you know it is interesting to talk about as i did get to play ad&d a few times in my life it was fun but not the kind of game id play every day
personalty i prefer 3.x/pf though i need to look at 5e i might really like that ed my self

but one thing i will say is most of the people who iv met who grew up on o/1/2e
they tend to lean the same way they might like to play a game here and there of what ever ed they grew up on but they want another edition for there day to day gaming  this includes a few ppl if met who grew up on 2e but prefer
a heavy modded 0d&d for there day to day

Quote from: Ulairi;846358D&D had the widest reach in popular culture under Ad&d. I play Ad&d without a lot of house rules. We pretty much run it raw.

Despite my hatred for it I easily admit that the AD&D Fighter is WAAY better than the poor 3e one.

Quote from: Ulairi;846358D&D had the widest reach in popular culture under Ad&d. I play Ad&d without a lot of house rules. We pretty much run it raw.

Good idea.

Ad&d tends to work better the less extra stuff you use, IMHO. Like the core rules are pretty awesome, the extra rules less so.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;846336Because it's a shitty game. 2nd Edition is significantly better than 1st Edition, but it's still a clunky mess of broken mechanics that virtually no one ever plays without substantially house ruling the hell out of it.

Collectively, AD&D is the worst RPG published under the D&D trademark.

(And, yes, I am including 4th Edition in that assessment.)

Stupid people dislike AD&D because it's too full of big words for them.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;846483Stupid people dislike AD&D because it's too full of big words for them.

I'm too young to know ... has AD&D 1E always had that whiff of elitism about it?

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;846491I'm too young to know ... has AD&D 1E always had that whiff of elitism about it?

It certainly did when I was in middle school. We sneered at B/X because it was suppsedly for babies. The release of each new edition triggers this shit.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;846491I'm too young to know ... has AD&D 1E always had that whiff of elitism about it?

Nah, I'm just fighting asshole with asshole.

Actually, I'm going to go on the record here and say that the Biological Evolution label does apply and is accurate.  Here's why.

A lot of people take issue with the Evolution term because it's tossed out there usually meaning "my game is better" or "oohh shiny" or "go back inside old man, I'm not on your freaking lawn".

Other people take exception because they think the biological meaning of Evolution is an improvement.  But it's not.  As was said, it's an adaptation, a specialization if you will.  Evolution makes mistakes.  Some species hyper-specialize to such a narrow environment that their extinction is ensured when that environment experiences the slightest change.

The best example of this is Forge design.  Hyper-specialized games that are created to facilitate one specific type of gaming experience to the detriment of all others.  If you like that type of game...great, if you don't, the game is mostly useless.

That's why games that support multiple playstyles always have been and always will be more successful than any type of specialized game that focuses on a specific playstyle and by definition a smaller market.

Do you think it's a coincidence that all the new narrative games coming out are chasing and buying known IPs for those games like a vengeance?  Because without that IP, the appeal is next to nothing.

WotC and Paizo's sales vs. anyone else attest to the biological evolution argument, adapt to a broader environment, you achieve greater success.  Adapt to a narrower environment, and you can live only within that narrow environment.

They are wrong not in using evolution in it's biological meaning, they are wrong in assuming that means it's more successful or an improvement.  As I said earlier...

Evolution makes mistakes.  It goes down dead ends.

@CRKrueger,

Dont know if I agree with your theory, as D&D 3e is a pretty focused design and yet one of the most popular and influential editions of an RPG ever. Further, D&D 4e was pretty popular overall (even if much less popular than 3e) and its an even more laser-focused design.

So, I think "adapting to a broader environment" is a factor of the equation, but far from being the sole one.

Quote from: Itachi;846514@CRKrueger,

Dont know if I agree with your theory, as D&D 3e is a pretty focused design and yet one of the most popular and influential editions of an RPG ever. Further, D&D 4e was pretty popular overall (even if much less popular than 3e) and its an even more laser-focused design.

So, I think "adapting to a broader environment" is a factor of the equation, but far from being the sole one.

It may have more crunch and exception-based rules design, but it still allows a playstyle that cares about roleplaying, a playstyle that cares about story (even though it doesn't mechanically assist) or a playstyle that could give two shits about either of those.  In other words, Paizo gives you the rules to run the game, it doesn't ask you why you want to run the game, or design for only one motivation.

But other things do add in...
As I mentioned earlier, IP popularity for one, which is why some companies with narrative systems are chasing IPs like crazy, because it's hard to get a new system off the ground with a brand new set of very focused mechanics targeting a niche of a niche.

Supplemental content as well as presentation are others.  Reading RPGs has become a hobby among those who do not play, and many supplements can be useful or entertaining completely divorced from the system that spawned them and so have...a broader appeal, despite the narrowly focused system.

But specialize to serve one audience well and you will have less of an audience, but a more loyal one.  It's markets you're adapting to, not environments, but the end is the same...specialize too far, you risk hitting an evolutionary dead end.

Quote from: Itachi;846514@CRKrueger,

Dont know if I agree with your theory, as D&D 3e is a pretty focused design and yet one of the most popular and influential editions of an RPG ever. Further, D&D 4e was pretty popular overall (even if much less popular than 3e) and its an even more laser-focused design.

So, I think "adapting to a broader environment" is a factor of the equation, but far from being the sole one.

Was 4E really that popular? I know that it shook the hobby and they ran away pretty far from it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;846521As I mentioned earlier, IP popularity for one, which is why some companies with narrative systems are chasing IPs like crazy, because it's hard to get a new system off the ground with a brand new set of very focused mechanics targeting a niche of a niche.

That's a good point - one I hadn't considered! Explains stuff like the FATE version of The Dresdenverse I guess.

Quote from: Aos;846492It certainly did when I was in middle school. We sneered at B/X because it was suppsedly for babies. The release of each new edition triggers this shit.

When I was in middle school (early 1990s), some kids who played AD&D 2e looked down on us for playing RC. [strike]Middle-schoolers[/strike] People of all ages will be idiots, with or without Gygaxian prose.

Quote from: The Ent;846536That's a good point - one I hadn't considered! Explains stuff like the FATE version of The Dresdenverse I guess.

I think that had more to do with personal connections than anything.

Quote from: The Ent;846536That's a good point - one I hadn't considered! Explains stuff like the FATE version of The Dresdenverse I guess.

City creation rules in that system are also fucking amazing.  Love those books, and the rules perfectly capture it.

Rest of the stuff is varying degrees of useful, think it was intended to be houseruled a bunch.