Third Edition Culture- Is is sustainable?

[Turjan]

No, they would just switch to providing supplements that were filled with point buy options (like new advantages and benefits), and prefabricated point buy builds. Which is basically what SJGames does with GURPS.

I see where you get at ! You mean that "Sword & Fist" or its 3.5 revenant "Complete Warrior" would see a regurgitating of all good old alternative classes and PRC's as prefabricated point buy builds? All for the good of D&D consistency, of course !

 

[Rasyr]

Rasyr, not to disparage HARP certainly, but I did have three die-hard 3E fans who really did not care much for the HARP demo they played at a Gameday recently. They couldn't put their finger on it directly, but there was something about the game rules they did not enjoy - they enjoyed the GM immensely who ran it, but said their experience was more like a good GM making the most out of a not-as-good game system.

Fortunately, one of the players won a copy of the game system, so I might borrow it from him and see what I make of it, and if I can, I might see if I can get one of the players who played it to comment on this thread and see if he can put his finger on what didn't set right with him about the rules he saw. It's still a case of different stroke for different folks, but some people I suspect just don't mind the rules that cover most conditions, and don't feel confortable with more free-form systems. (Ironically, these three are also three of the strongest supporters of Feng Shui you'll ever see. )

Henry, please note my post to Psion, where I do state that I firmly believe that no game is perfect (not even my own) and that no one game is right for every player out there.

Also, email me at tim 'at' ironcrown 'dot' com and we can have a little chat (and I can even provide you with that demo adventure if you like).

 

[Rasyr]

(Well written, conceputally rich) Prestige Classes, OTOH, I could buy till the cows come home. They are more than just mechanics, they are concepts that you can plug into a game. And I dig that.

Ok, so are you saying that you would pay for the concepts, no matter what the mechanism used for PrC turned out to be?

For example, if they turned it into training packages ( a few skills, and lots of interesting concepts behind the fluff portions), would you still purchase them?

Just curious.....

 

[Desdichado]

It has been elevated from the trenches of a "satanist" game into a socially accepted, indeed, as someone else mentioned, Faddish game. And that's what bothers me, because i don't like fads: not clothes, not music, not games, and not Pokemon. But i do like DnD, even though it's a fake fad because it's old as heck and has just gotten noticed by the new kids.

No, it was faddish in the 80s. Now it's fringe mainstream and steady, where it will most likely remain into the foreseeable future, barring some unexpected revolutionary breakthrough.

 

[Psion]

And please note that while, yes, I do want pimp my baby, I was very careful not to actually mention it in my last post.

Oh I know. I'm sort of cheating. I'm more responding to your post there, which you reference here. I just didn't think the post fit the theme of that thread.

 

[Narfellus]

I see where you get at ! You mean that "Sword & Fist" or its 3.5 revenant "Complete Warrior" would see a regurgitating of all good old alternative classes and PRC's as prefabricated point buy builds? All for the good of D&D consistency, of course !

That's exactly how i think the game will evolve. Class templates that players use to say, "Here's how your point-build character might look. Or you can mix and match it because the system is balanced."

Rasyr, what's your email, i want to ask you a question...

 

[Turjan]

Henry, please note my post to Psion, where I do state that I firmly believe that no game is perfect (not even my own) and that no one game is right for every player out there.

Sometimes it's just the small things that get in the way of liking a game. I actually have a copy of HARP (the first release, but I believe the second is not much different). At first glance it looked very much like D&D, so the transition seemed to be easy enough. Of course, the resolution mechanics differs quite a lot .

The small thing? I don't like percentile dice. That's unnecessary number juggling for me. This bothers me the more the more I realized that the granularity given by percentile dice could often be reduced to a d20 .

 

[Narfellus]

No, it was faddish in the 80s. Now it's fringe mainstream and steady, where it will most likely remain into the foreseeable future, barring some unexpected revolutionary breakthrough.

i think in my head "mainstream" and "faddish" are pretty similar. I suppose mainstream is more enduring, but who sets the limits? Regardless, i agree that DnD is around to stay no matter what other than nuclear holocaust, and even then we can still play with rocks and charcoal.

 

[Psion]

Ok, so are you saying that you would pay for the concepts, no matter what the mechanism used for PrC turned out to be?

When you invoke the words "no matter what", my answer is simple: No.

The, um "concept laden mechanic" has to be lucid with the rest of the system, naturally. It takes me two seconds to think of a third party d20 products that fail to fit this requirement...

Also, I gotta say, mutliclass combos in d20 products (and for that matter, things you could build yourself in other systems, like packages in GURPS) don't do as much for me. Though they can be timesavers if preseneted correctly (frex, while multiclass combos don't do much for me -- I could write a program to build them randomly if I felt like it -- things like fully statted out "concept characters" with multiclasses from levels 1-20, like in Green Ronin's races books, are good way to inject concepts and save work.)

 

[Faraer]

I would rather not play than play 1e or 2e or C&C or Hackmaster.

This points up the difference in philosophies as much as anything. For you, the framework of the rules permeates and to an extent determines the game, and so it needs robustness. For me, the rules are a relatively minor aid to be turned to now and then to resolve conflicts, and so the exact D&D ruleset used is a very minor determinant in whether I want to play.

The former attitude is part of 3E culture, as is language such as 'builds', 'PrCs', 'levelling up', 'flavor text', etc. Buying books full of 'crunchy bits' is 3E culture, which more people do than the extreme min-maxers.

Lastly, i think a lot of what people like about old Dnd was nostalgia.

I think they like it because they enjoy it, and writing off preference for anything except the latest game to nostalgia is rather insulting.

I wonder how many people actually use extensive houserules?

Really hard to tell. Those who do tend to say that everyone else does. I'm sure, though, that far more people use informal house rules based mostly on habit or misreading than attempt to seriously and selfconsciously alter the system.

As in all these discussions, we end up talking about what's good for us and what's good for other people at the same time, and few people are too good at distinguishing the two.

Incidentally, in terms of rules-hacking you can easily remove prestige classes, combat maneuvers, and other stuff that is more 'crunchy' than I like, but it's very hard to remove feats, as different classes get different numbers of them.