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thought I'd let loose the dogs of flame-war, and ask what everyone's favourite roleplaying engine is. I've listed the main ones I can think of, so please accept my apologies in advance if your favourite game is not there.

Good ol' 3.5e has never let me down, can't wait to see Complete Scoundrel next month.

It's been quite a few years since I played anything but I have many fond memories of Rolemaster and Spacemaster campaigns.

I wont hold that against you....

Actually I am an old School GURPS head, it is still my weapon of choice, though I seem to be playing more Shadowrun and Exalted 2nd edition lately (and not as much RPG as I would like.....)

_________________
Hold it up to the light,
Not a brain in sight!

The Goon Show - The Scarlett Capsule

Darryl ADAMS

Runequest, runequest.
Has anyone had a look at the new one? Apparently there are a few extra books out for it now too.

I consider 1st Ed of D&D to be the little white books I bought in the mid 1970s. Ad&d was better and 2nd ed had problems. Current 3rd ed has taken a lot of the fun out of the game IMO.

Really? What made 1st edition so fun by comparison? I've never known anything other than 3rd ed, unfortunately... I do know that 2nd ed had armour class in reverse numbers! (I wonder, is this making me feel more ignorant, or you more old. )

The 1970s 1st edition was much simpler than the current edition. A 10 year old Munchkin could learn how to play within 10-20 minutes. It was very basic. You just rolled three 6 sided dice 6 times, pick a race, pick a class, purchased a small amount of equipment and you were away. No skills, no feats, no talents, no prestige classes.

By analogy I would say learning the current rules requires the same amount of time, skill and conceptual understanding as doing a entry level law subject at university. The entry level age is now up around 12.

Skills
The 1970s game relied heavily on role play instead of the current version which relies on roll play.

There was no such thing as "I roll to detect traps, I roll to disarm traps" the players needed to depend on the trusty old ten foot pole and the brains of the player to disarm traps.

An example is:
2006 3.5 DM says “an angry town guard approaches youâ€

I have to both disagree and agree with you there Jim. Indeed, since 1st edition, good old fashion roleplaying has gone to the dogs. You'll find a million games where the idea is simply make the most ridiculously powerful character and swing your way through a million illogical encounters, using just raw dice for diplomacy and so forth.

However, while when combined with the mentality of most people, the system does encourage this sort of play, even the core books strongly discourage it.
In the games I've DMed, roleplaying out everything that implies a social skill check is must. After the players base roll, I modify the roll if the outcome they're headed for by roleplaying is vastly different from the raw number.
I typically use less than half a dozen combat encounters in a single dungeon, and I simply increase the experienced gained if need be.
I see that a popular mistake is where DMs cram 15-18 combat encounters into a single dungeon, to ensure that the players level up. Whatever happen to social "encounters" and traps? Casual XP rewards for quality roleplaying? All of these things are even pointed out in 3.5e's DMG.

Speaking of traps, this is yet another thing that poor DMing has ruined. My players wander around with 10ft poles, carefully examining things in a way similar to what you're speaking of.
Once, finally when they find the trigger of the trap, how it works, essentially how they intend to disable it in general, that trusty "disable device" roll will determine whether or not they screw it up.

I'll agree that lots of fluffy modifiers like damage reduction and all that have been added, but I personally like it, as long as it doesn't stray from the context of my campaign (such as Psionics, I can't stand it).

After all, people on the whole are quite lazy, if they can just make some rooms connected by corridors, reach into the back of the MM and pick out monsters with a CR equal to the party's level, then roll treasure tables from the DMG... Chances are, they'll do it.

Anyway, I'm just going on here and not really making many points.

Ultimately, D&D is about having fun. If for some, 'fun' is just rollplaying, then so be it, the system accomodates for that.
If proper roleplaying is what you're after, the system accomodates that too.
In the end, the quality of the game relies mainly on the DM.