I like 3E, but I miss...

[Mercule]

In my expirience, there are a lot less arguments over the rules in 3e than there were in 1e/2e. The 3e rules are consistant and clearly defined than the 1e/2e rules, which could be pretty damn vague and inconsistant at times.

Agreed. Most of the time, the rules are clear, the arguments are now over whether something should be house-ruled or not. *sigh*

 

[fuindordm]

Missing 1e...

The only thing about 3rd edition that I really regret is the move towards stripping spells of their versatility and non-combat oriented functions. Magic doesn't feel very magical anymore--it's
tech, not something mysterious and dangerous.

1e/2e: Enlarge (reversable) was a pretty cool low-level spell.
3e: Enlarge and Reduce are two separate spells, but still each
has a bit of versatility.
3.5: Becomes Enlarge Person.

Symbol and Emotion have been split into a half-dozen spells. Emotion no longer allows the caster to pick any emotion they can think of. Command is limited to three possible words, and so on.

Occasionally I have a yearning for psionics. 1st edition was actually fairly balanced (or at least no more unbalanced than
the rest of it) if you applied the rules carefully--even if you got lucky and rolled a lot of nice powers, you acquired them gradually as your character advanced. And as someone else mentioned, many psionic characters were dogfood for the psionic random encounters. The second edition psionics handbook was also pretty good even though it was tied to the non-weapon proficiency rules.

3rd edition psionics, on the other hand, leave me cold. I'm not sure why--the powers are too flashy? The disciplines too exquisitely balanced?

--Ben

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I miss

- clerics actually having a spell list defined by their god's portfolios, not a generic "catch all" with some nice bonus bits on top for following a specific god

- players and designers spending less time worrying about if something is "balanced", or how many goodies it gives away, and spending more time actually playing it out in a game.

- psionics being really different

 

[FrankTrollman]

In my expirience, there are a lot less arguments over the rules in 3e than there were in 1e/2e. The 3e rules are consistant and clearly defined than the 1e/2e rules, which could be pretty damn vague and inconsistant at times.

One thing that happened in a lot of AD&D games was an effect I call "ruleslawyer truce". The rules were simply soo unclear about... well... everything, that people gave up trying to make sense of them. Simply, the rules were so arguable that many groups never bothered.

In 3rd edition there are precisely four ways to get infinite power in the Core rules (Shadow Farming, Simulacrum Factories, Efreeti Chain Gangs, and Self Awakening). And we can talk about them because the rules are clearly layed out to the point where we can actually discuss that sort of thing.

In the AD&D DMG and PHB there were probably about twenty or thirty things which were arguably infinitely powerful in the Psionics chart alone. Recall that the Disintegation Psionic Thingy didn't even bother to say whether or not the target was granted a save (let alone what kind of jank save it might be). But it was all unclear enough that the DM would just sort of announce something, people would shrug, and the game would move on.

So in AD&D you would activate your Disintegrate Psioinic Widgit and then the DM would have the prospective victim make a save vs. Paralysis or something - and then he probably wouldn't even die. If your victim did not die, the DM might arbitrarily cause him some damage. Whatever.

This wasn't because the rules said to do that - the rules didn't address how the power would go about failing in the first place - let alone what would happen if it did.

And so on for just about everything. The rules weren't clear enough for people to actually know what was going on most of the time. The only time you got really bitter arguments was when people from different playgroups sat down at the same table - oogh. People who had been playing by rules they had essentially made up themselves for years were in for a rude awakening when they ran afoul of the fact that every other play group had been doing the same thing - almost invariably to the effect of having different aggregate rules.

-Frank

 

[woodelf]

[/b]

Given the volume of characters you apparently had, it is hard to see how you could remember things that accurately, but we can take your word for it. It is likely, though, that you got used to the idea that demin-human multiclassed characters were overpowered compared to other PCs, and it entered into your gaming pysche as being the "right" way for the game to be.

That's certainly possible. Mind you, i also played in other people's games, both during that time, and later. And talked to still other gamers. While my experiences were very atypical in some ways, in others (such as the absence of TPKs), they were very typical of gamers i talked to in the mid-late '80s. It was just a given that (1) the GM would not set up potential TPK situations and (2) the PCs would have the common sense to retreat if necessary.

Oh, and as for remembering the characters: i don't. I remember their demographics. I couldn't tell you exactly how many characters i had, but i could tell you that a disproportionate number of them were priests. And, like i said, i still have almost everybody's character sheets, and have somewhat recently pulled them out and compiled said demographic data, for other threads.

Well, since you played with enormous parties (12-20 players is an enormous party, typical RPG group size usually has been three to four players, borne out by reaserch conducted by multiple organization, including WotC), it seems logical that you would not have TPKs that often. That much mass simply overwhelms the problem.

So, basically, this is a confirmation that your RPG experience is very atypical. Groups that size are (and have been for many years) atypical, and change the dynamic of the game considerably. In other words, your experiences are not particularly valuable for evaluating the impact of the system for the typical player who played in a group with 4-5 people.

First, to be clear, this was one campaign. The main campaign. I also ran groups as small as 2 players/2 characters at the same time. And played in a couple of "normal-sized" groups (5-6 PCs--which, from talking to people and being in games, seems to be the norm that i've run into, WotC's research notwithstanding--i've always thought of 4 PCs as on the small side for D&D games, and only known one 3-player game that was healthy (as opposed to dying or trying to grow). [Oh, and i don't trust the WotC research to be representative on two bases--one, they won't show us the data so i'm suspect on principle (never trust a survey that won't give you the raw data), and two, i saw the preliminary questions, and realized that, according to their screening, a "wasn't an active RPer", despite having 3 weekly games, because i wasn't playing D&D at the time.]

Second, i said 12-20 characters quite deliberately--it was always much fewer players. Due to circumstances too lengthy to go into here, the game started out with multiple PCs per player, and slowly weaned itself down to one player/one character. At any given point, there were typically 3-7 regular players, and 0-12 occasional players, with any given session generally having about half the occasionals show up. So, most nights, we had 5-9 players. And, like i said, i simultaneously ran campaigns for 3 or 4 different small groups: 2-4 players, one PC each. And never had any TPKs for them, either.

Then you are (a) lucky, or (b) not remembering or (c) didn't notice. Given that you had more than a dozen players at the table, I'd say that there is a strong liklihood that you simply didn't notice.

Rarely had more than a dozen players--usually more like 7 or 8. Though, i did have 18 or 19 players *once*. But, anyway, as for imbalance: it could be (c)--but i doubt it. I regularly solicited feedback--going so far as to make up questionaires--to make sure i was giving people the game they wanted. We changed rules if necessary. As for not remembering--possible. But the only times i remember really blatant balance problems were when we broke the rules. (The quickling monk, with 8x normal attacks per round, was definitely a problem.)

Which is a sign of a problem. When I played 1e/2e D&D, I too had a pile of house rules. Now, the only ones I have are campaign specific, and almost trivial in nature.

40 pages of small type? And you don't find this to be a sign of a problem with the design of the game?

I probably should have finished that off with two further bits of info. First, none of those noticably (dis)empowered any class or race. If anything, they exacerbated existing situations (wizards got more spells memorized (basically like the system in Arcana Unearthed); multiclassing had fewer penalties and more possibilities--things like that). Most of them either applied to everybody equally (such as the death rules), or didn't really affect game balance at all (new alignment rules). Oh, and by small type i meant 9pt, maybe 10pt (going on a visual estimate--i no longer have the software or hardware to read softcopy of those rules).

But my point was not that i don't think there are any flaws with AD&D2--it's that i don't think they are noticably more severe than the problems with D&D3E. The only element of the combat system i changed, frex, was initiative/attack order (oh--and made large shields a bit more effective). Most of my changes were either small, or far from in-play balance (ability generation was significantly changed, frex).

The 2nd bit i should've mentioned is that it'd take me a *lot* more houserules to make D&D3E into a game i'd accept. To get D&D3E to the same point as i'd gotten AD&D2 to would take every rule i'd used before (as i said, none of the changes i felt were "necessary" made it into the new version), plus a whole bunch of new ones. And yet a few more if i were starting from D&D3.5E as the baseline.

So, should i really judge the quality of a game based on the houserules used to play it? No--the quantity of houserules only tells you how closely the game approaches the group's ideal , not absolute quality. I'm not about to claim that D&D3E is an all-around worse game, just because it would take me more effort to turn it into something i'd like.

Sure, it could be. But if I had 40 pages of small type in house rules on a game, I'd go looking for another game. If not 3e, then some other RPG that didn't require me to have piles of home-brewed jerry-rigged solutions.

I never said i still played D&D of any flavor. I did go looking for other games, and found them--at last count, i have about a hundred RPGs that i think are better than D&D (of any variety). Some of them are D20 System. I do know that, given the choice between AD&D2 or D&D3(.5)E, both run by the book with just the core rulebooks (and a quality GM), i'd pick AD&D2--i had less frustration with the rules, and thus more fun. Now, the underlying framework of D20 System is a heck of a lot better--i'd pick Arcana Unearthed over either of the above options, and a fantasy system with a simplified Spycraft or BESM D20 combat system would be still better yet.

It should not be my responsibility, as the consumer, to fix the product to eliminate huge problems with the game from the get go. Large volumes of house rules fixing the game are a sign of a problem not a strength. The only house rules you should have to put into place are ones that are campaign specific. If you have to fix something as basic as how characters are built, then there is a problem with the game's design.

So, by that standard, D&D3E is broken. Or are you suddenly the sole arbiter of when houserules are "necessary"?

 

[woodelf]

3rd edition psionics, on the other hand, leave me cold. I'm not sure why--the powers are too flashy? The disciplines too exquisitely balanced?

--Ben

Hypothesis: because they don't have a destinctively "this is psychic powers" feel to them. I know that's why i don't like them. The purely mental stuff should be lower levels (as in, 3 or so) than the magical equivalent, and able to do stuff that magic has real trouble doing. The physical-world stuff (i.e., the whole metacreation discipline) should be hard-to-impossible. If they're leveled the same as spells, i'd expect it to take a 3rd level psionic power just to fling a small stone, and a 6th level psionic power to create something--IOW, lagging 4 or more levels behind the magical equivalent. Instead, they can do most of the same stuff at roughly the same level, and only the flavor is really different. Plus, for me, the displays are both a game-breaker and a genre-breaker. I want psychic powers to be like Scanners or Babylon 5 or Blake's 7--they're mental, dammit, and if the power itself doesn't have a physical effect, nobody should know they're happening.

 

[Krieg]

I like 3E, but I miss...

D&D

D20 is nice, but it ain't the same game.

 

[Mercule]

3rd edition psionics, on the other hand, leave me cold. I'm not sure why--the powers are too flashy? The disciplines too exquisitely balanced?

Um... because your character gets coated in snot whenever he uses psi? I know that's a big one for me.

Even so, I agree that there is something else that turns me off about 3E psionics. In 1E and 2E, I loved psionic enough to make its manifestation an important part of the game world and turn my cliched "evil empire" into a psionic powerhouse. In 3E, I'm actually trying to figure out if there is some way that I can backpedal and edit history so that it isn't psi, but something else -- I'd just as soon have psionics gone at this point.

I can't put my finger on exactly why, though. Like I said, the ecto-snot is part of it, but not all. I think it's something to do with the system. It's too close to a Sorcerer with spell points.

And snot. 3E psionics are too much like a sorcerer with spell points and snot.

 

[National Acrobat]

I miss drow being mysterious and spooky. Now they're just everywhere.

I miss Psionics being mysterious and spooky. Used to be you never knew who had them, even a dumb fighter could get lucky on the dice and have powers they couldn't always manifest. Now they are just a class.

Also, I also DM a 1E and a 3E game, and they both also feel like DnD but the types of players that I have are different in both games. The 1E game is full of role-playing and intrigue, and the ages are all over 34.

The 3E game is full-tilt action, and everyone is under 25 except me, the DM.

Just thought that was interesting to mention.

 

[Storm Raven]

First, to be clear, this was one campaign. The main campaign. I also ran groups as small as 2 players/2 characters at the same time. And played in a couple of "normal-sized" groups (5-6 PCs--which, from talking to people and being in games, seems to be the norm that i've run into, WotC's research notwithstanding--i've always thought of 4 PCs as on the small side for D&D games, and only known one 3-player game that was healthy (as opposed to dying or trying to grow). [Oh, and i don't trust the WotC research to be representative on two bases--one, they won't show us the data so i'm suspect on principle (never trust a survey that won't give you the raw data), and two, i saw the preliminary questions, and realized that, according to their screening, a "wasn't an active RPer", despite having 3 weekly games, because i wasn't playing D&D at the time.][/b]

I've found data from other sources that hold the 4-5 person playing group to be true. One of the newspapers in my area did an extensive survey on RPG groups in the last couple of years, and they found that the most common RPG group (no matter the game system) was a GM and 3 players. You don't have to just trust WotC, there are other sources out there that confirm this.

The 2nd bit i should've mentioned is that it'd take me a *lot* more houserules to make D&D3E into a game i'd accept. To get D&D3E to the same point as i'd gotten AD&D2 to would take every rule i'd used before (as i said, none of the changes i felt were "necessary" made it into the new version), plus a whole bunch of new ones. And yet a few more if i were starting from D&D3.5E as the baseline.

Which, in my experience, makes you atypical.

So, should i really judge the quality of a game based on the houserules used to play it? No--the quantity of houserules only tells you how closely the game approaches the group's ideal , not absolute quality. I'm not about to claim that D&D3E is an all-around worse game, just because it would take me more effort to turn it into something i'd like.

No, but when houseruling is the norm rather than the exception, then that is evidence of a problem. In my epxerience (and the epxerience of just about every other veteran D&D player I've discussed this with, including you), they used pages and pages of house rules when they played 1e/2e. On the other hand, I have met very few people who use extensive house rules when playing 3e, most people I have communicated with on this issue maintain that they have a page, or maybe two of house rules, or simply no house rules.

So, by that standard, D&D3E is broken. Or are you suddenly the sole arbiter of when houserules are "necessary"?

You are one of the few people I have dealt with who thinks that reams of changes are necessary for 3e. Most people I have found have said things along the lines of "when I played 2e, I had 50 pages of house rules, now that I play 3e, I have tossed them all away". That makes my statements based upon much more than being the "sole arbiter", it makes them based upon "many arbiters".

Basically, everything you have said in this htread indicates that your RPG experience has generally been completely atypical. Hence, I'm inclined to argue that your observations are not of a particularly valuable nature for evaluating the usefulness of the various editions for the typical D&D player.