[spin-off] 3E is NOT "dumbed down."

[Mercule]

And for some of us, it's a destination.

25 years of my gaming life: From 1e to Star Frontiers to Traveller to Twilight 2k to 2e to CoC to WW to Gurps to Shadowrun to Amber to 3e to a baker's dozen of small press crap to Exalted to WW:Rev and then right back to 3e. Oh, and having real fun for the first time in years. Dumb me down some more, please.

Pretty similar to what I've experienced over the last 20 years. Red box, 1E, 2E, Rolemaster, Shadowrun, Paranoia, Champions, Fantasy Hero, WoD, 3E, and that's just the full or multiple campaign list.

I remember getting on my high horse while playing Hero and declaring I'd never play a class/level based system again because of how primitive they were. *Snort* I was an ass.

It's a game. If classes and levels make it easier to play without reducing your flexibility too much, then they are a good thing. The multiclass rules in 3E fit that bill, IMHO.

 

[JeffB]

Hey, no offense meant Jeff. My comments about RM and WOD are jokes. I'm not a system snob. I don't have the time or the players for a new system. But if I met someone who wanted me to try a game of either, I'd go for it.

Besides, I used to use Combat and Tactics, so I got no room to complain about overly complex systems

And if the rumors of a d20 Vampire ever come to frutition I'll be all over it. I love the concept and setting, just not nuts over dice pools.

No problem...sometimes it's just hard to tell how folks mean stuff on this dad-gum internet contraption.

You should give RM a try sometime. Great system. Most folks blow the complexity level way out of proportion, and it's easy to strip away what you do and don't like. The system is very modular and flexible....yikes..I sound like an ad...

 

[JeffB]

Gary has insisted that AD&D 1e and OD&D were rules-lite, and the fact that 1e is rules-lite is open for debate, but OD&D was CERTAINLY rules-lite, and he has continued the tradition with his Lejendary Adventures game. Think Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu, but without 90% of the stats.

Dave "Blackmoor" Arneson has never been obviously rules-heavy or rules-lite, but he has always had a reputation for role-play intensive, and many credit him with introduction of role-play elements into the fantasy game that Gary developed.

I'll agree....Acckk...Did you ever see Dave's "Adventures in Fantasy" RPG circa 1980 or so? It's quite rare but I distinctly remember thinking this is the worst system I've ever seen when I bought it, and it made the original D&D brown books look well organized and Powers & Perils look easy to run. I was SO disapointed with that system...not to mention one of the rulebooks was HOT PINK, no less.

Dave's strength was his creativity..not rules...Gary was more well rounded...he had the creativity as well as a much better grasp of rule systems.

 

[MerricB]

Given that Gary designed one of the most complex systems ever (Dangerous Journies/Mythus), it's certain that he's not always been a proponent of "rules lite". Perhaps its something he became in his old - and respected - age.

Cheers!

 

[rounser]

Dave's strength was his creativity..not rules...Gary was more well rounded...he had the creativity as well as a much better grasp of rule systems.

To be fair, Arneson was (and odds are, still is) younger than Gygax and not long out of college at the time, from what I gather.

I was reading a borrowed copy of The First Fantasy Campaign by Arneson recently, and it's the most inscrutable and quirky book I've ever tried to read. It's both enthusiastic, derivative and juvenile in places, and muddled and incoherent in others. It is, however, very fertile imaginative soil, if you will, and apart from the wargame stuff it reminds me of the sort of material that teenage AD&D players tend to write - complete with scrawlings of canonfire and dragon fights much like you'd see in a bored student's textbook.

It will be interesting to see what d20 Blackmoor ends up like, and whether Arneson has found his feet with regards to writing style by now. I'm looking forward to the updated Blackmoor - quirks and all.