Love it or hate it, 3e style

[Psion]

I like it with my friends, but hate it with most strangers.

Interesting way to put it.

I chose to answer the question in the context of what the system has given me. To wit: love it.

Now I do pretty much despise the sort of mindset such as "Mordenkainen's Disjunction is a horrrrrrible spell and should be banned because it can do milllllions of gp of damage and the DMG says I'm entitled to X gp for my levellll..." I despise that some players have made the magic item system into an extension of the PC build system.

But this has never really been a big problem for me in my home games, so really doesn't affect me personally that much. So what I'm left with is a system that finally delivered on many long promised awesome gaming experiences that prior games delivered imperfectly at best.

 

[Psion]

I think the poll results are muddied by virtue of lumping the OGL in there. I despise 3e D&D, but I love M&M, and Spycraft, and some people love Castles and Crusades. I also think Pathfinder is an improvement over the original 3e rules as well.

Many of these are fantastic games that diverge from 3/3.5 D&D quite substantially. In most cases, the designers of these d20 variants remedied or resolved a lot of the poor game design issues that plagued 3/3.5 D&D.

Hmmm. To me that's not muddied, but just another aspect worth praising. That it could cater to tastes for such diverse fanbases as those of Castles & Crusades and Spycraft is a testament of its awesome.

 

[Dragonblade]

Hmmm. To me that's not muddied, but just another aspect worth praising. That it could cater to tastes for such diverse fanbases as those of Castles & Crusades and Spycraft is a testament of its awesome.

Its a testament to the awesome of the d20 system. Which incidentally includes 4e.

 

[thatdarnedbob]

I voted dislike. If I never DM another session of 3.5 again, it'll be far too soon. But I can't bring myself to hate the edition I started in, not to mention the myriad spinoffs I'll never have time to try.

 

[Ourph]

Hate it. I used to hate DMing it and thought I'd always be willing to play if someone else wanted to run. A few weeks ago, I found out that wasn't true. I played in a 3.5 game a friend was running and from the moment I sat down to start creating the character to the end of the play session it was an exercise in utter frustration. I have no desire to ever play 3e D&D again. I'd rather not play at all than play that edition. Any other edition of D&D would be fine, just not 3e.

I think the OGL was somewhat beneficial. I dislike the fact that it made the d20 system so prevalent in the RPG field, but have to admit there are several games issued under the OGL (including the retroclones) that I really like. So for the OGL I would vote mixed bag.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Hate it. I used to hate DMing it and thought I'd always be willing to play if someone else wanted to run. A few weeks ago, I found out that wasn't true. I played in a 3.5 game a friend was running and from the moment I sat down to start creating the character to the end of the play session it was an exercise in utter frustration.

Hi Ourph,
Your response makes me genuinely curious. Can you expand upon this this frustration and hatred with some specifics (I'll send an XP your way as incentive)? I find such extreme opinions fascinating . 3.x really dropped the ball when it came to your support it seems.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Treebore]

I like it enough to play it, but I doubt I'll ever DM it again. I did love it enough at one point to have bought hundreds of books for it. Then the burn out hit. It hit big.

 

[Greg K]

Core 3e: Somewhere between mixed and like as a DM and a player

However, throw in Unearthed Arcana, Book of Iron Might (Malhavoc), some Green Ronin (Advanced Bestiary, several Master Class books), Book of Templates (Goodman Games/Silverthorne) and a few other third party books while ignoring nearly 90% everything else WOTC and I really like it as a DM and a player.

 

[Rel]

I voted "like it". 3e was the edition that brought me back to D&D. And it was the edition that brought me to ENWorld. That's great stuff right there!

I also think that 3e and d20 created a fantastic baseline for so many games. I recall going to GenCon and running D&D and d20 Modern, playing Mutants & Masterminds and Star Wars and using essentially the same basic framework of rules the whole time. While I do prefer some variety in my game systems, it makes picking up games in that sort of environment (where you have a limited time to get people into the game and run it within the time limit) very easy.

I wouldn't choose to run a 3.x game again for D&D. But there are some other d20 systems that I'd gladly run or play. And I have too many good memories with good friends surrounding the game to ever view it in a negative light.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Like it. I had a lot of fun with that, nothing can take that away. It has its flaws, and I probably will not play it again and never DM it again, but still. It was fun, it was a complex, interesting system with a lot of thoughts put into it.