Gasp I think I am a grognard now

[wingsandsword]

I got to thinking about an eventual 5e or pathfinder 2e and it will literally have to blow me away to buy it. What can't I do in 3.5 that 5e is going to do?

This is pretty much a big reason why I see 3.5e as the pinnacle of D&D evolution.

Every prior edition I ever had any experience with: RC, 1e and 2e, all required heavy house-ruling to depict various character concepts. They had big chunks of rules we didn't like or thought were limiting. They weren't supporting the stories, the characters we wanted to play. We could come up with awkward work-arounds, and did for years.

3e was a breath of fresh air. While 3.5 wasn't absolutely perfect (PokeMounts, for example) it was by far the closest to perfect of any edition before or since, improving on some weaknesses in 3e.

With the vast collection of "crunch" made for 3.5, and as flexible and modular as it was built to be in terms of introducing new subsystems (Unearthed Arcana FTW) it can be easily tweaked to whatever D&D-type fantasy game I could ever run.

How is 4e, 5e or anything else really going to top that? What could WotC sell me now that I genuinely could look at and say "I really need that for my game!"?

 

[thedungeondelver]

[Bib Fortuna]

AD&D rather than OD&D? He's no Grognard.

[Bib Fortuna out]

*forcewave* You will take me to your master now. You will be rewarded.

 

[Dandu]

If it ain't broke...

Break it.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Story of my life

As far as my friends and gaming group goes, 3.5 IS D&D.

4e is like the New Coke of gaming, the label says it's D&D, the company that makes it says it's D&D, but it's just not D&D to us. Doesn't feel right, doesn't "taste" right.

Just be careful saying things like that around here. Several people think that expressing this opinion is akin to starting a flame war.

I DON'T and I happen to agree with you, but be warned people here will attack you as you slapped their mother for expressing that sentiment.

 

[Mercurius]

Don't worry, Shin, I won't attack anyone because no one slapped my mother. Plus he said "to us."

Anyhow, I find the New Coke analogy kind of odd, especially if 3.5 is supposed to represent "classic Coke." If anything is classic Coke it is OD&D and much of AD&D, especially pre-Dragonlance. 3E, when it came out, was New Coke. 4E? I dunno...Cherry Coke? Dr Pepper?

The analogy breaks down, but I just shake my head when people say that 3E is real D&D but 4E is not (the Classic/New Coke analogy being yet another variant). Both were quite different from the D&D that came before, and both were seen as "New Coke" when they came out to a certain minority of D&D players.

On the other hand, some have said that 4E brought D&D back to the gamist quality that they liked in pre-3E D&D. For these folks 3.5 became too heavy with rules options, too crunchy, and too simulationist. I'm not saying that I agree with them, but the point is that there are different perspectives to take in terms of which edition, 3.5 or 4E, more embodies the "classic" feel of D&D.

Hey but I like 3.x and 4E--both are D&D to me--so I win

 

[Achan hiArusa]

No, if you play those silly 1:1 scale games where you don't check every action against an attack matrix written for an SPI game which was featured in Strategy & Tactics and you actually try to force a personality on that unit then you are not a grognard.

 

[CarlZog]

As other posts have indicated, playing old D&D does not make you a grognard. Playing stuff like this will make you a grognard:

As to your question: I've got lots of out of print rpgs I still love and play regularly.

 

[TarionzCousin]

The real grognards haven't responded yet because they are waiting for you to print this in their quarterly newsletter. You'll get their replies in the following newsletter, published three months later.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Or actually meeting Napoleon:

http://napoleon-livre.com/photos_po...grand/napoleon-bonaparte-pelisse-grognard.jpg

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Story of my life

As far as my friends and gaming group goes, 3.5 IS D&D.

4e is like the New Coke of gaming, the label says it's D&D, the company that makes it says it's D&D, but it's just not D&D to us. Doesn't feel right, doesn't "taste" right. Unlike New Coke, however, we still have access to older D&D and just choose to not give WotC any more money.

The most modern RPG I play is Star Wars, Saga Edition. Even that's now out-of-print

That

That's not how the New Coke analogy even works.

The New Coke line was a comment on how marketing can turn a crowd away from a product even when the testing for the product is strongly well recieved. It's supposed to be used against how 4e was marketed and how that marketing hurt the edition by being somehow insulting to the previous one.

If it "tastes to different" for you, it's not New Coke