3.5 better for world building?

[DragonLancer]

Building a setting that works with the game mechanics is the issue IMO. I always had a much easier time of it world building under 2nd ed AD&D than I did under 3.5 edition. Also, edition or rules system changes the feel of the setting. Dark Sun has never worked for me as anything other than a 2nd edition setting for instance.

 

[Verdande]

I think the only advantage is that in 4E, monsters and characters alike are both more rigid. Your characters have these powers, and this many spells, and that's it. Everything's tightly bolted down, which makes it hard to pick up and move.

In 3.5, which is based off the excellent AD&D/oD&D chassis, the game system is simpler, and therefore more easy to base your own design off of. I can (and have) invented three classes and two races for oD&D in the course of an hour, but it would take me an hour at least to make a new 20-level base class for 3.5e and it would still suck. It'd take me much, much longer to make a new class for 4e, and I think that's the problem.

So relatively, 3.5 is a breeze to make new stuff for, but I'd argue, not nearly as easy as, say, Labyrinth Lord or OSRIC or any of the retroclones I favor these days.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I think that 3/3.5 give the impression of detailing an economy, what with profession skills, etc, so it seems like it's better for the nitty-gritty stuff.

That it's not really an economy is not immediately obvious, what with magic turning the usual ancient/medieval economy on its head (Wall of Iron being just the most obvious example).

I doubt that either is especially better than the other, really.

Brad

 

[Crothian]

I think that 3/3.5 give the impression of detailing an economy, what with profession skills, etc, so it seems like it's better for the nitty-gritty stuff.

Except if you know anything about economy then you'll see those skills as written have no bearing on how to detail an economy. All they say is how much someone earns based on a die roll.

 

[Coldwyn]

I think it´s quite an illusion that 3E is better at world building.
At first glance, the same rules for everything mechanics make let it appear to be easier to integrate mechanics and world theme, but if you start fiddling around enough or you need some more sophisticated mechanics to go with the world theme, things start to break down very fast.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I could believe that in 3e it is easier to extrapolate from the mechanics into a more general setup for the world, while in 4e there isn't really any extrapolation in the same way, as everything is its own little island of uniqueness.

This might make 4e better for carte blanche design, although I agree with Verdande that it is harder to house rule and devise new races or classes than earlier editions, perhaps making it more difficult to make distinctly different worlds (as against slightly flavoured worlds)

 

[BryonD]

World building is about imagination. No system is better than any other for that.

World simulating is another matter. 4E has been praised very specifically on numerous occasions for moving away the "the rules as physics" and npcs using the same rules as pcs.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Some people who like worldbuilding for worldbuilding's sake have an attachment to the idea of using game rules as world-physics. 3e is good at that.

4e takes simulationy ideas like this out the alley and shoots them.

 

[AngryMojo]

I honestly think this is a matter of perspective on world building.

If you're doing a top-down view, drawing the entire world map and then filling in the details, it can easily be seen that a game like 3.5 could be easier, with it's game mechanics as physics attitude working for that type of ideal.

If you're doing a bottom-up view, placing the camera firmly behind the PC's instead of up in the sky, a game that glosses over non-conflict related elements would seem better, like 4e does.

Basically, when you get to an ancient ruin that uses wondrous architecture, which question is more important to your story;

A: How did they make this? Play 3.5.
B: What do I do now that I'm here? Play 4e.

 

[El Mahdi]

Not because I don't find that gaming mechanics do NOT have an effect on the campaign, 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.

Personally, I feel that game mechanics usually do not have a lot to do with world building. IMO, most world information (setting) is predominantly fluff anyways, and therefore independent of mechanics.

However, as far as mechanics do affect world building...I actually feel 3.5 is not particularly good at it (even though it is my chosen system). There are so many default D&D conceits built into the rules, that it can be very hard at times for 3.5 to model something different than a typical D&D world. Strip those conceits from the mechanics, and I feel that 3.5 can very easily and accurately model any world you could possibly imagine, simply by adding on the conceits that you want for the world you want. However, stripping those built in conceits can be quite involved and time consuming (depending on how different from standard D&D your desired world is). Now, if all you want is a standard D&D world with just a few differences...yeah, that's pretty easy.

Frankly, I don't think any edition of D&D is particularly good for world building. Of course, this doesn't mean that you can't world build with D&D, as proven by the decades of homebrewing with D&D. But, unless you want the standard D&D conceits in your world (in which case it's just a matter of creating your fluff), you may have a lot of work to do.

If one was looking for a mechanical system strictly for flexibility in world building, I'd think a more universal system (like maybe Gurps) would work better.