D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 is the REAL reason everyone is angry

[JustinA]

15 to 20 hardcover books at $20 to $30 each, plus subscriptions to Dungeon and Dragon. And I thought I bought a lot of stuff...

My wife plays too and justy uses my stuff.

I just did this math on another forum:

At a rough count, I own 225 books from 3.0 or 3.5 (including third-party material). If we assume an average price of $20, I've got about $4,500 sunk in 3rd Edition. (Perhaps a little less, since I've also got my reference comp copies of some of my freelance work mixed into
that count.)

I also own roughly 140 books from previous editions of (A)D&D. Which actually surprises me. I hadn't realized that my 3rd Edition collection had so vastly dwarfed my (A)D&D material. My (A)D&D collection always felt larger to me. But that's probably because my (A)D&D collection was largely purchased during grade school and high school, whereas 3rd Edition has been primarily post-college now. (So the difference is one of percentage of income. I scraped for every penny I could to buy books for (A)D&D back in the day.)

Now that I think on it, I guess I've been actively playing 3rd Edition for longer than previous editions, too. I came to the game in 1989 and by 1994, IIRC, I had largely abandoned the game. I was definitely no longer an AD&D player when the Player's Option and were coming out (1995). So that's 4-5 years of player vs. 8 years of play to date (since I first started playing 3rd Edition when Ryan Dancey sent my playtest material in 1999).

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

 

[RFisher]

But the D&D Basic set was a revision... the original boxed set from 1974 was quite different, referred you to other games for rules, and would have been a questionable choice to put out as a replayable classic.

Of course. The original game was clearly target towards a much narrower audience. The game was still developing very quickly. It was just a snapshot. By 1981, the game had developed--& the Basic Set itself had developed--to the point at which it could be on the shelf at Target.

In many ways rules-wise, the 1981 Basic & Expert Sets are closer to the original rules than the Holmes Basic Set was. (Although, in many ways, Holmes was closer in spirit to the original set.)

The 1981 D&D game is as good a game & introduction to the hobby & just as fun today as it was 20-some years ago.