3.5 better for world building?

[JoeGKushner]

What? I'm baffled by the monster statement. it's generally regarded that in 4e, monster and encounter design are some of the more appealing reasons to run the game.

Baffled man. Baffled.

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.

 

[ZzarkLinux]

If I wanted to design a simulationist world, and had lots of time to do it, then I'd use 3.X

Otherwise, I'd use 4e. It makes high-fantasy and magic much more simple and streamlined.

I think the only advantage is that in 4E, monsters and characters alike are both more rigid.

I disagree with the part about Monsters.

In 4e, a monster = Fluff + power(s). Same for NPCs.
Can't get much simpler than that.

In 3e, It's Lvl -> Race -> LA -> hit dice -> Wealth -> Feats -> Magic Items -> etc ... -> Then fluff

 

[Orius]

Can't really say, never played 4e.

I feel that some campaign work was better in 3e than 2e though. No class/level restrictions, feats, and prestige classes made 3e more flexible to work with than 2e which felt more rigid in some ways.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I think D&D has been getting worse and worse for Worldbuilding. While I enjoy 3.5 and tolerate 4e, neither is ideal for creating the worlds I like to create and DM.

In 3e, the reliance upon magic is almost chronic but the system can be bashed around to achieve some measure of balance in a rare magic world (where magic is rare but powerful). It's a pain and it is difficult to erase many of the core magic assumptions of the ruleset.

4e presents several further roadblocks to this process. In fact it would almost be like trying to recreate the wheel to rarify the commonality of powerful effects. I suppose you could just reskin everything to fit in flavourwise but the disconnect between flavour and mechanic is already jarring enough that tampering with this further would make it almost unplayable.

The designers that killed the simulationist aspects of the game have a lot to answer for in my opinion. Were they reacting to getting laughed at by the cool kids? Did they need to differentiate themselves from their fellow viking helmet-wearing enthusiasts? Whatever the case, the erasing of simulationist game aspects from D&D stinks!

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[pawsplay]

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?

Setting design is game system design. Right off the bat, including or not including more setting is a huge decision. Consider costing "Immunity to bullets" as a hypothetical ability. It makes quite a lot of difference whether the setting is a modern supernatural thriller featuring a secret FBI bureau, a swashbuckling Age of Sail game, or a futuristic superhero game. Campaign design is system design. I cannot even imagine trying to consider setting design and game system design separately.

 

[Bluenose]

I think D&D has been getting worse and worse for Worldbuilding. While I enjoy 3.5 and tolerate 4e, neither is ideal for creating the worlds I like to create and DM.

snip...

The designers that killed the simulationist aspects of the game have a lot to answer for in my opinion. Were they reacting to getting laughed at by the cool kids? Did they need to differentiate themselves from their fellow viking helmet-wearing enthusiasts? Whatever the case, the erasing of simulationist game aspects from D&D stinks!

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

Having played since before there was a 1e, I don't think D&D ever put more than a faint simulationist veneer on a system that was inherently not simulationist. If I want a simulationist approach, I'll go for a game written that way rather than one written as something else with some faux-simulation elements bolted on.


To answer the main question, it depends what sort of approach you're taking. If your idea is for 'rules as physics' and building a world based on that, 3e is better than 4e. It's rules cover a wider range of activities. If you've already got an idea in mind then it's likely either rule set will need modification to fit the concept, and it will depend on the original concept which set of rules works best. I will suggest you're more likely to be throwing out 3e rules than 4e rules. As I mentioned before, it's rules cover a wider range of activities. Others have pointed out the 'economic' rules from 3e, as an example of something you'll probably be discarding.

Setting design is game system design. Right off the bat, including or not including more setting is a huge decision. Consider costing "Immunity to bullets" as a hypothetical ability. It makes quite a lot of difference whether the setting is a modern supernatural thriller featuring a secret FBI bureau, a swashbuckling Age of Sail game, or a futuristic superhero game. Campaign design is system design. I cannot even imagine trying to consider setting design and game system design separately.

At opposite ends of the 'Simulationist' scale, both GURPS and Heroquest would disagree with you.

 

[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)

To Clarify my point now I'm on a keyboard rather than a smartphone...

I think it depends to some extent on what one considers 'world building' to entail.

To me, world building is about creating a distinctly different campaign setting - it isn't something I do by drawing a map, putting some nations on and just applying the rules to every location. I like to introduce house rules to support the campaign world and campaign feel that I'm after.

3e was harder to make large scale houserules to than earlier editions of D&D, but there were factors such as Prestige Classes and the flexibly multiclassing rules which were very useful for presenting mechanical differences between different nations or areas.

4e is, IMX, much harder to make large scale houserules for. The lack of transparency in power design makes it tricky as well as time consuming to create new classes or paragon classes (and paragon classes are introduced much more as PC configuration options than as DM world building options - admittedy 3e quickly abandoned DM world prestige classes for PC configuration prestige classes, undermining their original precept, but there you are).

I guess the proof of the pudding might be to compare 2e, 3e and 4e Dark Sun, and see how much effort is required to present such a distinctly different campaign world, and measure the degree of success with which it was done. I've only ever seen the 2e version, so I can't comment on that, but it would be interesting to see the thoughts of Dark Sun afficianados.

Cheers

 

[LurkMonkey]

...I think it depends to some extent on what one considers 'world building' to entail.

I think this is the core of the matter. Some people like to twiddle with the rules when they 'homebrew', some could really care less and concentrate on the political/religious/cultural synergies of their world.

I have never played 4e (nothing against it: I have never played GURPS either) so I can't really tell you my opinions on 3e vs 4e but I think if you fall into the second category where rules are less important you can build worlds no matter what the underlying game engine. After all, children build worlds every day with just their minds and a few improvised props. The only problem arises when the participants disagree on an outcome ('I shot you! Nuh uh!') or a given power ('I have a special bullet proof vest! Nuh uh!').

Now from everything I have heard, if you like getting into the guts of a system then 4e is for you. And that sort of playstyle appeals to many folks. There are whole fora devoted to discussing minutae like '+2 CHA for the kender, is it broken?' and the like. It also appears to be faster and sleeker for GMs, something that appeals to the time-stressed individual.

3e has (if the many posts I have read can be believed) a much clunkier cruftier game engine. But it does has 10 years of system support and a vast amount of options available for gameplay. The sheer amount of information available is astonishing. WotC's material, the myriad 3pp, and now Pathfinder ensure that there are enough variations in material that whatever you need can be Googled up with little effort. If rules difficulty doesn't bother you and you are looking for more 'plug and play' options in gameplay than it seems 3e/PF would be a good choice.

What it really boils down to is: What do YOU want to experience? And if you are the GM, what does your audience (i.e. the players) wish to experience? If you are not answering these questions correctly, the game will fail, no matter what the engine.

 

[BryonD]

In 3e, It's Lvl -> Race -> LA -> hit dice -> Wealth -> Feats -> Magic Items -> etc ... -> Then fluff

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are saying....

But I completely disagree with what this seems to say. Certainly if you are implying that this is a sequence that is required, then you are simply wrong. And even if you are just saying that all the mechanics come first and the fluff last, you are also flat out wrong.

That you list "level" first for 3e certainly throws up a red flag.

I will agree that monster building is quite simple in 4E.

I've argued before with people about things like a 4E X level shirtless pirate and a 4E X level plate armored knight can have pretty much the same AC because the AC range is defined by being right for the level and not by the "shirtless" or "armored". Now, I agree with you that it is powers +fluff and easy to do. But the details of the powers may have some degree of flexibility, but only within a range which is a slave to the level. In 4E "the math works", and a correctly designed monster won't deviate from this decree.

In 3e you have a lot more degrees of freedom. And maybe that is what you were trying to suggest. There are a lot more pieces that need to be considered and resolved. It takes more time to write up. But the fluff comes 100% first and everything else is just tinker toys for sculpting the mechanics that match the fluff you start with.

4E is easier. And both systems let you have "a pirate" and "a knight", so from the pure world building point of view, both completely work. But if (and this is completely a matter of taste) the characteristics of the monster or individual are expected to control to mechanics, the 3E is better. If the math working for a desired encounter level is expected to control the mechanics, then 4E is better.

 

[AllisterH]

Building a class in 4e is definitely the most involved of all the editions since I think 4e tried to make each power unique for a class....whereas the equivalent in earlied editions was simply a wizard or cleric with 4-5 different level benefits and different spell access...The most tricky would be the Bo9S r things like the Shadowmage and Truenamer.

Building a race in 4e I really don't see as being THAT noticeable a difference between any other editions frankly.

For example, the core 1e/2e races seem to be just as involved and even more arbitary in design frankly...take a look at say the Halfling entry and contrast it with the gnome entry. Doing the same for 3e and 4e and I'd argue that creating a race in 1e/2e was definitely more involved.

Monster and encounter design? Hands down I give this to 4e personally. Monsters are built using the 1e/2e ethos of Monsters != PCs which gives incredibly more leeway than the 3e method IMO. Throw in the ease with which to create new monsters that actually are balanced (the monster creation rules in 1e/2e were weird...worked relatively well for "brute" type monsters but anything else?) and 4e I think would serve the worldbuilder better.

With all that said, one of the greatest TSR products I've used and which doesn't have any edition bias is the World Builder's Guidebook.