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May 14, 2012 -- 7:14PM, MechaPilot wrote:

I would hope that one isn't trying to adapt material to a new edition "on the spot."  Regardless of edition, that seems rather impractical to me.

But that's my entire point, it could be done that way.    I could adapt the Demonweb Pits to 2e on the spot.  

May 14, 2012 -- 7:21PM, Webster wrote:

You can't play D&D without putting SOME effort into it. Take a look at the first few pages of any module, and right there it tells YOU the DM to read through the entire adventure and make changes appropriate to your players.

The fact that "You" don't have the time that "You" did back in high school isn't a problem with any system. It's the reality of "Your" life.

That's a big asumption, of course I have the time to read the module, that's part of the fun.  

What i don't have time for is rewriting every single encounter, replacing all the treasure, converting spells to traps or hazards, describing possible skill challenges, etc.    With 4e, if you really want to play the system as it was written then you really need to do a ton of work.      Thankfully, the design structure of pre-4e systems was very similar and it didn't require nearly as much work to convert the module.  

I'm just hoping that 5e will make it easy for me to leverage my pre-4e material more than 4e ever did.      In order for this to happen I think the game will have to return to 1-20 levels and use the vancian spell casting system. 

May 14, 2012 -- 9:37AM, dmgorgon wrote:

How important is backwards compatibility for you?

Not terribly, if the new game is compatible, it's not really new, and it doesn't really have to be good, it can just coast on the success of the old one - cases in point: 2e, 3.5, Pathfinder, Essentials.   If it's not compatible, then it has to stand on it's own merits - examples would be AD&D, 3.0 and 4e.  AD&D and 4e had to compete with ongoing support for older (and/or parallel) editions of D&D (AD&D was successful in its day, but by the standard of commercial success Hasbro demands now...).  3.0 had it easiest, with no new support for older eds available once it was launched.  Even so, it failed to please the corporate masters after a few years and 3.5 was rushed out to goose revenue.

If we can't use our old material without spending a vast amount of time converting it all what is the point in playing 5e?

By that logic, 2e was fine, but there was no point in ever adopting 3e, since it required a lot of conversion to take anything from AD&D to 3e.

What I really liked about 1e, 2e, 3e, and even Pathfinder was that I could, with very little preparation, pull out a module from any edition and play it on the spot.

Run a 1e module in 3e without conversion?  Sorry, not buying it.      

The reason was that with pre-4e editions the core of the game didn’t change much.

The core mechanics changed more dramatically from 2e to 3e than they did from 3e to 4e.  4e is still basically a d20 game.  All resolution is on the d20, higher is better.  Not true of either version of AD&D.

The same monsters, spells, and magical items existed across all editions and were very similar.

There was no comparing 1e monsters to 3e.  

With 4e it was a completely different beast.   I had to spend a substantial amount of time converting the module to the 4e design paradigm.

Encounter design in 4e is so easy that creating an adventure from scratch would be easier even than converting from 1e to 2e (for which very little conversion was really required).  Ease of DMing is one of 4e's strengths.  I don't know what problems you could have run into.  

Maybe you were more trying to convert 4e to the module than the module to 4e?

This is why I think 5e will fracture the community even more.    Who is going to spend money on a system that invalidates all your existing material yet again?

That has always been an issue, and part of the automatic, unthinking resistance that has met each new ed.  The only difference with 4e (and now 5e) is that the OGL lets 3pps keep making 3.x material, so there is the option of sticking with that edition and continuing to get new stuff for it, rather than making the switch.   Obviously, they're going to try very hard to cater to the 3.x crowd for that reason - everyone else can still be dragged along by lack of new material for their favorite version.  

I don't think the fragmentation will be much greater, though.  There will still be basically two games in town: the 3.x OGL and the official latest D&D.  That some of the non-adopters of 5e and 3.x/Pathfinder might be playing 4e doesn't really make any difference, there will be no coherent support for 4e, it'll just be another out of print game with a few persistent fans.  

The fan base may shrink as people leave the game for good, though.  

May 14, 2012 -- 7:52PM, MechaPilot wrote:

May 14, 2012 -- 7:46PM, dmgorgon wrote:

May 14, 2012 -- 7:14PM, MechaPilot wrote:

I would hope that one isn't trying to adapt material to a new edition "on the spot."  Regardless of edition, that seems rather impractical to me.

But that's my entire point, it could be done that way.    I could adapt the Demonweb Pits to 2e on the spot.  

I've never used or played in a published adventure before.  What edition did Demonweb Pits come out for?

It appeared in AD&D.  The G series (Giants) of modules lead into the D (Vault of the Drow) series and Q1 was the climax of that chain.  Q1, Queen of the Demonweb Pits was published in 1980. It was written for a party of 8 players levels 10-14.

This is a good example of a module that would be tough to play in the 4e environment as written for AD&D.  Drow have up to 90% Magic resistance.  The enemy casters are on the Vancian system -- in this case just about every monster in the module.  Many of the spells lasted minutes and elements of the adventure is based on that.  There are a lot of 1e magic items in this, and the module assume the PCs are decked out with their own.  The module also assumes an "Anything but a 1 on the save system and even had rules for gods included).

The magic items would need an overhaul-- no two ways about that. Lolth and her minions massive vancian spell lists will simply not translate to 4e well, they just wouldn't.  I would have to throw out the copious alignment based effects too. The fact is, Q1 would require a major overhaul in 4e, for Q1 was the epitome of why 4e took the path that it did (balancing spells and casters).  Q1 exploits the classic caster love to epic effect. The module's tactics reflect the idea that the party will have the same "broken" spells and items as well.

For 4e, I would probably just redesign Lolth and her minions all together.  It would be easier, but that is not what the OP wants; he wants to use the module pretty much as written.

Yes it could be done, but what a chore.  I do believe many modules will convert more easily to 4e -- the Giants (G series) ones probably would, but as the OP states, the critter line up would have to be changed.  But for those of you saying, "AD&D to 4e module conversion is no sweat," Q1 is the absolute worst example possible.

Mechanically, I've got no use for backward compatibility.  It comes at too high a cost.  I don't want the game system I'm playing to suffer playability or balance issues for the sake of allowing me to faithfully import resources from previous editions.


I know there are a lot of players who have been in this hobby for as long as I have or longer who are attached to all their books.  I can understand the desire to keep that massive library of game resources relevant even when you're playing in the current edition.  I just don't share it.     


One of the things I think 4e got right was to make fluff and crunch explicitly separate.  I can mothball the old rules but keep the concepts and stories and campaign settings if I care to if that design goal is met.  I can keep the theme and flavor of an older edition in a new game system if it's presented as a body of information separate from the game mechanics.