Remembering third editions release

[Ander00]

I also recall fears of mechanics like DC's and AoOs bringing ruin to the game.

I really didn't like the concept of AoOs at the start. So, in part to prove a point, my first long-term character in third edition was a psychic warrior with a spiked chain. The DM has since banned spiked chains from his campaigns.

Ah, good times .


cheers

 

[Clavis]

God, I wish I had listened to the voices who were critical of 3rd Edition before I enthusiastically embraced and tried to DM that pile of crap. I soon found out it was easier to do my taxes that try to design and run 3rd Edition games by the book. Needless to say, I'm now somewhat wary when the same company who screwed up D&D introduces another version...

 

[Intense_Interest]

Proof that some criticisms were correct, and some 4e ones will be correct as well.

And to make an analogy, Ladyhawke's soundtrack of synthesized music was considered not only ahead of its time but a new, greater era of film-scoring. Some of the great innovations of of now and yesteryear (Pick-and-Dip multiclassing for the latter) will be derided as wild hairs for the future generation.

 

[Raven Crowking]

God, I wish I had listened to the voices who were critical of 3rd Edition before I enthusiastically embraced and tried to DM that pile of crap. I soon found out it was easier to do my taxes that try to design and run 3rd Edition games by the book. Needless to say, I'm now somewhat wary when the same company who screwed up D&D introduces another version...

LOL.

The Fanboying about 4E brings me back to a simpler time... A time when criticisms of 3e were stonewalled by many of the very same folks now stonewalling criticisms of 4e. A time when it was wrong to say that DMing 3e was too much work. A time when it was wrong to be critical of 3e character builds. A time when it was wrong to opine that 4e was coming. Yes, I'm talking about a month prior to the fourth edition announcement when EN World was a hotbed of 3e fanboys and general lunacy on all sides, and everyone was certain that announcing 4e soon would be tantamount to corporate suicide.

Ah, good times......



RC

 

[Wolfspider]

Don't worry.

With time and familiarity (which breeds contempt, after all), you will all hate 4e as much as everyone hates v3.5 now....

 

[Scribble]

Don't worry.

With time and familiarity (which breeds contempt, after all), you will all hate 4e as much as everyone hates v3.5 now....

Hate is a strong word?

I had lots of fun playing 3e.

I could still have lots of fun playing 3e.

I feel 4e is a better rules system and it allows me to play the game easier/ do more stuff in less time.

Maybe I'm in the minority.

 

[The Little Raven]

Hate is a strong word?

I had lots of fun playing 3e.

Same here. I had a lot less fun running it, because it consumed way too much time prepping.

I could still have lots of fun playing 3e.

I can't agree here. I have no desire to go back to 3e after playing through KotS.

I feel 4e is a better rules system and it allows me to play the game easier/ do more stuff in less time.

Agreed. I have far less time to prep for what little D&D time I have these days, and 4e makes prepping quicker for me and my group.

 

[JeffB]

Here's some I remember

Dwarven Wizards????

Wizards with Swords???? and Crossbows??

Clerics with Swords?????? (from those of us who didn't use any 2E specialty priests/kits)

Greyhawk is the default setting?? agg...I want my (insert even less popular setting here)!

wait a minute..ANY RACE..can be ANY CLASS? WHAT THE F!!!!!!!

The MM is how many pages? Umm..sorry the Monstrous Manual is like twice that size ..what a freakin' rip.


Now for some counterpoint-

It was MUCH MUCH more exciting- WOTC had saved TSR and turned it around and was bringing back alot of 1E D&D-isms that had been lost during the dark days. A Manual of the Planes??? A remake of TOEE? Gary Gygax writing a column in dragon Mag? Phil & Dixie????

Oh yeah, and we aren't going to make you buy any other books besides the 3 corebooks and possiblya campaign setting to use a splat or accessory book (coming off 2E , this was a HUGE relief for many)

And the D20 license made things even more exciting- Things like Ravenloft being farmed out to WW, and Gamma World, all the smaller publishers like Necro and Green Ronin, and FFG, and on and on. There was so much to look forward to. It was an amazing time for D&D.

Kalamar was an OFFICIAL licensed setting! And they got to re-do the AD&D books in Hackmaster.

And hell...lets not forget full color core books for $19.99 for the first year or so.

And Plans for a d20 MODERN??

D20 Star Wars is gonna be out a couple months after the PHB!!

This was another "golden age" for D&D , WOTC gave off a really different vibe of being "just like you and I", and certainly their mentality was a huge change in direction from TSR's previous 10 years. WOTC worked damn hard to impress and win over the gaming community at that time.

Of course 2 years down the road most of the guys from the 3E release had left WOTC to do their own thing and things started to change . The game (with it's increasing fiddly complexity and add-ons) and company attitude (not nearly so gamer friendly as it had been) was something that totally turned me off.

Its pretty wild how good things were 3E release compared to this one- which is frankly as exciting as watching paint peel. The front page on Eric Noahs site was FILLED with gobs of infomation day in and day out..from WOTC proper and other D20 companies. Today..not even a week after release we have...that not so excirting video interview.


(please dont mistake this as 4E hate- its not)

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

Here's some I remember...

Great post. I lurked in those days, to everyone's joy. Your post is one of the first I've read that really took me back, as I remember many of the same comments and emotions that you mentioned.

I wish the 4e rollout would have been handled better.

I wish the eDungeon and eDragon transition had been handled better.

I wish some choices (drop druid, barb, etc.) were made differently.

But, in the end, I'm OK with it all. The important thing is that the ruleset be better than the one that came before it. If that's not true, then anything else done well is just putting lipstick on a pig.

With 3E, this was true. With 4E, I believe it's true. With 2E, not so much.

Wis

 

[Kichwas]

I was on these forums before, during, and after the release of 3E.

I don't remember anything close to the level of hostility for 3E that we're seeing now for 4E. The vast majority both here and on Wizard's forums was pro 3E. A few people expressed interest in sticking with -1E-. You'd get maybe one post every few days advocating some portion of 2E, but I can't recall any that wanted that version as a whole or even in majority.

There were comments about some aspects of 3E that people were unsure of or doubtful over -before- it came out. But once it was out almost all of the reviews were positive. The complaints tended to be about claims that 1/2 Orcs and Sorcerers were too weak.

It took a while for people to even find the key bugs - Haste and the the AoO spiked train trick (which required a feat from Sword and Fist), and the other things that came out over time.

Of course 2 years down the road most of the guys from the 3E release had left WOTC to do their own thing and things started to change .

The worst thing that ever happened was selling WotC to Hasbro. From that point forward, we've seen the creatives slowly and sometimes rapidly trickle out.

I couldn't understand why it was done when it was done. I remember being in that minority (there were a number of us here, but we tended to get shouted down over on the WotC forums) that yelled out 'Doom, doom I say!' and get laughed out by people who, a few months later, were in the unemployment line...