Things you miss and things you don't

[PallentisLunam]

I grew up in the era of 3rd edition D&D. I was raised by an old school D&Der and I have done some looking into and collecting of older editions but I have never actually played any of them. Now I know 5th has grabbed a bunch of nostalgia from the older systems and crammed it into the newest one but my question is as the title suggests:

What about the older D&D systems was amazing and what was horrible? What made them great and what made players groan and tear their hair out when it came up?

[LibraryOgre]

For me, one of the big things that 1e and 2e did, that later versions of D&D abandoned, was the "one and done" nature of character creation. With some rare exceptions (the 1e bard), your character at 1st level was pretty well defined, and what happened subsequently was what drove development, moreso than gaining levels. If I made a fighter, my abilities were pretty well determined; I wasn't waiting for X level to be able to take Y ability that would revolutionize how I played my character... getting to X level generally meant I was better at doing things than I had been at a previous level.

I'm actually running into a "build" problem in Fallout 3 (which shares some DNA with 3.x and later games)... choices that were awesome at first now suck, and I either have to cheat to rebuild everything, or start over. It's frustrating and annoying design.

[JoeJ]

The biggest thing I miss was the priest spheres in 2e that gave clerics of different deities different spell lists, rather than the handful of different domain spells of 3 and beyond. It made a priest of Aphrodite, for example, play very differently than a priest of Zeus or of Ares.

[Cosi]

I've heard good things about the magic item system in earlier editions (random rather than WBL). I don't know how developed it was, but the idea that you got a castle or wizard tower full of men-at-arms or apprentices when you were hardcore enough seems like a good one. Outside any balance issues, having HP in the ~70 range rather than the ~700 range at the high end is probably essential if you expect people who are distracted and/or drunk to do HP math by hand.

[Knaight]

I don't miss anything; I wasn't in position to develop the baseline with the early editions. Instead there are a few things scattered throughout the editions that generally look nice, and a lot of things scattered throughout that I consider a pain to deal with. For the early editions, the speed of play is a nice thing, as is the speed of character generation. This is particularly true in my group - one of the reasons I stick to lighter systems as a GM is that character creation tends to be a slow process, and in something like 3.x it's downright agonizing. Early D&D characters? That could be done in 20 minutes, which almost never happens. There's also been a change in feel; the very earliest editions were put together on a shoestring budget, written by one person with a lot of idiosyncrasies, with line art that was just bad. Some of how this worked out was pretty cringe inducing, but there's a sort of charm there that just isn't there for the glossy, high budget (by RPG standards) works made by teams of professional designers working with a successful publishing company.

[Khedrac]

As someone who mainly plays 3.5, the main thing I miss was the ability to generate a mid-to high level classed opponent in minutes (or seconds).

With 3.5's skills, feats and prestige classes (mainly the feats) it takes much longer to work out a rough build for someone.

The other thing I miss is the way combat did not bog down as the levels go up.
Yes there is always some delay while players with more options for their character work out what to do, but with 3.5 there are so many options at high level I find it makes high level combat drag horribly.

Edit: One thing I do not miss was 1st Ed's fixed hit points per dice for dragons.

[Telok]

Saving throws. TSR D&Ds were the only ones where characters could make more saves as they leveled up.

Ever since increasing save DCs were introduced a character's "good" saves kept pace with them or increased slightly faster. But the "bad" saves either lag behind or don't go up at all.

The other thing I miss is attributes not going up. I don't mean that it wasn't a thing, high end magic and some random crap could do it, but it wasn't an assumption that was baked into the game. The modern versions assume characters that have 20+ in primary attributes around level 12 or so. Then they "balance" the ever increasing numbers on that assumption.

[Delwugor]

What I really liked about AD&D

• Making a new character in 10 minutes or less - thank you 5E for bringing this back!
• Less classes but with a much broader scope of play.
• More emphasis on actions instead of numbers - again thank you 5E for bring this back!
• You can try attitude, "roll your dex to see if you succeed"
• Experience was about adventuring not just killing.
• Worked well in both outdoor adventures and dungeons.
• Ruling over rules with a good GM.
• Imaginative magic items that every D&D system has since kept.
• Though not AD&D specific, Greyhawk is still my favorite fantasy setting to run games in.

What I didn't like

• Subsystems for everything.
• Negative armor class.
• The strict Paladin class.
• Ruling over rules with a bad GM.

[Jay R]

I miss:

1. The assumption in most games that you start with 1st level characters.
2. The iconic nature of the classes. I know what fighters, wizards, clerics and thieves are.
4. Multi-class characters. A 1e or 2e wizard/thief is like nothing created in 3.5e.

[2D8HP]

From the 1977 Holmes "Basic" rules, I miss:
Being able to know all the rules. How enchanting the box illustration looked. How quickly characters could be created.
From the 1974 to 1977 OD&D rules and supplements I miss:
The charm of a creation of "amateurs" (done for love), not "professionals" (done for money). "Guidelines" rather than "rules" (5e kind of brings this back).
From 1e AD&D I miss:
The authorial voice. How completely awesome 1e Rangers were!
That the characters stayed human scale longer (not quickly becoming comic book style superheroes). How "Appendix N" and "Deities and Demigods" inspired my reading.
What I don't miss about 1970's D&D:
How hard it was to create and get a character to survive more than a few sessions (but man was it gratifying when they did!).
How feeble magic users were at first level (in retrospect we should have just started classes at different levels, but that seemed like "cheating").
How much magic users overshadowed the other classes at high levels (in retrospect just tweak the level advancement, and give latter edition like benefits to the other classes). That I was never able to roll ability scores high enough to create a Ranger (and get 2D8 hit points at first level)!
From 1985's "Unearthed Arcana" I miss:
The initial excitement of the "Barbarian" and "Cavalier" classes.
I don't miss:
What an unbalanced rule changing mess it made of the game (I later skipped 2e thinking it would be more of the same, also the artwork turned me off, just say no to helmet horns!).
3e, what I miss:
The initial excitement of the diversity of characters that could be created. That they brought back the Greyhawk setting! That more classes were viable and could survive first level!
What I don't miss about 3e:
The oversized mess it became (just say no to infinite "feats" and "prestige classes)! How quickly 3.5 and 4e replaced it (no more than one edition per decade please)! How quickly the characters became unhumanly "epic".
Two weapon wielding Rangers, that's not Aragorn!
What I like abou 5e:
Not as bloated as 3e yet, but it retains much that I liked about it.
What I may not like:
It seems like PC's get too powerful and pile on extra abilities, too fast,
All that said, if the game features a Dragon sitting on a pile of treasure, in a Dungeon and you play a Wizard with a magic wand, or a warrior in armor, wielding a longbow, just like the picture on the box I picked up in 1978, whatever the edition, I want to play that game!

[Jay R]

I also miss hobbits, balrogs, and ents from original D&D.

[Knaight]

I don't miss the physical quality of the old dice you had to use for early D&D until better ones came out. I started late enough that they were already available, but I've used the old ones. The crap drawing in the book were charming. The crap dice? Not so much.

[2D8HP]

I don't miss the physical quality of the old dice you had to use for early D&D until better ones came out. I started late enough that they were already available, but I've used the old ones. The crap drawing in the book were charming. The crap dice? Not so much.

I actually miss the 20 siders that only went from 0 to 9, because these newfangled 10 siders aren't true polyhedrons dagnabbit!

[PallentisLunam]

Wat?

[Knaight]

Wat?

Every standard die other than the d10 has sides that are regular polygons, with all regular polygons being the same size and same polygon. The d10 doesn't, instead having sides where there are actually 2-3 different angles in the polygon (depending on how you construct it). It's not symmetrical in the same way as the other dice.

[JoeJ]

Every standard die other than the d10 has sides that are regular polygons, with all regular polygons being the same size and same polygon. The d10 doesn't, instead having sides where there are actually 2-3 different angles in the polygon (depending on how you construct it). It's not symmetrical in the same way as the other dice.

Get those damn d10s off my lawn!

[PallentisLunam]

Every standard die other than the d10 has sides that are regular polygons, with all regular polygons being the same size and same polygon. The d10 doesn't, instead having sides where there are actually 2-3 different angles in the polygon (depending on how you construct it). It's not symmetrical in the same way as the other dice.

Okay, that explains why 10 siders aren't really polyhedrals now what about 20 siders that go from 0-9?

[Scots Dragon]

Okay, that explains why 10 siders aren't really polyhedrals now what about 20 siders that go from 0-9?

They have two sets of the same numbers that are on a d10, rather than the standard numbers that are on a d20.

[Knaight]

Okay, that explains why 10 siders aren't really polyhedrals now what about 20 siders that go from 0-9?

Equilateral triangles, 0-9 is printed twice. The d20, d4, and d8 all use equilateral triangles in different conformations. The d6 and d12 use squares and regular pentagons, respectively.

Also, the term "true polyhedron" should probably be read more as platonic solid. The Wikipedia pages for that and similar topics are actually pretty solid, and unlike most math on there they're written in a way that's comprehensible if you aren't already familiar with them.

[Jay R]

The original d20s had only single digit numbers - 0 to 90, printed twice each. When you colored in the numbers (yourself), you colored in half of them in one color, and half of them in another color, and then tried to remember which color was high for each player's d20.

The d10, like the d30 and some others that have come out, are Catalan solids, not Platonic solids. A platonic solid is made of identical regular polygons, and all vertices are alike. A Catalan solid is made from non-regular polygons. Each face is identical to each other face, but the vertices are different.

[PallentisLunam]

Thanks for the math lesson everybody

[2D8HP]

The original d20s had only single digit numbers - 0 to 9, printed twice each. When you colored in the numbers (yourself), you colored in half of them in one color, and half of them in another color, and then tried to remember which color was high for each player's d20.

That's right!
And when the ink wore off we would role a d6 with the d20 to see if it was 1-10 or 1-20!
Now where are my liver pills! (Mostly unintelligible mutterings, with occasional interjections of "no good punks!, and "all that fancy book learnin'" follows).

Get those damn d10s off my lawn!

[Khedrac]

Hey - the talk of early dice (and the cheapo ones that boxed D&D came with plus a dice crayon really were poor) reminds me of a newer change that is to everyone's benefit...

D% is usually rolled by rolling 2 D10s, one numbered 0 to 9 and the other 00 to 90.
For the first few years after ten-sided D10s came out (later 20-sided had the sides printed in different colors) they were all numbered 0 to 9 and you had to remember (or call) which dice was which (usually using two dice of different colors). Was always a horrible temptation to choose after you rolled if in a group that didn't normally call...

Similarly, another "new" dice that I wish were more common - D6s numbered 1 to 3 twice.
I have seen three different methods for generating numbers from 1 to 3 from a D6, all used by honest players (and I have also seen players get their own method wrong...).

For those interested they are:
1 & 2 = 1; 3 & 4 = 2; 5 & 6 = 3 (I used this method)
1 & 4 = 1; 2 & 5 = 2; 3 & 6 = 3 (i.e. 1 to 3, 1 to 3)
1 & 6 = 1; 2 & 5 = 2; 3 & 4 = 3 (a.k.a. turn the dice over).

With a die numbered 1 to 3 all doubts and mistakes go away.

[Yora]

Calculating hits and misses by substracting your attack roll from your opponent's armor class and checking if you stayed below your attack value on a table in a book is certainly something I don't miss.