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<blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 7752727" data-attributes="member: 85555"><p>I was always quite torn over the whole build thing. On the one hand, simply because I ran 3E for so many years, and as a result, learned the ins and outs of builds, I came to appreciate it as a style of play in itself. For certain kinds of campaigns I found it worked well (I ran several 3E based wuxia campaigns for this reason). But on the other hand, it isn't what I usually look for in my core experience of D&amp;D. When I think back to my experiences prior to that playing 1E and 2E, the build approach was such a different way of tackling the game and it led to an entirely different feel. I think there are two basic things I found different about it that changed things. The first is the books were much more written for the players rather than the GM and there was a baked in assumption that worked its way into the gaming culture over time, that if it was in the books, the players have access to it. Obviously this wasn't true across the board. But I encountered it a lot. And saw lots of instances where a campaign suddenly had to have strange monster-like races or dragon-like characters because there was a class, prestige class or race option for it. If you are more accustomed to the world being a coherent creation of the GM, that can actually be a little annoying. The other aspect was that in order to enjoy the game, you really had to know how to make a build and enjoy maximizing a given character's potential within the system. That isn't for everyone. In a group where folks all want that, it can work. In a group where people aren't interested in optimization, it can lead to lots of conflict and steer the game away from the stuff folks are interested in engaging.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="Bedrockgames, post: 7752727, member: 85555"] I was always quite torn over the whole build thing. On the one hand, simply because I ran 3E for so many years, and as a result, learned the ins and outs of builds, I came to appreciate it as a style of play in itself. For certain kinds of campaigns I found it worked well (I ran several 3E based wuxia campaigns for this reason). But on the other hand, it isn't what I usually look for in my core experience of D&D. When I think back to my experiences prior to that playing 1E and 2E, the build approach was such a different way of tackling the game and it led to an entirely different feel. I think there are two basic things I found different about it that changed things. The first is the books were much more written for the players rather than the GM and there was a baked in assumption that worked its way into the gaming culture over time, that if it was in the books, the players have access to it. Obviously this wasn't true across the board. But I encountered it a lot. And saw lots of instances where a campaign suddenly had to have strange monster-like races or dragon-like characters because there was a class, prestige class or race option for it. If you are more accustomed to the world being a coherent creation of the GM, that can actually be a little annoying. The other aspect was that in order to enjoy the game, you really had to know how to make a build and enjoy maximizing a given character's potential within the system. That isn't for everyone. In a group where folks all want that, it can work. In a group where people aren't interested in optimization, it can lead to lots of conflict and steer the game away from the stuff folks are interested in engaging. [/QUOTE]

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