You'll definitely be better equipped to understand RPGs if you're familiar with Ron Edwards's terminology than if you aren't. And if you read Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering -- Robin being one of the legitimate geniuses of the industry who's created games from Rune (gameist) to HeroQuest (narrativist).
Part of the 3E philosophy is that your campaign will go OK even if you're a bad or inexperienced DM, and it's designed to be fun if you 'play the rules' as opposed to/as well as if you use the rules as an aid to playing the game. Jonathan Tweet is a brilliant designer and it covers these contradictory bases as well as anyone could expect. Hence the fast advancement, nitpicky fighting rules that generate narrative without the need for much imagination, rigidly balanced classes and encounters, etc. Obviously a good DM can run a non-rules/fighting-oriented game if she wants to, but that doesn't mean the system is irrelevant -- you'll have to ignore rules that overdetail (for your purposes) some things, change the default XP rules which mainly reward defeating monsters, and possibly make up house rules if you want mechanics to encourage certain kinds of play.
Among the famous examples of roleplaying-over-rules campaigns run with D&D (though not 3E) are, of course, Ed Greenwood's Company of Crazed Venturers and Knights of Myth Drannor campaigns.
Part of the 3E philosophy is that your campaign will go OK even if you're a bad or inexperienced DM, and it's designed to be fun if you 'play the rules' as opposed to/as well as if you use the rules as an aid to playing the game. Jonathan Tweet is a brilliant designer and it covers these contradictory bases as well as anyone could expect. Hence the fast advancement, nitpicky fighting rules that generate narrative without the need for much imagination, rigidly balanced classes and encounters, etc. Obviously a good DM can run a non-rules/fighting-oriented game if she wants to, but that doesn't mean the system is irrelevant -- you'll have to ignore rules that overdetail (for your purposes) some things, change the default XP rules which mainly reward defeating monsters, and possibly make up house rules if you want mechanics to encourage certain kinds of play.
Among the famous examples of roleplaying-over-rules campaigns run with D&D (though not 3E) are, of course, Ed Greenwood's Company of Crazed Venturers and Knights of Myth Drannor campaigns.
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