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<blockquote data-quote="ColonelHardisson" data-source="post: 735865" data-attributes="member: 363">Y'know, in the nearly 25 years now that I've been involved with gaming, I've found that whether or not a player or group of players engage in roleplaying-intensive campaigns as opposed to simply playing maxed-out ubercharacters depends almost entirely on the players themselves, not the game. While I'm sure 3e attracted a number of new gamers from the ranks of video and card game players, I'm also sure that they are simply a subset of the larger population of gamers. Maybe there are those who are playing half-dragon/half-celestial/yuan-ti barbarians, but believe me, there were plenty of similar PCs back in the late 70s/early 80s, no matter what some old grognards would have you believe (and hell, I am an old grognard). Maybe the game mechanics were different, or non-existent, for such characters, but I saw plenty of people come up with equally bizarre backgrounds for their characters. The experience of gaming was new for most of us back then, and we delighted in goofing around with the possibilities presented, or creating our own. Plus, power inflation hit hard, with house rules and incorrect interpretations of the rules (&quot;let's see, you all got 8 million xp to share; I think most of you go up 15 levels or so&quot; &quot;Cool!&quot;) ramping up the power with each session. So when did that end? It probably took 5+ years or more for the group I gamed with back then - we were in our late teens by then. The point is, if there are similar powergaming groups out there now, they still have a way to go to get it out of their system. It's fun to game like that for a while, but eventually everything will settle down into more roleplay-intensive campaigns.&nbsp; I think a lot of people, especially many long-time or older gamers, are simply forgetting this aspect of our own RPG history.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ColonelHardisson, post: 735865, member: 363"] Y'know, in the nearly 25 years now that I've been involved with gaming, I've found that whether or not a player or group of players engage in roleplaying-intensive campaigns as opposed to simply playing maxed-out ubercharacters depends almost entirely on the players themselves, not the game. While I'm sure 3e attracted a number of new gamers from the ranks of video and card game players, I'm also sure that they are simply a subset of the larger population of gamers. Maybe there are those who are playing half-dragon/half-celestial/yuan-ti barbarians, but believe me, there were plenty of similar PCs back in the late 70s/early 80s, no matter what some old grognards would have you believe (and hell, I [i]am[/i] an old grognard). Maybe the game mechanics were different, or non-existent, for such characters, but I saw plenty of people come up with equally bizarre backgrounds for their characters. The experience of gaming was new for most of us back then, and we delighted in goofing around with the possibilities presented, or creating our own. Plus, power inflation hit hard, with house rules and incorrect interpretations of the rules ("let's see, you all got 8 million xp to share; I think most of you go up 15 levels or so" "Cool!") ramping up the power with each session. So when did that end? It probably took 5+ years or more for the group I gamed with back then - we were in our late teens by then. The point is, if there are similar powergaming groups out there now, they still have a way to go to get it out of their system. It's fun to game like that for a while, but eventually everything will settle down into more roleplay-intensive campaigns. I think a lot of people, especially many long-time or older gamers, are simply forgetting this aspect of our own RPG history. [/QUOTE]

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