D&D 3E/3.5 4E reminded me how much I like 3E

[pemerton]

Seems a trivial change to me. Long-time 3e players will squall, to be sure, but they do get over it. Just hand out the treasure they need when you think they need it.

Really I'm astounded that you can't easily envision it.

Like I said in my follow-up post, you can go the 4e way of handing out the treasure that the players want. But I don't think this is the direction that the anti-item-creationist were suggesting, of less rather than more player control over item acquisition.

Unless by "need" you mean "need in the opinion of the GM" rather than "desired by the players". In that case I can't envision that sort of GM control being consistent with the general tenor of 3E - as I said in my follow-up post.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

In that case I can't envision that sort of GM control being consistent with the general tenor of 3E - as I said in my follow-up post.

I grok you now.

My 3e games have never had the tenor you speak of, but I don't dispute that the tendency was there.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I grok you now.

My 3e games have never had the tenor you speak of, but I don't dispute that the tendency was there.

I experienced this tenor myself, too. 3E seems to encourage a certain type of thinking, on "the proper way to do things".
I really felt very skeptical about the Iron Heroes Villain Classes at first (wait - no Int Bonus to skills per level? Classes with HD != Level?), as if they were no longer "real D&D" and diverged from the way-it-was-meant-to-be. But in fact they were a great boon, and I couldn't ignore that.
But I think only the combination of Iron Heroes and the 4E announcement and the previews made me really willing to ignore the "tenor" of the game and just do what I felt made sense. (Like making an Elite Template for monsters that just doubled hit points without caring about the usual template intracities and how you modify hit points...)

 

[pemerton]

Though with respect to the tenor I was referring to - namely, player control over PC build, including magic items (which have always been a crucial element of PC build in D&D) - 4e is simply continuing the trend. Only it's less afraid to adopt straightforward metagame solutions such as the magic item wishlist, which removes the need for the unhapy ingame approach - magic item shops and typical wealth by demographic unit - that 3E, given its simulationist tendencies, got lumped with.