"So, what appeals in D&D to you?" Topic

Based on the discussion in another thread – TMP link – what does your favorite version do better than all the others that makes it the "Go To" version of D&D?

Does it Role Play better?

I came into D&D from Miniatures War Games so the Roll Play is a key factor for me. Wizards are Artillery/Heavy Weapons…

Does the reported aspect of 5.0 – that low level wizards are able to contribute
as much as other classes instead of being a single shot contributor in a situation – what appeals?

Does it not get bogged down in Rules Overload?

Does it seem to reflect a reasonable sense of verisimilitude of a real world physics where magic is part of the "physics" of the world and not a tacked on piece of a game?

Is it the one all you friends play and, while it isn't your personal first choice it brings your party together? Is it the one that makes the group happy and that is enough for you?

What makes "your" preferred version the one you want to play?

It is the one all of us play and, while it isn't my personal favorite, it is the consensus of the party.

Sometimes what version you play is a compromise between all the other players in the group. For me, however, the game has to satisfy the "what do you want to play today?" statement. By that I mean it needs to be flexible enough for me to create the character I want, not what the game wants. I've been playing D&D for 30 years, so playing the "archetype" characters is not interesting at all. How many fighters do you think I've run in that time? Or archetypical wizards, etc? This was a major issue I had with 4e, and why I liked 3e so much. But others in the group thought 3e was too crunchy, especially at higher levels. Thus 5e is a nice compromise between the crunch I need to play non-archetypical characters, and streamlined rules that make everyone else happy…

Damon.

I haven't really cared that much about the rules as much as the players. That being said some of the rules seems to bring out more of the worst in some of the bad players than others.

5e plays faster and has just the right amount of detail.

OD&D / D&D / AD&D / AD&D2, I knew the system inside and out. It was inconsistent but got better with each edition, and as a player or DM, I could "wing it" to cover the gaps.

3.x fixed the consistency issue and *seemed* better but I found it exceeded my threshold for detail. As a player and a DM, I couldn't keep a good overview in my head of the 3.x rules.

4e simplified these and I liked playing the powers system, but I could see my DM was frustrated keeping track of all the powers, not only to know all the party could do but just to run monsters out of the books. Still too much to juggle. Circumstances never worked out for me to DM 4e, so I can't speak from direct experience.

5e seems the best where the system has the feel of AD&D with the mechanical consistency of 3.x. The game system has extra detail layers where needed, but not where it isn't. I'm both playing and DMing 5e and so is the other DM I spoke of, and it's really working for us.

I use "Red Box" D&D, also known as the BECMI sets, as collected in the Rules Cyclopedia, or RC.
It's simple and simplified, but still broad enough for flavor, and lets me easily house rule whatever I want.
Plus, I play the Pirate way: "They're more like guidelines than actual rules."
So I tack on bits from all over, with the core rules just bring that: a core.

Not a damn thing.

My version is really a mix of the early versions. I like the 3.X character building as it gives a great diversity in skills and feats and other stuff but I don't like the IGOUGO grid space combat. So I ditch that for an older version AD&D and apply some 2e magic when it seems appropriate. I agree that they are more like guidelines than actual rules. I had enough of rules lawyers playing early on. Winging it and what is fun even if it doesn't make much sense is what makes it the preferred version for me.

I spent the most time playing 1st edition AD&D, was most successful with 2nd edition AD&D, ran two separate 4th edition campaigns over the course of one year, and have recently gone back to original D&D (1974 little brown jooks) for ease of house-ruling.

I personally prefer Basic because it doesn't have all those stupid rules. It is just a mechanism for playing and RPG, all character development is down to the player. There is none of that "…but it says on page 4001 of the PHB that a dwarf ranger mage gets an automatic… blah, blah". I DM for a group that have played all the editions of D&D and quite a few other games and they don't like it but I think secretly they have more fun…

1st or 2nd Ed would be my preference if I 'had' to play D&D. Basically I dislike mini's in a Role Play game as I think they distract from the Role Playing and encourage tactical thinking rather than doing what looks and feels right. Plus the minis element adds a whole new level of complexity and massively slows down game play.

I started with 0D&D and progressed to 1st Ed AD&D, skipped 2nd Ed and tried 3.5 and 4.0. The latter two are not to my liking. Too many rules. Even by comparison to the highly functional 0D&D with its (approx) 150 pages, even 1st Ed was pretty bloated.

I am not sure why one would codify a role playing game. Invariably, the GM is going to break the rules and fly by the seat of his pants in the name of speed and story consistency. For RPGs guidelines and a consistent GM are far, far better than a tight set of rules.

I prefer 2nd Ed. because it expanded 1st Ed., nicely. I almost did not try 2nd Ed., when it was published, as I had not even begun, after nine years, to find the limits of 1st Ed. AD&D. I discovered that 2nd Ed. rules expanded the original AD&D rules in ways that made sense to me, codifying some house rules I was introducing already.

I rely more on my players to tell me where they want the story to go, with the rules supplying soft barriers which keep us within the storyline, allowing us to know what we can, and cannot, do within the context of the game's technology.

All of my clerics are specialty priests: they all have unique Spheres of Power, they all have varying Granted Powers, but not all of them can Turn Undead, nor can they all cast Healing spells! Some of them can't do either of these traditional Cleric functions… They are, however, good at doing other things with the spells they can cast. By creating different Granted Powers, I get to participate in the design of the game rules themselves. Clerics can have mysterious abilities which are yet to be discovered, as not all clerics, of all deities, have yet been encountered! With the specialty priests I create, I give unique flavor to my game world. I also make clerics a varied character type, with many options to choose from, based on which deity they serve. They are all unique, some closer to the traditional, 'generic' cleric, but each still has its own unique abilities, and flavor. This also opens a wide dimension to religious politics in our role playing. Clerics are powerful, and they can have very different motivations in the game. It all helps create unique, and interesting plot lines for our collective stories.

I try to keep the rules in the background, so they do not interfere with the stories we are collectively telling. I've looked at 3.X, 4th, and 5th, but they just don't appeal to me. The 3.X rules seemed to remove all of the mystery, and fudge-factors, from the DM, with the players always knowing exactly what they need to succeed in every task; 4th seemed more like a miniatures game, with a thin veneer of role-playing added on; 5th seems like a hodgepodge of all of its predecessors… I have been playing D&D since 1980, and I'm still having a blast with the long OOP 2nd Ed. rules, first published in 1989. Since I GM, and I get plenty of positive feedback from the players I've gamed with over the past 35 years, I know what I'm doing right, and occasionally, I know what I did wrong -- and I make corrections to my games.

The rules are a vehicle which helps us create, and carry along, our cooperative stories, known as adventures. The rules don't create the stories, they just help provide a skeleton for us to put flesh onto, to bring our stories to life.

I read the XDM book, and I enjoyed it, but his lite rules are too lite for me and my gamers. The 2nd Ed. rules meet our needs, without interfering with our story-telling adventures. They are familiar to the point of being unseen, in the background. They work for us, so we continue to use them. YMMV. Cheers!

The core book of Pathfinder is the version I wanted all those years ago when I was in college and wanted full customization of every character and had the time to enjoy it. I still prefer its cleric rules for the ability to keep a party on its feet long enough to push through several combat encounters.

The initial rules of 5e are my current preference as they seem to hit the right balance of quick adaptability for "on the fly" dungeon stocking that 1e and 2e had, but with enough of the customization options for the heroes to keep me happy without needing to tack on supplemental rule sets.

Preferences can differ between GM and Players.

GMs usually are more interested in campaign and story development, and mechanics for handling encounters – of which combat is part.
Players usually are more interested in character development, and how much control they have in developing their character they way they want.

I realized this many eons ago when we had a similar discussion about what system to use. Every discission I've seen since then – in my gaming group or online – usually has the above differences in viewpoint as a driving factor.

Phil – generally speaking, you MAY be right. However, in our group the most important thing for both the players and the GM is story development. character development as part of the story is vital, but character development in terms of stat lines is wholly unimportant.