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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5635753" data-attributes="member: 54877">Sometimes I think my whole life at ENWorld is a giant quest to spread enough XP around to give Pemerton a fraction of what I'd like. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />&nbsp;That said, I have a minor quibble with the above. I think that some of the designers and writers of 3E felt that way about the game. I think others were indifferent to the issue, and then a few others took the attitude that if the system stayed on track, and enough capable people worked on it long enough, that there would eventually be no need for such tweaking. I think some of this latter group felt most betrayed by 4E--not only because it was an explicit and unambiguous rejection of that approach, but because for practical purposes, it meant that they couldn't continue &quot;the work&quot;. Seen in that light, it also becomes clear why Pathfinder was viewed as such a streak of good fortune for them. &nbsp;Me, I think 3E was, on the whole, significantly better than 3.5, despite some key and serious flaws in 3E corrected by 3.5--precisely because 3.5 was the pinnacle of that &quot;we can fix all the details if we have it long enough&quot; attitude in the design staff. (Not that this is isolated to 3.5. If you've read Mearls' work since Fantasy Flight, through Malhovic, then you know he has a streak of that himself, though he usually keeps it out of his main designs.) &nbsp;In a way, this is more sad than anything. 1E and 2E needed people like that. It as if you had a giant building full of books, all stacked haphazardly, just begging for a librarian. So a bright, helpful librarian took charge. And after they got the card catalog working, the shelves organized, and so forth--people quit messing up the big stuff, and only wanted to argue about whether book X went into pre teen or early teen. So they started making a whole bunch of rules that would have been bettter handled by individual judgment. The librarian doesn't want to hear that their role is now diminished, especially considering what they had to start with.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5635753, member: 54877"] Sometimes I think my whole life at ENWorld is a giant quest to spread enough XP around to give Pemerton a fraction of what I'd like. ;) That said, I have a minor quibble with the above. I think that some of the designers and writers of 3E felt that way about the game. I think others were indifferent to the issue, and then a few others took the attitude that if the system stayed on track, and enough capable people worked on it long enough, that there would eventually be no need for such tweaking. I think some of this latter group felt most betrayed by 4E--not only because it was an explicit and unambiguous rejection of that approach, but because for practical purposes, it meant that they couldn't continue "the work". Seen in that light, it also becomes clear why Pathfinder was viewed as such a streak of good fortune for them. Me, I think 3E was, on the whole, significantly better than 3.5, despite some key and serious flaws in 3E corrected by 3.5--precisely because 3.5 was the pinnacle of that "we can fix all the details if we have it long enough" attitude in the design staff. (Not that this is isolated to 3.5. If you've read Mearls' work since Fantasy Flight, through Malhovic, then you know he has a streak of that himself, though he usually keeps it out of his main designs.) In a way, this is more sad than anything. 1E and 2E needed people like that. It as if you had a giant building full of books, all stacked haphazardly, just begging for a librarian. So a bright, helpful librarian took charge. And after they got the card catalog working, the shelves organized, and so forth--people quit messing up the big stuff, and only wanted to argue about whether book X went into pre teen or early teen. So they started making a whole bunch of rules that would have been bettter handled by individual judgment. The librarian doesn't want to hear that their role is now diminished, especially considering what they had to start with. [/QUOTE]

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