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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Luke" data-source="post: 1331750" data-attributes="member: 602">As always, whatever the gaming style,  the most important thing is that the group enjoys it, and hopefully that its consistent.In over 20 years of gaming, I've had a wide range of gaming style experiences.At one end of the spectrum I've been in games that get really bogged down in the detail of game mechanics, and it takes forever to get through any kind of encounter.At the other end of the spectrum, I've been involved in a game where the person taking a turn at DMing was not very strong on rules at all. It was interesting as an exercise in versimilitude and DMed storytelling - but it did go down very badly with the group who ultimately became quite bored, because it degenerated essentially into the DM "telling the story" since the player stats and dice rolls didn't actually count for much.Now I'll grant you that 3rd edition improved vastly on 2nd edition - but with a double-edged sword. On the positive side, the rules are varied, comprehensive an well structured - to the point where the DM doesn't have to place too much personal interpretation on how to play and adjudicate - *very important*.On the negative side, there is much, much greater complexity than there was in 2nd edition. My personal view is that its quite difficult to correctly play characters (once spell effects and situations start changing stats and all the follow-on effects to AC, attacks and damage come in), and its *extremely* difficult for DMs to correctly play an entire encounter group (where NPCs and even monsters can carry the full complexity of player characters). Don't forget the stacking rules for all the changing modifiers!Please note that I personally develop RolePlayingMaster (so I'm biased), and that the issues above is the reason that I developed it.My take is that RolePlayingMaster let a player put together a character, and play it correctly, almost without understanding the rules, and especially without having to manually do all the calculations.This is even better for DMs, who can randomly (later applying manual edits), put entire encounters together - with race levels, class levels, templates added, and spell lists, feats and equipment all instantly generated. When that happens, the weapons and armor can be generated as magical, and *everything* just comes out right.To my mind, that lets you play the game with the rules you got in the books you bought, and it still lets you play quickly, as if you were playing a scaled down rules light fashion.If the program you use doesn't take all the right things into account, then its not actually a D&D/D20 game that you're playing - just something hopefully fairly close.Of course, there's nothing wrong with that, but its nice to know that you can get something to let you play the actual game that you purchased, enjoying the richness and full flavour of 3rd edition - without paying the penalty for complexity. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> Lastly, my personal take is that there's nothing wrong with knowing the rules to get all the advantages. In real life, we focus with training and education to maximise our success - be it a professional career, or martial arts training. Why wouldn't the same outlook apply to a fantasy character? The main thing is to be fair and assist with those rules you're aware of being applied both ways. My gaming group often ends up rolling their eyes when I remind a DM that his monster isn't actually susceptible to the critical hit a player has just delivered <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    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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