Assess this chap's position (3.0 and older versions)

[Herobizkit]

I'm going to have to agree 100% with the OP's take on 3.x.

The "new" D&D IS a nightmare to run as a DM. This is especially true if the DM is a casual gamer type - one that plays once or twice a week and doesn't pick up a book unless he's prepping for a session. There is such a quagmire of rules, option, errata to both, counter-errata to the errata... most casual DMs (like myself) can't keep up.

MY biggest issue is with the sheer volume of possibilities intrinsic to the game's design. For each new rule, monster, class, or alternate handbook *G*, I simply must find a way to integrate it into my current campaign/adventure. There are times when I want to pitch the whole mess out the window... ESPECIALLY when it comes to character design. Thanks to prestige classes, I now have to plan out my whole character from 1-20 just to be sure I get to play the character I want. And if I don't pick a prestige class, then I feel my character becomes too 'vanilla'. But again, that's my own issue.

d20 definitely has a different feel than the previous editions. OD&D and previous was about survival; AD&D was about killing things and taking their stuff; AD&D2 was about tweaking characters in new ways; d20 takes all of this and crams it into one giant machine, grinds it up, and spits it out in a huge mess. The game tries to cater to every gamers' tastes, which it should. But by doing so, it loses a bit of its own identity -- and it takes a lot of effort for new DMs and players to find the identity they want in their RPG.

I do like 3.x, and I will continue to play it. I will also continue to seek out "alternate handbooks" to use in place of the core rules.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, so many things to disagree with, so little time...

I have run D&D since the original three thin off-white books, and I like this version better than any of the others. I like the fact that the classes balance against each other.

As for this edition being more treasure dependant... Have you ever read the old adventures to see how much magic they could weight down a party with? Oy! If anything the introduction of feats has made characters less dependant on items - everyone has their chance to shine.

It no longer is a matter of 'the Wizard (Magic User) is lousy at low levels, but by the end of the game he is the only character worth having!' or 'always take Rogue when multiclassong - most races top out in all the other classes pretty quickly!' Each class has something that they can do from 1st to 20th levels. Trying to claim that making a class horrible at some levels to balance things was a classically bad idea.

Heck, this is the first version where I bothered running a campaign after level 10!

3.X is also a much more rational system than previous renditions, with a few key concepts that are used for all the rules, after a few months it becomes very easy to run (and I would not give any edition of D&D 'Rules light' or that the rules 'stayed out of the way' - for that title I would hold the older version of White Wolf's Storyteller up as an example. (Though not for rules balance, quality of writing, or consistent setting...)

The Auld Grump

 

[Testament]

Nowadays magic items are a dime a dozen, easy come easy go, like Christmas presents you don't want so you exchange them and buy what you DO want. The joy is gone, replaced with greed.

No matter how many times I see this, my reaction is WTF? Where are they drawing this from? Have they looked at old adventures? And at what point is the Ye Olde Magic Shoppe mandated by the rules of 3.X?

If they're referring to Item Creation, its in there for one reason: THAT STUFF'S GOTTA COME FROM SOMEWHERE!

 

[Glyfair]

Mechanics are simpler in 3.X, but the downside is that there are about fifty million more rules. So it's a mixed blessing..

I disagree with this, there are definitely fewer rules. Now, there are more feats, classes, etc. There are generally more options. However, the mechanics are unified.

Compare that to 1E where the system for unarmed combat was completely different from the system on armed combat (unless you were a monk).

As for those concerned about being flooded by options: limit them. If, as a DM, you don't like to have to worry about a couple hundred feats, limit your players to the core books. I'd recommend allowing things outside the core rules, but be very stingy about OKing them so you don't have to worry about remembering more than you are prepared to deal with.

 

[Imret]

Wow. Quite a bit of material, and a dozen posts showed up while I was reading it. Some parts I agree with, other parts I don't, and I think Dr Awkward said what I was thinking. I'll quote the relevant portions.

The emphasis was on party interdependence and cooperation, rather than on individual flexibility and empowerment. Multiclassing was greatly restricted and often not worth the tradeoffs, so archetypes were much stronger. Each character was more of a specialist, which meant the party had to work together and cover each other's weaknesses or nobody would survive.

True, but at a certain point, this became limiting. There was a very small amount of flexibility in the character concepts presented to you that the rules would support, without invoking kits...and that just presented nightmares that the relative simplicity of modern multiclassing.

XP requirements doubled every level until name level, when they became linear.

And, most commonly, ridiculously high; the gap between levels in the teens was often several adult dragons or mid-range fiends, tackled alone.

Nowadays magic items are a dime a dozen, easy come easy go, like Christmas presents you don't want so you exchange them and buy what you DO want. The joy is gone, replaced with greed.
Certain minimum levels of magic equipment were not assumed in class balance, and many campaigns were far less magic-rich than the default 3E campaign.

To a certain degree, that's true. Obviously the DM can do anything within his power to limit the profusion of magic items, but the CR system is balanced for a certain degree of magical wealth, and that's something that's giving me trouble.

Anybody think they could link me to any old threads on the subject of re-balancing a game to smaller amounts of wealth?

Basic mechanics were pretty similar, but much simpler...
Attacks and AC were pretty much identical except for the numbers being reversed...

The first part is blatantly untrue. The mechanics were haphazard, arbitrary, and flawed as a structure. So you're fighting with some orcs, longsword in hand...and you're disarmed (assuming you had the rules for disarming and the DM thought it was a good idea)! Quick, find the unarmed combat tables and start putting those awful rules to use while they hack you to death! As players demanded rules to cover new situations, new rules were introduced that had little or no connection to the previously published rules other than covering something they did not.

The current incarnation, as Dr. Awkward among others have stated, is all those rules have been gathered up and viewed through the purifying lens of the d20 (excessive poetic license mine). Everything flows in the same direction - higher numbers are always better, modifiers + d20 vs target, and it's streamlined like a bullet. House rules can be whipped up in an instant with a common, easily-applied basis for them, rather than deciding on one of the various mechanics presented in 1e/2e.

Compared to 3E, older versions delivered a similar experience but would be "rules light" by comparison.

In the sense that the rules were typically non-existant or badly constructed, yes. It was a country so lacking in infrastructure as to be anarchic, as compared to the benevolent and elegant tyranny presented by 3.X. It may have its own way of doing everything, but as soon as you get used to, you'll find it's better for everyone involved.

The experience was more party-oriented rather than character-oriented. The game strove more for story and flavor rather than tactical richness; the rules were originally designed to "stay out of the way" and leave room for role-play and creativity, although many (if not most) players didn't seem to get this concept.

I don't see anything in the new rules that gets in the way of story or flavor.

The game generally had a more "historic medieval" feel in presentation and artwork, whereas the new game has a more Warhammer-esque "dungeonpunk" feel with tattoos and spikey armor and leather strappy outfits and attitude.

The art in the new books seems geared to give new players a sense of the game while catching their interest. Once you're familiar with the game and use the book for rules reference, the art's just window dressing.

Speaking of which the older editions, while giving fewer toys to the players, were MUCH easier to DM. Less prep time, less work running the game, less record keeping, less work to keep balanced.

I haven't seen this. Once the game is familiar too you - once you can see how the machine works inside - everything follows a very consistant logic.

The new game is finely balanced but you have to pay attention to the details to make the balance work;

But once you know the details, balancing it is easier than 1e/2e AD&D, since it's no longer an art form but a rather simple equation. Anyone who understands the symbols can do an equation, but not everyone can scuplt the Pieta, to follow the metaphor too far.

in the older game, once you got the feel of it, things were intuitive and you could gloss over 99% of the rules and just make it all up. (Yes you can do that in the new game too, but if you do that you're not playing 3.X as written and as intended, your playing old D&D with a different ruleset, just like if you whipped up a dungeon crawl in GURPS)

And that's fine with me. I appreciate what the good folks at those gaming tables and design meetings did to present 3.X to the world, but quite frankly, none of them sit at my gaming table. We want to play the D&D we like, which may bear little similarity to the D&D contained in the book besides relying on its basic rules set to start out from. But, in the same context, the RPG.Net poster is welcome to play whatever D&D appeals to them.

Just my seven Canadian cents, allowing for inflation.

 

[jdrakeh]

However, the mechanics are unified.

Unified rules =/= less rules. Incidentally, the core resolution mechanic is unified, but in point of fact, there are a lot of situation-specific rules present in D&D 3x (mostly where feats and skills are concerned) that a DM needs to be familiar with order to run the game by the book. It's this bulk of situation-specific (and, thus, not unified) rules that I believe Chainsaw Mage is referring to.

Compare that to 1E where the system for unarmed combat was completely different from the system on armed combat (unless you were a monk).

Completely different is a bit misleading - both still involved making a 'To Hit' roll versus AC on a d20. The disparity between making an armed attack and an unarmed attack in AD&D 1e is no different than, say... making a grappling attack or executing a great cleave in 3x. In fact I'd say that they were less disparate.

In earlier editions, there may have been some minor differences between unarmed and armed attacks, but those were really the only two attack options you had - so you had 2 situation-specific rules. In 3x nearly every feat-based attack has its own set of rules - sure they use the same resolution mechanic, but the specific implementation differs greatly from feat to feat, requiring an unique sub-set of rules for each.

It's this crazy, anal-retentive, focus on situation-specific minutae that makes DMing D&D 3x a pain for me. It's not so bad at lower levels, but lacking a photographic memory and tons of free time to study the rules like one studies for a doctorate, at higher levels it quickly becomes unmanageable for me.

As for those concerned about being flooded by options: limit them. If, as a DM, you don't like to have to worry about a couple hundred feats, limit your players to the core books. I'd recommend allowing things outside the core rules, but be very stingy about OKing them so you don't have to worry about remembering more than you are prepared to deal with.

I think the old 'change the game until it plays in a way that you like' argument side-steps some of the points being made in this thread, rather than addressing them. It has as much merit as the 'if you don't like game X, just ignore rule y, implement house rule Z, and switch out rules A and B' argument (i.e., it has no merit).

The bottom line is that D&D 3x works really well for some people and not for others. In the end it has less to do with the system than with what a given individual likes, has the free time to fiddle with, or finds practical. And that's really the bottom line for me - given time constraints and my style of gaming, I find D&D 3x to be impractical more than anything (largely due to the mass of situation-specific rules).

I can put a lot less efffort into AD&D 1e or Rolemaster and get almost the exact same end result as I can achieve with D&D 3x. Why work my ass off needlessly, if the same result can be achieved with less time invested on part, allowing me to focus on other aspects of the game than rules (setting, character devlopment, etc).

 

[Imperialus]

Hrm... I'll just chime in on the magic item greedfest that seems to have some people so irked... In 1st, 2nd, and 3rd ed a +1 sword in the hands of a fighter beyond 5th level is about as worthwhile as a glorified toothpick not the treasured peice of equipment that some people seem to think it should be. In first and second ed most players would dump such an item on a hireling or cronie while they continue to use a weapon better suited to their level. In 3.X on the other hand you have the option of pawning the sword if they don't see any other use for it. I have never, ever seen a character continue to use a sub optimal weapon or peice of equipment (for an extended period of time at least) for "sentimental" reasons

The idea that for some reason no one in the known world would ever have the means or inclination to purchase a magic item is ludicrous at best... It would be like the US goverenment telling an allied country "Well I'm sorry we can't sell you the old M1Abrams... you see a lot of our troops have sentimental attachment to them and besides. They are better than anything else out there so we want to keep them." I have occasionally had characters who have retired weapons or other items for sentimental reasons but why the devil would my wizard character feel the need to hang onto his +1 ring of protection when a +2 presents itself?

3.5 is the only system so far that has actually taken steps to encourage players to hang onto their magic items. The Weapons of Legacy book is the first time I have ever seen a viable set of rules to allow items to advance along with a PC. This means that it is entiarly possible for that MW family heirloom longsword that your paladin began with might well turn out to be a weapon of legacy that would remain viable right through to 20th level. Even if there was nothing special about the sword when Joe Paladin began his his career with he could develop his own legacy around it if he had the inclination. Sure you could say that this was possible in earlier editions since the DM could just say periodically that your sword "evolved" but really what would that involve other than erasing the +1 beside it and writing in a +2? Weapons of Legacy has rules for explaining how your characters increased connection with a given item (which is ROLEPLAYED in the form of various rituals) increases it's power based on what your character is willing to sacrifice to do so.

 

[Jdvn1]

Hi everyone.

Hello there!

...Nowadays magic items are a dime a dozen, easy come easy go, like Christmas presents you don't want so you exchange them and buy what you DO want. The joy is gone, replaced with greed.

This isn't a difference between 3.X and older versions--this is a difference between the players the speaker has played with recently and the players the speaker used to play with. Magic item acquirement is (as it has always been) dependent on the GM, and player greed is dependent on the player. Of the 30 players I've played with at length (maybe it's been more than that, but), only 2 have been greedy. I've played in numerous low-magic-item campaigns.

There was no real balance built into the game; balancing encounters and rewards as a DM was an art form acquired through experience. ...

Just wanted to mention that balancing encounters and rewards properly still requires experience. This is more noticeable at extremely low and extremely high levels, but it is always true.

Basic mechanics were pretty similar, but much simpler.

... No. But this has been covered by others pretty well, I think. 3.X (and the d20 system) simplified the game by making everything be a d20 check, and having a DC for everything (or a virtual DC, like AC).

...

Certain minimum levels of magic equipment were not assumed in class balance, and many campaigns were far less magic-rich than the default 3E campaign.

This is probably true. Magic is more common in the default 3.X game, but this is still a function of the GM.

...
Compared to 3E, older versions delivered a similar experience but would be "rules light" by comparison.

I think I covered this already.

The experience was more party-oriented rather than character-oriented.

This is a function of the players and GM, not of the game. It has nothing to do with the differences between 3.X and older versions. I think the game has always been party-oriented, though, because you generally want to keep your Cleric alive, your Wizard out of harm's way to help you from a distance, and your Fighter to keep the baddies back. And you want your Rogue to take care of those pesky traps for you. Even if you don't ascribe to the 'you need all the different classes' arguement, then it's still true that 4 people stands a better chance of surviving an equal encounter than 1 person.

The game strove more for story and flavor rather than tactical richness; the rules were originally designed to "stay out of the way" and leave room for role-play and creativity,

The story is GM driven, as it has always been. The GM always has the ability to toss rules in order to leave room for roleplaying and creativity, and the books encourage this.

The game generally had a more "historic medieval" feel in presentation and artwork, whereas the new game has a more Warhammer-esque "dungeonpunk" feel with tattoos and spikey armor and leather strappy outfits and attitude.

Again, a function of the GM, as far as presentation. The artwork doesn't give me a "dungeonpunk" feel, but it does have more attitude. This really doesn't say a lot about the game, though. Use the SRD if you don't like the good. Or get the pocket SRD. There's lots of artwork available online for other feels, if you want to use them to enhance your game (and indeed it's probably a good idea to take advantage of the resources).

it has lost a lot of the flavor and quirkiness and charm of the original.

A function of the GM. I try to keep in mind the roots of D&D when I run games, but not all GMs do this. D&D now appeals to a wider audience, so you can have your "dungeonpunk" but also your "medieval." There are even rules for "futuredungeon" if you want to go that far. It's a more generic game now.

Speaking of which the older editions, while giving fewer toys to the players, were MUCH easier to DM. Less prep time, less work running the game, less record keeping, less work to keep balanced.

Older versions were less work to balance but required more experience? Again, this is a function of the GM. I've run very successful games with zero prep time. DMing 3.X is cake.

 

[Starglim]

I have some sympathy for his position on magic items (though that depends both ways on the DM) but his characterisation of the rules differences is simply wrong.

Earlier editions were an entirely different rules system. They were neither simpler nor easier to run than 3.x - without a highly experienced DM and mature, easygoing players, greatly more complex and more difficult.

 

[Thanee]

You contradict yourself!

2. D&D 3.X has approximately one million rules. They are perfectly balanced and beautiful in their internal consistency, but there are still one million of them. AD&D 1e/2e had about five hundred rules, and they were often arbitrary and at times contradictory. But there were only five hundred of them.

Mechanics are simpler in 3.X, but the downside is that there are about fifty million more rules.

Bye
Thanee