3.5 better for world building?

[JoeGKushner]

I would add that 3.X is better suited for world building, but that scenario building and preparation is probably easier in 4e.

The Auld Grump

I found this a strange statement.

Not because I don't find that gaming mechancis do NOT have an effect on the campaing, but because unless the world building aspect is heavily reliant on the magic or alignment system, I find that most instances the game system can have minimal impact on setting design.

Other opinions?

Note, I'm not asking about 3.5 versus 4 here, just the overall impact that the game system has to have on world building.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

I guess that the answer lies in the perception of mechanics. For me, since 3.5 has different mechanics for magic, classes, and a good, huge amount of alternative rules for HP, AC and similar mechanics in the SRD, is far more suitable to build different worlds.

Just decide that "this time" the campaign will feature certain classes, races, HP will handled in a certain way, the level cap will be X (this matters a lot, since the game changes every 4 levels or so).


Maybe other people could argue that these things don't matter, or are A PROBLEM in their idea of worldbuilding. For me, 3.5 does it better, fullstop.

 

[JeffB]

unless the world building aspect is heavily reliant on the magic or alignment system, I find that most instances the game system can have minimal impact on setting design.

Exactly.

For me this has actually been a huge reason why I've gone back to OD&D style systems, and embraced 4E- I've grown very weary of the 30 years of (A)D&D planes/cosmology/"world structure".

But for those who embrace that historical ,highly detailed, built in "world structure", I guess I can understand why they may prefer 3.x/PF or the AD&D games.

 

[Jor-El]

Yeah, I'm not sure. On one hand, it does feel like 3E has so many more options that you could do alot more when it comes to world building, but the fluff and mechanics of 4E would seem to be tied together in such a way as to make it more difficult.

But then again, that might just be a matter of perception. I think it is harder to divorce Fluff and Mechanics in 4E just because of changes in certain things like Alignment.

I mean, even the 4E designers have shoehorned the same assumptions into all the campaign settings of 4E so far. Dark Sun is the largest departure, but instead of changing the cosmology or putting large restrictions on it, they just kind of glossed over elements that used to not be there.

I don't know. I think its still pretty subjective, but for me, it feels like I have alot more freedom in 3E, just because it seems the designers gave you the freedom of saying NO, instead of trying to make you use everythign as core in all settings.

 

[Keith Robinson]

Personally I don't think the crunch makes any real difference if you're prepared to put the work in to mold the setting to your own preferred system.

When I wrote The Kyngdoms Campaign Setting I used Deities & Demigods extensively and integrated much of the Open Content from that book into the setting. But to strip out all the 3.5ism from it wouldn't be difficult - almost certainly far less work to take out than it was to put it in in the first place I would imagine.

Otherwise, I tended to keep the crunch and fluff mostly apart, so people could use the stuff they wanted and ditch the stuff they didn't. But I suspect that even if I'd intergarted it as deeply as I could, it still would be a fairly simple job of stripping out the crunch and applying whatever your preferred system was to the setting itself.

 

[JustKim]

I feel the opposite is true, I think it's more difficult to build a world in 3.5 due to the way Vancian magic is designed to solve every problem. A number of problems that would probably spice up your world are not strictly able to happen in a setting that has access to even vanilla spells from the PHB.

4E PCs don't have this vast network of solutions that any spellcaster can potentially tap into. There are some solutions to problems, but they're temporary and if they're rituals, they're expensive to maintain. This means that I can set the rules for a world, and not worry about the existence of magic throwing a wrench into everything.

 

[Ourph]

I find that most instances the game system can have minimal impact on setting design.

I'm a huge fan of 4e, but I think the observation that 3.5 supports worldbuilding better is true. I wouldn't go so far as to say that worldbuilding is difficult with 4e, but 3e definitely gives the DM a few useful tools that aren't present in the 4e system like breakdowns of classed NPCs by total population, wandering monster tables, random treasure generation tables, stronghold building guidelines and the follower/Leadership rules.

 

[Pangias]

Personnally the game system has a huge impact on the flavour of the world. To give an example Earthdawn is a very well designed game on this aspect because the Game mechanic support totally the way the world work.
Both DnD edition allows freedom, but in 3edition the system are working differently, when you touch the fight, you don't affect Magic and vice versa, so it's way easier to tweak your world to your needs, where as in 4edition every thing is tied together to an extent that you cannot touch something without affecting the other aspects of the game, so it's harder to tweak to your needs.(imho)

 

[Philosopher]

Both systems allow for world-building. I think that 3.5 allows for a wider range of worlds to be built more easily. At the very least, I have an easier time setting up my own worlds (a variety of them) using 3.5/PF than I do using 4e. Having said that, I think there are at least some worlds that would be easier to build using 4e, so long as the world follows specific guidelines.

 

[Teemu]

I think there's hardly any difference between the two when creating a world. Just minor details.