Quote from: S'mon;1088697If the orc army is not a threat in 4e the DM is DOING IT WRONH. In 4e the world keys off PC level and the DM has to stat accordingly. Eg in Epic 4e the PCs might battle Throngs of hundreds of orc warriors statted as single creatures.

My legit favorite instance of this in one of the epic modules is that a vast legion of ghouls was stated up as... difficult terrain.

They don't even pose enough of a threat to damage you anymore, they just slow you down a bit while fighting the real threats.

I felt that was FANTASTIC in terms of staging a fight with, if I recall, Orcus' top general.

Quote from: S'mon;1088697If the orc army is not a threat in 4e the DM is DOING IT WRONH. In 4e the world keys off PC level and the DM has to stat accordingly. Eg in Epic 4e the PCs might battle Throngs of hundreds of orc warriors statted as single creatures.

  I don't know if it's "the world keys off PC level" so much as it is "the stats represent how this part of the world interacts with the PCs"--one of 4E's key philosophical underpinnings was "the stats are there to model interactions with the PCs, not to define the world in an 'objective' fashion." But I may be nitpicking.

I made the comparison on Sunday during our normal game.  

I've been playing D&D since the mid-eighties, and I played a lot of 2nd edition.  That was the edition that I ran for my friends (but I played earlier editions with my older brother).  2nd edition had a lot of 'theater of the mind' that 3.x didn't have.  To me, it FEELS like 2nd edition in terms of how it plays.

5e is like 2e in that its watered down pablum, but in 2e's defense, 2e had awesome settings while 5e has screeching dangerhairs and YT celebs who send dick pics to teens.

Quote from: Spinachcat;10888545e is like 2e in that its watered down pablum, but in 2e's defense, 2e had awesome settings while 5e has screeching dangerhairs and YT celebs who send dick pics to teens.

  2nd Edition is conservative family-friendly fantasy. 5th Edition is progressive woke fantasy.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1088819I made the comparison on Sunday during our normal game.  

I've been playing D&D since the mid-eighties, and I played a lot of 2nd edition.  That was the edition that I ran for my friends (but I played earlier editions with my older brother).  2nd edition had a lot of 'theater of the mind' that 3.x didn't have.  To me, it FEELS like 2nd edition in terms of how it plays.

My group plays 3e the same way that we played 2e.  It was only during the dark days of the 4e period that we were forced into using a grid.

Going on record. Again.

5E will never be like AD&D. No matter who or how many times it's said or written. You can point and shout if you like.

Since WotC created "Swords & Sorcery" and called it D&D, it hasn't been the same game. Same kind of monsters and terminology. NOT the same game.

AC changed. Initiative changed. Racial restrictions? Class restrictions? Alignment restrictions? Class features whirlwinded into the whole Feat-Tree BS. Clerics got swords. Mages got --- more. I remember reading the 3.0 DMG and specifically NOT seeing AD&D.

The language had been changed. Thus, a different game. Sure you can CALL it D&D. When someone behind the wheel of a moving automobile is surfing Facebook on their phone and crashes into another automobile, you COULD call that an accident.

I don't.

I recall (fondly) characters entering dungeons with a whole 1-4 Hit Points. I remember non-proficient Thieves who had to earn their skill, mages with 1-2 spells (daily) and a staff to defend themselves, "theater of the mind" with a player drawing a map as the party negotiated underground or wilderness terrain. Because all the little levels of tabletop fantasy-war-game verisimilitude mattered.

I remember a party of fledgling adventurers, not the team of superheroes people now call "D&D" (incorrectly) - and it's telling that the late E.G. Gygax (who essentially designed the thing) said the same.

If the people who wrote D&D 5E, would have written AD&D 1E so that it was easier to grasp; "that" would have kicked ass.

Quote from: Razor 007;1088952If the people who wrote D&D 5E, would have written AD&D 1E so that it was easier to grasp; "that" would have kicked ass.

Is it AD&D vs. 5e OR AD&D vs. Magic the Gathering?

And that's the rub: AD&D had a level of complexity that Magic the Gathering didn't. You could "win" MtG easier because it's Player-vs.-Player, while AD&D was Players-vs.DM - with the DM (usually) being the most experienced player.

You cannot BEAT a D/GM. They command the game, unlike MtG, where player action directly dictates the story and resultant endgame. MtG has a heavy card-based strategy, while AD&D was "regulated" by a DM and dice.

No matter how proficient A/D&D players are, they can never see beyond dice rolls and DM fiat. Magic the Gathering belongs exclusively to the PLAYERS.

A/D&D is a shared experience relying on D/GM input. There's this "other" Meta-player - and their dice. And my dice. It's so --- unpredictable :confused:

So what makes A/D&D phenomenal also makes it adversarial in the eyes of some gamers. You can win a video game easily by finding the "break points" in its mechanics. It does X well but not Y, so I master Y and win. There's no such "break points" with AD&D. The combination of DM & dice present challenging variables.

MtG people would have to BREAK A/D&D in order to make it like their game, and in breaking the game it becomes something completely different.

Like 3.0. Like 3.5. Like Pathfinder. Like 5.

What if the long game was breaking the dice and GMs out of D&D so the players alone controlled victory conditions? WHAT would that be like?

We're talking about The Feels, dude. Relax. This is an aesthetic chat about WotC's design feeling like it is returning to something comforting and familiar, yet still exciting and inspirational. Last time many felt that happy was... AD&D 2e. It's like wandering back home, like Odysseus, tired and ready to rest with his beloved wife.

AD&D 2e is home. Deep down in your soul you know it's true. It's where your happiest gaming memories reside. Give in... Dream... Let the familiar fade-to-the-background mechanics soothe you... Let the myriad settings oil your tired imagination... Unfurl your brow contemplating THAC0 and the Punch/Wrestling Table, flow with them as they spin function from madness, like a faerie spindle...

Sleep. Sleep. Sleep the rest of paladins and princesses amid pretty glades.

5E supports the style of game I played in the 2E era. Theatre of the mind. Not zoomed into tactical like 3E and 4E. Closer integration into the setting. Less powergamey than 3E or 4E, but more options than pre-2E. I could convert the 2E Night Below campaign into 5E with little difficulty. I can't say the same for the 1E Giants series or 3E Red Hand of Doom.

Quote from: Haffrung;10889895E supports the style of game I played in the 2E era. Theatre of the mind. Not zoomed into tactical like 3E and 4E. Closer integration into the setting. Less powergamey than 3E or 4E, but more options than pre-2E. I could convert the 2E Night Below campaign into 5E with little difficulty. I can't say the same for the 1E Giants series or 3E Red Hand of Doom.

Greetings!

Haffrung, THE NIGHT BELOW CAMPAIGN fucking rocks, man! I love that campaign set. I ran it back in the day, and I think I got like six months or more game time out of it, with weekly 10 hour sessions, sprinkled with all-weekend fests of gaming and lots of food. I had side quests, extra lairs and shit. It was fucking awesome!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Haffrung;1088989I could convert the 2E Night Below campaign into 5E with little difficulty. I can't say the same for the 1E Giants series or 3E Red Hand of Doom.

Hm, I'm planning to run RHoD in 5e. I'm not seeing much difficulty. The usual formulae apply.