2e.... more flavor than 3e?

[Jupp]

I remember reading some of those 2e books even when I did not have to to prepare a game or to read something to get info for a PC. That was mainly because they were well written, had interesting little things that were good to know and alot of non-rule content in them (fluff, as most of you call it). Arms and Equipment, Monstery Mythology or some of the class books were just great books to read. The campaign world supplements for Planescape, GH and Spelljammer were the real diamonds in that respect, pure goodness to read through

With 3e books I am not really interested to pick them up and read them if I do not have to because they are too technical for me to enjoy reading them. They have an awfull lot of usefull rules and content in them but they are really not a pleasure to read through. For me they are dry and boring :\

 

[Storm Raven]

But what did you do before homebrewing?

When I started it was homebrew or nothing.

I got my inspiration from the sources that made me interested in D&D to begin with - Tolkien, Lieber, Moorcock, Vance, Lewis, Howard, Alexander, Anthony, Norton, and Burroughs.

 

[Storm Raven]

A variety of reasons, but not because of flavor, though they did try to rival Baskin-Robbin's 31 flavors.

Regardless of whether it can be directly tied to the increase in "flavorful" products or not, the fact remains that D&D was most successful basically from 1979-1989 and 2000-2003, and nearly died during the 1990s. And the eras during which it was most successful were the ones that had the least amount of fluff in the books.

I don't know if you mean to say "Clearly." I also don't know if most people who come into pen-n-paper D&D by way of other medium like CRPG, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But newbies do not want to be overwhelmed by rules, particularly newbie DMs. They just want to play, and they need to know how to play ... A ROLEPLAYING GAME. It's one thing to know the mechanical side, but you cannot neglect the interactive side of RPG.

No, I meant to say "clear rules", because those are, by far, the most important thing to new players and DMs. Newbies aren't overwhelmed by rules, they are overwhelmed by a lack of rules. A new DM is more likely to be flustered by trying to come up with a resolution mechanic for something not covered in the rules on the spot than anything else. The rules give the participants guidelines as to how to play - all the fluff in the world just gives them the same thing they could find in a fantasy novel.

 

[philreed]

So how many official -- new -- campaign settings have been published for D&D 3/3.5? All I can think of are Ghostwalk and Eberron -- Warcraft if we count that as new (even though it was licensed). Am I missing any?

 

[Geron Raveneye]

No, I meant to say "clear rules", because those are, by far, the most important thing to new players and DMs. Newbies aren't overwhelmed by rules, they are overwhelmed by a lack of rules. A new DM is more likely to be flustered by trying to come up with a resolution mechanic for something not covered in the rules on the spot than anything else. The rules give the participants guidelines as to how to play - all the fluff in the world just gives them the same thing they could find in a fantasy novel.

Can't confirm that, to be honest. When I was a "newbie", back when we started on the Red Box, and rules were pretty light, we didn't have much of a problem with the fact that there wasn't everything covered in detail. We were happy with the simply "roll 1d20 and under your attribute" for everything not combat or thieves' stuff, and played like mad. Of course, a bunch of 14 years olds was more interested in combat, magic and thievery than complex social interactions, detailed crafting rules or anything similar. But reading through all the descriptive text, especially after the Expert Set arrived, and the Companion Set, was always a blast. Same for the Gazetteers, even more so actually. Same goes for the old Manual of the Planes.

On the other hand, trying to explain the options just present in the PHB today has confused more than one newbie I started on roleplaying. Who knows, maybe it's simply me.

 

[Pants]

So, you want a RPG to basically say "For creative fluff, go look somewhere else cuz there ain't here."

Nope, try reading what I said again.

When I started it was homebrew or nothing.

That's how I started off too. I ran my hodge-podge homebrew settings for about 4 years until the FRCS came out in 3.0. Even then, I didn't run an FR campaign until a year later or so.

However, the other DM in my group ran a Planescape 'campaign' and a few FR campaigns, all of which died within a few games.

So how many official -- new -- campaign settings have been published for D&D 3/3.5? All I can think of are Ghostwalk and Eberron -- Warcraft if we count that as new (even though it was licensed). Am I missing any?

Do you consider Kingdoms of Kalamar to be official?

 

[philreed]

Do you consider Kingdoms of Kalamar to be official?

Yes, since it has the D&D logo. I wouldn't consider it new, though, since the setting existed during the 2e days. (Which was part of the reason I mentioned Warcraft may not count.)

 

[Ranger REG]

Regardless of whether it can be directly tied to the increase in "flavorful" products or not, the fact remains that D&D was most successful basically from 1979-1989 and 2000-2003, and nearly died during the 1990s. And the eras during which it was most successful were the ones that had the least amount of fluff in the books.

From 1979-1989, TSR had only three D&D settings lines, with emphasis on Greyhawk.

From 1989-2000, TSR added Dark Sun, Mystara (updated to AD&D), Planescape, Ravenloft (updated from a couple of modules), Birthright, Al-Qadim, etc.

No, I meant to say "clear rules", because those are, by far, the most important thing to new players and DMs. Newbies aren't overwhelmed by rules, they are overwhelmed by a lack of rules. A new DM is more likely to be flustered by trying to come up with a resolution mechanic for something not covered in the rules on the spot than anything else. The rules give the participants guidelines as to how to play - all the fluff in the world just gives them the same thing they could find in a fantasy novel.

Then WotC should compile those Dungeoncraft articles from the Dragon/Dungeon magazines. But AFAIC, there are more rules catering toward players than there are for DMs.

 

[Ripzerai]

You see, here's the problem with a lot of 2e "flavor" - for many people it is worthless. I don't need an account of the slasrath's creation in an ultoloth's laboratory, ultraloth's don't exist in my campaing and the slasrath has a wildly different origin. But in 2e, I have to decouple the slasrath from the "flavor" provided by the text and replace it with my own, and then I get players who assumed that the slasrath (or some other creature) has the same background, ecology, and other fluff as was printed in the books; in many cases persisting no matter how often I pointed out that the flavor material in the books was not applicable to the campaign.

So your players were idiots who didn't know how to listen. That's not the fault of the game designing approach.

More common is the opposite problem - what if you want to keep the fluff but use a different set of rules? What if you wanted to convert the book to a new edition of the game? What if you want to run the game using GURPS or FUDGE or Storyteller or Runequest or HeroQuest? Or what if you want to make up your own rules? Or what if you want to run it free-form, with no rules at all?

All that rules crap, whether 2e or 3e, becomes useless in such an instance. Useless filler, leaving no reason to buy the product at all.

All the beautiful fluff from 2e is still as valid as it ever was, while the rules-oriented material is, if you no longer play 2e, nothing but dead trees.

 

[Storm Raven]

From 1979-1989, TSR had only three D&D settings lines, with emphasis on Greyhawk.

From 1989-2000, TSR added Dark Sun, Mystara (updated to AD&D), Planescape, Ravenloft (updated from a couple of modules), Birthright, Al-Qadim, etc.

And this demonstrates my point. D&D was more successful between 1979-1989 than it ever was in the 1990s when it produced piles of fluff.

Then WotC should compile those Dungeoncraft articles from the Dragon/Dungeon magazines. But AFAIC, there are more rules catering toward players than there are for DMs.

Perhaps, but most DMs don't seem to need much in the way of "how to build a setting" advice. They seem to need "how to resolve this situation in play" advice. Most DMs I have met are far better at building worlds than they are at managing play in-game.