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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5916400" data-attributes="member: 82106">Seems like there are elements of 'truth' to both ways of looking at it. In SOME respects 3e maintains closer contact with the feel and lore of older editions, but in some ways not at all. The basic lore is taken pretty much from late 2e, and many of the rules innovations are too, as well as the "lots of options for your character" basic concept. Spellcasting wasn't really materially changed. Everything else is pretty much mechanically all new in 3e. It is certainly mechanically IMHO as big a jump as 4e, maybe more in some ways. The main thing with 3e though to me is that fundamentally up to that point the ENTIRE focus of the game was aimed at the table and at what happened IN the game. While the last bit of 2e did kind of bridge over (we never used any of 2e past the core books basically) fundamentally before 3e you just picked your race/class and got what the book said. Creating a unique character was all RP and story telling. I really think that 3e marks the big watershed. It is a whole different KIND of game. The whole concept of what engages the players with the game is different. No longer is it about telling stories and playing a role, it is also in a huge way about fiddling with the rules and optimizing characters. That also required a shift in attitude about the rules from being a tool that told you how you could do stuff to a set of restrictions that you had to follow and master so you could play better. I think 4e is kind of the logical endpoint of that sort of development. People complain, but they're really ultimately complaining about the entire concept behind post-AD&D system. OTOH my experience is that my 2e and my 4e campaigns have actually run pretty much the same. There's a bit of difference at the level of what sort of encounters and scenarios they best handle, but the basic concept is intact. I'm like you as well, I could give a rat's patooty about old D&D lore. Never ran anything but homebrew, never paid much attention to GW cosmologies and whatnot. Couldn't care less about that stuff. Actually the 4e lore is pretty close to what I used starting in around 1979, lol. I could care less pretty much what they use for 5e though as it is just all fluff.</blockquote>

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