they just want the simplicity that goes with earlier editions?
As for the designers, maybe making the Essentials line really got them thinking about what was fun back in the day and how to integrate that. I dunno, but it is a sharp contrast from playing a tactical mini-RPG hybrid to playing one which relies almost entirely on imagination (i.e. no skills, just raw refereeing by the DM).
I was just looking at me original red book this am...good times
Just curious as to what's up with the wave of nostalgia sweeping gamers, including the designers of 4th edition. I cut my teeth on the original box set and expanded via Greyhawk, blackmoor, and Eldritch Wizardry booklets and then the other editions; I know the sense of nostalgia.
To know where you want to go, it is always, always a good idea to have a good idea from where you have come.
To know where you want to go, it is always, always a good idea to have a good idea from where you have come.
A great point. I suspect that most 4E gamers (or RPG-ers in general nowadays) have never read the Gygax/Arneson 1974 brown book OD&D. If they did, it's possible that their perspective would change somewhat.
Funny how for years WOTC has been blasted for not paying attention to its roots, then when some WOTC designers blog about the old days they get blasted for that. Seems like some folks just hate WOTC and will blast them no matter what they do.
Just curious as to what's up with the wave of nostalgia sweeping gamers, including the designers of 4th edition. I cut my teeth on the original box set and expanded via Greyhawk, blackmoor, and Eldritch Wizardry booklets and then the other editions; I know the sense of nostalgia.
To know where you want to go, it is always, always a good idea to have a good idea from where you have come.
Oh mudbunny...you deciever of hope you! Actually, I do assume that they have learned some very valuable, if not harsh lessons about 4ED and the direction forward. The sheer amount of backlash and drop off of player base must have been unexpected.
when you think back on the first time you watched each of the episodes, you probably were most captivated by the first movie (episode 4). why? because you were 7 years old at the time (and yes, i know that not everyone was 7 when they first watched a new hope, but you get the idea . . . i hope)
I'd still rather have them playing modern games and seeing what the competition is doing...
There were chapters dedicated to running your own kingdom and designing castles and hiring troops, and pages upon pages of charts, tables, and dice options. In 4E, we get a single article describing how castles (ALL castles) have the same price, come with troops you don't have to pay, and have a very binary win/lose against invading armies with no dice rolling required.
Now let me ask you. Comparing these systems, which one is better?
... the answer is neither. They both accomplish their goals with distinction and honor. AD&D succeeded because it was a damn fine game. 4E succeeds because it's a damn fine game. They both do what they do well.
But here's the difference. If you're playing OD&D or AD&D, and you want to have a simple dungeon romp? You can do that. The game's designed for it. If you want to have a Tax Accountant&D game? You can do that. The game's designed for it. If you want to have a high-adventure, save-the-world megaquest lasting your entire character's life? You can do that, the game's designed for it. If you want to pick up your character, go to another session, and just sit down with a group of higher or lower level characters and just play and have fun? You can do that, the game's designed for it.
If you're playing 4E, and you want to have a romp through a dungeon with random encounters? Go play an older edition, the game's not designed for that. If you're playing 4E, and you want to have a megalithic kingdom where you know exactly the crop yields and population of your little fortress and have to manage the wages of all of your troops and oversee the construction of city walls and things like that? Hahaha, no, go play an older edition, the game's not designed for that. If you want to take your level 5 rogue and play with a group of level 10 characters? HahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA go play an older edition, this game's not designed for that.
And the game designers, I've noticed in recent posts, have taken notice of this. Until recently, you couldn't build a fortress; you couldn't hire individual soldiers, nor could you hire an NPC to join the party. Until the DMG 2, you couldn't bring your low level character to high-level sessions, and it's still more trouble than it's worth; and random encounters are still highly discouraged, though the pacing of combat has improved since Essentials enough that it's more possible to have loads of random encounters.
My point is just this: 4E stands on its own, older editions stand on their own, but the old ones can do a ton of things that 4E can't and 4E struggles to do any of the things the old editions could.
So when they look back on older editions and say "Hey, remember that fun thing that we could do then but we can't do now? Why don't we write an article on that?" they're just trying to add the diversity and flexibility to the systme that 4E sorely lacks. Sorely lacks in order to polish what it does have to a high sheen, but still sorely lacks.
2. The market and fanbase fragmented.
3. Nostalgia invites for old-school street cred of some sort, and shows IMO a hope for some of those lapsed gamers or people who rejected 4e to return to the WotC fold (of 4e). A sort of 'hey, remember this, we loved it too and we still love it now! Try our new stuff because of this!'
Your view may be less cynical than mine. ;)
And Beowulf translated to every single edition and sub edition of D&D. Let it go, please.
D&D has always "looked back." I could never figure out why we need to re-visit the same adventures over and over again. Tomb of Horrors. Been there. Done that. Multiple times. Let's get some new adventures, eh?.
Be fair, though, come on: you want more Ravenloft.
I have played Ravenloft in AD&D, 3.5, 4E of my own sinister converted design... and I want more of its random-plot, sandbox-DMing, epic-villainy, horror-themed random-encounter goodness.
May 5E one day come out and the back of the Dungeon Master's Guide have a converted copy of Castle Ravenloft.
And Beowulf translated to every single edition and sub edition of D&D. Let it go, please
That reminds me, I think either Gauntlet or Sentinel had a book called 'Weobluf' somewhere in it as treasure. Hehee.
D&D has always "looked back." I could never figure out why we need to re-visit the same adventures over and over again. Tomb of Horrors. Been there. Done that. Multiple times. Let's get some new adventures, eh?
And Beowulf translated to every single edition and sub edition of D&D. Let it go, please.
There is a reason they are classics; many people cut their teeth on these and we feel the younger generations should experience them. I just opened the 4ed of Tomb of Horrors and while different, when I saw that map I smiled. I remember every room as if I were actually there, I remember the frustration and the ultimate triumph facing and defeating Acerak.
And Beowulf is the greatest literary treasure we have in the English language. The Sagas of the Germanic people form the foundation for ALL fantasy RPGs and stories...Tolkien was only as good as his source material.
Beowulf is the precise model for a classic adventure. I once ran an adventure based upon Njall's Saga; great roleplaying opportunities with some combat.
D&D has always "looked back." I could never figure out why we need to re-visit the same adventures over and over again. Tomb of Horrors. Been there. Done that. Multiple times. Let's get some new adventures, eh?
And Beowulf translated to every single edition and sub edition of D&D. Let it go, please.
There is a reason they are classics; many people cut their teeth on these and we feel the younger generations should experience them. I just opened the 4ed of Tomb of Horrors and while different, when I saw that map I smiled. I remember every room as if I were actually there, I remember the frustration and the ultimate triumph facing and defeating Acerak.
And Beowulf is the greatest literary treasure we have in the English language. The Sagas of the Germanic people form the foundation for ALL fantasy RPGs and stories...Tolkien was only as good as his source material.
Beowulf is the precise model for a classic adventure. I once ran an adventure based upon Njall's Saga; great roleplaying opportunities with some combat.
I don't know if we technically have Beowulf in the English language... I mean, it's Old English, and that's cool, but considering how far removed that language is from Modern English, you might as well throw the Divine Comedy on that list, which has had an even greater influence on D&D in my opinion.
The older editions had their own charm. They were insanely detailed. Insanely. They weren't so much heroic epic story telling systems as medieval simulations with magic.
There were chapters dedicated to running your own kingdom and designing castles and hiring troops, and pages upon pages of charts, tables, and dice options.
Just curious as to which older editions led you to these conclusions.
OD&D (the original 1974 game) didn't have much complexity at all and sounds nothing like what you have experienced. Holmes Basic was pretty simple and Moldvay/Cook B/X wasn't too tricky, either. The Menzer rules (BECMI) were written with younger, new players in mind. I'll admit that AD&D and 2E had a decent amount of complexity (2E got pretty heavy sometimes with kits and skills and such) but I never thought any of them were complex compared to 3E and in many ways I'm still trying to wrap my head around 4E. 4E is a "game of exceptions" and I'm finding the vocabulary and such different enough from what I'm used to playing that it seems pretty complex in its own right. At least, the sheer page count of rules for 3E and 4E seems to dwarf the page count of rules in the earlier editions.
I agree with much of what you've posted, but not so much about the complexity of the older editions ... particularly OD&D.
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EDIT: And, by the way, I'm certainly not trying to start a flame war. Just curious as to which older editions you have played that led you to that conclusion.
The older editions had their own charm. They were insanely detailed. Insanely. They weren't so much heroic epic story telling systems as medieval simulations with magic.
There were chapters dedicated to running your own kingdom and designing castles and hiring troops, and pages upon pages of charts, tables, and dice options.
Just curious as to which older editions led you to these conclusions.
OD&D (the original 1974 game) didn't have much complexity at all and sounds nothing like what you have experienced. Holmes Basic was pretty simple and Moldvay/Cook B/X wasn't too tricky, either. The Menzer rules (BECMI) were written with younger, new players in mind. I'll admit that AD&D and 2E had a decent amount of complexity (2E got pretty heavy sometimes with kits and skills and such) but I never thought any of them were complex compared to 3E and in many ways I'm still trying to wrap my head around 4E. 4E is a "game of exceptions" and I'm finding the vocabulary and such different enough from what I'm used to playing that it seems pretty complex in its own right. At least, the sheer page count of rules for 3E and 4E seems to dwarf the page count of rules in the earlier editions.
I agree with much of what you've posted, but not so much about the complexity of the older editions ... particularly OD&D.
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EDIT: And, by the way, I'm certainly not trying to start a flame war. Just curious as to which older editions you have played that led you to that conclusion.
They weren't complex in rules. They just had a lot of richness, I guess in flavor text? But the difference between flavor text and crunch was a bit harder to distinguish back then...
In any case, my not-as-a-player knowledge of the older editions come largely from the Rules Cyclopedia. Flipping through pages and pages of just pure rolling tables, and reading the section on managing your kingdom or the sidebar on how to address various levels of nobility and all that stuff...
Compare that to the Rules Compendium in 4E. A tiny book, mostly combat rules, very clear-cut, no extra "unnecessary" fluff like what level you ascend to nobility and get to run your castle/forest grove/mage tower/whatever.
In terms of older editions, I've done most of them (but since I had no idea what the difference between the various editions were at the time, I'd be hard pressed to define which ones I've played :P), and there are still copies of old handbooks and cyclopedias and stacks of never-to-be-used-again character sheets and graph paper sitting around my room.
I would call 3E more complex than what I was describing--the Stronghold Builder Guide, one of my all-time favorite 3E supplements--but my point that it was a VERY deep system compared to 4E is still there, and that when you look at a page filled with nothing but various forms of poleaxe and compare it to 4E, or look at a page with nothing but castle-running-rules and compare it to 4E's dinky article... well, the old systems had a LOT of stuff in them.
And again. Older systems--pretty much there was no hefty distinction between crunch and flavor, you were winging a lot of it. Even in 3E, my players would always ask "Can I cast lightning bolt to do this and this instead of that?" or "Do you think I can use Craft (something) in order to know how to do this weird task?"... but in 4E, I've never received such a question from anyone. The rules are so simple and straightforward, and the line between crunch and flavor is so strong (partially because they get different sections--flavor text box and crunch text box in powers are FIRMLY separate, and character builder cards even don't include them!) that nobody feels the need to stretch their powers' ability to affect the world, nor does anybody feel the need to read deeply into flavor text and interpret some extra abilities out of them...
But I'm digressing. Rules Cyclopedia is my largest source since it's right near my desk, but I have played a number of older editions which my memory is kind of vague on which I've played and in what varying quantities.
And again. Older systems--pretty much there was no hefty distinction between crunch and flavor, you were winging a lot of it. Even in 3E, my players would always ask "Can I cast lightning bolt to do this and this instead of that?" or "Do you think I can use Craft (something) in order to know how to do this weird task?"... but in 4E, I've never received such a question from anyone. The rules are so simple and straightforward, and the line between crunch and flavor is so strong (partially because they get different sections--flavor text box and crunch text box in powers are FIRMLY separate, and character builder cards even don't include them!) that nobody feels the need to stretch their powers' ability to affect the world, nor does anybody feel the need to read deeply into flavor text and interpret some extra abilities out of them...
Hmmm...and see, I feel that the older editions required a bit more imagination and free-wheeling on everyone's parts; why do some folks feel they need rules to clarify how the PC can move in a combat? I was having a discussion about something like this in the Dragon Age RPG forums. I say that speed/move and ranges have no real bearing on the game or the flow of the story; I also do not hail from the Temple of Minis (I use the term dolls...they are). A DM can use descriptive story telling to allow or limit certain actions or activities of the PCs. I think 3.0/3/5/4ed have made gamers a bit lazy. WHich is also why I think we are seeing a draw back to the Old Way...just look at how many free and published OSR games are out there now and doing quite well.
In any case, my not-as-a-player knowledge of the older editions come largely from the Rules Cyclopedia. Flipping through pages and pages of just pure rolling tables, and reading the section on managing your kingdom or the sidebar on how to address various levels of nobility and all that stuff...
Compare that to the Rules Compendium in 4E. A tiny book, mostly combat rules, very clear-cut, no extra "unnecessary" fluff like what level you ascend to nobility and get to run your castle/forest grove/mage tower/whatever.
And again. Older systems--pretty much there was no hefty distinction between crunch and flavor, you were winging a lot of it.
I also have a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia and think it's one of the most useful books in my collection. Of course, I wing it a lot and simply ignore parts that I don't use. Then I look at the Essentials Rules Compendium and think "so much stuff here, and only combat?"
Interesting how we look at the same situations and come up with opposite conclusions.
In any case, my not-as-a-player knowledge of the older editions come largely from the Rules Cyclopedia. Flipping through pages and pages of just pure rolling tables, and reading the section on managing your kingdom or the sidebar on how to address various levels of nobility and all that stuff...
Compare that to the Rules Compendium in 4E. A tiny book, mostly combat rules, very clear-cut, no extra "unnecessary" fluff like what level you ascend to nobility and get to run your castle/forest grove/mage tower/whatever.
And again. Older systems--pretty much there was no hefty distinction between crunch and flavor, you were winging a lot of it.
I also have a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia and think it's one of the most useful books in my collection. Of course, I wing it a lot and simply ignore parts that I don't use. Then I look at the Essentials Rules Compendium and think "so much stuff here, and only combat?"
Interesting how we look at the same situations and come up with opposite conclusions.
I'm not sure I understand. My point was that the rules cyclopedia had a ton of awesome stuff in it, and that the Rules Compendium was a tiny book of most combat rules. Which seems to be what you're saying...
We don't play the old editions just to take a trip down memory lane. We play the older editions because we like the system.
They can also inspire concepts in the newer editions.
We don't play the old editions just to take a trip down memory lane. We play the older editions because we like the system.
Yes, but when you are a major player in the D&D 4ED game, i.e., employed by WotC, AND you publically decalre your gaiming habits...something is going on. Look at Essentials. They targeted those of us who remember the 'true' D&D classes.
I'm not sure I understand. My point was that the rules cyclopedia had a ton of awesome stuff in it, and that the Rules Compendium was a tiny book of most combat rules. Which seems to be what you're saying...
My error. I looked back at your earlier post and I agree. What threw me (I think) was the way you opened the post...
The older editions had their own charm. They were insanely detailed. Insanely. They weren't so much heroic epic story telling systems as medieval simulations with magic.
And I took that to be a negative, that you thought the old systems were way too complex (detailed) compared to the newer systems.
Now that I realize we're saying the same thing, when I re-read your post I get a totally different meaning.
Glad to find a fellow old-schooler!
