Pen and Paper RPGs

[MAruz]

To me, the last version of D&D was 2nd Edition. Version 3.0+ is all garbage IMHO. That is the "Wizards of the Coast" era D&D, where it was rehauled from the ground up to force players to buy miniatures, more books, and who knows what else. What was once a game that could be played, and played well with only a $20 book has now become a hobby that is more on par with the costs to play the Warhammer miniatures game (hundreds of dollars or more).

They also changed the rules to be more of a "power gamer" rule set. Everything has a rule and character development is so bloated. Honestly, the first time I read through the 3.0 rules, I saw right through it. The rules are designed to do a couple of things:

1. Encourage people to buy more books.
2. Encourage people to buy their own books, since every player is now going to need full use of their own all the time, so no sharing.
3. And the biggest: WotC wanted to establish the "D20" D&D system to license out to computer games. Therefore, it is quite easy to see that the D&D new rulesets play like a pen'n'paper computer game. Back in the 1st and 2nd editions, it was the other way around. D&D was its own thing, and computer games tried their best to mimic it without much success. Now the D&D player's manual reads like a video game design document. It completely stifles imagination and creativity, and encourages rule-heavy sessions where dice take the place of narrative and DMing.

I've just briefly touched 2nd ed, but IMO 3.5 is quite fun, while that is not true for 4th ed. It sure felt like a cookie cutter character, with only 2 or 3 options (this might of course change with more books, but at least 3.5 ed players handbook had allot more to offer than the 4th ed players handbook has), where often just one of them actually had some appeal. 4th ed is not something I want to explore further, I'll stick to 3.5.

Not only the rules, but if you look into the Forgotten Realms setting changes for the 4th ed transition, they've ruined much of the intriguing aspects of it, like Thay for example. Not a wizards domain anymore, but that of the undead...

[hallsofvallhalla]

exactly Jack, 2nd edition was the last edition for me. I still love it. 3rd and 4th was all about the money.

Each book is 250 pages with only 10 pages of actual usable game content.

[Jackolantern]

To me, the last version of D&D was 2nd Edition. Version 3.0+ is all garbage IMHO. That is the "Wizards of the Coast" era D&D, where it was rehauled from the ground up to force players to buy miniatures, more books, and who knows what else. What was once a game that could be played, and played well with only a $20 book has now become a hobby that is more on par with the costs to play the Warhammer miniatures game (hundreds of dollars or more).

They also changed the rules to be more of a "power gamer" rule set. Everything has a rule and character development is so bloated. Honestly, the first time I read through the 3.0 rules, I saw right through it. The rules are designed to do a couple of things:

1. Encourage people to buy more books.
2. Encourage people to buy their own books, since every player is now going to need full use of their own all the time, so no sharing.
3. And the biggest: WotC wanted to establish the "D20" D&D system to license out to computer games. Therefore, it is quite easy to see that the D&D new rulesets play like a pen'n'paper computer game. Back in the 1st and 2nd editions, it was the other way around. D&D was its own thing, and computer games tried their best to mimic it without much success. Now the D&D player's manual reads like a video game design document. It completely stifles imagination and creativity, and encourages rule-heavy sessions where dice take the place of narrative and DMing.

I've just briefly touched 2nd ed, but IMO 3.5 is quite fun, while that is not true for 4th ed. It sure felt like a cookie cutter character, with only 2 or 3 options (this might of course change with more books, but at least 3.5 ed players handbook had allot more to offer than the 4th ed players handbook has), where often just one of them actually had some appeal. 4th ed is not something I want to explore further, I'll stick to 3.5.

Not only the rules, but if you look into the Forgotten Realms setting changes for the 4th ed transition, they've ruined much of the intriguing aspects of it, like Thay for example. Not a wizards domain anymore, but that of the undead...

Actually, if 4th Edition has removed almost all of the character options, it sounds like they are moving back in a good direction. If a 3 - 3.5 player has never played 2nd edition, it would likely seem like a "cookie cutter" system as well. And that is great for pen'n'paper systems. 3rd edition tries to set up a game where if it isn't in the book, it doesn't exist. 2nd edition says over and over in the source books that the game is just a skeleton for your imagination, and to do whatever you want to it, and share your additions and ideas with the community. 3rd edition says "You can't do that! Look at the table on page 321!" and 2nd edition says "We have the most creative DM ever!"

[hallsofvallhalla]

4th edition says, you can do it but how fast is your processor?

To me 4th edition is taking a PC game and putting it on paper. It was a big step backwards. They ruled the game to death.

[Kirbie]

4th edition says, you can do it but how fast is your processor?

To me 4th edition is taking a PC game and putting it on paper. It was a big step backwards. They ruled the game to death.

i totally agree. We played it for 6 months before the broke up. I did not like it. There just something about your character sheet and the books being in a pdf file that took the fun out it.

[Jackolantern]

4th edition says, you can do it but how fast is your processor?

To me 4th edition is taking a PC game and putting it on paper. It was a big step backwards. They ruled the game to death.

i totally agree. We played it for 6 months before the broke up. I did not like it. There just something about your character sheet and the books being in a pdf file that took the fun out it.

PDF books?! Did they not print books up for 4th edition?

EDIT: Nevermind, I found the 4th Edition on Amazon in print, but still...I bet they still charge nearly full price for the PDFs

[hallsofvallhalla]

yep!

[Kirbie]

found them online for free on lime wire.....after i bought the first few

[Jackolantern]

Didn't TSR originally give away free PDFs that were enough to play the game back in 2nd edition (would have been in the 90s)? It wasn't the whole book, but I think it was about 40 or 50 pages of it, and more than enough of the core rules to play. That just illustrates some of the differences between TSR and WotC. TSR gave you enough source material to play for free, and WotC wants you to pay a monthly fee to join the website just to use their character generator software

[hallsofvallhalla]

TSR also released tons of their 1st and 2nd edition adventures for free for download.