3e and the Test of Time
- Thread starter Belen
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JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Well, I'm not saying D&D 3rd ed is perfect but it's miles better than previous editions for me.
Does it get boring sometimes knowing that there's a rule to cover everything? Yes, it can. I mean contrasting someone running up a table, kicking some dude in the check and pushing off and stabbing someone else on the other side of the room is going to play out 100% differently in 1st and 2nd ed of AD&D than in 3rd ed (mainly because in 3rd ed that would be too many actions... okay, make a Jump or Tumble DC... Now Make your Attack roll for this round on the kick...) Even that though, some GMs will still run their games more like Exalted and allow it all and perhaps even give a good bonus for role playing.
I feel that these posts of rules and details are all smoke and mirrors. Perhaps it's because I've been gaming since the original Marvel Super Heros Game came out. Perhaps it's because I'm imaganative. Perhaps it's because I'm happy with the people I game with (usually!). I just don't see these issues as being 'real'.
Sometimes I wonder just how much of this crap is nostalgia. How much of it is being young and the newness of it all. I'm not saying that this is 100% true. After all, I have a huge collection of older materail I still reference, but I don't sit there and hold something like the Best of Dragon Vol 1 with it's poor layout and graphic design next to Midnight and go, "Man, Midnight sucks. What's wrong with these people." Times change, taste change and people change. How long 3rd ed will stand the test of time will be interesting to watch and speculate on.
In the end, I guess I'm just tired of the "I feel that rules heavy games..." blah blah blah... It's not like Hero and GURPS haven't been outdoing D&D at details for years and years now... And heck, without 3rd ed, we wouldn't have Conan, Midnight, Mutants & Masterminds, and the soon to be released Black Company.
Long live d20!
Does it get boring sometimes knowing that there's a rule to cover everything? Yes, it can. I mean contrasting someone running up a table, kicking some dude in the check and pushing off and stabbing someone else on the other side of the room is going to play out 100% differently in 1st and 2nd ed of AD&D than in 3rd ed (mainly because in 3rd ed that would be too many actions... okay, make a Jump or Tumble DC... Now Make your Attack roll for this round on the kick...) Even that though, some GMs will still run their games more like Exalted and allow it all and perhaps even give a good bonus for role playing.
I feel that these posts of rules and details are all smoke and mirrors. Perhaps it's because I've been gaming since the original Marvel Super Heros Game came out. Perhaps it's because I'm imaganative. Perhaps it's because I'm happy with the people I game with (usually!). I just don't see these issues as being 'real'.
Sometimes I wonder just how much of this crap is nostalgia. How much of it is being young and the newness of it all. I'm not saying that this is 100% true. After all, I have a huge collection of older materail I still reference, but I don't sit there and hold something like the Best of Dragon Vol 1 with it's poor layout and graphic design next to Midnight and go, "Man, Midnight sucks. What's wrong with these people." Times change, taste change and people change. How long 3rd ed will stand the test of time will be interesting to watch and speculate on.
In the end, I guess I'm just tired of the "I feel that rules heavy games..." blah blah blah... It's not like Hero and GURPS haven't been outdoing D&D at details for years and years now... And heck, without 3rd ed, we wouldn't have Conan, Midnight, Mutants & Masterminds, and the soon to be released Black Company.
Long live d20!
UniversalMonster
Explorer
DIAGLO: I disagree. This is a very silly discussion.
Lets try this again.
The point is someone was telling me "your campaign isn't good because of anything to do with the 3e rules", and I'm saying yes it is, and citing the ways in which those rules have really mattered. Thats not an opinion, thats a factual account- and not just a fact for me- but a plain fact. Not only that, but how would anyone who hasn't seen my camapign or played in it even know?
If you say "OD&D is the one true game" thats obviously an opinion, and it is easily discarded becase who wants to argue over preferences? If you say "the OD&D rules made my camapign great by providing X, Y, and Z"- that actually means something. Nobody can really dispute that, except maybe your players. And still, we would then have to privately evaluate whats good about X, Y, or Z.
If we were talking about cars it would be easier. The 1973 Ford Galaxie 500 is a great car. You could call it the one true car or your favorite car. Nobody would have anything to say about it. Some classic car type people would even agree.
If I say "my new car is better than the previous models because it is faster, more reliable and easier to find parts for than the others. Also, it has air conditioning." thats more than just an opinion. Because the facts remain: it IS faster, it IS more reliable, it IS easier to find parts for. There's no opinion involved here.
If someone comes up and says "your car isn't better because it's just faster, more reliable, and you can buy parts for it and so on. Thats just an opinion.."
Well, no. It's not an opinion. That person would just be wrong.
Lets try this again.
The point is someone was telling me "your campaign isn't good because of anything to do with the 3e rules", and I'm saying yes it is, and citing the ways in which those rules have really mattered. Thats not an opinion, thats a factual account- and not just a fact for me- but a plain fact. Not only that, but how would anyone who hasn't seen my camapign or played in it even know?
If you say "OD&D is the one true game" thats obviously an opinion, and it is easily discarded becase who wants to argue over preferences? If you say "the OD&D rules made my camapign great by providing X, Y, and Z"- that actually means something. Nobody can really dispute that, except maybe your players. And still, we would then have to privately evaluate whats good about X, Y, or Z.
If we were talking about cars it would be easier. The 1973 Ford Galaxie 500 is a great car. You could call it the one true car or your favorite car. Nobody would have anything to say about it. Some classic car type people would even agree.
If I say "my new car is better than the previous models because it is faster, more reliable and easier to find parts for than the others. Also, it has air conditioning." thats more than just an opinion. Because the facts remain: it IS faster, it IS more reliable, it IS easier to find parts for. There's no opinion involved here.
If someone comes up and says "your car isn't better because it's just faster, more reliable, and you can buy parts for it and so on. Thats just an opinion.."
Well, no. It's not an opinion. That person would just be wrong.
Henry
Autoexreginated
JPL said:
DiTerlizzi's work turned me off from Planescape more than anything, but that's just me - I'm more of an Elmore-Caldwell man.
And while I didn't like a lot of Planescape, Eberron can definitely hang with the stuff they did for Dragonlance back in the day - the DLA hardcovers, the modules, Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home, etc. were all very well done, and immersed you in the world, and painted a picture of what it was like to live there. By the same token, listening to Weis and Hickman talk about Ansalon, or listening to Ed Greenwood talk about Faerun, or listening to Keith share Eberron lore, I get that same feeling - of immersion, of asking a sage who has walked those halls, who has studied at their universities a short while, who knows what he's talking about because he can see it clear as day. And all have given me much enjoyment. The only difference is this: Ed Greenwood is one HELL of a storyteller. He can keep you occupied listening to him for hours, and few other game designers have his personality and penchant for this.
diaglo
Adventurer
Peter said:
the fact remains he is doing a comparison of parts he has in hand. so he can do a comparison.
but his facts are still opinions.
what you want to label as facts may or may not have weight in his opinion.
which makes them opinion. not fact when related to his study.
i'm not looking for new parts for OD&D. and BelenU is playing 3.e and enjoying it. he is however looking at the facts of what he has in front of him just as much as you are. his analysis is weighted differently. just as yours is. and so is mine.
edit: example.. BelenU: the sky is blue. diaglo: but it was more blue in the old days. Peter: but it is comprised of only 24.7% blue and 35. 6% red and...
giving something numbers does not make it fact for BelenU or diaglo in this example.
edit2: btw i had a 71 Monte Carlo. i used to whoop up on Fords all the time.
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derelictjay
Explorer
This is how I see it, 3e will not survive the test of time, but neither did 2e or 1e before it. Those systems were about rules, and those rules were changed. Now yes some of those rules lived on to the next series but alot didn't.
But thats not what your talking about, your saying there's not enough in the 3e books that can be used in later editions, as most WoTC books are rules heavy. Well, alot of 2e books are the same way the Skills & Powers line of books, can they really be used with 3e, maybe the crit. tables in the Combat & Tactics book. What about the 2e players handbook, it looks the same as the 3e one. The 2e Dungeon Masters Guide, I only used it for the magic Items in the back otherwise I didn't use it. The Complete line of 2e books, I hated, the explainations they pushed rarely worked with my imagination or campaign.
Now the settings, thats a different thing entirely. Most could have been made with the 3e rules (with the possible exception of Dark Sun). Putting these in there as a test of time for 3e/2e is wrong, looking at Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, these have always had excellent books and they have all crossed the edition gaps. And WoTC's only new 3e setting Eberron easily competes with all of these, and like those will stand the test of time in their own right set aside from the editions the were created with.
But thats not what your talking about, your saying there's not enough in the 3e books that can be used in later editions, as most WoTC books are rules heavy. Well, alot of 2e books are the same way the Skills & Powers line of books, can they really be used with 3e, maybe the crit. tables in the Combat & Tactics book. What about the 2e players handbook, it looks the same as the 3e one. The 2e Dungeon Masters Guide, I only used it for the magic Items in the back otherwise I didn't use it. The Complete line of 2e books, I hated, the explainations they pushed rarely worked with my imagination or campaign.
Now the settings, thats a different thing entirely. Most could have been made with the 3e rules (with the possible exception of Dark Sun). Putting these in there as a test of time for 3e/2e is wrong, looking at Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, these have always had excellent books and they have all crossed the edition gaps. And WoTC's only new 3e setting Eberron easily competes with all of these, and like those will stand the test of time in their own right set aside from the editions the were created with.
Rel
Liquid Awesome
You know what else is dry and bare bones and lacks flavor? The Ball. It's just a sphere of a reasonable weight for throwing or kicking or rolling. There is little to say about it aside from that and it certainly lacks a whole lot of interesting qualities. I get bored from looking at the ball after less than a minute.
But once I start playing a GAME with the ball, well that's a whole 'nother...well, ballgame! Tennis? Baseball? Bowling? Basketball? Soccer? Calvinball?! The possibilities are endless! All I have to do is to add some ideas that I've come up with and I've suddenly got an amazing GAME!
Now if I buy the game already in a box called "Zoomball" then I've already got the rules for Zoomball in hand and I can play Zoomball as much as I want. I could probably even play other ballgames with my Zoomball ball. But if I'm going to start modifying the rules right out of the box then I may as well have just bought the Ball by itself.
That's how I feel about 3E.
But once I start playing a GAME with the ball, well that's a whole 'nother...well, ballgame! Tennis? Baseball? Bowling? Basketball? Soccer? Calvinball?! The possibilities are endless! All I have to do is to add some ideas that I've come up with and I've suddenly got an amazing GAME!
Now if I buy the game already in a box called "Zoomball" then I've already got the rules for Zoomball in hand and I can play Zoomball as much as I want. I could probably even play other ballgames with my Zoomball ball. But if I'm going to start modifying the rules right out of the box then I may as well have just bought the Ball by itself.
That's how I feel about 3E.
JRRNeiklot
First Post
derelictjay said:
I have hundreds of D&D books, but if I had to have a kidney transplant, I'd hock all the 2e and 3e stuff and hang on to my 1e books, even if that meant I'd have to have the operation in a sleezy motel, performed by a veterinarian.
1e has definitely stood the test of time. All it needs is a jump start - someone to get the rights to it and republish it. WOTC hasn't done so because they KNOW it would be competition for their own product, and that is not good business. 100 each of 2 products does not equal 200 sales of one.
BlueBlackRed
Explorer
JRRNeiklot said:
It's called Hackmaster now. Kenzer & Co. bought the rights to it. Buy the books and you'll see your 1st Ed. AD&D recreated with some humor added.
Or go to eBay. Someone is always selling their old books from all editions. The only expensive ones are the OD&D books.
Now I'm going to start my timer. I want to see about how long it takes for another person to start a thread that whines about or slams D&D 3E.
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
I have not noticed any seasonal variation in the number of "Isn't 3E so awful? Doesn't it spell the end of the industry? Isn't it but a former shadow of the game we once knew and loved?" threads on these boards. Their frequency seems fairly consistent over the course of the year.Mystery Man said:
I haven't done any actual analysis, of course, so maybe there IS a seasonal effect. Hm.
