Blacky, why do spout such brain-dead trash in the first place? Do you think it's "cool"? Talk about hipsters!

I dunno, I kind of see where he's coming from.

We built up out little clique around liking this thing that's "underground", or if we like the thing that's mainstream, we like the older version of it, an annoying number of us act like that preference makes us better, and from what I've seen most of us are so up our own ass with aesthetic that if a book has good production values and attractive illustrations, we'll reject it in favor of one that looks like a 15-year-old metalhead's math homework.

(Although personally, I just threw my lot in with the OSR because it was, until recently, a lot less complicated and therefore more conducive to my enjoyment than mainstream D&D.)

Quote from: Phillip;790244Blacky, why do spout such brain-dead trash in the first place? Do you think it's "cool"? Talk about hipsters!

I dunno, when a certain chunk of the OSR have a history of acting derisive of the "mainstream" version of D&D, ascribing mercenary financial motives to new editions while treating older ones as having done it purely for the love of the game, prizing crappy teenage-metalhead-homework-doodle aesthetics over slicker, higher-production-value ones, and being all cliqueish about our tastes in  games about elves and wizards, I can kind of see what he means. Not a majority, necessarily, but there's an annoyingly vocal minority that seems to turn up now and again.

AD&D1e is just better than other editions.

I don't really care whether the motives for writing it were artistic or mercenary, still less do I care about any heuristic readings of the "appendix N roots of the hobby", and as for aesthetics, mostly I care more about the contents than the packaging. I'm cliqueish in that it seems more fun to game with people who like my playstyle than those who don't. But I'll discuss games with anyone.

So much for your taxonomy.  

AD&D1e is just better. Sorry if that means than an old grognard doesn't fit your neat taxonomy (all taxonomies place the categoriser at the top of the hierarchy, discuss).

John Wick is still a commie mutant traitor storygamer.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;790296AD&D1e is just better than other editions.

I don't really care whether the motives for writing it were artistic or mercenary, still less do I care about any heuristic readings of the "appendix N roots of the hobby", and as for aesthetics, mostly I care more about the contents than the packaging. I'm cliqueish in that it seems more fun to game with people who like my playstyle than those who don't. But I'll discuss games with anyone.

Why do you prefer 1e?

Quote from: The Butcher;790300Why do you prefer 1e?

I had the same question. I wouldn't think it's because 1E is "better," but more because, if you REALLY know a system -- and old farts who've been playing the same system for 30 years know that shit -- and it does what you want, why WOULD you change? That said...

Wanna bet none of those old farts runs the damned thing by RAW? Which begs the question -- if it's the best system, why would it need to be changed in any way?  Makes no never mind to me. I'M one of those old farts, as well, having come to this hobby in 1978 (that's what my old 1E DMG tells me, anyway). I have my own sacred cows (I STILL play Strat-O-Matic, which hasn't changed a great deal since the 60s). Eventually, the whole world changes into something unrecognizable. Familiarity breeds contentment among the familiar, contempt from the outside. 1E "better?" Sure. Better for some.

Quote from: cranebump;790302I had the same question. I wouldn't think it's because 1E is "better," but more because, if you REALLY know a system -- and old farts who've been playing the same system for 30 years know that shit -- and it does what you want, why WOULD you change? That said...

Wanna bet none of those old farts runs the damned thing by RAW? Which begs the question -- if it's the best system, why would it need to be changed in any way?  Makes no never mind to me. I'M one of those old farts, as well, having come to this hobby in 1978 (that's what my old 1E DMG tells me, anyway). I have my own sacred cows (I STILL play Strat-O-Matic, which hasn't changed a great deal since the 60s). Eventually, the whole world changes into something unrecognizable. Familiarity breeds contentment among the familiar, contempt from the outside. 1E "better?" Sure. Better for some.

As an old fart, this is true to an extent.  1e certainly isn't written more user friendly than all the other editions, and it certainly isn't less complex than other editions from a rules standpoint.

That said, I do think 1e is better than most editions because how well I personally rate a game factors in things like numbers bloat and rules mastery* (two things that turned me off of 3e in a heartbeat), and the feel of the game (a major thing that turned me off on 4e; it's seemingly utter dependance on a battlemap, super slow combat, it felt more like a tactical boardgame or MMO than D&D).

Now THAT all being said, I am very happy 5e doesn't seem to have those issues that turned me off on 3e and 4e.  It's going to rank right up there with AD&D as my favorite edition to play.  I know 5e isn't everyone's cup of tea, and that's OK, because we all have different things that we consider good.


*players shouldn't be penalized for not knowing every rule or exploitation, which is what happens in 3e if you have one player charop their PC to be twice or three times as powerful as every other PC

Much as I like elements from various other editions and knock offs, I have to say that if 1E is the edition I grab on my way out of a burning house or while packing for my descent into madness on a deserted island. There is no right reason for these sorts of preferences, but I think it is right for several reasons:

1E basically is OD&D, pulled together into an organized framework and pumped up with a bunch of related stuff. So, it has a mainline connection to the structure of the game as first created, but can be navigated.

That first one doesn't really matter; the thing that really matters is that 1E is the wellspring of the look and feel and vibe of the fantasy roleplaying hobby. The artwork, the pastel modules, the monsters, the spells, the items — its all in there. It is kind of amazing to see people arguing about little niggling details of the game now (how gauntlets of ogre power work, etc.) and realize that they are, knowingly or unknowingly, talking about a paragraph of text that was written in 1977 or so.

If you leave your UA and wilderness and dungeon guides on the shelf, it is essentially a bloat-free game that never lost control of its shit.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;790296AD&D1e is just better than other editions.

  Better for what purposes? Better by what measure?

  I will freely grant that AD&D 1E is the best at being AD&D 1E--and while that's a bit tautological, it did create a whole new genre and mood that no other game has captured quite so well. The thing is, there are people interested in things that overlap to a degree with that genre, but aren't identical with it--more or less 'realistic', more or less pulp/S&S/weird fantasy, more or less logistically concerned, etc. For folks like us, other games are better suited to what we want, since what we want resembles AD&D in some ways, but isn't exactly the same as the precise flavor of the strange melange AD&D 1E created.

Quote from: Simlasa;789186Happily, the only person I'm getting that vibe off of is Marleycat, who seems to think 5e is a gift from God itself.
5e isn't going to have much direct impact on my gaming unless my Wednesday group adopts it or something happens that makes me actually want to run it... like if some little third party starts pumping out really cool stuff for it that tweaks it out of its bland corporate coccoon.

FUCK YOU. Notice that I have said nothing or been in any conversation like this subject since the actual books are out? It's because as I had been saying the game is flexible and won't break if you play it to your preference. So do so or not and don't take underhanded swipes at me punk.

Currently I'm too busy playing the game to really care about what you think or don't think of the game and I don't see that changing going forward given once the DMG is out it's unlikely any two games will be remotely the same. Similar to how 2e played out in the wild.

Quote from: Marleycat;790322FUCK YOU.

Such a charmer.

QuoteNotice that I have said nothing or been in any conversation like this subject since the actual books are out?

Yes! And the absence of your brand of 'boosterism' has done wonders towards improving my mood towards 5e... which I've been playing regularly over on Roll20.
 

QuoteSo do so or not and don't take underhanded swipes at me punk.

Not underhanded, merely a paraphrase of your insistence that OSR fans should 'thank God' for 5e.
I'll happily accept the 'punk' accusation though.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;790296AD&D1e is just better than other editions.

I don't really care whether the motives for writing it were artistic or mercenary, still less do I care about any heuristic readings of the "appendix N roots of the hobby", and as for aesthetics, mostly I care more about the contents than the packaging. I'm cliqueish in that it seems more fun to game with people who like my playstyle than those who don't. But I'll discuss games with anyone.

So much for your taxonomy.  

AD&D1e is just better. Sorry if that means than an old grognard doesn't fit your neat taxonomy (all taxonomies place the categoriser at the top of the hierarchy, discuss).

John Wick is still a commie mutant traitor storygamer.

And therefore, you're not a hipster.

I'm not saying all of us are hipsters, just enough of us to give people the wrong impression.

If this were a taxonomy intended to put people like me as the top, I'd probably characterize the OSR as high-minded philosopher kings with crystal spires and togas. It's not. It's just an assessment that assholes in the OSR are assholes.

25 years ago, TSR products got value from (1) being readily available, and (2) being "official."

Availability is not such a distinction today, because the Web makes it easy for hobbyists to share ideas. The notion that an official book is the Law has gained currency, but being an exception is one way to be "old school."

OS refs are more likely to create their own milieus, less likely to find added value in reams of "canonical" background and "metaplot" continuity. They get more out of material available for free, and what they're willing to pay for cannot be so reliably produced by the institutional culture of a game industry giant.

This is not a big issue for WotC, because the OSR is a small market.

Having run one session of 5th edition D&D (using the Starter Set), and having looked a bit at the Players' Handbook and the online Basic Rules, it is clear that D&D 5e is not an 'old school' game.  It simply has too many 'new school' elements for it to be that (such as 'at will' cantrips, full recovery of hit points with every 'full rest,' and so forth).  

Nor do I think that it ever was intended to be an 'old school' game.  Rather, it was designed to be as ecumenical as possible.  Usually such efforts turn out to be horrible, in my experience, since in trying to please everyone the product in question ends up pleasing no one.  But in this case it seems that one can run D&D 5e in an more-or-less 'old school style' without too much difficulty – something that was not easy to do with 3e D&D in my experience (and, I gather, simply impossible with 4e).

Moreover, there is no reason why a 5e game cannot borrow elements and ideas from older editions and existing OSR games and settings, and vice versa.  At the very least, it looks quite feasible to run, say, a 1st edition AD&D module using the 5e rules without too much conversion work.  Both games belong to the same genus.  

From an 'old school perspective,' so to speak, I would say that 5e D&D resembles Castles and Crusades more than anything else on the market these days.  Like C&C, it can be run in an 'old school' way, and clearly draws much of its inspiration from classic D&D and AD&D.  Yet it also includes a number of 'innovations' and employs a more unified underlying structure.  Indeed, if I wanted a pithy way to describe (how I would run) 5e D&D, I would say that it is a superior version of C&C.

So D&D 5e and the OSR should be friends – or at least peaceful neighbours – and not enemies.  (I'm not sure how they could be 'frenemies'.)