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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7759380" data-attributes="member: 71699">Reflecting on the question of which books to count in determining the relative weight of the editions. I think even in 4th edition, three books formed the baseline assumption of what a group would use. There was a boxed set of them at launch, and it reflected a norm for D&D that was, and is ongoing. Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual are the essentials of play. It seems misleading to argue otherwise. I doubt WotC would have said of 4th edition that a group can't play D&D successfully with just those three. In any case, that debate doesn't need settling: I am going with an assumption that the core constitutive rules of D&D 3rd edition and 5th edition are found in three books.Looking at those books, I think it is true that 5th edition has a lighter or more streamlined approach than 3rd edition, and yet this doesn't really come through in play for me. I think part of it is that my groups seldom made use of Prestige classes, which in 3rd edition were optional (in the core books, the only prestige classes appeared in the DMG I believe). We did not use much from supplements. In play, each of the 5th edition classes feels to me significantly more laden with options in core than the 3rd edition classes. Fighters are the obvious case, but I don't think any class in 3rd edition core has more rules than its equivalent in 5th edition! 3rd edition may tackle some things that 5th is silent on, but in play I don't notice that, because the biggest burden on me as DM is what my players' characters are capable of.If all rules in every supplement is counted, then 3rd edition has more, but that's not what this discussion is about. It's rules at the table - in play for the group - that impact on weight. And it is the mechanical detail of those rules. I am positing that there is more detail in what characters can do, in core, in 5th edition. That produces burden that didn't exist in 3rd core. This putative lightness of running 5th seems like a figment as I don't find either version easier or harder to DM. That makes me look for a more compelling account of exactly how 5th edition is "lighter" than 3rd?</blockquote>

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