3e and the Test of Time

[Akrasia]

I've read both plato and aristotle, "the bard", and homer and ehh. Its only good because every teacher tells you its good. Seriously yeah the long deads words are all inspiring and stuff but sometimes living people and recently dead people can produce something just as good.

Joss Whedon's Buffy and Angel series express many classical themes and moral conflicts. I am not kidding.

 

[Blue Sky]

You know, I sold all my stuff from previous editions as soon as 3rd edition came around, and haven't thought of it since. As far as stuff that really makes me excited to game, I've found many books in 3rd edition to spark my imagination. The Book of Challenges, Draconimicon, ECS, The Assassin's Handbook, FRCS, and many more.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

I think it will be an excellent idea if the moderators temporarily banned threads like this one.

There are currently 2 active threads like this one and all I read are people yelling at one another and making semi-personal attacks or stating the same arguments over and over and over.

I'd say 2 months would be a sufficient length of time for most of the people to get over their own "winter blues" that may be a factor in these threads.

 

[hong]

[Tongue firmly planted in cheek in this post btw..]

I think that while it's very polite of you to clearly label your posts as trolls so as to remove any possibility of misinterpreting them as substantive commentary, it's still rather unsporting. Which is why I still do this better than you.

 

[Psion]

There are currently 2 active threads like this one

Last week there were 4.

 

[hong]

Contrary to what people around here might think, 1E still has a pretty large and devoted following. I am constantly amazed at how many people still play 1E.

Well, you know, just because people do stuff doesn't mean it's good for them.

 

[rounser]

Well, you know, just because people do stuff doesn't mean it's good for them.

Like the crunch-buying habits of 3E gamers, say?

 

[hong]

Like the crunch-buying habits of 3E gamers, say?

1E and 3E, locked in a codependent spiral. It's almost Homeric.

 

[3catcircus]

There will always been new ways of doing things, or new stories to tell. I use the older books because the 3e books do not provide what I need or even make the attempt.

I think the "...even make the attempt." portion of your quote is most telling - in almost every single case, I've picked up a 3.x WOTC book, thumbed through it, and saw the glaring mistakes. I've thumbed through books, saw the list of feats and said to myself "They *already* published that in xxx - why are they recycling it instead of filling this new book with new useful material?!?!" Not only can't WOTC bother with providing brand-new material in each book, they can't even bother with making sure that what they *do* provide has been properly edited.

The thing that has torqued me the most is that the Complete books coulda-shoulda-woulda have been completely brand-new material. All of the splat book information that they recycled as-is should've been left out of it - heck that's what a web enhancement is for.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

It's fascinating to watch this kind of discussion crop up again and again...and it always manages to miss the topic, in my opinion.

If you look back at the posts in these discussions, most people's fond memories come from the vivid campaign worlds that were available for the respective editions. Well, there are a lot of campaign worlds available for 3E that are just as vivid and stimulating for the imagination as the "old" ones. Some are revamped settings from older editions, some are pretty much original, some take old ideas and recycle them...but most of them are sparkling with ideas, and damn hard to resist.

If it's just about the rules, I'd say no ruleset really "stands the test of time", for the simple reason that rules, in their basic form, are simply a tool that is used to simulate actions in the respective setting. Some people swear by the tools they used 25 years ago to do it, some prefer the fresh and constantly updated tools from a few years ago. The same can be said about the old Atari games, for example. Some people prefer to use the good old machine they used 25 years ago to play the games, others prefer to run an emulator on their spanking new Win XP machine. What matters are the games themselves.

What is different, in my opinion, is the marketing strategy. I'm of ambivalent opinions regarding the fact that, with D&D 3E, the rules and the game's athmosphere have been separated. It has it's advantages and disadvantages, and I don't want this to creep into this thread, as it has been discussed to death already, but at the moment, and that's from the impression I'm getting personally, it seems all you need is the 3 core books to start a decent game.

Which isn't the case, at least for somebody who's coming fresh into this game, without roleplaying experience under his belt, who may have, or have not, played a few computer roleplaying games or trading card games, or simply loves the LoTR movies. Because all he gets is a set of rules. Good rules, concise rules, and streamlined to provide minimum problems of usage (okay, I'm idealistic here...so let me ). My impression is that he doesn't get told to at least take a look at the FRCS or Eberron CS books to get a glimpse of what D&D is really capable of (or Midnight, or Scarred Lands, or Iron Kingdoms, et...). I mean, I don't know about the 3.5 core rules, but the 3.0 books didn't even have ads for the adventures WoTC published for 3E back then? There's an ad for Dragon Magazine in the DM's Guide, hurray . And yes, I know that a good RPG/hobby store will tell the new roleplayer that there are a lot of adventures, too, that you can start your fun with. But where's that at WalMart, or other big stores where you simply buy the book without "assistance"?

That's my main gripe with the "new" strategy 3E brought up.