Heh - welcome to the war zone.

4ed fragmented the hobby a great deal - there are those who love its simplicity, and those who feel that it have made the classes far too generic. There are those that love the online character generator, and those who feel that the morons who came up with the GSL should be lined up and shot.

I am not a fan of 4e, and despise the GSL, after the wonderful openness of the OGL the GSL was a kick in the teeth - which is a major reason as to why there is so little 3rd party support when compared to D20.

Because of Pathfinder there is still some really good stuff coming out for the 3.X framework.

I thoroughly recommend taking a look at and stealing the Sorcerer bloodlines, cleric turning, and paladin rules for use in 3.5. Sorcerer bloodlines are awesome!

The Auld Grump

*EDIT*

There are a few search options for games. You can even go to the Wizards boards and post in the specific section there. I think penandpapergames.com or something like that is a decent one I have heard mentioned before.

As for edition, I personally am a 4e fanboy (although not blind) and also see the benefits of Pathfinder. As for 3.5, is was much better than 3.0 in my opinion but could still use some tweaking. At the same time, don't fret over buying new rules.

On a side note, D&D 4e has some "rules-lite" stuff that is free, comes with some premade characters and a decent adventure on their website if you are interested in trying it out (or even just taking a look).

If your just looking for an old school style game I would suggest series.

I've been using them for over a year now and it works really well. Makes me feel like I'm playing in the late 70's early 80's again. Plus you can always draw upon the more advanced rules of GURPS. I've been using 2e D&D modules to run them.

FantasyCraft is an excellent system, both for the action-oriented types and for those who prefer roleplay-heavy kind of games.

It is fast, easy to understand, requires just one manual, and includes conversion notes to import most of your d20 (3.0 or 3.5) library of creatures/ stuff into the game.

Highly recommended.

My suggestion is to find a gaming group, then look at whatever or edition or game they play. Everyone in my area plays 4ed and GW minis, so I don't game anymore, don't like the games they play lol!

Paul,

As someone who has played 3.5 and 4.0 for a while now let me give you my take.

If you liked any of the old D&D systems, then 4E is going to be a major shock to the system... They made some things better, but especially at low levels (and with just the basic options) the classes lost the feel of being different that they had in the older versions of D&D. That feel comes back quite strongly as you go up in level, but at first all the different classes feel the same.

That said, if I had a choice to DM 3.5 or 4E, there's no question. Making and Running a game in 4E is just plain easier in 4E.

As for playing.... If you give them a chance both systems are fun to play. 4E is more wargamie and 3.5 feels closer to the D&D I grew up with, but both can be a ton of fun.
That said let me reinforce what others said.... If you play 4E it really helps to have the DDI subscription (or know someone who does) One subscription buys you 5 downloads of the character builder per month, and that is what you really want. Given that you can get 5 computers installed really a group only needs one subscription between the lot of them. Then every month you can switch who downloads the latest stuff (as often people's characters don't need every month's data download)

Paul,

If I lived near you I would post my 4e to you. I mean it's not that I don't like it but I have the pdf of them, letting me leave them (4e) still sitting in their slip case wrapped in plastic.

Actually if you want to pony up for the shipping I would be happy to post to you.


On another note - have a think about Dragon Warriors & RuneQuest. These were my two starting RPG way before AD&D (1e). Dragon Warriors is a very true to form feel of fantasy Europe without being WHammer.
RuneQuest (now I played 2ed.... the AppleLane Ed.) was a rich and wonderful system. Both are very old school without being broken.

Castles & Crusades - never been there but Count Zero will swear by it.


Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

Part of the divide between 3.X and 4e is along simulationist/gamist lines (one guess as to which camp I fall into ). D&D has always been gamist, 4e carries it to a new extreme. It is an extreme that I do not like me much.

4e is much more focused on combat, much less focused on interactions and skill use outside of combat. Class roles are much more closely defined. Versatility had diminished to a huge extent - Wizards in particular got trimmed way back on what they can do. The base unit of time is essentially the encounter - many abilities refresh after each encounter.

3.x is more about resource management - the base unit is the day, with abilities refreshing after a solid night's sleep. Some folks complain that this results in a '15 minute adventuring day', but like the vaunted 'golf bag of weapons' this has never been my experience.

The Auld Grump

The best places to find a group is, as others have mentioned, matchup.com, and checking your local university for a gaming club. You can also find a local gaming shop and ask the proprietor if he knows of groups or has a post-it board where people look for players/groups.

My main complaint about 4th is that it feels like someone has abstracted a MMOG like WoW for the rule system. It feels like a simulation of a simulation, if that makes sense?

Pathfinder feels more "Old school" to me. It feels like an abstracted rpg like old D&D, T&T etc.

That and the fact that I like Paizo as a company alot more than Hasbro (which shouldn't matter I know but does).

OTOH, both work better with scenery, especially of the WWG kind!


Riddles

My $0.02:

4E's simplicity as compared to 3.5 can be a strength if you're thinking it'll be hard to get a group together. I'm DMing a 4E game (my first time DMing, and it's been pretty easy to do), and three of the six people in our group have never played a pencil and paper RPG before. They had no difficulty picking up the rules and had a good handle on things by the end of the 2nd session. So if you know some people who enjoy getting together but aren't pencil and paper gamers, you might be able to get a group together more easily in 4E.


That said, deeper RPGs can be a lot of fun, and I'm sure you could enjoy 3.5 just as much if you can get a group for it. I'm still dreaming of someday playing in a Rolemaster campaign again. A friend in my group (who is planning to DM a second campaign for our group under a different system) looked at it but is sticking with Burning Wheel, instead.

Agreed - it's certainly not a question of preferring easy games or anything, in fact I have a game of Pulp Hero kicking off this weekend using the Hero System 5th Ed, which is probably up there with Rolemaster in terms of complexity (obligatory WWG mention - currently building Shellendrak Manor for the home of the group's sponsor for the initial adventure). If anything, I run and play 4E *because* of it's ease of play. I don't think I could handle running two complex systems at the same time

Aieee I have unknowingly asked a "PC or Mac which is better?" type of question...what have I wrought????