D&D General D&D 3E Style Guide Peeks Behind The Scenes

Alex Kammer of Gamehole fame, the convention and the wonderful museum of every TSR D&D product and game room also has a copy of the D&D 3.0 Style Guide! Interesting parts include the 3 million active monthly players, the primary and secondary target audiences, the list of "do's and don'ts" and cursing! The primary audience was college students ages 18-24, with a secondary audience of young...

Alex Kammer of Gamehole fame, the convention and the wonderful museum of every TSR D&D product and game room also has a copy of the D&D 3.0 Style Guide!

Interesting parts include the 3 million active monthly players, the primary and secondary target audiences, the list of "do's and don'ts" and cursing!

The primary audience was college students ages 18-24, with a secondary audience of young people form 13-16 and adults 25+.

"Dos and Don'ts" include "do show monsters as fearsome, evil creatures. They're not misunderstood--they're EVIL!", and "don't show the game being played by children or pre-teens".


cover.jpeg


1st.jpeg

2nd.jpeg


3rd.jpeg


4th.jpeg



​
 
Click to expand...

log in or register to remove this ad

Rabulias

Rabulias

the Incomparably Shrewd and Clever
I would love to see more. How many pages long was this guide? And I wonder was this produced before, during, or after the core books for D&D 3.0 were published?
 

log in or register to remove this ad


Lanefan

Lanefan

Victoria Rules
I'm relieved to see their intended core market was college-age rather than younger; with 2e (and 4e and to some extent 5e) it often seemed/s like they're targeting and designing for younger, which IMO does the game no favours.

Most of those points I quite like. Don't market to children, monsters are EVIL, etc. - 5e could learn some good things here.

A few exceptions:

I disagree with "Don't show the heroes dying", in that characters can and will die; and players should be made aware of this right up front such that character deaths don't come as a shock later.

I've never bought into the concept that PCs are generally expected to be heroes. PCs can be whatever their players want them to be.

I disagree with "Don't show the heroes in an impossible moral dilemma between two evils". (I guess this one's for adventure design) While it's something that can certainly be overdone, denying it completely seems like overkill.

And - sigh - even after the Neo-Pagan boom of the 1990s they still equate pentagrams with demonic symbols. Idjits.
 

Rabulias

Rabulias

the Incomparably Shrewd and Clever
Remathilis said:
The art and styling suggests early 3.0, so I wager 1999-2001 era.
Click to expand...
I was not clear in my question, I guess. Yes, these are from the D&D 3.0 era (1999-2001). My curiosity is whether they were written before 3.0 was released (guiding its development), concurrently with D&D 3.0's creation (as they wrote it, they said, "some of what we are doing can be codified into some guidelines"), or after 3.0's release ("here's what we do going forward"). Just my idle curiosity.
 







Similar Threads

B
Sneak Peek of D&D's The Deck of Many Things
4 5 6 7 8
Replies
79
Views
12K
Zaukrie
Z
S
Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos - First Party Review
10 11 12 13 14
Replies
134
Views
13K
Shardstone
Shardstone
M.T. Black
D&D General 100 Fabulous D&D Links
Replies
7
Views
2K
el-remmen
el-remmen
B
Dragons & Treasures: A Young Adventurer's Guide Review
Replies
9
Views
5K
Malmuria
M
B
D&D General D&D Creator Summit--VTT & One D&D
55 56 57 58 59
Replies
588
Views
76K
EthanSental
EthanSental

Related Articles

Remove ads

Remove ads

Top