teitan
Legend
I bought it when it came out. I had not played an RPG in 2 years, I had fallen out with AD&D over the fumbled approach to GH in 98 and then when I hooked up with some LARPers I felt burnt by the over indulgence that seemed to fester there, some people just never went out of character and everything in their world revolved around WOD references. I study the works of Aleister Crowley, quite religiously, and they always tried to shoehorn me as Verbena or some other aspect of Mage for example and always referred to themselves through clans or breeds etc. I just got overwhelmed with the lack of reality so I abandoned RPGing.
The when announced and started previewing 3e I glimped around, thought "oh that's a neat idea" and didn't pay much attention really until the books came out and I picked one up grabbing my weekly comic book order. I thought it was an interesting cover and I flipped through it and... set it back down. It was a gorgeous book to be sure. The owner of the shop sat one back for me and then the MM and then the DMG and finally I said ok, give em to me and once I started reading it I was sold. No level limits. No class restrictions. No ability score requirements. Unified XP chart! My buddy Coleman came over and we both flipped through the books and admired the art and the he really dug the way feats and skills replaced NWP and Prestige Classes were like Kits that you had to work towards as opposed to rolling bad a$$ stats and be that right off the bat. It was a refreshing approach to D&D. And it was very much in vein with 1e's approach to the game, exploration and resource management. The back to the dungeon catch phrase was really true. I loved the D20 license for adventures, that's how I discovered Necromancer Games, my favorite non WOTC D&D publisher.
I know a lot of people disliked the soft cover sourcebooks that followed like Tome & Blood etc but I thought they were good. WHat I really liked about 3e was that it still felt very much like it was designed with the same style of play that D&D core was like, Greyhawk or the Realms. It ran smooth, not a lot of questions about how rules worked. It was just simple.
The adventures were cool, I loved Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil! I never got to run it sadly but it informs a lot of my DM style today and started my fandom of Monte Cook who just "gets it" as a game designer. The DMG was the best of the DMGs in my opinion because as much as I love the 1e DMG, Monte's 3e DMG was more concise. Admittedly I still consult my 1e DMG more for ideas but editorially it is such a mess that it's hard to find something without a personally made index. The 3e DMG was so easy to navigate. I also loved the Sunless Citadel and bought Yawning Portal for that and Forge of Fury. Two great modules. I've run Sunless Citadel 5 or more times. I always find something new in it.
I got a subscription to Dragon and DUngeon/Polyhedron for 5 years! The Book of Vile Darkness was ACES in my book.
I could run 3e today if I had the books. But something happened... 3.5. TOO SOON! I bought the core books and at their core, just the three books it is still D&D but beyond that something happened. It changed even more from characters to "builds" and the little changes made it hard to run 3e adventures or use 3e sourcebooks without combing through to make sure everything was up to speed. Why did I never run TOEE? Because the 3.5 changes resulted in a conversion document nearly 100 pages long.... for a 192 page book... that's not right. And the City of the Spider Queen? months after it came out it's climax was rendered null by the changes. But my players had all bought in on the changes that WOT had downplayed as not being all that much and minimal conversion would be required. At first I loved 3.5. Then I just got drug down by supplements and rules lawyers and arguments about the rules. I was looking forward to 4e when it was announced. None of my players wanted to play 4e.
So yeah I love me some 3e but would avoid 3.5 and PF1 like the plague. 3e was so good and I wish they had waited a couple more years to release 3.5. It wasn't needed and waiting another 2 or three years would have extended the life of the edition. By a lot as we saw with Pathfinder's popularity. It was a good system and 3.5 was just too soon.
The when announced and started previewing 3e I glimped around, thought "oh that's a neat idea" and didn't pay much attention really until the books came out and I picked one up grabbing my weekly comic book order. I thought it was an interesting cover and I flipped through it and... set it back down. It was a gorgeous book to be sure. The owner of the shop sat one back for me and then the MM and then the DMG and finally I said ok, give em to me and once I started reading it I was sold. No level limits. No class restrictions. No ability score requirements. Unified XP chart! My buddy Coleman came over and we both flipped through the books and admired the art and the he really dug the way feats and skills replaced NWP and Prestige Classes were like Kits that you had to work towards as opposed to rolling bad a$$ stats and be that right off the bat. It was a refreshing approach to D&D. And it was very much in vein with 1e's approach to the game, exploration and resource management. The back to the dungeon catch phrase was really true. I loved the D20 license for adventures, that's how I discovered Necromancer Games, my favorite non WOTC D&D publisher.
I know a lot of people disliked the soft cover sourcebooks that followed like Tome & Blood etc but I thought they were good. WHat I really liked about 3e was that it still felt very much like it was designed with the same style of play that D&D core was like, Greyhawk or the Realms. It ran smooth, not a lot of questions about how rules worked. It was just simple.
The adventures were cool, I loved Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil! I never got to run it sadly but it informs a lot of my DM style today and started my fandom of Monte Cook who just "gets it" as a game designer. The DMG was the best of the DMGs in my opinion because as much as I love the 1e DMG, Monte's 3e DMG was more concise. Admittedly I still consult my 1e DMG more for ideas but editorially it is such a mess that it's hard to find something without a personally made index. The 3e DMG was so easy to navigate. I also loved the Sunless Citadel and bought Yawning Portal for that and Forge of Fury. Two great modules. I've run Sunless Citadel 5 or more times. I always find something new in it.
I got a subscription to Dragon and DUngeon/Polyhedron for 5 years! The Book of Vile Darkness was ACES in my book.
I could run 3e today if I had the books. But something happened... 3.5. TOO SOON! I bought the core books and at their core, just the three books it is still D&D but beyond that something happened. It changed even more from characters to "builds" and the little changes made it hard to run 3e adventures or use 3e sourcebooks without combing through to make sure everything was up to speed. Why did I never run TOEE? Because the 3.5 changes resulted in a conversion document nearly 100 pages long.... for a 192 page book... that's not right. And the City of the Spider Queen? months after it came out it's climax was rendered null by the changes. But my players had all bought in on the changes that WOT had downplayed as not being all that much and minimal conversion would be required. At first I loved 3.5. Then I just got drug down by supplements and rules lawyers and arguments about the rules. I was looking forward to 4e when it was announced. None of my players wanted to play 4e.
So yeah I love me some 3e but would avoid 3.5 and PF1 like the plague. 3e was so good and I wish they had waited a couple more years to release 3.5. It wasn't needed and waiting another 2 or three years would have extended the life of the edition. By a lot as we saw with Pathfinder's popularity. It was a good system and 3.5 was just too soon.
