BlackMoria
First Post
Are we now a house divided?
The vision of 3E in part was to introduce clear, coherent and enjoyable rules for D&D. In short, to fix some of the problems of past editions. And 2E had the reputation of being fuzzy in a lot of areas that a number of people had 'house rules'
3E was supposed to end that. And for the most part, it did. Only a minority 'house ruled' stuff and it was more along 'preference' reasons than to 'fix the system'. And for first time, I could go from one person's game to another person's game and yet another person's game and play with the same rules.
3.5E has now undermined that. Instead of unified tribe, we are going to get factionalized into three principle camps.
There is going to be those who stay exclusively with 3.0
There is going to be those who will run a 3.0/3.5 hybrid. Judging from the response on the message board, it appears that the majority of us are thinking about this option.
There is going to be those who play 3.5 exclusively.
Now it is nearly impossible to go from one game to another game without getting back to some of what turned people off to 2E. Fragmented rules. House rules. Now I just can't ease into a game anymore. I now have to know what rules that group uses.
What about groups that have more than one DM (like mine). Do the DMs fight it out for a unified set of rules all can accept? What if I want to play vanilla 3E but my friend when he wants to DM wants to play 3.5E? Uggh.
And what about the D20 publishers? Before, they only needed to write for one system. Now, there is in effect, two. Do they follow WOTC lead and produce 3.5E stuff only? Do they continue to produce 3E stuff, knowing that not everyone is going to jump on the 3.5 bandwagon?
Or do they take the route of making a product that contains both 3E and 3.5E material? And if so, unless they up the page count, you are getting less 'content' for the same number of pages due to duplication.
If you go to Sean K. Reynolds' site, he has weighted in on 3.5E. And he has related the effort in converting Ghostwalk to 3.5E. In short, he states that converting stuff from 3E to 3.5E is "a major pain" in his experience.
So, do D20 publishers undergo the time and potential expense of revising their existing material to 3.5E. Or are their customers faced with the ordeal of updating the material on their own?
If any D20 publisher who are this list want to weight in on some of the commentary above, please do.
Will 3.5 lead us to the promised land or is the road to hell paved with good intentions?
All I know is the game I love has changed.
edit: spelling
The vision of 3E in part was to introduce clear, coherent and enjoyable rules for D&D. In short, to fix some of the problems of past editions. And 2E had the reputation of being fuzzy in a lot of areas that a number of people had 'house rules'
3E was supposed to end that. And for the most part, it did. Only a minority 'house ruled' stuff and it was more along 'preference' reasons than to 'fix the system'. And for first time, I could go from one person's game to another person's game and yet another person's game and play with the same rules.
3.5E has now undermined that. Instead of unified tribe, we are going to get factionalized into three principle camps.
There is going to be those who stay exclusively with 3.0
There is going to be those who will run a 3.0/3.5 hybrid. Judging from the response on the message board, it appears that the majority of us are thinking about this option.
There is going to be those who play 3.5 exclusively.
Now it is nearly impossible to go from one game to another game without getting back to some of what turned people off to 2E. Fragmented rules. House rules. Now I just can't ease into a game anymore. I now have to know what rules that group uses.
What about groups that have more than one DM (like mine). Do the DMs fight it out for a unified set of rules all can accept? What if I want to play vanilla 3E but my friend when he wants to DM wants to play 3.5E? Uggh.
And what about the D20 publishers? Before, they only needed to write for one system. Now, there is in effect, two. Do they follow WOTC lead and produce 3.5E stuff only? Do they continue to produce 3E stuff, knowing that not everyone is going to jump on the 3.5 bandwagon?
Or do they take the route of making a product that contains both 3E and 3.5E material? And if so, unless they up the page count, you are getting less 'content' for the same number of pages due to duplication.
If you go to Sean K. Reynolds' site, he has weighted in on 3.5E. And he has related the effort in converting Ghostwalk to 3.5E. In short, he states that converting stuff from 3E to 3.5E is "a major pain" in his experience.
So, do D20 publishers undergo the time and potential expense of revising their existing material to 3.5E. Or are their customers faced with the ordeal of updating the material on their own?
If any D20 publisher who are this list want to weight in on some of the commentary above, please do.
Will 3.5 lead us to the promised land or is the road to hell paved with good intentions?
All I know is the game I love has changed.
edit: spelling
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