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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 9505846" data-attributes="member: 3192">At a recent convention Peter Atkinson and Ed Stark spoke about The Making of 3rd Edition D&D. An hour long seminar. Six Sides of Gaming recorded this for Youtube but it isn't uploaded yet. From Gamehole Con.My notes say,They were very afraid at first of invalidating 2e.   The first instinct was to do something like 2.5 (the Option books). More of a unification of all rules in 2e, including the 2.5 version in 1996. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">[This would have been quite large]</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Peter did not like a 2.5 edition initially. He wanted a larger revision.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Then they asked, "What are the sacred cows?"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">[My take is they wanted to make extensive changes to the game from the start and largely saw 1e and 2e as similar games]</li> </ul>All 3 designers took a shot at complete first drafts. They all came back with completely different games. So Jonathan Tweet was brought in as a Lead Designer to coordinate design.- The talk validated how this change really sped up design and was appreciated by all.A Skill System was added, initially one quite similar to the one in 5e. [Much smaller than 3e]<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They didn't care that 3e was too complicated at the time.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They realized too late it was too hard for a simple sheet and pencil game. Not the spreadsheet which Peter had been using to play 3e during design.</li> </ul>100 RPGA Players who took tests to playtest the game. They later advocated and defended WotC on early forums before designers had even published 3e.Peter didn't remember the tagline "back to the dungeon" for 3e during Q&A [It's practically 25 years]- [Many had taken this not as adcopy but a leading design principle]</blockquote>

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