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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 2067301" data-attributes="member: 18280">Well, for the record, I really enjoyed the addition of "in-jokes" in the 3.0 DMG for those of us old enough to remember 1st Edition...and young enough to remember it clearly.   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> There certainly were problems with the 1st Ed DMG.  Most of them related to Gary Gygax's ego, as I recall, and the attempt to monopolize the hobby, keep players out of the DMG, etc.  Of course, some of that last was probably good advice -- a good fantasy world has things going on that the inhabitants do not understand.It seems clear to me that 1st Edition was created with the classic great works of fantasy in mind, along with a solid helping of folklore, fairy tales, and the like.  2nd Edition was rather scientific, more concerned about the ecology of the beholder than how to use one to challenge adventurers.  Conversely, 3rd Edition feels more like a video game or action movie.  The word "cinematic" continually creeps into conversations about 3.X games, whereas 1st Edition was a lot more "literary."  The 1st Edition DMG went so far as to give you a suggested reading list to understand where the ideas came from.1st Ed was Conan, the Grey Mouser, Elrond, and Jack Vance.  2nd Ed was travel guides and sociology (remember Volo?  Elminster?  All those modules where the PCs sometimes ended up being spectators to the important scenes while the NPCs did stuff?).  3rd Ed is Jet Li, Warcraft, and Everquest.You can set up a campaign in any one of those styles using any of those rule sets, but the fluff (and, to a degree, the rules) point in specific directions.  Heck, so did the art.  (Compare the 1st Ed DMG artwork to the 3rd Ed DMG artwork inspired by it.)  Eberron, for example, would have been difficult to set up in either previous rule set.  All of the cheap magic items in 3rd Ed would make playing in a typical 1st Ed-type melieu difficult using that rule set.Is there any doubt that 3rd Edition offered a more "bare bones" system?  Although the World of Greyhawk deities are used, and you gain some insight to the mindset and names of various PC races in the PH, the writers seemed to be trying to minimize the fluff.  They even used the OGL so that you could create and publish your own fluff...a marked improvement over 1st Ed, sure, but it is in part the fluff that people are talking about when they wax nostolgic about the 1st Edition "feel" or complain that 3.X is dry.  3.X is intentionally not evocative in the way that 1st Ed is.Me, I don't like the ease of aquiring magic in 3.X.  However, it as easy to houserule that in 3.X as it was to houserule other things in any other edition.RC</blockquote>

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