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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CuRoi" data-source="post: 5634698" data-attributes="member: 98032">Those are all valid points, and again I'm still willing to admit that what I am toying with is only something I would ever like to see. Again though, the only reason I posted these ideas was that several threads kept popping up where DnD designers, players etc. were looking for or speculating about some similar changes. I know I'm late to the party and all the "3.75" furor was used up long ago (prior to the phenom that is Pathfinder). Having started with the real Red Box, I do agree the quirkiness and the "byzantine" were part of the charm. I run 3.5 games with my AD&D DMG at the table because it is still inspirational for just those reasons! For whatever reason though, I'd argue that the the byzantine and quirky lost it's charm after 1e and 2e. In 3e it was just plain byzantine with the "quirky" erased in an attempt to create simulationist rules for everything imagineable. This just led to rules bloat more than anything. While I did switch to 3e because I liked the changes they made to many of the mechanics, I did feel it changed the role of DMing a bit in the wrong direction. My time spent rules surfing as DM increased significantly. Further, everytime I added a new player or would go to a new group I found out just how "byzantine" these rules were because EVERYONE seemed to have their own interpretation. Yes, with previous editons that was often the case, but more often than not it was a concious decision to deviate from the RAW and apply a house rule.  With 3e it often isn't a concious decision it is simply that they have a totally different interpretation of a rule. The game has been out for 10 years or so and I STILL see people posting what look like house rules as gospel (I'm sure I do the same). It's not that people are dense, it's just the rules are unnecessarily dense. I'm all for creating rules for everything in a simulationist sense, but I see no reason why you can't do it from a common base. I don't see it as "banal" just "necessary" if complex simulationist rules are your intent and consistency among your player base is at all a concern.  My own personal hope for 4e was that it would introduce some streamlined elements without tossing out the more interesting complexities of the game. They started doing the former and gutted the latter IMO. It just didn't do it for me. Pathfinder is only slightly on a better course, also IMO. They did fix some of the broken 3e elements but then layered on a raftload of new elements. Point taken that stepping away from the paradigm is perhaps the best course. I've often considered creating my own ruleset entirely for my campaign or mvoing to a new system. However, I'm still a fan of DnD and want to keep something that is mostly recognizable as such for myself and my current players. I do think at the heart you -can- throw out some unnecessary bloat and still call it DnD without making it into something which seems to split the community into two warring factions. I'm not necessarily saying I can do this though - I'm just throwing around ideas which apparently other people have been discussing for a bit as well.</blockquote>

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