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<blockquote data-quote="sunshadow21" data-source="post: 6361913" data-attributes="member: 6667193">I think the biggest problem that 3E hed with rules taking center stage was the rise of organized play. The core books themselves didn't do anything more to encourage rules over story telling, but by successfully introducing a new environment to play D&amp;D in, via organized play, WotC opened up a can of worms that has yet to be fully dealt with. The difficulty with organized play is that the rules are the only thing a player has to rely on; playing with a different DM and group each and every time you sit down with that character tends to make reliance on DM judgment and storytelling problematic. On the character development side, it also meant that your character had to be reasonably good at most things because you never knew what your party members would be able to do. Paizo has limited this to a great extent, but not entirely eliminated it, by making it clear that PFS is just one way of many of how the game can be approached and played. WotC never really did that with either Living Greyhawk or LFR (never tried Encounters, so I have no idea how well they separated it from the total 4E experience).The one thing I have seen with 5E at least so far is that the rules are presented more clearly and consistently. That alone will help cut down on the focus on rules. PF could do the same easily if all Paizo did was republish the core book and changed none of the actual material but simply reformatted everything to be easier to read and access. In the end, though, the main lesson for 3rd edition still holds true, and that is how people approach the game has as much impact on how it is played as how many rules do or don't get formally written down or how those rules are formatted do.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="sunshadow21, post: 6361913, member: 6667193"] I think the biggest problem that 3E hed with rules taking center stage was the rise of organized play. The core books themselves didn't do anything more to encourage rules over story telling, but by successfully introducing a new environment to play D&D in, via organized play, WotC opened up a can of worms that has yet to be fully dealt with. The difficulty with organized play is that the rules are the only thing a player has to rely on; playing with a different DM and group each and every time you sit down with that character tends to make reliance on DM judgment and storytelling problematic. On the character development side, it also meant that your character had to be reasonably good at most things because you never knew what your party members would be able to do. Paizo has limited this to a great extent, but not entirely eliminated it, by making it clear that PFS is just one way of many of how the game can be approached and played. WotC never really did that with either Living Greyhawk or LFR (never tried Encounters, so I have no idea how well they separated it from the total 4E experience). The one thing I have seen with 5E at least so far is that the rules are presented more clearly and consistently. That alone will help cut down on the focus on rules. PF could do the same easily if all Paizo did was republish the core book and changed none of the actual material but simply reformatted everything to be easier to read and access. In the end, though, the main lesson for 3rd edition still holds true, and that is how people approach the game has as much impact on how it is played as how many rules do or don't get formally written down or how those rules are formatted do. [/QUOTE]

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