D&D 3.x Edition Experience - Did/Do you Play 3rd Edtion D&D? How Was/Is it?

[CleverNickName]

Why is there no option for "i played it, love it, and its still the main edition i play?"

So you would vote "I am playing this edition right now, and so far I like it." Right?

 

[wingsandsword]

*You can do a lot of stuff in 3.5 that you can't do in 5e. It's a goldmine for character concepts. Unfortunately, actually playing with all that stuff ends up a lot less fun to play/run due to complexity and imbalance between the tiers.

That's a LOT of why I love 3e, it is so dang flexible and versatile. It's got so many options. It's also a lot of why I DON'T like 5e, that so many great characters I've played just plain can't be translated to 5e with anything even remotely approaching fidelity.

Then again, myself and my gaming buddies never paid much attention to the alleged "tiers". I'm thankful that the people I've gamed with have generally been free of min-maxing and powergaming stuff. The few people who obsessed over "builds" and "tiers" generally didn't last long with us.

As an example, I know some people who were absolutely afraid of the Vow of Poverty feat from the Book of Exalted Deeds (I saw lots of threads about here when it was new), seeing it as overpowered (or DM's who became insanely nitpicky about enforcing it). With us? It worked FINE. Why? The person wasn't a powergamer, she was playing a Lawful Good monk who didn't want to rely on worldly possessions, who wanted to give all her treasure away to the needy, who wanted to rely on only her own skills and natural abilities to deal with foes. . .but the game system wasn't written to accommodate that, but with VoP it could. Suddenly she's able to play her character the way she always wanted, be of a comparable power level to the rest of the party while doing so, and it worked because it was being roleplayed as intended, not having rules lawyers argue and nitpick trying to break the feat.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

In the beginning of 3e, for me it was definitely a "kid in the candy store" situation. Going into a gaming store, there was just so much to pick from. Wizards of the coast had a firehose of content coming out and the d20 third party explosion was like nothing I'd seen before.

But, like the days after a good Halloween candy haul as a kid, that surfeit created a proverbial belly ache. I started to realize that I wanted less, not more. That's when I started getting into the OSR.

Seems alot of people here liked it at first but felt burdened by it with all the options that followed.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

D&D 3e, 3.5, Pathfinder... What a great edition!
The main problem, in my opinion, of both BECMI and AD&D2e was inconsistency. The lack of a coherent frame led to a proliferation of rules for particular cases. It was a mess, seriously.
D&D3e solved the problem in a brilliant way. The d20 system was coherent, precise, efficient. I remember when I was reading the PHB 3e for the first time: I was fascinated by the new concept of feats and by the skill system (by the way, this was the first time I came into contact with a skill system that actually worked), as well as Todd Lockwood's art. And it worked! It was STILL Dungeons and Dragons, the original feeling of the game was still there!
Later, a new aspect emerged: the system encouraged power-playing, and the study of character builds to make stronger and stronger heroes. That became a mini-game in itself: almost half of the fun of the game was in the character building.
Speaking of the products, the Dungeon magazine (under Paizo) reached its peak, with high quality adventures. In particular, the Adventure Path formula was incredibly successful. Age of Worms AP and Savage Tide AP were exceptional products, love letters to the game and its history; in my opinion, they're the best adventures in the history of the game.
Official products were of variabile quality, but some were exquisite: the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is a staple, as the Eberron book; or Tome of Battle - Book of the Nine Swords, that experimented with new and fantastic ideas.
The open license allowed for 3rd party producers to create a great deal of additional material (I want to remember at least the Scarred Lands setting from Seord&Sorcery)
When WotC decided to go 4e, and revoke Paizo's license, I remember my disgust: it was too early, the edition was at its peak, Paizo was doing an incredible job! I wanted other APs! So I jumped over to Pathfinder. I could enjoy Curse of the Crimson Throne, Kingmaker, Reign of Winter and other great stories (even if no one surpassed the Dungeon Magazine's ones; and I despised Golarion ss a setting...)
Eventually, the problem of the edition became clear: it was too complex. It seemed that a degree in math was necessary to play; combats lasted at least one hour and we always forgot something; level advancement was a nightmare, and magic item management too... The game had become rollplay, not roleplay (a consequence of the min-maxing mindset). Moreover, the core rules were heavily unbalanced: some classes were too strong compared to others (the caster supremacy problem).
So in the end, it was tiring. Even enthusiasts like me wanted more simplicity (that also contributed to split the fanbase with the Old School Renaissance movement).

I loved 3e, but I'm really happy that 5e solved all its problems, keeping the better aspects of all the previous editions of the game.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

So you would vote "I am playing this edition right now, and so far I like it." Right?

I have to agree that I was surprised there wasn't a, "this is my favorite/best edition." or something to that effect. I chose, 'played it and remembered liking it', not because that's how I feel about it, but because it was the answer closest to how I feel about it. Even, "I am playing this edition right now, and so far I like it" really doesn't encompass those who LOVE the game. In any case, I'm not suggesting you change it but just saying that Son of Serpent wasn't the only one who felt that way. I felt the tone of the questions wasn't impartial. It felt more like, 'who likes this sub-par version of D&D?.' I understand that's not what you intended but it was just the feeling I got from it.

 

[wingsandsword]

On the meta-side, I really appreciated the OGL. It's a nice motivator to put creations "out there", and while it enabled a lot of garbage, it also dramatically opened up exposure for a lot of creative minds who might otherwise never have seen the light of day. That was hugely important for the hobby, imo.

I think the OGL was really important for 3 reasons.

1. It did a LOT to undo the damage to the D&D fan community that TSR did with their overzealous actions in the mid-to-late 90's. The OGL was a way to legally say that WotC was fine with fans, and 3rd parties, making material that was derived from and compatible with D&D, as long as they stayed within pretty broad lines like not using specific "Product Identity" creatures or using the actual D&D name.

2. It made D&D immortal. Those that remember when TSR almost went out of business can appreciate this. There was the very real fear in the D&D fan community in the late 1990's that D&D might simply go away, that it would go out of print, and become a relic.

In a very real way, the OGL took the "DNA" of D&D and put it out there in perpetuity. The vast bulk of the core rules is in there, and isn't contingent on being published by any specific company. If D&D went out of print, it would NOT be hard to make new 3e PHB's from the SRD's (as I recall, at one point Mongoose even did exactly that, making their own pocket PHB from SRD materials).

3. It gave the d20 system to the gaming community as a whole. Even those that didn't want to make historic roleplaying or medieval fantasy could readily adapt the system (especially with other WotC works that included OGC, like d20 Modern's own SRD, or Unearthed Arcana) to their needs. I've known of WAY too many games that were decently written, but had an utterly awful, poorly written game. . .because designing a good game system and designing a good game setting are two completely different skills. This at least put out a more-or-less universal system that other game authors could use for their own games, liberating them from having to come up with a system for their setting/world concept just because they had to.

 

[CleverNickName]

When WotC decided to go 4e, and revoke Paizo's license, I remember my disgust: it was too early, the edition was at its peak, Paizo was doing an incredible job! I wanted other APs! So I jumped over to Pathfinder. I could enjoy Curse of the Crimson Throne, Kingmaker, Reign of Winter and other great stories (even if no one surpassed the Dungeon Magazine's ones; and I despised Golarion ss a setting...)

I really loved the Pathfinder campaign setting. The maps, the lore, the history, the adventures--it was all so rich and detailed, and there was a friggin' WALL of content available. Paizo always did good work...and still does, in my opinion.

The Pathfinder mechanics were even more complicated than 3.5E, though, and that was a bitter pill for me to swallow. If someone were to adapt the Pathfinder campaign setting and adventures to use the 5th Edition rules, I'd be very interested.

 

[Minigiant]

I loved 3e. I played it the most.

I've never touch it again.

It felt like everything gaming in the late 90s and early 00s. The birth of true mass audience game design in board,tabletop, arcade, and video gaming. However you could see the infancy of it all after a few campaigns.The brilliance was bright. And the stuff that wouldn't fly anymore these days was blatant.

 

[atanakar]

What is E6?

 

[CleverNickName]

I have to agree that I was surprised there wasn't a, "this is my favorite/best edition." or something to that effect. I chose, 'played it and remembered liking it', not because that's how I feel about it, but because it was the answer closest to how I feel about it. Even, "I am playing this edition right now, and so far I like it" really doesn't encompass those who LOVE the game. In any case, I'm not suggesting you change it but just saying that Son of Serpent wasn't the only one who felt that way. I felt the tone of the questions wasn't impartial. It felt more like, 'who likes this sub-par version of D&D?.' I understand that's not what you intended but it was just the feeling I got from it.

Yeah, I get that. But unfortunately, nearly every "favorite/best edition" thread and survey immediately dissolves into an edition war where everyone argues back and forth. I want to avoid that completely. Really, I only wanted to measure how many of us played (or are still playing) these older editions, and encourage everyone to talk about how we felt about them back in the day. If a particular edition is your favorite, definitely mention it in the comments!