I've found there are a few games out there that the older version is the system you would want to recommend.
1st Edition Star Wars D6 seems like a popular one. I disagree with this one, but that is me as I prefer Mini-Six Bare Bones.
Palladium Books Fantasy 1st Edition. I would recommend that everyone who wants to learn Palladium start here. Yes, the 2nd Edition exists to be compatible with the other Palladium games. The argument can be made that you should start with 2E so you can step right into the other Palladium stuff (probably Rifts, lets be real). But, no. I still think 1E has value in its simplicity and clarity. Yes, Palladium has a game that is written clearly.
I understand that Warhammer Fantasy is up to version 4, yet (I think) that 2E is the one people say is best.
And of course the big one. D&D. I see a lot of people think that Basic D&D (Modvay, or Metzner, ect) or AD&D 1E or 2E are best. That I can't comment on. I didn't play D&D. Still haven't.
What game do you like that they've revised again, and you're not having it?
Tunnels and Trolls 5.5 remains many peoples' 'sweet spot' for that game. I think we're currently up to 8th edition (Deluxe) but that's somewhat bloated and gets away from the easy/cheap to buy/play feel that previous editions had (like the UK Corgi 5th edition which was a cheap paperback when it came out). Not saying Deluxe is a bad game (I run a play by post with it) but it doesn't do anything better or worse than previous editions and is considerably more expensive/harder to get hold of in dead tree format and is a weighty tome containing plenty of stuff I'll never use.
6th was a bootleg, 7th (the metal tin if I recall) was quickly tweaked and forgotten as 7.5 came out and the kickstarted Deluxe edition threw everything into a kitchen sink bullet stopper and finished up as the last time Ken St Andre would have anything to do with his own game. It's tricky to see where the T&T game goes from here as the current owners (Webbed Sphere) have done nothing with it.
In terms of 'older version is the better one' it's hard to say in this case. The system has been tweaked and refined (and spell names changed) but remains more or less the same for every edition with the main changes (for me) being how magic is powered, levelling and experience (based on stats rather than an experience bar that needs to be reached) and spite rules. With that in mind I'd say the smaller/cheaper books were better than the harder to get hold of more expensive books. You could get away with a much smaller/easier to handle book and apply 2-3 house rules to play the same game to a large extent.
What's worse is that there was never an official pdf release of 5.5 as far as I know. :'(
When i read the title of this thread i thought it was a rethorical question.
But since you have posted the question, i believe the most obvious reply is D&D... and i also believe that no explanations are needed!
D&D... well I find recently I like White Box and its derivatives better than anything subsequent in that line, not considering WoTC-D&D. Certainly Star Wars D6 1e is best. Runequest & Call of Cthulu, for both I like 2e better than 3e+. PARANOIA 1e is best. White Star Original feels better to me than Galaxy Edition.
If one looks at D&D:
The Original Brown Box / White Box version of the game, was awesome; but it didn't explain itself well to non-wargamers. Holmes Basic was explained much better, but only covered 3 character levels. Then Moldvay / Cook B/X, was just right. But then came Mentzer and BECMI D&D, and it was B/X stretched out across more levels? Hmm..... Then came Rules Cyclopedia.
That's a lot of Basic D&D publishing.
1st Edition AD&D is Gary's Legacy. 2nd Edition AD&D was better organized and presented more clearly, but 1E is still considered the authoritative version of AD&D.
Paranoia. The new version they released tries to be a board game instead of an RPG.
OD&D gets my vote for best version of D&D. With supplements, you have almost an early draft of AD&D, though I prefer playing without for multiple reasons.
The 3 LBBs also provide a great foundation to build from if you are into homebrew.
Basic D&D was so fucking awesome, I couldn't wait to get away from it, and the main reason I stuck with the hobby was that I saw the potential in it, not that I liked the game (plus, that was the one my group played and I didn't have any books and wasn't ready to GM yet). The moment I was exposed to 2e and got my own books I jumped ship and never looked back. I also got an old copy of 1e soon after from someone who didn't want it and only skimmed it out of curiosity, but never saw anything in it that made me think I'd rather play that than 2e.
For years 2e was the definitive edition of D&D for me, despite all it's flaws, because earlier editions of D&D sucked worse. Till 3e came along, then that became the new definitive edition of D&D despite having even more flaws than 2e, cuz the stuff it did well, it did better than anything that came before, and the stuff that sucked was mostly due to implementation, not cuz it sucked in a fundamental way.
Then 4e came out, and 4e...was not D&D, and I never even got a chance to play it. 5e is not really D&D either, but it's so streamlined and playable, I'd probably play that now over older editions, cuz I don't have to change as much to make it work. But 2e and 3e were the best.
If you were to make a list, I think you'd find that the examples where the latest version is the better one is a much shorter list.
It gets complicated with things that have several versions, though, because often the game peaks at 2nd instead of 1st, then declines. A 2nd version made by the original authors now that they've had the "open" playtest that a 1st version provides, but still have the same vision, is frequently an improvement. As soon as someone else gets control, all bets are off.
Traveller.
Palladium Fantasy.
All the Whitewolf schlock.
And D&D of course.
For me, most of them. TSR D&D, WoD (VtM1e, CtD1e (the card system is NOT inscrutable, actually pretty easy), etc. Revised stuff really pushed Storyteller that beanbag of math-phobic kludge of mechanics to breaking), Blue Planet, CoC (vs. 7e; previous 6 editions are near the same), Fading Suns (just enjoy the ride, it works better in practice than you think -- a common revelation like a lot of early D&D-isms), L5R (though I will give allowance for 3e-based LBS, as that is its "1e"), SW WEG, Shadowrun (yes, even 1e looseness & 2e punchbowls of dice is better than its devolutions -- so much devolution!), Mechwarrior & WH1e (but only in passing familiarity; I played in said games, never ran them), Deadlands1e (yes, even with the poker game mechanics), Traveller1e or even MongTrav1e (yes, even death at chargen is more a comedic laugh than a play nuisance of :o ALL THE MATHS, or setting flipped over), early Palladium was still within manageable sanity ranges...
Hard to think of any system that got better over time, now that I think about it. :(
I might say GURPS hit its apex somewhere around 3e, though I can see arguments for 2e as well. 4e is... a useful compendium for those who already know what they want out of GURPS. That one I could see got better over time; I could not argue it as well as others, but the sourcebooks did get much more useful along with better production over time.
Another one I might concede would be CP, because I like CP2020, but I don't have enough experience of the earlier stuff to stake a hard stance on that. But then one could count CP2020 as its own 1e, and I am not terribly won over by the latest CPProjectRed as of yet.
The two fantasy games I'm most focused on don't have editions, they have printings: Castles & crusades and DCC. Many of the other games I play, I like newer versions of better, like Traveller and Savage Worlds.
My game with editions that I like an older version of is: Talislanta 1/2E, still the best to me. I think 3/4/5 try too hard to get deep into a more convoluted magic system that is unnecessary for the setting and to course correct some nations' names for certain sensibilities.
D&D is the obvious one for this list yeah. But I like other games that have taken advantage of the OGL to create something new yet similar much better than I will ever like any edition beyond 2nd of that particular game.
Also, Alternity. The OG was 1000% better than the ill-fated Sasquatch monster. Which might have actually been okay if they had A.) owned the IP and B.) not squandered their opportunity to build something interesting with it.
Cyberpunk 2020 beats out red by a long shot. I've seen a few people lift Friday night firefight into their red game
Word of darkness 2e and revised beat out anything after it.
Like others said, D&D. Anything pre wotc.
Traveller kind of most editions are actually good.
Call of Cthulhu
All. Of. Them.
Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 23, 2022, 03:15:12 PM
All. Of. Them.
This. I have trouble thinking of any systems where the latest version is the best. Basic Fantasy, maybe? But that's a homebrewed B/X retroclone so not sure it counts.
I notice Call of Cthulhu's been mentioned but I'd be a little more specific: Call of Cthulhu 2nd edition is what I'd run if I ran CoC again. (Why not 1e? Because I don't have it, don't know anyone who does have it, and don't know where to get it for less than several hundred dollars.)
As far as D&D, I find each edition scratches a slightly different itch. Granted I now rarely have the sorts of itches that 3e - 5e scratch, but the TSR-era editions are all just different enough that I can't say that one is The One and the others inferior imitations.
Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on October 23, 2022, 04:00:42 PM
Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 23, 2022, 03:15:12 PM
All. Of. Them.
This. I have trouble thinking of any systems where the latest version is the best. Basic Fantasy, maybe? But that's a homebrewed B/X retroclone so not sure it counts.
I notice Call of Cthulhu's been mentioned but I'd be a little more specific: Call of Cthulhu 2nd edition is what I'd run if I ran CoC again. (Why not 1e? Because I don't have it, don't know anyone who does have it, and don't know where to get it for less than several hundred dollars.)
As far as D&D, I find each edition scratches a slightly different itch. Granted I now rarely have the sorts of itches that 3e - 5e scratch, but the TSR-era editions are all just different enough that I can't say that one is The One and the others inferior imitations.
I've heard this before why 2e? Instead of anything from 3-6 I thought they were more or less all the same. I've only played 6
I think Runequest 1&2 were better than the versions that followed.
I have some newer versions of Pendragon (4th ed book which is fine, and one of the latest editions PDF), but someone gave me an old worn box for free with 1st ed Pendragon, and I was blown away when I opened it. I bet there is some improvements, tweaking, and more options in the later editions, but the first edition is a thing that was made with a lot of passion and care; it's a thing of beauty.
Heh, even borked systems seemed better before: 7th Sea 1e was. a. mess. but it was at least entertaining and had evocative art (is the secret being physical media?) that inspired you to try to make that mess work. 7th Sea 2e flashbanged into the scene to be studiously ignored once sobriety sank in. ;)
Wow, yeah, it's hard to find a game that improved over time. Huh, all the more argument to keep a system evergreen. :)
Quote from: Ocule on October 23, 2022, 04:51:39 PM
Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on October 23, 2022, 04:00:42 PM
Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 23, 2022, 03:15:12 PM
All. Of. Them.
This. I have trouble thinking of any systems where the latest version is the best. Basic Fantasy, maybe? But that's a homebrewed B/X retroclone so not sure it counts.
I notice Call of Cthulhu's been mentioned but I'd be a little more specific: Call of Cthulhu 2nd edition is what I'd run if I ran CoC again. (Why not 1e? Because I don't have it, don't know anyone who does have it, and don't know where to get it for less than several hundred dollars.)
As far as D&D, I find each edition scratches a slightly different itch. Granted I now rarely have the sorts of itches that 3e - 5e scratch, but the TSR-era editions are all just different enough that I can't say that one is The One and the others inferior imitations.
I've heard this before why 2e? Instead of anything from 3-6 I thought they were more or less all the same. I've only played 6
I can only speak to two of those editions - 2nd, which I got in RPGNow back before it merged with DriveThru, and 5th, the one for which they forgot to put the contested roll table in the book. While the systems are essentially very similar at their core, 5th was pretty clearly the product of a lot of small accretions in the rules that while not bad often felt superfluous, there more to sell a new book than to fulfill an actual need at the table. (Similar to how I feel about D&D 3.5)
However, if I had to choose the biggest difference, it would be aesthetic: the style of 2nd just sets the tone much better than 5th did. IIRC 2nd also has a better introduction to the 1920's Lovecraft country (been a while since I've pulled out my 5th edition book; I don't even remember where it is). At the risk of sounding like a hipster, by 5th it was another soulless corporate product.
I don't have much experience with "Call of Cthulhu" myself, but I have heard about people using dynamite to blow up monsters and stuff in older editions? If that isn't as easy to do or possible to do in newer editions then that sounds like a downgrade to me. There might be variations of CoC, like maybe deltra green or something where it is still possible? But I think it should be in the main game.
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on October 24, 2022, 11:32:14 AM
I don't have much experience with "Call of Cthulhu" myself, but I have heard about people using dynamite to blow up monsters and stuff in older editions? If that isn't as easy to do or possible to do in newer editions then that sounds like a downgrade to me. There might be variations of CoC, like maybe deltra green or something where it is still possible? But I think it should be in the main game.
I think you're thinking of Old Man Henderson (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson), who was a Trail of Cthulhu character.
D&D: my preferred version is 1st Ed, along with the Moldvay edition of Basic. It's probably more nostalgia than anything because those were the ones I cut my teeth on.
2nd Ed is ok. I find the rules more clear to be sure, but in doing so I think it lost some of it's charm. Namely, the art is uninspiring. Secondly, from the mid-90s on, the game easier to min-max and lent itself to power gaming.
3rd is meh. after that, stopped caring.
CoC: any edition before 7th. I don't mind the having percentages for everything (just divide by 5 to revert back to other editions), but the woke-ness that now permeates the game is intolerable. I could go on a huge rant, but I'll hold myself back.
Star Wars: yep the WEG d6 version is awesome. There is what's called the REUP rules (Revised, Expanded, UPdated) which are rules my gaming group uses.
Classic Traveller.
There is a great deal I like about all the subsequent editions, even T5. I would not go as far as one review of a later edition (fourth) I once read that said it was "like hillbilly incest cloning". But Classic Traveller did it not just first, but better, because it knew when enough was enough. It didn't try and do your imagining for you; it left it up to you to flesh out the bare stats for your character or planet or whatever. Preferences will vary but the likes of Mongoose's random career events table kind of palls for me after a (short) while.
B-b-but... you can die in chargen! No. Chargen is finished once you've rolled up your six stats. There is then a "career run-through" minigame that can be played solo or as a group. Once you embark on a career (not compulsory in the rules as written), you are already playing Traveller. There are big rewards on offer (like a ship!), but you might die.
Computers take up whole rooms like in some 70s scifi movie! Again, not really. If you think of all the jobs a Traveller ship's computer does, a lot of that tonnage is going to be sensors etc. Plus if taking a ship out to the frontiers of known space, you want chunky, rugged gear, plus lots of backups and redundancies.
There is no task system! Yes there is. It is not uniform by modern standards but I like it all the more for just that reason. I like that the referee is expected to make rulings, not rely on extensive RAW. The unified task systems in subsequent editions are all pretty unsatisfactory in their own ways anyway.
Successive Traveller editions chased themselves down the ever-more-detailed-real-world-simulation spiral. I recently re-read GURPS Far Trader. It's a great book and I really enjoy reading it. It is thoroughly based on real-world economics concepts and explains how PC-scale tramp freight can happen when megacorps are shipping millions of tons of freight along star lanes that are organised like the real-world contemporary shipping industry. There is a proper stats algorithm for generating freight rates a tramp freighter might have to work with. It is a really impressive piece of work. But eventually I've come to realise I don't need or want any of this in my game.
Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on October 24, 2022, 11:46:35 AM
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on October 24, 2022, 11:32:14 AM
I don't have much experience with "Call of Cthulhu" myself, but I have heard about people using dynamite to blow up monsters and stuff in older editions? If that isn't as easy to do or possible to do in newer editions then that sounds like a downgrade to me. There might be variations of CoC, like maybe deltra green or something where it is still possible? But I think it should be in the main game.
I think you're thinking of Old Man Henderson (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson), who was a Trail of Cthulhu character.
As amazing as that story was, I think it still must have been a thing some groups did before this story? I remember some people talking about their whole group using dynamite. Shotguns, etc. But maybe it was just how a few groups played rather than a trope of older CoC?
The whole problem of editions is that there are only three paths that can be taken.
First is the Revision. This is usually done to rectify small mistakes, clarify the text and so on. This usually (not always) in a very backwards compatible product, mostly keeps the fan base happy and tends to be well received.
Second is the Money Grab. The previous edition is no longer selling that well even though there's really nothing wrong with the system itself. The company wants to make more money, and a revision doesn't usually lead to massive profits, so they decide to do a true new edition, with different mechanics (different enough that it won't be backwards compatible) and possibly a snazzy new look to attract new customers. If it's well done, it can generate exactly the sort of results that are expected of it, but it will inevitably be contentious, purely on the basis of alienating part of the player base.
Third is the Revolution . Fuck the previous edition and all its players, they were all bastards and bigots anyway, full steam ahead and let's ram this fucking thing down their throats. The result is almost always destructive, with the player base fragmenting (at best) or migrating to a different product. What remains is a completely different thing from the original and/or previous editions, essentially unrecognizable as part of a timeline.
Most RPG companies feel the irresistible urge to keep tinkering with their product, until they end up at that third option. For the players that spent their money and time on the first few editions, this feels like a kick in the nuts, and a positive reputation for the early editions ends up being almost inevitable.
A few companies, like Chaosium, have for the most part resisted the pull of the cash grab or the revolution, but others have fully embraced the model.
Quote from: BronzeDragon on October 24, 2022, 03:21:26 PM
The whole problem of editions is that there are only three paths that can be taken.
First is the Revision. This is usually done to rectify small mistakes, clarify the text and so on. This usually (not always) in a very backwards compatible product, mostly keeps the fan base happy and tends to be well received.
Second is the Money Grab. The previous edition is no longer selling that well even though there's really nothing wrong with the system itself. The company wants to make more money, and a revision doesn't usually lead to massive profits, so they decide to do a true new edition, with different mechanics (different enough that it won't be backwards compatible) and possibly a snazzy new look to attract new customers. If it's well done, it can generate exactly the sort of results that are expected of it, but it will inevitably be contentious, purely on the basis of alienating part of the player base.
Third is the Revolution . Fuck the previous edition and all its players, they were all bastards and bigots anyway, full steam ahead and let's ram this fucking thing down their throats. The result is almost always destructive, with the player base fragmenting (at best) or migrating to a different product. What remains is a completely different thing from the original and/or previous editions, essentially unrecognizable as part of a timeline.
I'm not even clear on the difference between 2 and 3. To take some examples of major revisions:
A) Original D&D -> AD&D (1978): This definitely was not just clarifying the text. It was a whole new system, going from small booklets of a few dozen pages to hundreds of pages in three hardbound 8.5x11. So it seems like Revolution, but it was generally well received.
B) Champions 3rd -> Hero System 4th (1989): This was also a thorough rewrite that changed a lot, but was also well received.
C) AD&D 2nd -> D&D 3rd (2000): This was another major rewrite that was largely well received.
D) GURPS 3rd -> 4th (2004): This was the first new edition after over 15 years, and it was
On the other hand, minor revisions are often considered money grabs. For example, D&D3 to D&D3.5 was a minor revision that was mostly backwards compatible, but was often regarded as a money grab.
The trick with "new editions" that are radically different but somehow work anyway is that the "new edition" is really a new game. So if that is going to work, then it is best to just admit "new game" up front. That takes care of many of the people that are annoyed by al the changes to the old game. Trying to make a new game but sell it as a new edition is like diving off a 10 meter platform but deciding halfway down you'd rather do a cannonball. The most likely result is pain.
The reason why so many later editions are bad is because the authors want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the network effect and the brand and the loyalty of the existing game, but they don't want to embrace what caused all of that in the first place.
The only example I can think of off hand that fits is what MRQ II/Legends eventually did with RQ. As a separate game, it's not bad at all, and thus being forced into the "Legends" label because of losing the license to RQ was probably a good thing in the long run. Meanwhile, I'd put the best version of RQ as either 1E or 2E.
So for those 3 categories of change, add a 4th, "wrap around to new game". Funny how #3 is the worst option, but if you keep going past that, you might succeed.
Fate, 2nd Edition (2003).
It's a surprisingly lean and well-written RPG. More like a cleaned-up and organized Fudge than Fate. It's almost a traditional (i.e. non-narrative) RPG, except it does have "aspects." But that's only 2 pages of rules that you could easily skip.
It's free and OGL so you don't need to worry about giving money to Evil Hat.
Quote from: jhkim on October 24, 2022, 03:52:09 PM
I'm not even clear on the difference between 2 and 3. To take some examples of major revisions:
A) Original D&D -> AD&D (1978): This definitely was not just clarifying the text. It was a whole new system, going from small booklets of a few dozen pages to hundreds of pages in three hardbound 8.5x11. So it seems like Revolution, but it was generally well received.
B) Champions 3rd -> Hero System 4th (1989): This was also a thorough rewrite that changed a lot, but was also well received.
C) AD&D 2nd -> D&D 3rd (2000): This was another major rewrite that was largely well received.
D) GURPS 3rd -> 4th (2004): This was the first new edition after over 15 years, and it was
On the other hand, minor revisions are often considered money grabs. For example, D&D3 to D&D3.5 was a minor revision that was mostly backwards compatible, but was often regarded as a money grab.
A - Those are two different games. D&D remained a fully supported different option for another 13 years. Yes, there was migration, but it was far from complete.
B - I can't speak to this, since I'm not familiar with either.
C - Yes, hence my "if it's well done" clause. But it still generated a fracture of the player base. The OSR was born soon after the new edition appeared. Third edition was just so good at generating new player interest that it never felt the blow from the fracture. It would take a revolution to break the game. 3.5 was backwards compatible only if you didn't use battle mats and miniatures, which were heavily pushed. The changes to creature sizes, facing and spell effects were
extensive. It was far closer to a true new edition than AD&D 2E was.
D - I'm not sure what you were gonna say here (you seem to have gotten truncated) but most GURPS players I know didn't really like 4E and mostly still play 3E.
The minor revisions are things like CoC editions, sometimes they don't even change anything and would probably just be reprints in C&C terms. A player going from 2E CoC to 7E would need five minutes or so to adapt.
Quote from: BronzeDragon on October 24, 2022, 10:16:16 PM
D - I'm not sure what you were gonna say here (you seem to have gotten truncated) but most GURPS players I know didn't really like 4E and mostly still play 3E.
I feel like that might have been exactly what he was trying to say. I'd have to agree. I have an extensive collection of GURPS 3E stuff, but only bothered to buy the character book for 4E and then called it quits. For all the claims that character generation was "more balanced" with the changes in CP costs for stats, they really should have taken the 3E approach and not tried to include all of the genre-specific stuff in the core book. Way too much for a beginner to sort through and figure out, and puts a much larger onus on GM to write up a list of what's allowed instead of handing a core book plus an appropriate sourcebook or two to a player.
Hero System 4E was generally well received, but that's a little misleading. The progression from Champions 1E to 3E mostly involved cleanup on the margins. The core system didn't change much. Meanwhile, Fantasy Hero and other spin offs all were separate books in their 1E versions, built similar to Champions but with their own rules. Hero System 4E combines all of those games into what was really the first edition of the "Hero System".
Hero 5E and 6E are respectively the 2nd and 3rd editions of "Hero System", and they were not nearly so well received. They managed to hit two of the major edition pitfalls hard, being excessively bloated in the name of completeness without fixing anything, and then making an attempt fix the issues while retaining the bloat. A slimmed down game with the 6E changes that was billed as a easier version of 4E might have done well. Then it could have been followed up with an options book to add back in the examples and complexity without changing the core.
Quote from: blackstone on October 24, 2022, 12:21:26 PM
2nd Ed is ok. I find the rules more clear to be sure, but in doing so I think it lost some of it's charm. Namely, the art is uninspiring. Secondly, from the mid-90s on, the game easier to min-max and lent itself to power gaming.
In the PHB, maybe. But then again the same could be said about the art in the 1e PHB (and fugly as well), except for the cover—that one was better for 1e than 2e. For later supplements, though, 2e got some of the best art in D&D and TTRPGs in general, hands down. Though, a lot of the 1e color art was similarly good.
3e onward was a huge downgrade in the art department. 5e art is better, but kinda stale.
2e didn't get that bad rules wise till the Player's Options line, which also saw a huge downgrade in art, maybe even worse than 3e. But all the Complete X Handbooks were gold.
WEG Ghostbusters 1E is definitely the best version of that game. The second edition reads like a textbook.
Mutants and Masterminds 1E is the best version of that game. Its selling point was that it could do 90% of what HERO could do, at 20% of the crunch. Subsequent editions got crunchier and less streamlined.
Quote from: Lurkndog on October 25, 2022, 09:11:50 AM
WEG Ghostbusters 1E is definitely the best version of that game. The second edition reads like a textbook.
Mutants and Masterminds 1E is the best version of that game. Its selling point was that it could do 90% of what HERO could do, at 20% of the crunch. Subsequent editions got crunchier and less streamlined.
That is a big part of if you ask me. 2nd, 3rd, or 4+ Edition usually is a lot longer. I hate bloat. I don't want to read a 3 page dissertation on how a 5 or a 6 is better or worse than a 7. I've got a brain, and a notebook for house rules.
Glaring rules loopholes aside, I don't think that going from a 130 page 1E rulebook to a 270 page 2E book is a good thing.
Maybe my love of rules lite games, especially ones that let me GM without handcuffs. I don't like rules to constantly look up or debates on gameplay. I like to just play.
There are exceptions. As I mentioned my favorite D6 Star Wars is actually Mini-6 Bare Bones. However, I'm seeing a lot of OSR stuff, and most are based on B/X.
Quote from: VisionStorm on October 25, 2022, 08:58:11 AM
Quote from: blackstone on October 24, 2022, 12:21:26 PM
2nd Ed is ok. I find the rules more clear to be sure, but in doing so I think it lost some of it's charm. Namely, the art is uninspiring. Secondly, from the mid-90s on, the game easier to min-max and lent itself to power gaming.
In the PHB, maybe. But then again the same could be said about the art in the 1e PHB (and fugly as well), except for the cover—that one was better for 1e than 2e. For later supplements, though, 2e got some of the best art in D&D and TTRPGs in general, hands down. Though, a lot of the 1e color art was similarly good.
3e onward was a huge downgrade in the art department. 5e art is better, but kinda stale.
2e didn't get that bad rules wise till the Player's Options line, which also saw a huge downgrade in art, maybe even worse than 3e. But all the Complete X Handbooks were gold.
What you might consider "fugly" might be "very nice" to me. Art is so subjective...
I do like the Complete handbooks. The "core four" for the core classes are a must. The ones for the sub-classes (i.e. complete assassins book) I thought were a bit derivative and didn't purchase. Arms and armor guide was awesome. The campaign guides I kinda missed the boat. I only got the Crusades one. Looking back, I should have grabbed the ones about the Celts, Roman Empire, and the one on the Age of Myths (apparently is very rare)
Quote from: blackstone on October 25, 2022, 11:14:22 AM
I do like the Complete handbooks. The "core four" for the core classes are a must. The ones for the sub-classes (i.e. complete assassins book) I thought were a bit derivative and didn't purchase. Arms and armor guide was awesome. The campaign guides I kinda missed the boat. I only got the Crusades one. Looking back, I should have grabbed the ones about the Celts, Roman Empire, and the one on the Age of Myths (apparently is very rare)
Aw, man! I got the one about the Celts, but never got any of the other campaign guides and ended up regretting it later, if only for completion's sake. I ran into the Romans and Charlemagne's Paladins books a bunch of times, and might have seen the Crusades and Age of Myth books a couple of times too.
I'm not sure if I ever got the Complete Assassin's Handbook (it's possible I might have gotten it, but lost it to termites), and probably missed the Necromancer's book (only remember seeing it online years later), but I'm pretty sure I got every other class or race book, even the Complete Book of Humanoids. I loved all of them, but probably used the core class books most, and maybe Dwarves and Elves.
There was no Complete Assassin's Handbook for 2E--you might be thinking of the Complete Ninja's Handbook.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 25, 2022, 06:37:59 PM
There was no Complete Assassin's Handbook for 2E--you might be thinking of the Complete Ninja's Handbook.
Got that one. The Complete Book of Villains too (think I may have confused it with this one, cuz it's blue and I kept seeing the Assassin's Handbook as blue in my head when people bring it up).
Quote from: VisionStorm on October 23, 2022, 08:28:56 AM
Basic D&D was so fucking awesome
5e is not really D&D either, but it's so streamlined and playable, I'd probably play that now over older editions, cuz I don't have to change as much to make it work. But 2e and 3e were the best.
5e is the
best D&D since Basic. Hands down. The most playable, the most balanced, the most fun. And it pays such homage to the history of the game you really have to appreciate the care and craftsmanship they put into that game.
I don't have any confidence we'll ever get an edition as good as 5th again. You can really see it falling apart especially since the release of Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. It is up to the OSR to carry the banner from here on out.
Quote from: thornad on October 26, 2022, 05:04:46 AM
Quote from: VisionStorm on October 23, 2022, 08:28:56 AM
Basic D&D was so fucking awesome
5e is not really D&D either, but it's so streamlined and playable, I'd probably play that now over older editions, cuz I don't have to change as much to make it work. But 2e and 3e were the best.
5e is the best D&D since Basic. Hands down. The most playable, the most balanced, the most fun. And it pays such homage to the history of the game you really have to appreciate the care and craftsmanship they put into that game.
I don't have any confidence we'll ever get an edition as good as 5th again. You can really see it falling apart...
Yeah, they've already done so much damage to the game with Tasha's et al forced onto D&D Beyond characters. I've started a White Box S&W game to get away from the cruft. It's a big shame as I really liked 5e, but the prevalence of e-tools combined with terrible rules accretions is wrecking the game.
Quote from: APN on October 23, 2022, 02:19:28 AM
Tunnels and Trolls 5.5 remains many peoples' 'sweet spot' for that game. I think we're currently up to 8th edition (Deluxe) but that's somewhat bloated and gets away from the easy/cheap to buy/play feel that previous editions had (like the UK Corgi 5th edition which was a cheap paperback when it came out). Not saying Deluxe is a bad game (I run a play by post with it) but it doesn't do anything better or worse than previous editions and is considerably more expensive/harder to get hold of in dead tree format and is a weighty tome containing plenty of stuff I'll never use.
6th was a bootleg, 7th (the metal tin if I recall) was quickly tweaked and forgotten as 7.5 came out and the kickstarted Deluxe edition threw everything into a kitchen sink bullet stopper and finished up as the last time Ken St Andre would have anything to do with his own game. It's tricky to see where the T&T game goes from here as the current owners (Webbed Sphere) have done nothing with it.
In terms of 'older version is the better one' it's hard to say in this case. The system has been tweaked and refined (and spell names changed) but remains more or less the same for every edition with the main changes (for me) being how magic is powered, levelling and experience (based on stats rather than an experience bar that needs to be reached) and spite rules. With that in mind I'd say the smaller/cheaper books were better than the harder to get hold of more expensive books. You could get away with a much smaller/easier to handle book and apply 2-3 house rules to play the same game to a large extent.
What's worse is that there was never an official pdf release of 5.5 as far as I know. :'(
I was not a big fan of either version of 7, but Deluxe is my go to version these days.
I think why it works so well compared to the two 7s is they got Liz back to ride herd on Ken. Her hand of editor really shows.
That said, I'd love softcover rulebook with all the Trollworld material removed. That would be in the range of my original 5 with the brown cover with smaller art in the center. Still thicker than the later 5 and 5.5 with the full image cover (despite the larger page count of the later, the paper on that brown cover 5 was so heavy it was about twice as thick). It would be cheaper as befits T&T.
Rolemaster. 1st and 2nd are great, but ever since the switch to RSS it's been downhill. Even the new RM Classic had to deal with split player community.
Odd fact on RM, the charts change within 2nd edition with each printing as they were tweaked. The differences are small, but every now and then I had a player whose charts for weapons disagreed with mine.
GURPS is kind of a "pick your poison". I think 3rd is an improvement over 2nd and generally like 4th, but would be happy either way. The only "must have" from 4th for me was optional in 3rd after the Compendiums, the ST/HT switch for hits and fatigue. I will say certain genres, anything superpowered, is going to work much better in 4th but even then I'd suggest using Hero if you want that kind of constructability with superpowers.
Since it hasn't come up yet, I'll go with Legend of the Five Rings. I played a bit of 1e and generally liked it, but then my player base moved away. So I was away from it for a long time.
I tried to get into 5e and while it looks impressive, they screwed with the lore, made things way too complicated, put tons of SJW garbage into it, and added weird proprietary dice, trying to make it some kind of feminized story game. Can't speak to the editions in between, though I know at one point it was adapted for 3e and became the default "Asian" setting for that version of D&D.
Quote from: Persimmon on October 26, 2022, 05:12:19 PM
Since it hasn't come up yet, I'll go with Legend of the Five Rings. I played a bit of 1e and generally liked it, but then my player base moved away. So I was away from it for a long time.
I tried to get into 5e and while it looks impressive, they screwed with the lore, made things way too complicated, put tons of SJW garbage into it, and added weird proprietary dice, trying to make it some kind of feminized story game. Can't speak to the editions in between, though I know at one point it was adapted for 3e and became the default "Asian" setting for that version of D&D.
4e was good when it was owned by AEG
Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on October 23, 2022, 04:00:42 PM
(Why not 1e? Because I don't have it, don't know anyone who does have it, and don't know where to get it for less than several hundred dollars.)
Note that Chaosium has re-printed the 1st edition of Call of Cthulhu, along with several early supplements.
https://www.chaosium.com/blognow-in-worldwide-release-call-of-cthulhu-classic-horror-roleplaying-in-the-world-of-chaosiums-cthulhu-mythos/
Edit: looks like it's actually the 2nd edition.
Quote from: markmohrfield on October 26, 2022, 06:58:32 PM
Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on October 23, 2022, 04:00:42 PM
(Why not 1e? Because I don't have it, don't know anyone who does have it, and don't know where to get it for less than several hundred dollars.)
Note that Chaosium has re-printed the 1st edition of Call of Cthulhu, along with several early supplements.
https://www.chaosium.com/blognow-in-worldwide-release-call-of-cthulhu-classic-horror-roleplaying-in-the-world-of-chaosiums-cthulhu-mythos/
At risk of being off topic does coc 2e have anything it does better mechanically than 6th or 7th? Any major shocks for someone going back to play 1st Ed who played 6 and 7?
Quote from: markmohrfield on October 26, 2022, 06:58:32 PM
Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on October 23, 2022, 04:00:42 PM
(Why not 1e? Because I don't have it, don't know anyone who does have it, and don't know where to get it for less than several hundred dollars.)
Note that Chaosium has re-printed the 1st edition of Call of Cthulhu, along with several early supplements.
https://www.chaosium.com/blognow-in-worldwide-release-call-of-cthulhu-classic-horror-roleplaying-in-the-world-of-chaosiums-cthulhu-mythos/
Edit: looks like it's actually the 2nd edition.
If memory serves, the biggest change between the two was the box.
I'll give it up for BECMI/RC with a few mods and the creature catalog.
Quote from: PulpHerb on October 26, 2022, 04:21:32 PM
That said, I'd love softcover rulebook with all the Trollworld material removed. That would be in the range of my original 5 with the brown cover with smaller art in the center. Still thicker than the later 5 and 5.5 with the full image cover (despite the larger page count of the later, the paper on that brown cover 5 was so heavy it was about twice as thick). It would be cheaper as befits T&T.
I kind of did this but split the bullet stopper into smaller hardbacks. I've been printing/binding PDFs into books for a while (since 2008 on and off) now and as I've gotten older my tolerance for books that threaten to crash through the shelves has lessened dramatically. Where did those lovely all in one 64 page (or whatever, up to say 100 pages) books go? Why throw everything plus the kitchen sink into one book? Money of course but with T&T Deluxe there was so much stuff in there I wasn't going to use it was a no brainer to split up into various books (1) Characters & Equipment, (2) Combat & Magic, (3) Elaborations & Trollworld, (4) Adventures & End Matter. I've flicked through book 3, not touched 4 and Books 1&2 get the most use.
(https://i.postimg.cc/P5L0WNHK/various-books.png)
You can see in the top RH corner where I split the PDF of DT&T into two books - a hardback with the rules and a softback with 'all the crap I don't need' sort of thing then decided to have another go and split it further still.
I've done the same with Against the Darkmaster (that's five books now) and plan to go the opposite way with things like DC Heroes 2nd Edition and Golden Heroes to make a hardback book out of the 2/more softbacks.
I've rattled on about it on the Trollbridge site but there really is a hole in the market for a basic easy to play RPG in a box that isn't just a cut down version of the full fat game (like D&D Starter set is to full fat 5e).
Back on the subject of older versions better it's kind of stretching to say '
Marvel Superheroes'. 1e was great in its day and is still beloved, has spawned a few clones and was so well supported. The Marvel games that followed all tried to reinvent the wheel. No Dice (stones - Marvel Universe RPG), cards (Marvel Saga), a hand wavey dice step up game thing (Marvel Heroic) that bunched everyone into 3 ranks (street D8, medium D10, Avenger D12 as a rough guide) that was canned as fast as the two games before it. It played ok but really didn't do anything better than other games apart from make useless characters feel useful and Thor level characters feel less useful, because they weren't head and shoulders above everyone else. That's how it seemed to me anyway.
The new one due out next year (June 23 I think)? I read some of the playtest rules book and thought 'who the heck are they trying to sell this to?'. They've since changed the game but the word 'crunch' springs to mind. Might buy it out of morbid curiosity or because I own all the other Marvel games but it most likely will never be played.
Marvel don't own the rights to the TSR game but they could strike a deal with Wizards and come out with a new updated version using much of the old game with better presentation and updated stats. It would sell like hot cakes.
Are the Mechwarrior games better today, or was 1E the best? I ask as I only own 1E. I've actually never played it, but used it as lore and repair rules for our regular BattleTech 3025 games.
Quote from: APN on October 27, 2022, 04:56:25 PM
Back on the subject of older versions better it's kind of stretching to say 'Marvel Superheroes'. 1e was great in its day and is still beloved, has spawned a few clones and was so well supported. The Marvel games that followed all tried to reinvent the wheel. No Dice (stones - Marvel Universe RPG), cards (Marvel Saga), a hand wavey dice step up game thing (Marvel Heroic) that bunched everyone into 3 ranks (street D8, medium D10, Avenger D12 as a rough guide) that was canned as fast as the two games before it. It played ok but really didn't do anything better than other games apart from make useless characters feel useful and Thor level characters feel less useful, because they weren't head and shoulders above everyone else.
I don't think those are different editions. Marvel Universe RPG and Marvel Heroic are unrelated games produced by different companies. They're set in the same universe because it's a licensed universe, but their game content is unrelated.
Parallel examples would be Middle Earth Roleplaying (MERP) produced by Iron Crown Enterprises, compared to the Lord of the Rings RPG by Decipher, The One Ring by Cubicle 7, and others. There are also several Star Wars games, several Star Trek games, etc.
Quote from: APN on October 27, 2022, 04:56:25 PM
Marvel don't own the rights to the TSR game but they could strike a deal with Wizards and come out with a new updated version using much of the old game with better presentation and updated stats. It would sell like hot cakes.
That deal would be one of Wizard's best possible shots to get my money.
The only thing that would be better is to strike a deal with DC and release an official DC universe version of that system.
Doubt Wizards wants to do either.
Quote from: APN on October 27, 2022, 04:56:25 PM
Quote from: PulpHerb on October 26, 2022, 04:21:32 PM
That said, I'd love softcover rulebook with all the Trollworld material removed. That would be in the range of my original 5 with the brown cover with smaller art in the center. Still thicker than the later 5 and 5.5 with the full image cover (despite the larger page count of the later, the paper on that brown cover 5 was so heavy it was about twice as thick). It would be cheaper as befits T&T.
I kind of did this but split the bullet stopper into smaller hardbacks. I've been printing/binding PDFs into books for a while (since 2008 on and off) now and as I've gotten older my tolerance for books that threaten to crash through the shelves has lessened dramatically. Where did those lovely all in one 64 page (or whatever, up to say 100 pages) books go? Why throw everything plus the kitchen sink into one book? Money of course but with T&T Deluxe there was so much stuff in there I wasn't going to use it was a no brainer to split up into various books (1) Characters & Equipment, (2) Combat & Magic, (3) Elaborations & Trollworld, (4) Adventures & End Matter. I've flicked through book 3, not touched 4 and Books 1&2 get the most use.
Beyond keeping elaborations and maybe some end matter (I'd need to look) in either Book 1 or 2 that's pretty much perfect to me. That would more or less be the equivalent of 5.5. Or make book 3 elaborations and end matter.
Then again, at this point I can run it with just some pages printed for player reference. I use Liz's combat flow chart more than anything. The only monster notes I'd need beyond MR is if they have special spite effects on multiple 6s.
It's probably the one RPG I can run with a map and a page of notes...even more than earlier editions of D&D.
Quote from: Persimmon on October 26, 2022, 05:12:19 PM
Since it hasn't come up yet, I'll go with Legend of the Five Rings. I played a bit of 1e and generally liked it, but then my player base moved away. So I was away from it for a long time.
I tried to get into 5e and while it looks impressive, they screwed with the lore, made things way too complicated, put tons of SJW garbage into it, and added weird proprietary dice, trying to make it some kind of feminized story game. Can't speak to the editions in between, though I know at one point it was adapted for 3e and became the default "Asian" setting for that version of D&D.
For the most part, the rules are largely recognizable from 1st through 4th. There's a change to how wound modifiers work from 1>2, and 4th edition front-loads the health track (I don't think it changes the total calculation). L5R2e and D&D3e had combined books, where all of the mechanics were presented for both systems. You can mostly use 1e character options in 2e and 3e, but 4e experiences changes that are too significant. I really liked 4e, especially once they got a few books out and you had enough of rules updated to recreate the Scorpion Clan Coup era. Imperial Histories is one of my favorite RPG books, for any game or product line.
The shift away from Roll & Keep to funny dice hurt the game. That alone was enough for me to ignore the game, and it took me about five years before I found out what they did to the setting. L5R was always a story heavy game. After twenty years of CCG tournament storyline prizes, the story had gotten pretty bloated and unwieldy. Some kind of reboot was warranted. However, monkeying with the most popular section of the story was inexcusable.
The original Stormbringer from Chaosium. What shines for me in the 1e is the soft cover format, random character creation, and off-the-hook rules for magic (mostly the summoning of demons).
Quote from: thornad on October 26, 2022, 05:04:46 AM
Quote from: VisionStorm on October 23, 2022, 08:28:56 AM
Basic D&D was so fucking awesome
5e is not really D&D either, but it's so streamlined and playable, I'd probably play that now over older editions, cuz I don't have to change as much to make it work. But 2e and 3e were the best.
5e is the best D&D since Basic. Hands down. The most playable, the most balanced, the most fun. And it pays such homage to the history of the game you really have to appreciate the care and craftsmanship they put into that game.
I don't have any confidence we'll ever get an edition as good as 5th again. You can really see it falling apart especially since the release of Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. It is up to the OSR to carry the banner from here on out.
I find 5e the EXACT OPPOSITE from what you said: I find 5e unbalanced, video-gamey, and least fun version.
But you do you...
Quote from: blackstone on October 28, 2022, 10:25:13 AM
Quote from: thornad on October 26, 2022, 05:04:46 AM
Quote from: VisionStorm on October 23, 2022, 08:28:56 AM
Basic D&D was so fucking awesome
5e is not really D&D either, but it's so streamlined and playable, I'd probably play that now over older editions, cuz I don't have to change as much to make it work. But 2e and 3e were the best.
5e is the best D&D since Basic. Hands down. The most playable, the most balanced, the most fun. And it pays such homage to the history of the game you really have to appreciate the care and craftsmanship they put into that game.
I don't have any confidence we'll ever get an edition as good as 5th again. You can really see it falling apart especially since the release of Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. It is up to the OSR to carry the banner from here on out.
I find 5e the EXACT OPPOSITE from what you said: I find 5e unbalanced, video-gamey, and least fun version.
But you do you...
I'm with you on this. A couple years after 5e came out I finally decided to try it and found it utterly awful in pretty much every way. To me, the various D&D editions parallel the Star Wars franchise.
OD&D & B/X--Original movie; groundbreaking despite some flaws but set the stage for everything that came after.
AD&D--Essentially "The Empire Strikes Back." Builds and improves upon the earlier stuff, though some dislike certain changes.
2e--Still D&D but like "Return of the Jedi," starts heading in the wrong direction and moving too much towards children and mass appeal. Ewoks replacing wookies is the equivalent of baatezu and tanari'ri replacing devils and demons.
3e-4e--The prequel trilogy. Some interesting ideas and new directions that helped revive the franchise, but also divergences that alienated many forever. Too influenced by other trends and developments. D&D, like Star Wars, started losing its distinctive identity here.
5e--The sequel trilogy. Lame-ass fan service catering to the lowest common denominator. Tries to invoke nostalgia, but fails due to increasingly shallow SJW messaging. Completely misunderstands the soul and appeal of the original product and thinks slapping the name on it with some clumsy revivals of old characters, plots, etc. will be enough to fool the gullible masses.
Quote from: BronzeDragon on October 24, 2022, 03:21:26 PM
The whole problem of editions is that there are only three paths that can be taken.
First is the Revision. This is usually done to rectify small mistakes, clarify the text and so on. This usually (not always) in a very backwards compatible product, mostly keeps the fan base happy and tends to be well received.
Second is the Money Grab. The previous edition is no longer selling that well even though there's really nothing wrong with the system itself. The company wants to make more money, and a revision doesn't usually lead to massive profits, so they decide to do a true new edition, with different mechanics (different enough that it won't be backwards compatible) and possibly a snazzy new look to attract new customers. If it's well done, it can generate exactly the sort of results that are expected of it, but it will inevitably be contentious, purely on the basis of alienating part of the player base.
Third is the Revolution . Fuck the previous edition and all its players, they were all bastards and bigots anyway, full steam ahead and let's ram this fucking thing down their throats. The result is almost always destructive, with the player base fragmenting (at best) or migrating to a different product. What remains is a completely different thing from the original and/or previous editions, essentially unrecognizable as part of a timeline.
Most RPG companies feel the irresistible urge to keep tinkering with their product, until they end up at that third option. For the players that spent their money and time on the first few editions, this feels like a kick in the nuts, and a positive reputation for the early editions ends up being almost inevitable.
A few companies, like Chaosium, have for the most part resisted the pull of the cash grab or the revolution, but others have fully embraced the model.
Great summary! This explains why Atlas Games with Ars Magica 5e found so much success, because 5e really is mostly revisions to issues identified in 4e, and by and large made reasonable fixes to known issues. The problem now is for 6e, that what you actually need is a REVOLUTION! The fan base (at least from what I've seen) online vastly prefers a 5.5 instead of a 6e.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 23, 2022, 12:08:52 AM
I've found there are a few games out there that the older version is the system you would want to recommend.
Essentially all of them. They got it as right as they ever got it by their first edition. At best anything later clarified things a bit, for example adding an index (D&D) or stripping out the original authour's worldbuilding stuff (RuneQuest) so it'd have more general use.
Apocalypse World 1e > 2e
Shadowrun 3e > 4e
Runequest 2e > Runequest 6e
For WH40K rpgs Dark Heresy compared to Wrath and Glory.
Dark Heresy 1e vs 2e is slightly more complicated because there wasn't the support for 2e before it was cancelled but overall I'd say 1e was better.
As for WFRP, 2e was probably better than 1e. However 1e material and source books feel richer. 4e is quite a convoluted and overworked game. At its core I like the focus on skills and how careers work but combat is so very convoluted.
Everything before OSE. What a lifeless tome laid out like a cookbook. or flash cards.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 27, 2022, 08:00:45 PM
Are the Mechwarrior games better today, or was 1E the best? I ask as I only own 1E. I've actually never played it, but used it as lore and repair rules for our regular BattleTech 3025 games.
A lot of people swear by 2e, but I have personally found the newest Mechwarrior: Destiny to be the most solidly playable in that it really takes into account the different needs of an rpg vs. a wargame.* It had both quicker character creation and better character survivability than the previous iteration (you could still die fairly quickly if you weren't careful, but the 1-in-36
per attack odds of instant death found in the previous iteration were largely removed (basically, they greatly increased the odds of successfully performing an emergency ejection in cases where the wargame would inflict automatic death to the pilot).
However, the caveat here is that Mechwarrior: Destiny is actually a repackaging of FASA's old Legionnaire (Renegade Legion) RPG system... so it's actually slightly older than even Mechwarrior 2e (Legionaire was 1990, MW2e was 1991).
* the biggest problem with the previous version (A Time of War) was that character creation was made deeper, such that it could take an hour to make a character as you record all the lifepath effects, only for the PC to suffer the same 1-in-36 chance per attack of insta-death via headshot that quickly adds up to virtual certainty of unceremonious random death. Such deaths would be fine if character creation were fast and easy... but an hour to make a character who could be dead in less than a minute just made the whole endeavor feel pointless.
There are quite a few I could name, but Stormbringer is the first that comes to mind.
Quote from: the crypt keeper on November 02, 2022, 10:27:07 AM
Everything before OSE. What a lifeless tome laid out like a cookbook. or flash cards.
Wow; someone pushing back against the current darling of the OSR. Frankly, I like the OSE rulebooks as references when writing my own B/X adventures because they are well-organized and easy to use for someone who knows the rules and system. And I appreciate the digest size.
That being said, I do agree that there's a degree of sterility to the writing. And I'm not as big a fan of the art as many seem to be. Also, I find the presentation of their modules, with all the bullet points, to be distracting and harder to use at the table than old fashioned modules from the 80s with boxed text etc. So I sold all my official OSE modules after playing them once.
Recently both Dan Proctor (Labyrinth Lord) and Matt Finch (Swords & Wizardry) have announced they'll be introducing new versions of their games next year. LL will be a full-blown second edition with some significant content additions, plus updated formatting, organization and presentation. It sounds like the S&W changes will be almost purely cosmetic, as it's coming out under Finch's Mythmere Games moniker.
It will be interesting to see what these look like in comparison to OSE. Proctor has explicitly acknowledged that he wants to "modernize" his presentation while Finch doesn't seem to care, though personally I think he's a better writer than Gavin Norman.
Now some might say, "Who cares; they're just retroclones anyhow. Why not use the originals?" Fair enough; I do still have all my books from the 80s in pretty good condition. But I'm a sucker for a complete game in one streamlined book. And my players don't have all the old books but will buy 1 new one (or I can share the pdf). So I will at least check these out.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 25, 2022, 08:21:30 AM
Hero 5E and 6E are respectively the 2nd and 3rd editions of "Hero System", and they were not nearly so well received. They managed to hit two of the major edition pitfalls hard, being excessively bloated in the name of completeness without fixing anything, and then making an attempt fix the issues while retaining the bloat. A slimmed down game with the 6E changes that was billed as a easier version of 4E might have done well. Then it could have been followed up with an options book to add back in the examples and complexity without changing the core.
I'd dispute this; Fifth Edition
was well received, and was really just a cleanup and expansion of 4E, although there were some gripes about the dryness and depth of the presentation. It was Sixth Edition--which tried to rebuild the game from the ground-up, and was the first time the game's rules had to be split into multiple volumes--that was the real division point.
For
Rolemaster, the conversion from 2E to the Standard System was also extremely divisive, and the collapse of Iron Crown Enterprises a few years later probably didn't help. The new ICE says that "Rolemaster Unified" is due any day now. We'll see how it unfolds.