On Tue, 11 Mar 2003, Landen_Haesri wrote:
> I`ve not yet purchased into the 3E products (including the core books)
because, after the investment that Ive made with my 2nd edition > collection, its very vast, and Im not sure I want to upgrade.
A very reasonable concern.
I`ve altered the landscape and changed some history, and tweaked the
> system to work for me a bit.
I would like you to post a description of your changes, please! I`m
always interested to see what others have done with the setting.
Is the upgrade worth it?
I dont know. Im inclined to say no. I had made a large number of
changes to 2nd Ed AD&D to make it feel more appropriate to me for BR, so I
have no trouble looking over 3e to pick and choose the bits I like. But
for anyone who is not a compulsive rules editor, Id say dont bother
converting. Play BR with 2e mechanics, Mystara with Rules Compendium D&D
mechanics, Greyhawk with 1st Edition AD&D mechanics, and two Glorantha
campaigns (one with RuneQuest and one with Hero Wars). I`ve thought about
trying to play BR with the White Wolf “storyteller system”, but that seems
too daunting a task even for a mechanics junkie like me. John Machin and
I briefly considered the idea of doing a BR to Hero Wars conversion, but
we never really went anywhere with it (in part because of disagreements
over which groups in Cerilia would use which of the four completely
distinct magic systems from that rules set).
In fact, given that the 2e electronic software downloads are one-tenth the
price of the 3e hardcovers, I`d recommend anyone completely new to
roleplaying to start with second edition AD&D, because so much material
is available so easy and cheap.
How does the system change the feel of the setting, and how does it
help/hinder?
Thats been a major part of the many hundreds (thousands?) of messages posted here about 3e conversion. As Ive said before, I think the proper
way to convert is to change 3e so it is closer to Birthright, not change
Birthright so it is closer to 3e. As you may gather from this statement,
I think using unmodified 3e out-of-the-box hurts Birthright. The setting
must trump the core rules, not the other way around, or there is no point
in (or even real possibility of) having distinct settings.
although I want to hold on to my TSR version thats worked for me
I think thats the most important thing. If your version works fine for you, I see no reason at all to change it. Becoming compatible with new future TSR releases is irrelevant, since most likely they wont ever
release anything new for Birthright.
It does seem that most of the forum is now dedicated to 3e Birthright,
and I might be a dying breed,
I dont want you to be. Personally, I am most interested in hearing from those who use game engines completely unrelated to D&D, like Ars Magica (the favorite system of a long-time poster whom I regret we havent heard
from in a while). I am not at all committed to D&D, but I am committed to
Birthright.
but maybe the reason for that is because 3e is that much better.
I don`t think so. Some things are better, some things are worse. Some
things are mechanically different, but represent no change in overall
quality to my eyes. And of course, opinion differs widely on which bits
are which, and which category is largest.
> I don`t mean for this post to cause any arguments over which
system is better and which is worse.
Except that I think there isnt really any other way to answer your question. That is, IMO, the only reason to switch BR to 3rd Ed is if you think 3rd is better than 2nd overall, so youd like to use it instead
while still playing BR. If what you want to know is, "If Im never going to use it for anything but playing BR, which game system should I use?" then I would have to say stick with 2nd Ed. You have all those books already, and dont have the new ones – and as you can easily see from the
current discussions here, converting BR from 2nd Ed AD&D to any other RPG
system, even one as close to it as 3rd Ed D&D, is a major headache. It is
not a project to be entered into by anyone who doesn`t already have a very
strong feeling about which game system they would rather be using instead
of the default 2nd Ed AD&D.
Ryan Caveney
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