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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4069375" data-attributes="member: 4937">I'm not sure any of the choices really reflects my position.3.X is 'rules-medium'.&nbsp; It is neither a true rules heavy system like GURPS or HERO, nor a true rules light system.&nbsp; It has achieved a happy balance between incompleteness and complexity.3.X has both good rules and bad rules.&nbsp; Some of the rules are bad because they are incomplete, and hense need further complexity.&nbsp; Some of the rules are bad because they are too complexity, and need something of further elegance.&nbsp; Since I have a higher tolerance for complexity than incompleteness, I tend to lean towards '3.X needs more rules'.&nbsp; However, when I say this, I'm really specifically thinking of the action-resolution system.&nbsp; Most of 3.X's complexity is an outgrowth of its magic and character creation rules set.&nbsp; These areas are anything but elegant (as the proliferation of character creation focused splatbooks suggest) and could use to be significantly pared back.I don't however expect this to happen.&nbsp; The reason is that rules heavy systems make more money than rules light systems, and significantly improving the elegance of the character creation rules would severely injure WotC's ability to produce extensions of the rules set which would have a high level of demand in the market.&nbsp; Relatively few people could be convinced that the game needs more (or even just improved) rules for handling demographics, climate, diplomacy, perception, economics, mass combat and so forth.&nbsp; It's quite easy to sell books however that allow you to make you different sorts of powerful characters, or cast spells with new sorts of powerful effects.Hense, 4E is already indicating the same sorts of incompleteness in its character creation system that plagued 3E.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 4069375, member: 4937"] I'm not sure any of the choices really reflects my position. 3.X is 'rules-medium'. It is neither a true rules heavy system like GURPS or HERO, nor a true rules light system. It has achieved a happy balance between incompleteness and complexity. 3.X has both good rules and bad rules. Some of the rules are bad because they are incomplete, and hense need further complexity. Some of the rules are bad because they are too complexity, and need something of further elegance. Since I have a higher tolerance for complexity than incompleteness, I tend to lean towards '3.X needs more rules'. However, when I say this, I'm really specifically thinking of the action-resolution system. Most of 3.X's complexity is an outgrowth of its magic and character creation rules set. These areas are anything but elegant (as the proliferation of character creation focused splatbooks suggest) and could use to be significantly pared back. I don't however expect this to happen. The reason is that rules heavy systems make more money than rules light systems, and significantly improving the elegance of the character creation rules would severely injure WotC's ability to produce extensions of the rules set which would have a high level of demand in the market. Relatively few people could be convinced that the game needs more (or even just improved) rules for handling demographics, climate, diplomacy, perception, economics, mass combat and so forth. It's quite easy to sell books however that allow you to make you different sorts of powerful characters, or cast spells with new sorts of powerful effects. Hense, 4E is already indicating the same sorts of incompleteness in its character creation system that plagued 3E. [/QUOTE]

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