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Message: <blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 5482653" data-attributes="member: 3400">I think people are forgetting how complicated 1e and 2e could be and I have a theory why. 1e had some fairly complicated rules about shield use, facing, helmets, and that's all without getting into weapon vs armor type modifiers. 2e preserved a lot of those complexities, added a few more, relaxed others. But there's a major difference between 1e/2e and 3e. While 3e reduced the complexity of rules systems to the core d20 mechanic, it pushed other complexities out to the player with tons of build and tactical play options rather than left them on the DM's shoulders as they tended to be in 1e/2e. That shared the complexity burden, widening the impression that 3e (and now 4e) are much more complicated games, when they're really only moderately more complex in the long run.I think the trend started with 2e in some ways. Remember the differences between the 1e and 2e rule books. In 1e, the combat section of the PH was not nearly as detailed with rules as the DMG. But in 2e, most of the combat sections were identical (which I think also increases the impression that the 2e DMG was a less essential source than its 1e counterpart). Players Option: Combat and Tactics pushed the game in the tactical player direction leading right to 3e's focus on tactical moves via feats.There's no doubt. 3e and 4e can be startlingly complex when it comes to building characters. There's a lot of choices out there, not all of the implications of which are immediately apparent. These complexities, if the table isn't willing to pare down the sources, can be intimidating - hence, I think, you see a lot of people in later 3x days saying "Core only". But I think this is more about front-end complexity - complexity you encounter before you sit down to the action of playing than play complexity, which I don't think is as much more complex than 1e/2e complexity because of the standard mechanical structures.</blockquote>

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