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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gothmog" data-source="post: 3352732" data-attributes="member: 317">Blackwind for the win!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> I agree with Blackwind- when 3E and even 3.5 came out, I loved it.  I'm mostly a homebrewer too, and I thought 3E gave me what I wanted to build exactly the reality for my world that I envisioned.  However, the more I played 3E, the more I realized it had WAY more assumptions built into the system than 1E or 2E did, while at the same time stripping out the charm and context of previous editions.  Weath per level, assumed magic levels, the CR/EL thing- they all made D&D cumbersome to use unless you followed the assumptions in the books.The more I used 3E, the less I liked it, so I tinkered and messed with it to try and get what I wanted.  It worked ok, but it added even more complexity to an overly complex engine- and that eventually collapsed under its own weight.  I also enjoy worldbuilding and designing adventures more than statting out NPCs- but 3E forced you to spend excessive amounts of time making those NPCs if they were assumed to be on somewhat equal footing as the PCs and provide adequate challenges.Yes, I know- many of you will say "wing it and don't tell the players."  That can be done, but it also cheapens the experience, and points out a major flaw of 3E- its excessive complexity for the sake of complexity.  A system that almost necessitates the use of computer programs to design NPCs in a timely manner is severely flawed IMO.  Some people love this detail and spend hours statting out NPCs, but to me that is tedious and dull in the extreme.  And every new splatbook that comes out focusing on crunch makes it worse.  Yes, new materials can be restricted, but if a player or DM buys a new book, they will want to use it, which only adds to the rules bloat and complexity.  All games suffer from this to one degree or another, but none like D&D 3.x.  And adding another book full of spells, or feats, or PrCs doesn't make me think "oooh, I know the perfect place to use this crunchy bit, I'll make an adventure or NPC around it"- inspiration for me comes from presenting interesting ideas to use in a campaign, not a textbook of toolkits for characters.So yes, 3E and 2E have some similarities.  3E has more balanced crunchy bits, but lame fluff.  2E had some really wonky rules, but good fluff.  And at the end of the day, its the "fluff" that counts- the world, cool ideas, and context of the characters in the world that make a game memorable- not the game mechanics of how you get there.</blockquote>

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