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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Simia Saturnalia" data-source="post: 3814420" data-attributes="member: 53692">Alright, I'm following this, and I both agree and disagree with it. It's possible - okay, really likely - that in fact my entire view on this subject stems from my approach to DMing, campaign building, and D&D in general. I consider the homebrewing of fluff, putting your own stamp on the implied setting of D&D as offered by the rulebooks, to be a fundamental part of the experience. World building is simply something the DM does; sure, there are established campaign settings, but I've always felt those are for modules, fiction (and an avenue to draw fans of the fiction into D&D), and people who are really busy but still want to DM.I don't feel you can extract mechanical changes from the change in tone, personally, and in that respect 3e changed a lot more than you seem to feel it did. Magic item proliferation. PC templates. The new emphasis on melee damage relative to previous editions. Nearly free multiclassing. The world the PCs represented was fundamentally and irrevocably changed, even if all the old monsters were there and you had spell slots. Unearthed Arcana was arguably the fourth core book at a large number of tables, and hints of it (EDIT: 'it' being 4th Edition) can be seen in some of the rules for offer there.Personally, I believe a large number of those gamers were people who hit the dungeon in the old days exactly like a surgical strike, maps and minis in hand, and they left when D&D went the route of metaplot-heavy setting-shaking campaigns and tightly plotted modules. 3e represented 'back to basics' in that you could play it as an almost purely tactical exercise, trading treasure for magical power because everything has a market value and facing challenges that were close enough to balanced - or specific amounts of "easier than normal" or "harder than normal" - as to be gameable. I don't believe, in these days of ubiquitous internet, that these markets are as different as you appear to believe. I'm also considering the fact that this may be a shift to market D&D more heavily in foreign markets - Asia in particular? Idle speculation on my part, but worth considering, IMO.Alright, fair enough. It's just that that isn't what those words mean.Granted.Also granted. I just think we disagree on what the core experience is that sells it to the largest player base.</blockquote>

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