I've finally figured out why 3rd edition bugs me

[Majoru Oakheart]

I think that it if both good and bad. I think that games I ran had a bit more flavour to them because I treated the flavour text as rules. I like to follow the rules so, I'd say "Sorry, you need to go to the high mountains and start searching for gryphon feathers if you want to start making that scroll."

Nowadays, I just go "You spent the xp and gold? ok, you get the scroll."

It has shifted the focus back to adventuring though, going to dungeons, defeating enemies, getting powerful artifacts, etc.

Of course, back in the day, when I said "Sorry, magic items aren't for sale, the books say so." and players would say "What happens to all the other adventurer's stuff when they reach 12th level? What happens to their +1 swords and +2 swords and +3 swords when they have +4 swords?" and I would say "I don't know. They give them to reletives or bestow them on the captain of the guard of their keep that they have by that point." And they'd say "That's dumb....you are telling me none of them ever think they can get extra cash by selling them?"

Sometimes there would be an entire adventure because a player refused to give up their quest to find a +1 sword, wandering the streets asking people who might be selling one. Of course, this often left the other players sitting there waiting while I refused to let a player just BUY a sword. The books said magic items aren't just sold in stores, each one should be a quest. I refused to give in.

I am not really sure which one is better, role playing wise. I do know that the current method gives me much less headaches as I rarely feel I am fighting AGAINST my players.

 

[Henry]

I'll agree that 3E core books are less flavorful than 2E core books, but they're certainly not devoid of flavor. While I wouldn't mind seeing slightly more, I certainly don't want a return to making a scroll one of the Twelve Labors of Hercules. If it took me all of that labor to create it, I'd never want to use the thing! (Maybe that's why all those magic items were in treasure troves - their owners died because they waited too late to use them! ) "What? USE my scroll?!!? You must be joking!!"

 

[Gez]

Just so. If I am going to be venturing to gather water from the deepest oceans, I want some payoff!

That's why you aren't. Instead, you buy vials of "deepest ocean water" from the gnome alchemist of the nearest FLACS (friendly local arcane component shop), along with the other components you'll need for the scroll.

That's why it costs you a certain number of gold pieces, for which a mechanical rule is given.

The Scribe Scroll flavor text of the 2e manual could have been put in a sidebar in the magic item section, entitled "Why Is Magic Item Creation So Expensive":

Magic items require strange and rare components to be created successfully. As an example, <insert the 2e fluff about scrolls>. If the player character prefers to gather the components himself rather than buying them from an alchemist, it may become a quest in itself. As a positive side-effect, however, this personal investment in gathering the components may be enough to make the XP creation cost superfluous. See the Power Component rule variant.​

 

[UniversalMonster]

The essential problem with flavor-text saturated roleplaying games is sometimes- the flavor isn't to everyone's liking. Also, you run into the situation where the game designers are making decisions and coming up with things that really should be decided upon by the end-of-the-line GM.

D&D has never been very popular with that segment of the roleplaying crowd that buys RPGs just to read or collect, or (god help me) theorize about.

It's a game for groups that actually get together and play. I'd rather have a good rules handbook and come up with the juicy campaign details myself.

 

[Goblyn]

Interesting ... or not?

I've read Econometrics textbooks that are more interesting than the 3e corebooks.

Dude. I want your econonics textbooks.

Anyway, I'd have to agree with the sentiment of leaving flavour to the CS books. Flavour in the core may be fun to read ... the FIRST time, but when they become used as rules references, all that fluff is just more pages to flip through while looking for what rule(s) you need.

 

[Psion]

I think the capability to spin my own tales instead of follow in my own vision is what makes D&D the mainstay in my RPG collection. And the 3e is the best yet at making my visions happen.

 

[Patlin]

Heck, I'm a real old timer, I guess. I got all upset about 2e. Looked like change for changes sake to me, didn't see any improvements in it. Refused to play it. I wrote my own homebrew system and everything, and inflicted it on all my friends...

I came back to D&D for 3e, because I finally saw improvements worth changing for. The rules are much more elegant, IMO.

 

[diaglo]

I think the capability to spin my own tales instead of follow in my own vision is what makes D&D the mainstay in my RPG collection. And the 3e is the best yet at making my visions happen.

d00d,

you need to check yourself into a rehab clinic if d02 is causing you to have visions.

that is some bad stuff.

you know what they said about the brown acid at Woodstock

 

[D+1]

One more thing to remember is that by sacrificing pages and pages of flavor text and verbose ramblings of the designers you get tighter, better rules in a smaller space meaning you get more rules per page than you otherwise would. Now I hear people out there chanting "more is not better" (Diaglo probably leading) but the point is that 3E simply does require MORE space for its rules. When it was published things were SACRIFICED because the page count for hardcover books has limitations.

Yes the reading of those rules may get dry but it's easier to interpret dry rules than flavor text. Half of the "rules" discussions of 2E spells came down to distinguishing between actual rules and FLAVOR text.

 

[diaglo]

Heck, I'm a real old timer, I guess. I got all upset about 2e. Looked like change for changes sake to me, didn't see any improvements in it.

i said the same thing about 1edADnD.