Quote from: BWA;414072Visual diagram:

1E --- 2E -------- 3E ------------ 4E

Cool!

Here's my visual diagram:

I can't do a visual diagram because 3e doesn't belong on the same fucking diagram at all.

Quote from: Melan;4140873) Palladium is the second most Gygaxian RPG on the planet. It is The Other AD&D©®™.

Hell yeah!

Quote from: Melan;414110Killing gods is a wholesome thing to do for high-level characters. If the gods weren't meant to be killed, they wouldn't have stats. :cool:

Even more Hell yeah!

Godslaying was a regular part of our high-level Classic D&D games.  In my games, if you killed a god, you could take his place.   The other immortal option was ascension as a god's champion.  It was the motivator for why non-clerics worshipped gods.  It was the path to immortality.

If the game doesn't have THAC0 and weapon speed it's not D&D and I'll break the furniture of anyone who says otherwise.

Actually, the new saving throws make way more sense to me than the old. I never understood why saving vs. "rod" was different from saving vs. spell. And why does petrification need its own discrete saving throw? WTF.

Lots of fond memories of AD&D though. I sold all my 3.5 stuff and don't regret it even a little.

Quote from: Benoist;414130There are similarities, however. The 'back to the dungeon' tone of 3rd ed, for instance, is directly reminiscent of AD&D to me.

You seem to heavily influenced by fluff, which would explain why you prefer the mess of 1e over the clean 2e (not counting the abomination of skills & powers).  Our group's reaction to 2e was to take the cleaner rules and the relatively simple thaco, ignore the renaming of demons, and add in the few 1e bits we liked.  I didn't buy a lot of the 2e boxed sets or adventures so those didn't affect my opinion.

Quote from: Melan;414110Killing gods is a wholesome thing to do for high-level characters. If the gods weren't meant to be killed, they wouldn't have stats. :cool:

Well, that would explain what happens to gods when they're superseded by other gods.

"The Emperor Constantine gives you a mission to go to Olympus and -"

On topic: There is a simple way to distinguish between editions of D&D. D&D3.5 sucked. AD&D1e did not.

Quote from: Nicephorus;414155You seem to heavily influenced by fluff

Flunch is disgusting, so you know. Now, I can clutch my way out of the cruft, thankfully.

Quote from: Nicephorus;414155You seem to heavily influenced by [background, implied setting, feel, aesthetics, whatever "fluff" might mean], which would explain why you prefer the mess of 1e over the clean 2e (not counting the abomination of skills & powers).  Our group's reaction to 2e was to take the cleaner rules and the relatively simple thaco, ignore the renaming of demons, and add in the few 1e bits we liked.  I didn't buy a lot of the 2e boxed sets or adventures so those didn't affect my opinion.

[more seriously now]

Notice that on my diagram 2e is the edition of the game that falls into the garbage bin?
That's because 2e sucks. I don't like it. At all. Including THAC0, which sucks.

Now, to me, all the elements of a game design work together to create a specific game play. I love AD&D, its Gygaxian tone, rules, fiddliness or wonkiness, however you look at it. I really do not like the "auberge espagnole" (sorry Ramon) that is AD&D2. Its design is completely contradictory, mixes and mashes about a dozen different feels to try to be anything and everything, which amounts in the end to pretty much nothing, to me. I MUCH prefer 3rd ed which at least makes some clear decisions at to the type of world it wants to represent, and how it's going at it on a rules level.

Again a similarity between AD&D and 3rd ed. They each know where they want to go with their design. No matter how different the results end up being.

Quote from: Benoist;414168At all. Including THAC0, which sucks.

Now this I don't get. Of all the stuff 2e brought to D&D, THAC0 is the best improvement. As I recall, it first showed up in modules just prior to 2e, and I took to it immediately. Made my job as DM so much smoother.

A lot of settings and modules of the 2e era were good. Skills and Powers was OK, but the only book in that series that I liked and used (though not much, given how infrequently I got to game by that point) was High Level Campaigns, a lot of which foreshadowed 3e.

But, yeah, I don't have many fond memories of 2e.

Anyway, 3e was definitely a smoothing out and straightening up of 1e/2e. Those previews of 3e in Dragon showed how the new stuff could be introduced gradually into one's game, and not really screw anything up.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;414182As I recall, it first showed up in modules just prior to 2e, and I took to it immediately. Made my job as DM so much smoother.

THAC0 was in the 1E AD&D DMG in the monster appendix E section.

Though back then, it was not used directly in combat like it was for 2E AD&D.

Quote from: ggroy;414185THAC0 was in the 1E AD&D DMG in the monster appendix section.

Absolutely. As a reference.

Now, to me, using to-hit charts and keeping players from having a whole bunch of mental calculus to do during the game makes sense. It's part of the Wizard of Oz DMing of 1st ed.

THAC0, however, is a useless piece of trash to me when compared to either the charts, or the d20 + modifiers rule. If I have to choose between THAC0 and DC/Roll over, I'm going to choose the latter. No picture at the finish line, to me.

Quote from: ggroy;414185THAC0 was in the 1E AD&D DMG in the monster appendix section.

Though back then, it was not used directly in combat like it was for 2E AD&D.

Good catch! I'd forgotten that! I think we kind of ignored it until it started showing up in modules. The more I think about it, the earlier it seems we were using it. It showed up in a lot of 1e modules, didn't it?

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;414189Good catch! I'd forgotten that! I think we kind of ignored it until it started showing up in modules. The more I think about it, the earlier it seems we were using it. It showed up in a lot of 1e modules, didn't it?

Don't remember offhand.  Will have to look through the old 1E modules.

Quote from: Benoist;414188THAC0, however, is a useless piece of trash to me when compared to either the charts, or the d20 + modifiers rule. If I have to choose between THAC0 and DC/Roll over, I'm going to choose the latter. No picture at the finish line, to me.

Compared to the 1e charts in the DMG? No way. Compared to the 3e d20+modifiers system? Well, of course. Hell, that was one of the biggest draws to me for 3e. I was embarrassed to realize I'd never tried something like that all those years of thinking the armor system of 1e/2e was ass-backward.

At the time, I didn't quite know what the purpose of THAC0 was in the 1E AD&D DMG.  The only thing I figured out, was that it could be used a guide to indicate whether one was using the proper line in the to-hit combat tables for a particular monsters.