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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RFisher" data-source="post: 3443090" data-attributes="member: 3608">See, I have a huge problem with the disclaimerism trend. It used to be people stated their opinion & labelled when they were citing facts. It was obvious that anything not specifically called out as fact was opinion. Now we have to label our opinions in triplicate.In my opinion...according to my experience...your milage may vary. (^_^)Neither of these things have been true in my experience. When we switched campaigns, the new DM had the final say. Things could be completely different from how they were in the previous campaign, & that was part of the fun.Even when I've been in a group in which we switched DMs in the same campaign, some things might change when that happened. Of course, things would potentially change much less in those cases. (In practice, usually not so much.) & we tried very hard to make sure that nothing invalidated a previous, long-term decision a player had made about his character.Good question! For me it often comes down to something like this:Designers want to give you two characters who do basically the same thing in two different ways. They feel this deserves (for the reason KM stated) two mechanics. So, they build two different mechanics. They work very hard to balance the two. If they succeed, then you have the unnecessary complication of two mechanics that give almost exactly the same results. If they fail, then you have a superior option that almost everyone chooses & an inferior one that almost nobody chooses.Ideally you get a situation where you get different but balanced results. Even in this rare circumstance, however, it's even rarer that the difference in the results really lines up very well with what you'd expect based on the fluffy difference that you started with.So, I tend to prefer to keep the mechanics simple & leave most of the differentiation to fluff.That said, I don't know that I'd want to play Risus--where one mechanic & its three variations tends to be used for everything--all the time. But there's a point at which I reach my personal mechanics-saturation point.Sure, but don't carry it too far. I don't believe in changing the basic nature of something to make it suit people who don't like it's basic nature. (^_^) Let the people who want WoW play WoW. Let the people who want D&D play D&D.As to D&D...I admire the d20 system a lot. It may not be my first choice, but I enjoy playing it, & I'm really glad that it is there as an option for the people for whom it is their first choice. But, I think it isn't good as the big name in our hobby--the game most likely to be someone's first contact with the hobby. The current Basic box doesn't feel like a good introduction either. (How many of you actually use it to introduce new players to the hobby?)Truth be told, I'm not so sure classic Basic would be the best flagship either, but I think--at least in some ways--it served us better.My experience is different. Even when shown the templates in the PHB, I've seen new players get discouraged by the complexity of creating a 3e character. When I haven't been playing 3e for a while (usually the case when creating a new PC), it takes me AT LEAST a whole game session. & that's with just the core rules. (I tend to avoid supplements even when they're allowed.)This is not my opinion. This is my observation.Just because you know the system well & are good at introducing new players to it doesn't mean that other people's observations are exaggerations.</blockquote>

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