D&D 3E/3.5 Thoughts of a 3E/4E powergamer on starting to play 5E

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[thecasualoblivion]

"[A]fter things calmed down[.]"

So you're discounting the period from 1977 - 1985 (when the bubble burst for many reasons, including, but not limited to, way too many shoddy third party products) as a "fad" but stating unequivocally (and without any evidence) that 3e, which existed from 2001-03 before the market splintered, is ... different? A superior measure of time? I am very confused here. What metrics are you using? Sales? Cultural significance? Players in terms of total population? Farthings per fortnight?

And, of course, this is without talking about other cultural signifiers. I will not pretend to understand your knowledge of the time, but if your recollection needs refreshing-

1. AD&D caused a moral panic. Seriously. People burning books. Politicians speaking out against it. Now, in fairness, almost anything could cause a moral panic in the 1980s. But it gives you an idea.

2. High visibility. What were they playing at the beginning of E.T.? Yep, D&D. It was so prevalent that D&D quickly became a synechdoche for all RPG games.

3. Ubiquitous nature. I mentioned that mainstream stores carried (for example) the Red Box (Sears, random toy stores). But it was everywhere.

Again, I understand the point you're trying to get at (that 3e revived the brand after AD&D's 24 year run from the PHB through 2e), but I'm not understanding your point as stated.

My main point was that 3E was a bigger tent than 5E. I'll certainly concede 3E being the high point of D&D is a much weaker argument compared to 1982, though I still believe it's true.

On a side note, you mention fragmentation during the 3E era. While you have a point there, that fragmentation stayed in house, nobody really left. The tent was never affected, everyone was still in it, just people might have started putting up walls inside the tent.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Nothing to figure - 'tis a sensible way to play almost any RPG. There are however too many entitled DMs who really object to the idea of players endowing parts of the world and deciding to act.

If you have a problem with "entitled DMs" (whatever that even means), why are you playing with them? I humbly recommend playing the way you like, with like-minded individuals.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[thecasualoblivion]

If you have a problem with "entitled DMs" (whatever that even means), why are you playing with them? I humbly recommend playing the way you like, with like-minded individuals.

Nothing to figure - 'tis a sensible way to play almost any RPG. There are however too many entitled DMs who really object to the idea of players endowing parts of the world and deciding to act.

And [MENTION=6834463]happyhermit[/MENTION], XP for GP was a fine rule - and the first rule dropped by many groups to the point it was relegated to the status of optional rule in 2e (and the game was poorer for it IMO).

I think the two sides of this coin are closer in actual play than either realize. The sticking point is the level of perceived support/exclusion from the system. People want the system itself to validate their preference and suppress what they don't like, instead of dealing with it at the table.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by the fragmentation staying in house. The following is anecdotal only, so take that as you will-

Back in the 1970s-1980s, most of the people I knew played D&D. We would also play other RPGs (either TSR, like Gamma World, Star Frontiers, etc.) or others (GURPs, Warhammer FRPG, Paranoia, and so on), but most (not all) players would play D&D and would run occasional one-shots or campaigns in other systems. D&D was dominant.

By the 2000s, this was no longer the case. People primarily played a variety of RPGs. To be honest, I tried 3e (or maybe it was 3.xe?) and found it deeply unsatisfying. People were talking about pure 3, 3.x, Pathfinder, 4 was around the cornet (!), people were playing OSR and 1e and 2e still, and, of course, there were a lot of other good RPGs. Did 3 bring people back? Sure. AD&D had a 24 year run!

On the other hand, I have found that 5e has been much more successful bringing back the OSR/1e players. Not just the ones that kept playing, but the ones that played in the 70s and 80s, drifted away, and now want to play again.

Then again, that's just anecdotal. Based on my personal experiences, observations, and what I've seen on the internet. In terms of facts, I believe that WoTC has said that 5e has outsold their prior products (including 3e) to date, but who knows? Maybe they are lying. They sure did go through re-prints quickly.

Some nitpicks:

1. Pathfinder was nothing more than a series of adventure paths during 3E. It didn't become its own system until well after 4E's launch.
2. The D&D community overwhelmingly switched to 3.5 after it launched, and 3E became the least played D&D in short order. It was never really a factor during the 3.5E era.
3. This is anecdotal, but I believe more people were playing 1E/2E/retroclones now than did so during the 3E era. A lot of people used 3E to play AD&D style games back then, which seems to be rare now, and there is far more buzz about older D&D now than ever during the 3E era.
4. The 4E launch didn't truly split the community until its announcement. Tome of Battle might have been somewhat controversial, but it never caused a schism. That had to wait for 4E's announcement and the chaos that followed.
5. I started gaming in the 90s, and non-D&D systems seemed much more robust and successful then compared to the 3E era.

 

[Sacrosanct]

That was the height of the D&D fad, which in my opinion was an outlier. AD&D really didn't compare to 3E after things calmed down. As for 1975, there wasn't any competition yet.

3E was what it was in an era where strong competition existed, overwhelmingly established itself as the D&D almost everyone played, and did so without the help of a temporary fad.

I'm not saying this as a fan, I'd rather play 4E or 2E any day of the week, and I absolutely refuse to ever DM 3E again.

This doesn't make any sense. For one, Tunnels and Trolls was out in 1975, so there was competition. And Traveller was in 1977. And what do you mean by "calmed down"? Or "temporary fad"? A fad is something super popular for about a year and that's it, like beanie babies or Zubaz. D&D was popular year after year

For the record, you can't look at the popularity of a game by looking at raw # of players currently playing as the end all/be all metric (and even if you were, then Mentzer's basic is still the best selling version of D&D ever). For one, there are a more people gaming in general in 2000 than in 1980, and things like the internet were a HUGE factor in helping players. IMO, a better indicator is growth and popularity among pop culture in general. Nothing matches the growth of the late 70s/early 80s D&D. It also appeared in blockbuster movies (ET, Cloak & Dagger), and even had it's own Saturday morning cartoon. Ads were everywhere: on TV, in comic books, etc. The height of D&D was definitely the early 80s. In the 3.x era, you had huge swaths of gamers not even play it, but were playing Werewolf or Vampire instead. As mentioned, there were plenty of other RPGs in the 80s to compete with AD&D, but still most everyone played it, whereas in the 90s and 2000s, D&D didn't hold as much of a market share.

 

[happyhermit]

...
I don't know about that Tony, there has been a lot of hostility in this thread. Hostility towards taking a 3E or 4E approach to playing 5E, and hostility towards any sort of criticism of 5E. Maybe not the level of hostility of the 4E edition wars, but comparable to the hostility during the 3E era amongst the 3E community IMO.

I'm sorry, but this is kinda funny to me. "Taking a 3e or 4e approach to playing", seriously, you are suggesting that there was an approach to playing, defined by the edition. Then you are making the assertion that your powergaming play-style IS that approach. All the while arguing that 3e had the "biggest tent".

You are saying that you see hostility towards "ANY sort of criticism towards 5E", when in reality that is not what any of this is about. I have had great success with 5e, but there is actually a lot that can be "criticized" imo.

As for my claim that 3E was the biggest tent for D&D, it dominated the RPG world more than any edition before or since. 5E exists alongside Pathfinder, 4E holdouts, and IMO more people playing AD&D/retroclones than during the 3E era, while in comparison 3E was the overwhelmingly dominant D&D. In comparison to previous editions, 3E dominated the wider RPG world to a greater extent than AD&D ever did.

Your previous posts didn't indicate that you were defining "tent" as popularity, though you didn't give any examples. Why wouldn't you just say most popular then, if that is your argument.

As for the rules themselves, they tried to be everything to everyone, and had some mixed success in that regard. People certainly used 3E for a wider range of play styles than anything before or since.

What? What play-styles were used in 3e that have not existed before or since?

Also, look at the online community, I was present for the online community during 3E's era, and it was a lot livelier than it is now. Enworld itself is a lot quieter now than I remember it back then.

Uh, yeah, the popularity of forums is another topic entirely. How lively was the 3e community on twitter, youtube, twitch, facebook, meetup, roll20 etc. etc.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by the fragmentation staying in house. The following is anecdotal only, so take that as you will-

Back in the 1970s-1980s, most of the people I knew played D&D. We would also play other RPGs (either TSR, like Gamma World, Star Frontiers, etc.) or others (GURPs, Warhammer FRPG, Paranoia, and so on), but most (not all) players would play D&D and would run occasional one-shots or campaigns in other systems. D&D was dominant.

By the 2000s, this was no longer the case. People primarily played a variety of RPGs. To be honest, I tried 3e (or maybe it was 3.xe?) and found it deeply unsatisfying. People were talking about pure 3, 3.x, Pathfinder, 4 was around the cornet (!), people were playing OSR and 1e and 2e still, and, of course, there were a lot of other good RPGs. Did 3 bring people back? Sure. AD&D had a 24 year run!

On the other hand, I have found that 5e has been much more successful bringing back the OSR/1e players. Not just the ones that kept playing, but the ones that played in the 70s and 80s, drifted away, and now want to play again.

Then again, that's just anecdotal. Based on my personal experiences, observations, and what I've seen on the internet. In terms of facts, I believe that WoTC has said that 5e has outsold their prior products (including 3e) to date, but who knows? Maybe they are lying. They sure did go through re-prints quickly.

Count me in here as well. From 1998ish to 2014, I played almost no D&D. Played a lot of computer games, read sci-fi novels, played a bit of GURPS and Shadowrun, messed around a little with FATE thanks to Dresden Files RPG, tried adapting GURPS' magic system to be more AD&D-like--but never considered playing 3E, and only played 4E for a total of about five hours. (Due in large part to DM issues, but there were system issues as well.) 5E piqued my interest enough that now I run a game of 5E and hang out on these boards more than I probably should.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Count me in here as well. From 1998ish to 2014, I played almost no D&D. Played a lot of computer games, read sci-fi novels, played a bit of GURPS and Shadowrun, messed around a little with FATE thanks to Dresden Files RPG, tried adapting GURPS' magic system to be more AD&D-like--but never considered playing 3E, and only played 4E for a total of about five hours. (Due in large part to DM issues, but there were system issues as well.) 5E piqued my interest enough that now I run a game of 5E and hang out on these boards more than I probably should.

Me too. When 3e came out, I stuck with AD&D. Same with 4e. During 1998 (when I got out of the military) to 2012, most gaming was computer gaming with a monthly session of AD&D and/or WFRP 1e. I played 3e only a few sessions (tabletop, but video games used the same rules) and 4e only twice. I have no interest in either. We play 5e now, and enjoy the heck out of it.