I'm broke. I couldn't shoot a wedding or a kids birthday party if some housewife gave me a call and shoved a bunch of cash in my face. That's kind of where I am now because of the last 8 to 9 years.
Oh well.
Many contemporary versions - why?
- Thread starter cym0k
- Start date
I'm broke. I couldn't shoot a wedding or a kids birthday party if some housewife gave me a call and shoved a bunch of cash in my face. That's kind of where I am now because of the last 8 to 9 years.
Oh well.
"ORKS IN S-P-A-C-E !!!"
Oh, hang on, that's Warhammer 40,000.
Um, "Valerian Space Axes!!"
Oops, I'm thinking GURPS Lensman.
Um, "Make a saving throw against explosive decompression?"
(Maybe I'll just leave it to Aramis....)
"ORKS IN S-P-A-C-E !!!"
Oh, hang on, that's Warhammer 40,000.
Um, "Valerian Space Axes!!"
Oops, I'm thinking GURPS Lensman.
Um, "Make a saving throw against explosive decompression?"
(Maybe I'll just leave it to Aramis....)
Note that it can easily do all the above...
And the save vs ED is a Fort Save.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I guess my question would rather be, why not have many different versions being available and played at the same time. Look at how many versions of D & D exist and are being played, including the original series of books which has just been re-released. I am looking forward to setting up a campaign with my likely future son-in-law and his father this summer, along with probably in exchange joining Kevin's (the father) Traveller 5 game. (Bullet biting here.) Then you have the Rolemaster fantasy game, which we might start a campaign in, and also I still have all of my Middle Earth Roleplaying material from Iron Crown Enterprises. Each version of the game has is good and bad points, which appeal to different people in different ways.
As of last year, there were groups commenting in the D&D Next surveys playing every then published edition, and the major subversions. Mike Mearls commented on how surprised he was that some people were still playing woodgrain without the supplements.
There are 10 major editions of D&D... (OE, Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, Alston, AD&D 1E, AD&D 2E, D&D 3E, D&D 4E, D&D Next) and 5 of them have multiple sub-editions. (OE, AD&D 1E, AD&D 2E, 3E, 4E).
OE is very different if you lack/don't use the supplements, and/or use chainmail as the combat system.
AD&D 1E is significantly different if you use Unearthed Arcana and/or the Survival Guides and/or Oriental Adventures.
AD&D 2E has the "Player's Option" series - which includes moving to 12 attributes, point building characters, and having to buy most of the race and class powers.
D&D 3 has 3.0 and 3.5, and some would also say "Pathfinder"
D&D 4 has 4.0 and Essentials.
And that doesn't count EPT 1E (which was a close OE+S1 variant), nor the SW d20/SWSE rules, nor the 4E derived Gamma World... Nor the zillion retroclones and pseudoclones.
Speaking of D&D clones, I finally found my 'The Fantasy Trip' dungeon master's module. Page 4 sets up the game world and talks about Mnoren who found side-ways dimension travel. Alternate earths, three hundred seventy-one of them, 3 had space travel and 7 had magic.
I had forgotten that part about space travel and magic. The game has Gates, which can be set to travel to different places on one world, different worlsds in the same galaxy, and alternate Earths.
While I'm tempted to add in such an alternate planet/Earth, it might create lots of problems.
I had forgotten that part about space travel and magic. The game has Gates, which can be set to travel to different places on one world, different worlsds in the same galaxy, and alternate Earths.
While I'm tempted to add in such an alternate planet/Earth, it might create lots of problems.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
TFT was hardly a clone, though it has been cloned itself. It was the start of the tactical RPGs, a line of thought and development that would not intersect with D&D at the mechanical level until D&D3e, but which inspired or contributed to Runequest, Champions/Hero, GURPS, and others.
Many people were playing D&D/AD&D in tactical mode before TFT. After all, the official combat system of the whitebox was the Chainmail Minis Rules. There has always been a subset of D&D players for whom it's a minis game with narrative, not a narrative game with combat resolution. And another subset for whom it was a wargame without a map. The story-first subset didn't intersect with me until the mid 80's.
In the 80's, I was one of the wargame without a map types.
Ow, my head hurts. I thought Traveller was all over the place with various editions. D&D is kind of out there I guess.
Oh, and that's before the issues of different printings having different content in AD&D 1E (there are at least 2 different versions of the 1st cover PH; one's missing a table); since it governs a fairly key issue for multiclassing, it may count as a minor edition change.
And AD&D 2E has 2 different printings, with the tables for weapon versus armor different, and the errata applied.
And there are minor differences between allowing the 2E PHBR series and not. Lots of 2E DM's don't allow them. And that's not the same as the Player's Option series, which converts AD&D 2E to point build and 12 attributes. Nor Dark Sun, which alters thief skills (adds 6 new ones), and switches to 5d4 for attribute gen, and gives EVERYONE psionics.
All in all, there are about 20 "standard" configurations. Not counting the literally dozens of retroclones and dozens more pseudoclones.
Huh. Well, that's odd though. I mean I don't want to get off topic, but what are the major differences between the versions?
With Traveller it's easy--the rule set is just different using different dice. But DND is predominantly a D20 system. I understand "Basic" has a simplified mechanic, but what keeps the other versions of DnD alive?
With Traveller it's easy--the rule set is just different using different dice. But DND is predominantly a D20 system. I understand "Basic" has a simplified mechanic, but what keeps the other versions of DnD alive?
I've done a good bit of writing on it elsewhere.
See
- rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/336/how-many-editions-of-dungeons-dragons-are-there
- rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/22548/what-are-the-major-differences-between-add-1st-edition-add-2nd-edition
- rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/8535/differences-between-dd-3-x-and-previous-editions/
- rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/188/ac-differences-between-add-1e-and-basic-dd
- rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/9452/is-it-possible-to-mix-different-versions-of-add
Hmm. That's somewhat interesting.
I have to say that DnD seems to have lots of game balance issues, and on the surface, to me at least, it seems like the class restrictions are never explained to players; i.e. if you're a "warrior" then you spend a good part of your day training to keep up your strength and skill, verse bringing in the crop which is something farmers do.
When I played a lot of wargames I often heard DnD teenage types talk about how they had mutli-class characters that did a bundle of things and had a host of abilities and possessions. That kind of thing really kept me in the wargamer category as a pretext for a military career (which never happened).
I often wanted to pull one of these guys aside and spit out a small diatribe thesis on the roles in medieval society, and how you could not possibly have a warrior-wizard-druid-paladin who studied to become a ninja (yes, someone told me that).
To bring this back to Traveller, as mift as I get that Traveller leans towards semi-plausible science-fiction and veers harshly away from more fantastic stuff, in spite of the many editions, it does seem a bit more consistent than DnD, and expands on rules with good justification.
I appreciate the scope of imagination of the fantasy role playing genre, but I tend to frown on it fore the aforementioned reasons.
I have to say that DnD seems to have lots of game balance issues, and on the surface, to me at least, it seems like the class restrictions are never explained to players; i.e. if you're a "warrior" then you spend a good part of your day training to keep up your strength and skill, verse bringing in the crop which is something farmers do.
When I played a lot of wargames I often heard DnD teenage types talk about how they had mutli-class characters that did a bundle of things and had a host of abilities and possessions. That kind of thing really kept me in the wargamer category as a pretext for a military career (which never happened).
I often wanted to pull one of these guys aside and spit out a small diatribe thesis on the roles in medieval society, and how you could not possibly have a warrior-wizard-druid-paladin who studied to become a ninja (yes, someone told me that).
To bring this back to Traveller, as mift as I get that Traveller leans towards semi-plausible science-fiction and veers harshly away from more fantastic stuff, in spite of the many editions, it does seem a bit more consistent than DnD, and expands on rules with good justification.
I appreciate the scope of imagination of the fantasy role playing genre, but I tend to frown on it fore the aforementioned reasons.
You're right. You understand the situation.
D&D has many versions. But nobody plays all the versions of it. If they do play it, they pick from one or two versions to use. Same with Traveller. LiftOff is for kids though, so it doesn't really count.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
It may or may not "count", but being "for kids" is hardly a useful criteria for making that determination.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Dwarves are fat, but gnomes and hobbits.I don't know how tactical it was but I DMed AD&D1E with minatures and a to scale map for the minis. Mostly I did it due to players arguing over who was in the front rank... evidently all 10 of their characters in a 10 foot wide corridor.
Bull. Liftoff may be written to a lower reading level, but that doesn't mean it doesn't count. The current draft is a solid game.
Hmmm, I never seem to have enough d4's and the d8 vanishes just when I need it with D&D....
Regards
David
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