Mystara is a really cool setting. There are rules for your characters playing as gods and tabaxi living on the moon and the one DM I played with who ran Mystara invented a game called Blackball Tennis where your Immortal characters play tennis with magical racquets strung with energy and void elementals called blackballs for balls.
There was a big difference between AD&D and Basic mainly because while Gygax and Arneson where both creators, the editing of the Basic set and much of the re-design of it to simplify the rules was done by a few other (albeit it still quite famous) designers. I think the main thing that is probably most universally remember and is probably the most significant difference was that instead of a Race-Class system, it was more of an Archetype selection system where you would pick what was kind of inaccurately called a class (they really were referring to the selection as an Archetype).
When people refer to the OSR, they are more often talking about B/X (Basic/Expert) or one of the Basic edition, or the Rules Encyclopedia which is sometimes called (BECMI) for the various box sets it combines. There are actually very few old school clones of AD&D, the vast majority of old school D&D games are based on the original Basic set and quite a few of them use the OGL from 3rd edition.
AD&D despite its general pop culture and historical significance is actually probably the least played editions of the game at this point both in its original form and in clones. B/X is the easily the most common game on which OSR games are based. In particular in the last two years there have been more games based on B/X released then the last 40 years combined.
Mystara unfortunately however has never been re-printed which is a bummer as it really was a very unique world and the old Gazetteers where some of the best setting writing that ever came out of TSR.
Oh wow. I didn’t know all that. Thank you. And like I said, the Gazetteers have beautiful artwork.
5th edition is hardly different from 2nd edition. The rules and definitions are just a lot tighter, make more sense. There is more stuff to do with the classes. Spells are not accidentally over powered. The bounded accuracy changed a lot of fights. Magic items less exciting. I certainly miss things like % magic resistance but as far the core experience goes, its the same. 5e is just 2e evolved due to how game design has evolved over time. I grew up and loved 2e but I wouldn't go back to it.
Basic edition and 1st AD&D (which is now just D&D) we’re almost two different games. Basic was part of what is now known as BECMI (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortal), with each of those a boxed set that expanded the rules with higher levels, things like owning land, fighting with armies, and in the case of Immortals becoming gods. It had a lot of what would now be considered weird rules but was so much fun. I still love the world they made for it (Mystra) and if you or your friend is interested do a search for the Mystara gazetteers like the Principalities of Glantri or The Orcs of Thar.
Mystara is still my Campaign Setting of choice. The campaign I was DMing (now on hold due to CV) was currently in Threshold in Karameikos.
Not at all, I have a love and affinity for both 2e and 5e.. Im just describing how they are very different games.
Awesome 😊
I never played 2e (though I have played in campaigns that used 2e sourcebooks and adventures with 5e rules) but I love Dragonlance and Ravenloft. Planescape is pretty cool too.
AD&D despite its general pop culture and historical significance is actually probably the least played editions of the game at this point both in its original form and in clones. B/X is the easily the most common game on which OSR games are based. In particular in the last two years there have been more games based on B/X released then the last 40 years combined.
When you say 'editions,' plural, you do realize that 5e is also an edition of AD&D, right?
Go over to the Dragonfoot AD&D forums and tell them that 5e is an edition of AD&D, see how they feel about that.
Just no... Of all the editions that 5e is furthest from, its AD&D. As a mechanic, as a philosophy of design, as a approach to play and as an RPG experience these two games could not possibly be any further apart on the spectrum of role-playing games.
5e's closest D&D edition cousin is B/X and anyone who writes/designs for OSR games understands why.
yeh,from what i understand 5e is to AD&D like Skyrim is to Arena.
5th edition is hardly different from 2nd edition. The rules and definitions are just a lot tighter, make more sense. There is more stuff to do with the classes. Spells are not accidentally over powered. The bounded accuracy changed a lot of fights. Magic items less exciting. I certainly miss things like % magic resistance but as far the core experience goes, its the same. 5e is just 2e evolved due to how game design has evolved over time. I grew up and loved 2e but I wouldn't go back to it.
D&D fundamental mechanics have changed over the years, but when one speaks about the differences in edition, the core mechanics are rarely the logic behind the discussion.
The primary difference between 2nd edition and really all other editions of D&D was that 2nd edition AD&D was intended to be a story driven event game in which the players were considered a participating audience. The concept was that adventurers in 2nd edition would be scripted, event driven walk troughs which the players would experience through short windows of role-playing divided up by combats that offered an opportunity to give the audience a sense of participation. It was a game which intended its players experience the adventure stories like novels. Player decisions and player agency was largely discouraged, in most modules, there would be parts where they were outlawed outright.
Read through any 2nd edition module and you'll see their intention for the game, in particular Dragonlance adventure modules if you want to have a taste of what 2nd edition play was supposed to be like.
Players of course didn't use the game this way, most people picked a few mechanics out of the system and continued to run the game the way they always have, but that doesn't change what it was intended to be. Suffice to say 5e is as far away from that design philosophy as you can get.
tbh I don't get it.
I incorporated plenty of 1e/2e modules into my campaign back on 2e. For sure the likes of the Avatar Trilogy (Shadowdale, Tantras, Waterdeep) was a series of events that were difficult to change the outcome of. Is 5e tomb of horrors a different design philosophy than 1e/2e tomb of horrors. Probably not as deadly.
I haven't read enough of the bigger 5e modules I bought to see if that is really any different though. I don't think the characters wandering off and ditching the main quest to do barely prepared content from a DM is really "player agency". Or just preparing more side quests enriches the experience by a huge degree.
It certainly takes a lot more effort to create an adventure that has many very different outcomes. Doubles, triples some of the work. Its all how much spare time you had to put into it, which usually was never enough spare time.
Riveting discussion on gender equality in D&D here, folks.
I'd honestly be curious to see how many characters in DDB are actively indicated as 'Female'. Hard to track that information since gender is form-fillable rather than a toggle, but it would be interesting to see what happened if they ran a search of the database for any common term related to the feminine gender. "Female", "Feminine", "She/Her", "Woman", Girl", and the like. See what percentage of characters comes back as provably female, given the common accusations of 'Male Fantasy' against the genre.
Riveting discussion on gender equality in D&D here, folks.
I'd honestly be curious to see how many characters in DDB are actively indicated as 'Female'. Hard to track that information since gender is form-fillable rather than a toggle, but it would be interesting to see what happened if they ran a search of the database for any common term related to the feminine gender. "Female", "Feminine", "She/Her", "Woman", Girl", and the like. See what percentage of characters comes back as provably female, given the common accusations of 'Male Fantasy' against the genre.
That would be an interesting chart to see (Also thanks for posting something that isn't super critical of WotC)
5th edition is hardly different from 2nd edition. The rules and definitions are just a lot tighter, make more sense. There is more stuff to do with the classes. Spells are not accidentally over powered. The bounded accuracy changed a lot of fights. Magic items less exciting. I certainly miss things like % magic resistance but as far the core experience goes, its the same. 5e is just 2e evolved due to how game design has evolved over time. I grew up and loved 2e but I wouldn't go back to it.
D&D fundamental mechanics have changed over the years, but when one speaks about the differences in edition, the core mechanics are rarely the logic behind the discussion.
The primary difference between 2nd edition and really all other editions of D&D was that 2nd edition AD&D was intended to be a story driven event game in which the players were considered a participating audience. The concept was that adventurers in 2nd edition would be scripted, event driven walk troughs which the players would experience through short windows of role-playing divided up by combats that offered an opportunity to give the audience a sense of participation. It was a game which intended its players experience the adventure stories like novels. Player decisions and player agency was largely discouraged, in most modules, there would be parts where they were outlawed outright.
Read through any 2nd edition module and you'll see their intention for the game, in particular Dragonlance adventure modules if you want to have a taste of what 2nd edition play was supposed to be like.
Players of course didn't use the game this way, most people picked a few mechanics out of the system and continued to run the game the way they always have, but that doesn't change what it was intended to be. Suffice to say 5e is as far away from that design philosophy as you can get.
tbh I don't get it.
I incorporated plenty of 1e/2e modules into my campaign back on 2e. For sure the likes of the Avatar Trilogy (Shadowdale, Tantras, Waterdeep) was a series of events that were difficult to change the outcome of. Is 5e tomb of horrors a different design philosophy than 1e/2e tomb of horrors. Probably not as deadly.
I haven't read enough of the bigger 5e modules I bought to see if that is really any different though. I don't think the characters wandering off and ditching the main quest to do barely prepared content from a DM is really "player agency". Or just preparing more side quests enriches the experience by a huge degree.
It certainly takes a lot more effort to create an adventure that has many very different outcomes. Doubles, triples some of the work. Its all how much spare time you had to put into it, which usually was never enough spare time.
Its worth pointing out as well many GM's that play other games had no choice but to run those games this way as this was the only way for really the large majority of games. I mean when you ran Vampire The Masquerade for example, you didn't create adventures or stories that players where expected to run through, you defined the city in which the chronicle took place and pretty much just reacted to the activites of the players. Its really on D&D that functions on the premise of preparing "adventures" in the sort of classic sense.
DM's that play this way tend to be a lot more narrative, they tend not to use battle mats and miniatures and so they effectively just describe things as they go based on their understanding of the game and player actions. They pace the game on the fly and if the game reaches a point where there is something akeen to a quest, they might prepare an area like a dungeon or drop in an adventure module into the story, but at that point the DM knows where the players are going.. the decision point is behind them.
Anyway the point here is that many DM's don't prepare adventures in the way your describing where you have "prepared" material or assumed outcomes. I for example don't, I never create an adventure with a solution or outcome. I have no idea what is going to happen, I just try to respond logically, realistically and believably to what the players are doing.
Yeah the open world sandbox is definitely one way to go and I think its great for many people. Myself if I were to smell that someone is just making stuff up randomly without have any plot or theme or sense of epic adventure that is going somewhere, its just not something I would enjoy.
I get it though, there is definitely subtle differences in playsyle with better middle ground. I don't think it is a 5e vs 1e thing its just evolution in roleplaying games.
I'm actually going back to Mathew Colvilles videos. His first one where he pretended the sandbox world dynamically created "the hobbit" seems disingenuous because its work out perfectly BECAUSE you he is reliving the hobbit. But I like his video on the first session starting them in an inn vs outside the dungeon. Still, regardless they are going on the prepared adventure, just a more elegant way of getting it started.
Which of all the new 5e modules is the most "sandboxy" or "open world" closest to what you describe in Vampire The Masquerade
I'm sharply critical of Wizards primarily because of how far they've fallen. There are people within the company that genuinely love gaming and want nothing more than to create the best games they can, give people wonderful experiences and a place to bond with their friends. These people are not in charge of the company and do not make any of the major decisions at the corporate level. But if I continued in that vein...well. Not for this thread.
But yes. I'm genuinely curious how many female characters there are in the database. Obviously female character count does not equate to female player count, and not all female characters are...appropriate, shall we say? But I still think it'd be an interesting metric to see what percentage of characters who have that 'Gender' field filled in at all chose to fill it in with a word indicating feminine gender. Might be eye-opening if (entirely theoretical example here) less than twenty percent of active DDB characters (for which the field is filled in) indicate female. 5e, especially recent 5e, is more inclusive than the game ever has been before, but...well. That's not necessarily a high bar, given the Boiz Klub history of the game.
I'm sharply critical of Wizards primarily because of how far they've fallen. There are people within the company that genuinely love gaming and want nothing more than to create the best games they can, give people wonderful experiences and a place to bond with their friends. These people are not in charge of the company and do not make any of the major decisions at the corporate level. But if I continued in that vein...well. Not for this thread.
But yes. I'm genuinely curious how many female characters there are in the database. Obviously female character count does not equate to female player count, and not all female characters are...appropriate, shall we say? But I still think it'd be an interesting metric to see what percentage of characters who have that 'Gender' field filled in at all chose to fill it in with a word indicating feminine gender. Might be eye-opening if (entirely theoretical example here) less than twenty percent of active DDB characters (for which the field is filled in) indicate female. 5e, especially recent 5e, is more inclusive than the game ever has been before, but...well. That's not necessarily a high bar, given the Boiz Klub history of the game.
I can envision a chart much like the one for class/race combos that showed the dominance of human fighters. I mean, that just showed characters made, not a personal preference survey as well.
I'm sharply critical of Wizards primarily because of how far they've fallen.
There are large numbers of unemployed people on twitter that enjoy attacking corporations because it makes themselves feel better. Some people just like to inflict pain on others.
See what percentage of characters comes back as provably female, given the common accusations of 'Male Fantasy' against the genre.
Gender equality has nothing to do with the number of female vs male characters created.
No, but it does show perceptions. If characters are overwhelmingly one or the other, that shows a strong player preference for one or the other, which in turn indicates potential problems with perceived equality. If over eight of ten characters on the website indicate 'other than female', that seems like something worth delving into, hm? Assuming the crossplayers on either side of the gender gap more-or-less cancel out (which is not even remotely a given truth, but it makes discussion easier), that sort of huge gender disparity indicates an overwhelmingly male player base. That's a big problem for a game trying to improve its public diversity image.
Now, to be fair, I have no idea if that disparity exists. It's one reason why I'd love to see that data, see how many Gurlz there are in DDB. Accounting for the fact that a great many sheets likely don't bother filling in their Characteristics data and calling those a wash, I think it'd be worthwhile to see what the data said. Perhaps create one of those special graphs where each instance of a word/term in the 'Gender' field makes the term larger in the aggregate data. I don't know what those charts are called, but it sounds like it'd be an interesting piece of data to see.
As an egalitarian, I've made a lot of female as well as male characters; however, I know of others who do the same, who do not always have the best intentions in mind. However, I really do love that Dungeons and Dragons, as we know it today playing 5th Edition, does not make a distinction between male and female characters when creating a character beyond just picking a gender. For instance, no spell has a different outcome for male vs. female casters or targets; no class gives different mechanics or available features for male vs. female characters, and no weapons or armor has distinct advantages/disadvantages based on your character's gender alignment. It's all up to the player to decide, and I can appreciate that!
I have still seen a lot of character art by players that perpetuate rather silly stereotypes of male characters that are either hulking, brutish fighters, or brooding nerd-ish spellcasters; and female characters are often slender, twiggy figures in varying amounts of insufficient armor. It would be nice to see a change from these painfully repetitive patterns in gender portrayal! This, however, has to do with the player's choice of what their character is, not something perpetuated by D&D itself.
Fair assessment, Legion. It is worth noting, though, that 'gender never matters/impacts the game' can have its own issues. it's a problem with a lot of modern video game designs; the developers can be seen as forward-thinking inclusionists by simply not bothering with any code that differentiates between male and female in all-too-common 'Romance' systems or other similar situations. Rather than gender identities, preferences, or ideologies being celebrated as equal, those things don't exist. Everyone is a genderless mannequin who's equally compatible with every other genderless mannequin, which is its own, different kind of unpleasant.
Nevertheless, the rules of D&D 5e don't tend to enforce that view. Rather, it's left to each individual table to decide what sort of importance those roles and preferences have in their game, which is fine. I'm not necessarily bagging on 5e for being disinclusive, I'm more interested in seeing where the players fall out and how much of that potential inclusivity the players are actually making use of. Might be an interesting survey - 'have you ever played a character of a different gender than yourself? Have you ever played a character with a different sexual orientation than yourself?' So on and so forth.
Admittedly, the response percentages for that survey would be dismally low, but the subject of gender in general fascinates me. I'd simply like to see the data, regardless of what that data suggested.
Riveting discussion on gender equality in D&D here, folks.
I'd honestly be curious to see how many characters in DDB are actively indicated as 'Female'. Hard to track that information since gender is form-fillable rather than a toggle, but it would be interesting to see what happened if they ran a search of the database for any common term related to the feminine gender. "Female", "Feminine", "She/Her", "Woman", Girl", and the like. See what percentage of characters comes back as provably female, given the common accusations of 'Male Fantasy' against the genre.
19 of my 54 characters are female/identify as such. And a few don't really care about such labels,so l would say maybe half of my characters are male/identify as such. but thats just me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Mystara is a really cool setting. There are rules for your characters playing as gods and tabaxi living on the moon and the one DM I played with who ran Mystara invented a game called Blackball Tennis where your Immortal characters play tennis with magical racquets strung with energy and void elementals called blackballs for balls.
Oh wow. I didn’t know all that. Thank you. And like I said, the Gazetteers have beautiful artwork.
5th edition is hardly different from 2nd edition. The rules and definitions are just a lot tighter, make more sense. There is more stuff to do with the classes. Spells are not accidentally over powered. The bounded accuracy changed a lot of fights. Magic items less exciting. I certainly miss things like % magic resistance but as far the core experience goes, its the same. 5e is just 2e evolved due to how game design has evolved over time. I grew up and loved 2e but I wouldn't go back to it.
Mystra is the goddes, Mystara was the setting.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Mystara is still my Campaign Setting of choice. The campaign I was DMing (now on hold due to CV) was currently in Threshold in Karameikos.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Edition wars? 😊
Awesome 😊
I never played 2e (though I have played in campaigns that used 2e sourcebooks and adventures with 5e rules) but I love Dragonlance and Ravenloft. Planescape is pretty cool too.
yeh,from what i understand 5e is to AD&D like Skyrim is to Arena.
tbh I don't get it.
I incorporated plenty of 1e/2e modules into my campaign back on 2e. For sure the likes of the Avatar Trilogy (Shadowdale, Tantras, Waterdeep) was a series of events that were difficult to change the outcome of. Is 5e tomb of horrors a different design philosophy than 1e/2e tomb of horrors. Probably not as deadly.
I haven't read enough of the bigger 5e modules I bought to see if that is really any different though. I don't think the characters wandering off and ditching the main quest to do barely prepared content from a DM is really "player agency". Or just preparing more side quests enriches the experience by a huge degree.
It certainly takes a lot more effort to create an adventure that has many very different outcomes. Doubles, triples some of the work. Its all how much spare time you had to put into it, which usually was never enough spare time.
Riveting discussion on gender equality in D&D here, folks.
I'd honestly be curious to see how many characters in DDB are actively indicated as 'Female'. Hard to track that information since gender is form-fillable rather than a toggle, but it would be interesting to see what happened if they ran a search of the database for any common term related to the feminine gender. "Female", "Feminine", "She/Her", "Woman", Girl", and the like. See what percentage of characters comes back as provably female, given the common accusations of 'Male Fantasy' against the genre.
Please do not contact or message me.
That would be an interesting chart to see (Also thanks for posting something that isn't super critical of WotC)
Proud poster on the Create a World thread
Yeah the open world sandbox is definitely one way to go and I think its great for many people. Myself if I were to smell that someone is just making stuff up randomly without have any plot or theme or sense of epic adventure that is going somewhere, its just not something I would enjoy.
I get it though, there is definitely subtle differences in playsyle with better middle ground. I don't think it is a 5e vs 1e thing its just evolution in roleplaying games.
I'm actually going back to Mathew Colvilles videos. His first one where he pretended the sandbox world dynamically created "the hobbit" seems disingenuous because its work out perfectly BECAUSE you he is reliving the hobbit. But I like his video on the first session starting them in an inn vs outside the dungeon. Still, regardless they are going on the prepared adventure, just a more elegant way of getting it started.
Which of all the new 5e modules is the most "sandboxy" or "open world" closest to what you describe in Vampire The Masquerade
I'm sharply critical of Wizards primarily because of how far they've fallen. There are people within the company that genuinely love gaming and want nothing more than to create the best games they can, give people wonderful experiences and a place to bond with their friends. These people are not in charge of the company and do not make any of the major decisions at the corporate level. But if I continued in that vein...well. Not for this thread.
But yes. I'm genuinely curious how many female characters there are in the database. Obviously female character count does not equate to female player count, and not all female characters are...appropriate, shall we say? But I still think it'd be an interesting metric to see what percentage of characters who have that 'Gender' field filled in at all chose to fill it in with a word indicating feminine gender. Might be eye-opening if (entirely theoretical example here) less than twenty percent of active DDB characters (for which the field is filled in) indicate female. 5e, especially recent 5e, is more inclusive than the game ever has been before, but...well. That's not necessarily a high bar, given the Boiz Klub history of the game.
Please do not contact or message me.
I can envision a chart much like the one for class/race combos that showed the dominance of human fighters. I mean, that just showed characters made, not a personal preference survey as well.
Proud poster on the Create a World thread
Gender equality has nothing to do with the number of female vs male characters created.
There are large numbers of unemployed people on twitter that enjoy attacking corporations because it makes themselves feel better. Some people just like to inflict pain on others.
No, but it does show perceptions. If characters are overwhelmingly one or the other, that shows a strong player preference for one or the other, which in turn indicates potential problems with perceived equality. If over eight of ten characters on the website indicate 'other than female', that seems like something worth delving into, hm? Assuming the crossplayers on either side of the gender gap more-or-less cancel out (which is not even remotely a given truth, but it makes discussion easier), that sort of huge gender disparity indicates an overwhelmingly male player base. That's a big problem for a game trying to improve its public diversity image.
Now, to be fair, I have no idea if that disparity exists. It's one reason why I'd love to see that data, see how many Gurlz there are in DDB. Accounting for the fact that a great many sheets likely don't bother filling in their Characteristics data and calling those a wash, I think it'd be worthwhile to see what the data said. Perhaps create one of those special graphs where each instance of a word/term in the 'Gender' field makes the term larger in the aggregate data. I don't know what those charts are called, but it sounds like it'd be an interesting piece of data to see.
Please do not contact or message me.
As an egalitarian, I've made a lot of female as well as male characters; however, I know of others who do the same, who do not always have the best intentions in mind. However, I really do love that Dungeons and Dragons, as we know it today playing 5th Edition, does not make a distinction between male and female characters when creating a character beyond just picking a gender. For instance, no spell has a different outcome for male vs. female casters or targets; no class gives different mechanics or available features for male vs. female characters, and no weapons or armor has distinct advantages/disadvantages based on your character's gender alignment. It's all up to the player to decide, and I can appreciate that!
I have still seen a lot of character art by players that perpetuate rather silly stereotypes of male characters that are either hulking, brutish fighters, or brooding nerd-ish spellcasters; and female characters are often slender, twiggy figures in varying amounts of insufficient armor. It would be nice to see a change from these painfully repetitive patterns in gender portrayal! This, however, has to do with the player's choice of what their character is, not something perpetuated by D&D itself.
💙🤍~*Ravenclaw*~ 🔮
Fair assessment, Legion. It is worth noting, though, that 'gender never matters/impacts the game' can have its own issues. it's a problem with a lot of modern video game designs; the developers can be seen as forward-thinking inclusionists by simply not bothering with any code that differentiates between male and female in all-too-common 'Romance' systems or other similar situations. Rather than gender identities, preferences, or ideologies being celebrated as equal, those things don't exist. Everyone is a genderless mannequin who's equally compatible with every other genderless mannequin, which is its own, different kind of unpleasant.
Nevertheless, the rules of D&D 5e don't tend to enforce that view. Rather, it's left to each individual table to decide what sort of importance those roles and preferences have in their game, which is fine. I'm not necessarily bagging on 5e for being disinclusive, I'm more interested in seeing where the players fall out and how much of that potential inclusivity the players are actually making use of. Might be an interesting survey - 'have you ever played a character of a different gender than yourself? Have you ever played a character with a different sexual orientation than yourself?' So on and so forth.
Admittedly, the response percentages for that survey would be dismally low, but the subject of gender in general fascinates me. I'd simply like to see the data, regardless of what that data suggested.
Please do not contact or message me.
19 of my 54 characters are female/identify as such. And a few don't really care about such labels,so l would say maybe half of my characters are male/identify as such. but thats just me.