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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8222234" data-attributes="member: 6790260">In some meaningful senses, 3rd edition was the first truly new D&D game. There's a reason they dropped the "Advanced" from the front, and not solely because they were ending the (kinda-sorta fig leaf excuse) "separate Advanced and Basic lines" policy. 3rd edition really did mark the end of an era, arguably moreso than Gygax's departure fifteen years prior, because of the sheer number of up-front and under-the-hood changes.And, as much as I openly rag on 3e and its descendants for their flaws, it's absolutely inarguable that it changed the face of tabletop roleplaying. The rules changes implied that consistency and some kind of transparency were now the name of the game; that you should be able to make different features and options work out reasonably well; that esoteric calculations (e.g. THAC0) or 2D-table memorization (attack matrices) were no longer needed, so anybody could get into it even if they weren't super math-inclined; indeed, that anybody could get into design if they wanted, what with the D20 boom; and that you really could in some limited sense "play the game" away from the table by preparing for how you would shape your character going forward.Pretty much all of the above was really, really popular. But, as I've noted elsewhere (and can cross-post if people want), there are also some ways in which the very popularity of certain 3rd edition features stems from their being flawed, even though pretty much nobody explicitly wants flawed rules. (In brief, the primary one is that the alleged "JC Penney" effect applies pretty heavily to every game in the 3rd edition family, since nobody likes crufty crap, but most fans love the idea of finding a powerful combo or creating an advantage out of a normally bad option.) And that's sort of the paradox of the 3rd edition family: no brand-new game could ever match the dizzying variety of options (even if those options mostly just provide the same sorts of bonuses with different fluff), and almost any attempt to fix the actual issues (like some classes being crap or OP, or CR being a buggy mess that's almost never useful, etc.) is INCREDIBLY easy to misinterpret, intentionally or not, as an attack on something valued by fans.Ultimately, I absolutely think D&D overall, and indeed even the TTRPG hobby, is better off because 3rd edition existed. But like any complex historical thing, it has a mix of really great and really bad things, and a significant number of people who won't (or can't) separate the two. We have already benefited (and will continue to benefit) from its positive side, that is inarguable. But the more frustrating parts cast a long shadow, and will likely linger on for many years to come.</blockquote>

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