I'm done with 3.5

[Raven Crowking]

You know, I agree with you that 3.X has a lot of support. But I disagree with you on some few things:

Sorry, but, which publisher has 200 ish page hardcovers in full color for about 35 bucks US? Other than WOTC of course.

I could care less about the book being hardcover. I use the content, which is inside the covers. Frost & Fur, for example, is a much better book than Frostburn.

On the innovation front - just to pick one - which company brought us the new format for modules?

That's a sore spot for me....I hate this mini-centric, flip-the-page-during-play, format.

Production values are not content. Innovation isn't always good.

Of course, I'm sure others feel exactly the opposite.

 

[HeinorNY]

Note the exception there - prepublished adventures. There are hundreds, if not thousands of licensed D&D adventures.

Probably millions.

 

[jdrakeh]

It occurred to me that we're talking about two completely different kinds of GM support. You (Hussar) are talking about the physical availability of product. I can't argue with you here (D&D) has it covered, even if your numbers have been inflated to make an impression. I, however, am talking about implementation of rules that cut down on time-intensive prep and, IME, D&D has nothing of the sort past the option presented by adventure modules (i.e., running a prefab campaign). And, honestly, even those require some prep (such as reading the module and choosing which options to use based on your party composition).

 

[Flynn]

QFT.

Hey, Crowking,

When you say this, are you saying "Quite Frackin' True" (i.e. you appear to agree with the post), or "Quit Frackin' Talkin'" (i.e. you don't appear to agree with the post)? Both are accepted translations of this particular acronym (among something like 20 other translations), yet they imply opposite views. I'm just curious, since more and more people are using this phrase with no further explanation, and it's hard to tell whether they are jubilantly in support of a statement or opposed to the point of demanding no further communication.

Or does it imply something not covered by the two translations above?

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[molonel]

I know the fanboys are going to stomp around and claim 3x isn't complex, or that we're not intelligent, or some other garbage. Go stomp somewhere else. Perhaps GURPS and Hero are more complicated - perhaps - but my gaming group, composed of professional programmers, master gardeners and business executives (not a dull penny in the lot) all thought the system was overly complex (even with just the core books), and that our gaming nights would get a lot more mileage from a more elegant, less rules-heavy system (which we've switched to). We wanted to focus on the fun, not a million little rules and subsystems and number crunching. And our perception of the game is shared by many. While you might not find it that way, a large number of other folks do, that is a problem if people new to RPGs feel the same way, and don't have some other viable choice sitting on the shelves.

You know, it's funny. The big complaint, when 3.0 came out, was that it was too simplified. Saving throws didn't go one way, while armor class went another, and instead of a good roll in this part of the mechanics was a high roll while a good roll in this part of the mechanics was a low roll, a good roll was always high. How silly!

The whole overused, burnt-out "video game" analogy arose from the fact that D&D 3.0 seemed dumbed down in order to appeal to the masses.

Now, it's too complicated. Too many books! Too many options!

I just think it's time to realize that a lot of people are always going to dislike 3rd Edition D&D because it shot their dog at some undefined point in the past. 3rd Edition reinvigorated the gaming industry. It's had upsides and downsides, but there are more titles, more books, more systems, and the PDF industry has EXPLODED and continues to move forward, and that's a good thing. Even OSRIC and all of the counter "Back to basics!" D&D movements owe their existence to 3rd Edition, because they are simply reacting to it.

 

[SavageRobby]

Eh. I don't know if I agree with that. Perhaps that is true of others, but not me or most of my group. I had stopped gaming for almost a decade, and 3rd edition brought me back into the fold. I tried to like it. I wanted to like it. Actually, it read great and I was impressed with what read to be tight mechanics and integrated rules (coming from my original 1e background), but in actual play (2 years of running a 3x game) it rarely played great. It seemed more complicated than necessary from the first time we rolled up characters and played (especially combat), and despite our growing familiarity with the system over the years we played, the play itself never really got any better.

In fact, I'd rather play 1E than 3x at this point. Our group shifted to Savage Worlds (for the past 2-3 years - and we took to it almost immediately), and is going to try Castles & Crusades next (which - upon reading - takes some of the things I like best about 3x, but simplifies them), and see how that works out.


I hope that C&C does well, actually. It seems a good alternate to 3x for folks that want the D&D experience, but want it simplified from 3x.

 

[Hussar]

I think that you're exaggerating those numbers a lot. To the best of my knowledge, officially licensed D&D adventures are few and far between. I think you're failing to draw a distinction between d20 System products and D&D products. These are two different things. Excluding Paizo, I think that there are fewer than 100 licensed D&D 3.5 adventures out there (though in fairness, that's probably a bit more that there are for any other system). Even so, the thing is, adventures only alleviate the work for GMs who don't want to run their own campaigns/adventures.

Why are we excluding Paizo? They don't make adventures? They aren't licensed D&D adventures?

Ok, I'll bite though. Show me another system that has, we'll say, 50 published adventures.

Well, barring the NPC wiki (which is a fan-created thing, not an official D&D product), you do have a point where maps and monsters are concerned. That said, it has been my experience that simply having books of monsters and or maps available doesn't mean that they magically insert themselves into my games. That all requires prep work (and, again IME, that kind of prep work in D&D 3.5 is very time-consuming).

It's only very time consuming if you want to start fiddling with the monsters. If you use them straight out of the book, it's pretty basic.

Except for ten hours of cutting and pasting from PDF documents to make the information that you had easily useable, right? See, for me, that more than qualifies as prep work. And I don't have to do that with a great many other games that I own.



You first. Your examples thus far have be disingenuine.

Ok, if you figure that 10 hours of prep work for close to 100 hours of game time to be excessive, I guess you have a different definition than me. To me, that's pretty bare minimum amount of prep. We'll just have to agree to disagree. I'm curious though what system allows me to get a 1:10 ration of prep to play?

 

[Hussar]

You know, I agree with you that 3.X has a lot of support. But I disagree with you on some few things:



I could care less about the book being hardcover. I use the content, which is inside the covers. Frost & Fur, for example, is a much better book than Frostburn.

But, I'm answering in context. I was asked why WOTC wasn't publishing better books for less money if they had economy of scale. My answer is that they do. Physically anyway. Whether or not a given book is better than another book content wise is a different question.

That's a sore spot for me....I hate this mini-centric, flip-the-page-during-play, format.

Production values are not content. Innovation isn't always good.

Of course, I'm sure others feel exactly the opposite.

I fully agree with this. However, again, in context, I was asked about why WOTC doesn't innovate. They do. They do quite a bit. Liking it or not is irrelavent to whether or not something is innovative.

 

[Hussar]

It occurred to me that we're talking about two completely different kinds of GM support. You (Hussar) are talking about the physical availability of product. I can't argue with you here (D&D) has it covered, even if your numbers have been inflated to make an impression. I, however, am talking about implementation of rules that cut down on time-intensive prep and, IME, D&D has nothing of the sort past the option presented by adventure modules (i.e., running a prefab campaign). And, honestly, even those require some prep (such as reading the module and choosing which options to use based on your party composition).

So, your idea of prep is that DM's should have zero prep time? That a game must be constructed to allow a DM to wing it 100% of the time with no problems? That's a pretty tall order.

 

[Crothian]

So, your idea of prep is that DM's should have zero prep time? That a game must be constructed to allow a DM to wing it 100% of the time with no problems? That's a pretty tall order.

And there are people that do this for D&D. Or at least they claim to. But I doubt there is any GM of any game that truly does this because GM's think about games before they run them even if they don't make notes on them.