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Message: <blockquote data-quote="molonel" data-source="post: 3442488" data-attributes="member: 10412">Zuh?I still make low-level characters in 5 minutes. Rogues take a little longer because you're allocating skill points, and sometimes choosing wizard spells takes a little longer, but I really think you're confusing mid- and high-level options with low-level games. Most 1st through 6th level characters can't even QUALIFY for a lot of feats or prestige classes. I play pick-up games a LOT, and taking all day to invent a 1st through 6th level character just doesn't happen.In other words, I think you're exaggerating.If you're talking about players who are new to the game having to learn what their race or class can do, then THAT is certainly nothing new. I've guided new players through the game in multiple editions, and frankly, I find it a lot easier to explain things now where I hold up a 20-sided die, and say, "When I tell you to roll this, you roll it and I'll tell you what to add."That's a LOT easier than explaining, "Well, this is a saving throw/attack roll/armor class, so higher/lower is better in this particular circumstance, and we need to look at this chart on this page of this book to know whether or not you succeeded."Agreed. Just about every 1st Edition fighter looked EXACTLY the same, even down to their gear.Also, agreed.Personally, I find it easier to remove extraneous material from 3rd Edition D&D than to add mechanics or options to a "simpler" game.Basically, what I do when I run a D&D game is that I start from core rules, and anything else has to be run by me before it finds its way into the game. That's my take on the game derived straight from the pages of the DMG.I also read fairly widely on forums, and in alternate rules sets, and I am fully willing to design custom prestige classes or roleplaying opportunities to customize characters. In my last campaign, I had a character who started as a human barbarian and eventually wound up as a solar-in-training and taking levels in the Half-Celestial template class from Sean K. Reynolds's Anger of Angels. As a weapon, he wielded a chain that was used to bind a general of heaven in an abyssal prison. There is absolutely no doubt that 3rd Edition is wrestling with the same problem as 2nd Edition AD&D faced: rules bloat.Running back to 1st Edition AD&D, or embracing C&C, are both equally valid options which I considered and rejected, because to me the solution is really quite simple: don't let "it" in your game unless "it" belongs there, and that applies whether "it" is a prestige class, a spell, a feat, a magic item or whatever.I don't think D&D starts complex, and gets worse. If you stay with the core rulebooks, you can list the possible breaks in the game on one hand. Maybe two, if your players are creative. All of those are easily solved. First through twelfth level runs incredibly smooth, and the breaks after that involve more on the area of DM prep than problem players.The problem with that, though, is that designing game mechanics out of thin air is precisely the sort of difficulty I'd consider a game like C&C in order to avoid. Why would I run to a game for simplicity, and then start building complexity into the game?I'm running two low-magic d20 Modern games right now that draw materials from a variety of sources, most of which I have purchased in PDF form through RPGhost, and the process of "negotiation" for stuff that I or the character have to write from scratch can become just as wearying and tiresome as considering which gaming books to include in my game.Sure it can. Terms like "munchkin" and "powergamer" weren't invented recently. They are as Old Skool as you can get. You can read about them in Knights of the Dinner Table.Part of the reason you didn't have thousands of people discussing anything about 1st Edition, back in the day, was because the internet didn't EXIST, and even after it did, TSR didn't seem too keen on letting people set up websites or maintain discussions outside their purview. You can read more about that here:<a href="http://www.seankreynolds.com/misc/howIgothiredatTSR.html" target="_blank">http://www.seankreynolds.com/misc/howIgothiredatTSR.html</a></blockquote>

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