Which Dungeons and Dragons rule set do you prefer?

Edwin

Raistlin82

Most balanced, most fair, most linear, most organized.

Nostalgia effect be damned.

Djimmy

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition and Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition with their "best" features combined. I can speak in terms of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale only.

Chow

2nd. It's got the most flavor, the best artwork, easier to understand than 1st edition, more balanced than 3rd (which is ironic considering they didn't even try to balance the 2nd edition that hard), feels more dangerous and actually heroic, and it's where all the good settings and computer games came from.

What did 3rd edition bring in to D&D? Eberron? Ha! And all 4th edition added in was Spellplague.

CandleBeside

I can't exactly say why, but 2nd edition was better. ( comic stile pictures in 3rd edition books, oh no! they want to go mainstream )

Howie

2e, but not without player's options. Then again, all D&D rule sets suck :P

Lifat

I've never played 1st edition and OSRIC??? But I've tried the rest of the systems plenty. I always divided it like this:

2nd had the most charm and the richest worlds but the crappiest rules and didn't have good game balance.
3rd had less charm and less rich worlds but better rules with great character diversity.
3.5 had the same amount of charm and richness in worlds as 3rd but with improved rules and character diversity.
3.P (pathfinder) Took 3.5 rules and improved them alot and added to charm and richness of world that if not rivaled 2nd then at least came close. Maybe it did reduce character diversity a little?
4th was the best combat system by a CLEAR mile but imo had no charm at all and very little choice when creating characters.

When 4th came out I was so excited. Then I played it for a while and was left with the feeling of a mmo. Nothing wrong with that but that isn't what I'm looking for when tabletop rpg-ing.
I personally prefer pathfinder with 3.5 being second.

Before anyone asks me why I play BG if I hate 2nd edition ruleset so much I'd just like to say that most of the problems with 2nd edition was the counterintuitive way things were set up. THAC0??? And that isn't a problem when playing a video game.

ZanathKariashi

I like 3.5 the best (3rd in a pinch, since 3.5 wasn't an option), though after actually digging into the 2nd edition rule books (My previous experience was only through the infinity engine games), it's slowly growing on me.

My biggest gripe about 2nd is that it isn't as intuitive as 3rd is. 3rd condensed saves into Fort, reflex, will, and higher was always better. Meanwhile 2nd, wasn't consistent at all. For somethings lower is better, for other things higher is better. In some things + is bad, in others it's good and vice versa.

atcDave

Any rules set can make a playable and fun game. I think the story and quality of a DM matter more than the exact rules used. But I love 2E, it just feels right to me. It's what I'm comfortable with and it's the format I use for telling MY stories.
Of course with over 30 years of gaming I've made many changes to the core rules. My players don't even call it anything anymore except Dave's game.
But because 2E is the basis for everything I do with it, computer games based on 2E always feel the most normal to me. And I really dislike how the later rules sets try so hard to be "balanced" (point distribution from the same number of starting points, everyone on the same experience table, etc). It just feels like tract housing or mass produced wall "art" to me. All the same, no character. And yes, that's a personal bias; I have no doubt others feel very differently about.

Oxford_Guy

I like the simplicity of 2e rules when you're managing a party of 6 in a cRPG, though 3rd edition is okay when you're primarily controlling and configuring only one character (e.g. NWN)

UnknownQuantity

I was reading the 2nd edition handbook and I thought it was pretty interesting. I've never been into PnP, but if I was I think I'd like the 2nd edition. Unlike popular opinion you will find that a lot of race, class, multi, dual class combinations are available at the Dungeon Master's discretion. The problem with a computer game is there is no dungeon master and it's stuck with the core rules. Even with the restrictions I prefer D&D 2nd edition. It's far more enjoyable trying to figure out what combinations will end up being powerful at end game. In D&D 3rd edition everything is fairly balanced (in terms of class power). That makes it a little boring IMO. It makes sense that certain classes and class combinations would be more powerful than others. Every class just needs to have a role of some sort in the group. I also enjoy the lore of the old school games. Reading about druids in the 2nd edition handbook was more enjoyable then reading the lore for Dragon Age. I tried the 3rd edition rules in both Icewind Dale 2 and Neverwinter nights. Neither appealed to me very much. I found the character building in both fairly bland.

ZanathKariashi

CRPGs, aside from possibly ToEE (which is without contest the most PnP accurate CRPG made to date for any setting/System), are not good envoys to test out a setting...they leave SO much stuff out or change it to fit their lazy hodge-podge of mechanics that it in no way resembles the original. (ToEE's main failing is being based on a generic, somewhat boring module to begin with (Not a Greyhawk fan AT ALL), and some bugs here and there that had to be fan-patched out. It's otherwise a very awesome and challenging game, even if most of the story elements are so generic they almost put you to sleep)

I very much enjoy PnP 3rd, but I can't stand NWN or NWN2...they positively raped the system in those games...and IWD2...that's a barely implemented 3rd edition conversion for the 2nd edition rules the infinity uses. They left out so many things, aside from have a bit more freedom to pick classes and a bunch of races, it didn't feel all that different from playing BG, well..at least it was slightly more intuitive..higher = better and all...and the modular interface was nice for playability.

MisterFluffykins

Personally, I'll play Pathfinder over D&D any day of the week, but if it comes down to it I prefer 2E. It has the best supplements by far - I still have a small stack of Forgotten Realm's 2E books that I love using. Helps me, as a DM, to add a lot of flavor and personality to a world - even if I'm just using them to help inspire a homebrew setting.

ReadingRambo

3rd edition and pathfinder are the best rules systems, but there is something about 2nd edition thats so charming. Finding a set of elven chain for a fighter/ Mage, for example, is an awesome feeling that few treasures in 3 rd Ed replicate.

Millardkillmoore

Raistlin82 said:

Most balanced, most fair, most linear, most organized.

Nostalgia effect be damned.

100% agree. I sometimes wonder if the love the older editions get and hate 4th edition gets is due to the actual merits of the systems or just nostalgia goggles.

My only real problem with 4th edition is that there are really just four classes (Striker, Defender, Controller, and Leader) with the official classes just being minor variations on those archetypes with different flavor text. But that's the cost of classes that are all intuitive, fun, and balanced.

Mokona

3rd edition. I love making characters and playing around with build orders. Fighters automatically know how to swing all weapons (except exotic) - love this. Don't have to be married to a weapon type from the get-go.

PlasticGolem

Dungeons & Dragons (especially the MoldvayCook basic/expert sets). All the basic rules, spells, monsters and items in a 64-page booklet, and another 64 pages of expert supplement. An easy game to learn, leaves most details up to the DM and individual groups to work out, and keeps character mechanics simple, making distinctions between characters more a matter of in-game development rather than classes or stats.

I could sit down with four or five players who had never played D&D before, explain the concept, and be running an adventure inside of 10 or 15 minutes with B/X D&D (provided I had done some prep and created some pre-generated characters). As long as the DM is experienced, it is easier for players to learn than many of the boardgames I play, and it is more flexible and less detail-oriented than any other version.

Playing AD&D or, especially, 3rd Edition or later requires a substantial up-front time commitment. Twenty years ago, when I spent more time reading the books than playing the game, that might have been possible, but getting five or six adults with jobs and kids and that you actually like spending time with together frequently enough to make that commitment worthwhile can be pretty tough. That's the main draw of CRPGs: not nearly as much depth, but you can play by yourself whenever you want for however long you have.

Beastman

My choice was Dungeons & Dragons, more specifically BECMI-Edition

Cassiopeia

Personal favorite is 3.5 Pathfinder, though I like 2.0 as well. The earlier ones I never had much experience with. My group tried 4.0 for a month. It didn't go well. Personally, as someone who usually plays a neutral alignment, it annoyed me that they apparently thought 5 total alignments (and one neutral) was enough. But I'll admit that that's a sentimental reason.

Nic_Mercy

I voted for 2nd edition but with the caveat of including the Skills & Powers options from the book of the same name.

The Skills & Powers book provided such a huge variety of options within the context of the 2nd edition ruleset and truly allowed for unique characters and yet also allowed streamlining of many things as well. It gave DM's the ability to provide advancement in ways other than xp and gear via character points.

With that said, even the basic 2nd ed rules are preferable to me. 3rd edition just seems too prone to metagaming via a level of this class plus a level of that class equals overpoweredness.

4th edition just seems like a video game ruleset translated to a pnp format (which I think it probably is so they can make video games easily using it). I understand that things change and evolve but there comes a point where so much change occurs that whatever the thing is now is no long even remotely like what it was before. 4th edition isn't D&D to me. It's some other game that's probably just as fun in its own way but it isn't D&D.

CutlassJack

3.5 definately. It cleaned up 2's rules to make it much more intuitive, eliminating the need for a wall of tables to reference just to see if you hit something. And it also allowed the greatest depth of customization to make really fun characters.

4 tried to make things more like an MMO, which is missing the point entirely.

Edwin

Nic_Mercy said:

I understand that things change and evolve...

Except the alligator...he found a great design a few million years back and stuck with it.

Chow

Edwin said:

Nic_Mercy said:

I understand that things change and evolve...

Except the alligator...he found a great design a few million years back and stuck with it.

Shark, too.

SCARY_WIZARD

I'm the only one who voted for Retroclones?! Really?

Anyways. I'll jut tell you guys what I like in order from greatest to least.
Advanced
3rd Edition/v3.5
BECMI
Advanced 2nd Edition
4th Edition

Kank

Easily 2e. I ran Planescape and Dark Sun for years. Two of the best settings of all time.

We had a Dark Sun group that ran for seven years. Very last adventure the whole party died. That's Athas for ya!

Stargazer5781

Last night I went to a live show where improv comedians played a game of Dungeons and Dragons. They asked who there played D&D, about half the room raised their hands, then they asked who was playing 4th edition, and no one raised their hands.

Riolathel

I gotta a lot of love for 2e. Definitely my 2nd pick.

I just like how 3e does multi classing, racial restrictions, racial bonuses.
I also really like feats

i also feel naked when i play 2e cus of the lack of feats, and i hate playing fighter classes because the only thing you have to look forward to when leveling is a +1 (or -1 depending on how you look at it) thac0.

I also like how 3e does stats. I never liked the 2e 18/xx crap.


5th edition (dnd next) is really cool. I've been playtesting it and it is like 2e and 3e made a baby together.

CoM_Solaufein

Bah the young generation don't know what they are missing.

AD&D for life!

Leematon

3rd edition (and 3.5) are my favs. Far more options for character customisation, far more feats and spells and yes, the maths is easier to understand (too many negatives is 2e).

Howie

The problem of WotC these days is that they focused too much on new rule options and powers far more than enriching their world settings. They could have an awesome core books, then screwed it up with their so called supplements.

CoM_Solaufein

WotC is the bane of D&D. Give me back the great TSR.

I'll go to used book stores and buy the old AD&D rule books, stories and settings. Love the old days of PnP.