Quote from: Hairfoot;339239D&D has always owed more to the apocryphal Wild West than anything historical.

Monsters, however, do help portray the world that many people believed they inhabited in the Middle Ages.  D&D pulls the alternate history trick by assuming that there really were monsters in the wilderness and gnomes underground, rather than just disease, coal gas explosions and more humans.

Sort of. Don't forget that many of the monsters D&D inserts into itself are not the monsters people in the mediaeval period would have believed were lurking around. In fact, some of the most ubiquitous monsters in D&D games - things like orcs, kobolds and hobgoblins - are very modern. Even demons and devils in D&D bear little resemblance to the mediaeval understanding of such.

Quote from: D&D 3.5, DMG II, p81A successful DUNGEONS & DRAGONS setting is neither an authentic portrayal of medieval history nor an exercise in logical extrapolation from a fantastic premise. Instead, think of it as a medieval-flavored game environment.

Your players expect to play in a world resembling the Middle Ages, but with the harsh, brutal, depressing, and serious elements stripped out. They want to explore an idealized realm of virtuous kings, shining armor, colorful tournaments, towering castles, and fearsome dragons. The setting might have its dark and challenging corners, but overall it offers a positive, escapist vision of good against evil.

How true does this ring to people's experience with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition of D&D respectively?

Okay, regarding the original post, I think it might have been phrased a bit obtusely. Joe should correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood it to mean that he doesn't like the difference between "power levels" and the attendant difference in game genre.

To wit, OD&D had characters whose abilities were roughly in line with what you see in a historical novel or film - or, for spellcasters, what you'd find in contemporary perception of medieval mysticism and magic -; whereas WotCD&D characters are in line with Marvel superhero comics; and that Joe dislikes this change.

Which, if I interpreted it correctly, is a sentiment I totally agree with.

I too like a more basic approach to character definition but don't think older D&D classes are it.  You'll also find those who exclude the theif since that is what they started with in OD&D.  There is the whole species as class thing as well.

I recall the old Giants in the Earth articles, and from my own experiences, that D&D classes (and really classes in general) don't provide the capability to model S&S fiction well within the RAW.  Certainly it hits some characters quite well, more by happenstance or these characters where in the designers mind.  

I'd have to say the old TFT split, wizard (i.e. spell-caster) and fighting man (non-spell caster) is the most basic split that IME worked far better than D&D for modeling characters with a minimum of rules.  Of course TFT had its own dynamic range problems related to character advancement.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;339183. . . it was difficult to create a hero like Diomedes, Odysseus or Achilles in older editions _because_ the game lacked heroic powers (how does even a 20th level fighter do something like Achilles' shout?).

The only times I consider playing a game like Exalted or 4e D&D is when I think of ancient Greek or Sumerian heroes. It sounds like they would lend themselves to this quite well.

Quote from: Windjammer;339274How true does this ring to people's experience with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition of D&D respectively?

My 3.0 campaign came the closest to this: it was perhaps the most Tolkein-like of my homebrew settings, but it had more in common with the North than Gondor.

Otherwise, no, the environment of my games was quite different from that. Except for the fearsome dragons.

Quote from: Windjammer;339274How true does this ring to people's experience with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition of D&D respectively?

This is pretty much my experience.

Quote from: Windjammer;339274How true does this ring to people's experience with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition of D&D respectively?

Pretty accurately. If I want "historical realism" I'd rather use something like BRP.

An attempt to restate Joe's original post (correct me if I am wrong):

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Some games (including Red Box D&D) were designed by taking a representation of the real world (however imperfect), and superimposing supernatural elements onto them.

Other games (such as later edition D&D) were designed without the first layer: they made a system based on the supernatural elements, then merely filled in the gaps with realistic elements. The difference between what was natural and supernatural became unclear (for instance, the ability to fire multiple arrows at once vs. explicit spellcasting).
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Quote from: Hieronymous Rex;339391An attempt to restate Joe's original post (correct me if I am wrong):

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Some games (including Red Box D&D) were designed by taking a representation of the real world (however imperfect), and superimposing supernatural elements onto them.

Other games (such as later edition D&D) were designed without the first layer: they made a system based on the supernatural elements, then merely filled in the gaps with realistic elements. The difference between what was natural and supernatural became unclear (for instance, the ability to fire multiple arrows at once vs. explicit spellcasting).
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Dude, I'm gonna hire you to write my blog posts for me.  You just did it in 1/10 the space nd said essentially the same thin I was trying to communicate.  Not one of my better posts.

I don't remember how it works in Basic D&D, but in AD&D, you have more attacks with a bow than with melee attacks, and in Basic D&D, you could still create an ass-kicking Cleric or Elf.

In our current 3.5 campaign, we struggle. If not for our access to healing magic (a form of magic available in Basic D&D, by the way), we'd be pretty much screwed. I remember running AD&D, and our 3.x characters don't really feel any more powerful than our AD&D characters did. We've gotten our asses handed to us multiple times, and we've had casualties. Honestly, back in the day, my players created ass-kicking badasses in both Basic D&D and AD&D, but then....I suppose by some standards, our games would probably have been considered munchkiny. And that's fine. Different strokes for different folks.

Personally, I started playing Holmes Basic in 1982, and then created a consistent campaign setting that went on and off from 1986 to 2008. I could easily run this setting for various versions of Basic D&D, AD&D, and 3.x. Things haven't changed that much in regards to power. I guess I'm just not seeing it.

As for 4.x, I'm more philosophical about it now. It's not a bad game, but it is very different. Different enough that I can't really continue my old campaign setting with it, but that's ok. It has its own vibe, and that's cool. Oddly, 4e characters aren't really more powerful than characters from other editions of D&D. The increased Hit Points at low levels, powers, healing surges, and stuff give the illusion of greater power, but really...power is relative. I guess I'd say that 4e feels more blatantly supernatural than other editions of D&D, but character power is not inherently greater. Does that make sense?

H. rex's gloss is how I took Joe's post; I agree it makes sense, and it's also roughly in line with my tastes. Other games such as BRP or TFT offered more detail in "layer 0" but they still came out of the same fundamental design/epistemological perspective. Not surprising as they were rooted in wargaming, which to make a point that many may not understand, is more than just "complex fighty games", but also founded in a "modern" sense of realism. In this respect D&D etc. can be seen as anachronistic. But that's okay, because S&S is anachronistic, too.