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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 9384146" data-attributes="member: 177">Eh.&nbsp; You can wave your hands and say there's &quot;little real difference&quot; between a Western and a Noir Gumshoe story, too.&nbsp; I mean, they're both just stories, the heroes in each have a revolver and will eventually shoot the bad guy, right?&nbsp; But if someone is looking for something to read, and say they like Westerns, and you point them at The Dresden Files... maybe that recommendation won't be so successful.I am not sure that's the case at all, in large part because you're only addressing D&amp;D.&nbsp; Each trend you point to really started significantly (like, a decade and more) before you seem to indicate it.If you think 2e didn't have optimizers, you didn't see what people were doing with the Kits found in the Complete X books.&nbsp; And those were following in kind the clanbooks, tribebooks, and so on for World of Darkness games, and the ton of supplements for Shadowrun that were all about making your character more badass...So, no, optimization play didn't start with 3e.&nbsp; Lots of tabletop games were in the space much earlier.&nbsp; 3e was following the trend, not setting it.Plus, while you are speaking about optimization, you're overlooking other developments in the gaming space (some of which may well have started with D&amp;D), which are often pointed to as differences between... let's call them modes of playstyle development instead of schools or generations.Because you see, while we see some evidence of every playstyle early in D&amp;D play, that doesn't mean early D&amp;D was actually good at supporting all those styles.&nbsp; Our understanding of our games took time - decades - to develop.&nbsp; We can see games developing to support certain styles of play as people learned what they really wanted from games, and what game design gave them what they were looking for more seamlessly.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 9384146, member: 177"] Eh. You can wave your hands and say there's "little real difference" between a Western and a Noir Gumshoe story, too. I mean, they're both [I]just stories[/I], the heroes in each have a revolver and will eventually shoot the bad guy, right? But if someone is looking for something to read, and say they like Westerns, and you point them at The Dresden Files... maybe that recommendation won't be so successful. I am not sure that's the case at all, in large part because you're only addressing D&D. Each trend you point to really started significantly (like, a decade and more) before you seem to indicate it. If you think 2e didn't have optimizers, you didn't see what people were doing with the Kits found in the Complete X books. And those were following in kind the clanbooks, tribebooks, and so on for World of Darkness games, and the ton of supplements for Shadowrun that were all about making your character more badass... So, no, optimization play didn't start with 3e. Lots of tabletop games were in the space much earlier. 3e was following the trend, not setting it. Plus, while you are speaking about optimization, you're overlooking other developments in the gaming space (some of which may well have started with D&D), which are often pointed to as differences between... let's call them [I]modes of playstyle development[/I] instead of schools or generations. Because you see, while we see some evidence of every playstyle early in D&D play, that doesn't mean early D&D was actually good at supporting all those styles. Our [I]understanding[/I] of our games took time - decades - to develop. We can see games developing to support certain styles of play as people learned what they really wanted from games, and what game design gave them what they were looking for more seamlessly. [/QUOTE]

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