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Message: <blockquote data-quote="prosfilaes" data-source="post: 7343445" data-attributes="member: 40166">Elegance is overrated. No matter how you write the rules, I'm going to have to look up exactly the modifiers on attempting a 15' long jump with a 15' running start across cobblestones, and when I do I can look at the exact rules for jump. (Okay, so I may not have to if the rules don't have those modifiers.. but then you're sacrificing simulationist properties for elegance.)Why should an 18 years old system be bad? I'm writing this on a Unix system whose basic rules were laid down almost 50 years ago. I'm writing this in a language whose basic rules were laid down 900 years ago. They work, and the advantages of fixing the inelegant features ("fixing", of course, being something that will be accompanied by much screaming and arguing about whether the new way is in fact better, and almost certainly once the ink is dry a consensus will form on at least one feature that is objectively worse) outweighs the cost of fixing them. If it works, don't fix it. Unlike you, when I opened up my first 3.5 PHB, it wasn't after playing D&D for many years. I'd played a bunch of AD&D 2E, then played GURPS and Hero and flipped through and drooled over any number of other games. I came back to D&D with 3.5. And so many of the problems 2E were now gone, and so many new options were out there to explore. Why, after four years, should I spend a lot of time looking for and pushing a new system? 4E didn't do what I wanted, I'd spent some time learning the costs and values of various other systems, why not stick with a slightly modded version of the system I knew and enjoyed? So far I haven't found a system that does better at offering me a generic fun gaming experience, so I stick with it. I could go to Burning Wheel or Savage Worlds or Dungeon World, but I don't know those games, and I don't have anyone to play them with. I could go to 5E; it's likely I will end up playing some 5E out of availability. I'm indecisive on a lot of the differences, and the system I have works, so why should I learn the quirks and designs of a new system?</blockquote>

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