The End of Good ol' d+d

[sfgiants]

Not what you think. After a lot of thought and 4 different gaming groups over the last almost two years I have come to some conclusions. First off, I love 3e a lot. As a player. As a dm, good luck. I have dm'd for over 10 years, but 3e killed it for me. The reasons:

-too much focus on balance (I know the reasons etc), but now there is a constant debate about balance. Prior to 3e balance was maintained by the dm. Now it is controlled by a rulebook (I know I could make changes, but it is easier said than done, believe me)
-All this focus on balance and the rules set as they are leads to min maxing, and powergaming inherently (I have been in groups where the group will hassle a player until they take a specific feat because "a barbarian has got to have cleave, or they are useless")
-stringent rules set limits creativity. If for a plot device I add in an interesting element, the players want to find out where they can find this...Not a bad thing, but sometimes limiting

While I know much of these issues can be dealt with by a dm with a firm hand, but trust me in a group newly gathered (via the net for instance) these issues are pervasive and not worth the hassle of dealing with. I love 3e, but it is a ton more work and hassle than 1 or 2e ever were. Just my 2 cents.

 

[hong]

This post is soooo 1999.

 

[Weeble]

This post is soooo 1999.

let's party

 

[adndgamer]

I totally agree that 3e is fun to play, but a pain to DM.

I enjoyed DMing on the fly, not having to remember huge stat blocks for creatures, just the nice, simple stats that earlier editions had. 3e has too many feats, skills, etc. It's sad, really. I hope that someday KenzerCo will make up a "Hackmaster Basic", which would be OD&D with a facelift.

It's too rules-heavy for my likings. Ditto on what the original poster said.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

It may put more of a burden upon the DM, but the flexibiltiy of the system makes up for it.

In some respects it can encourage powergaming. I'll concede that, to a point. If that barbarian "has" to have Cleave, that's fine. As a DM, when players start metagaming like that, I'd simply start making more roleplay intensive adventures. Cleave isn't very useful when trying to negotiate a pact between tribes.

I guess what I'm getting at is that min/maxing a character to be the best combatant possible isn't such a bad thing. If combat is the focus of the campaign, then there will always be opponents out their similarly min/maxed. If combat isn't the focus of the game - the most min/maxed combat-oriented character in the world is going to be useless most of the time. It really depends on what kinds of adventures the campaign is made up of.

Another thing to consider is that just because the rules say one can do something, doesn't mean one should. That is, you know your car can maybe do 90-100+ MPH. That doesn't mean you always drive like that; your car has lot of other uses besides drag-racing. A min/maxed character will be very good at one thing; as a DM, it was always my task to make sure that one thing wasn't the only thing in the campaign.

 

[Crothian]

Personally, I've found it easy to DM d20. You dopn't need to have a stat block for everything. It's okay if you say the gaurd has +8 to attack, when he should have +7 or +9. As long as you don't go overboard it's real easy to do things on the fly, even get stats for NPCs and monsters. It doesn't have to be exact. Unless the PCs know the bonuses you give every creature and NPC and then dissect it, they will never know it might not be accurate. I think people worry to much about the rules and the stat blocks of creatues.

 

[Desdichado]

Go, Crothian, go! I agree! I've found 3e much easier to DM than any other game I've played in years. Mostly because I don't have to use everything, but when I want to it's available.

 

[Jasperak]

I like the choices that 3e offers the characters. In most cases raising a level doesn't involve just changing your base THAC0. For a DM in 3e, life is easier to create good challenges for a party.

The key is that for every choice the players make with their characters, some other choice is left discarded. Meaning a DM can create challenges that can both allow characters to use their abilities and penalize them for not making others.

Imagine a Fighter that doesn't take Cleave and finds himself surrounded by 6 orcs. A good DM wouldn't turn the game into DM v. players, but would design his campaign and adventures to be challenging and worth playing. How many 1e/2e games have I played where after 10th level or so the campaign would fizzle out because we could kill ancient red dragons within three rounds.

To me, the little extra prep work makes the game far more enjoyable than 1e/2e.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I've heard this argument before, and it makes as little sense to me now as it does then.

I've been DMing since 1984. I've run basic D&D and all three editions.

And 3rd edition is absolutely no harder to run than 2nd or 1st.

People who min-maxed 2nd edition characters will min-max 3rd. People who didn't, won't.

Balance was always controlled by the rulebook. It was just controlled in a different fashion. Some classes were stronger than others, but they were balanced by having slower advancement. Different system, same result.

How much of the game do I run on the fly? Let me think, punch a few numbers into the calculator, divide by zero, carry the 1...

Ah. Exactly the same amount as I used to run on the fly in 2nd edition!

I haven't found 3rd edition any harder to run than 2nd, and in fact, in some aspects (like judging the difficulty of encounters) it's a lot easier. It's more flexible--there's nothing you could do, either with a character or monster, in 2nd edition that you can't do with 3rd. Furthermore, 3rd provides you ways to do it that won't break the system.

I will concede that it's easier to min-max a character now than it was, simply because there are so many more options. It's also easier to make a good, in-depth, and interesting character now, for precisely the same reason. And since the DM can give his NPCs and monsters the exact same advantages--and more--there's no way for a min-maxed character to break the system.

In short, I still don't know what the heck people are complaining about. D&D3 is the best we DMs have ever had it.

 

[TalonComics]

I have to totally agree with Mouseferatu. Anyone who is min/maxing d20 is the same people who min/max other games. Some people just don't understand RPGs aren't about winning and losing but how the character is played.
Being a badass at everything makes for a boring game.

~Derek