Storm Raven
First Post
Doug McCrae said:
Most of which are heavily loaded with new advantages, disadvantages, and suggested builds for characters.
Third Edition Culture- Is is sustainable?
- Thread starter Belen
- Start date
Most of which are heavily loaded with new advantages, disadvantages, and suggested builds for characters.
Umbra
First Post
Absolutely. When I finally found a game I could play in rather than DM, with a completely different group of people, I had a fair few revelations. And they were not necessarily about the more arcane rule combinations.BardStephenFox (My Muse) said:
Eg. I had never noticed the footnote in the Miscellaneous Actions table that "If you have a base attack bonus of +1 or higher, you can combine one of these actions..." which included drawing a weapon. My group had been playing 3E for over two years and had never picked up that you could run towards the monster drawing your weapon as you go.
I suggest to anyone who has trouble with the core rule to try and find another game to play in (not DM). I've also learnt alot reading the forums here at this blessed place.
Most of the 'discussion' taking place comes down to what makes the game enjoyable for you and/or your group.
My group (-2 INT due to age, available time, etc thus with fewer skill points to spend in 3.x than AD&D ever got
) grasped the basics of 3.0 pretty quickly and I love the simple mechanic that's the core to the game 
. However, the complexity of administering combat at higher levels lowers the enjoyment for our group. As I have said before, it isn't the adding or subtracting that's hard, its keeping track of how many different things are being added and subtracted that's disheartening. 5 PC's plus n NPC's which can change every round is bearable at low level, but when 15th level spellcasters are firing off new spells every round and affecting different PC's and/or NPC's (oops that duration just expired)...I'm a gamer, not an accountant. 
So we changed some elements of the game.In the other group I play in (rather than DM) I've become more 'rulesy' which works in that much more tactical game.
And that is the culture of DnD, no matter the version.
It will continue. It will evolve. And everyone will keep tweaking. And adding. And subtracting. Or choosing a different system. Everyone is just trying to find a version that suites their preferences and which they enjoy playing.
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
BelenUmeria, it's fine if you want to disagree with me, but if you can't actually rebut any of my points, this isn't much of a debate. All of your statements seem to ignore the evidence I provided in the post you reference (heck, you didn't even address the evidence in the sentence you quoted!).
Do you disagree that consistently and logically structured rulesets encourage off-the-cuff rulings? Or do you disagree that 3e is sufficiently consistently and logically structured? If you can't explain WHY you disagree, we can't have a conversation about it.
Make all the statements you like about the goals of WotC. I'm not talking about that and it has no affect on my argument. I'm saying that the rules as written both encourage and discourage rules mastery, and I've posted my reasoning. If you disagree, I assume you have reasoning of your own. I'm interested in hearing it.
Do you disagree that consistently and logically structured rulesets encourage off-the-cuff rulings? Or do you disagree that 3e is sufficiently consistently and logically structured? If you can't explain WHY you disagree, we can't have a conversation about it.
Make all the statements you like about the goals of WotC. I'm not talking about that and it has no affect on my argument. I'm saying that the rules as written both encourage and discourage rules mastery, and I've posted my reasoning. If you disagree, I assume you have reasoning of your own. I'm interested in hearing it.
Belen
Legend
barsoomcore said:
I do diagree that 3e is "ufficiently consistently and logically structured." The underlying rules may be far more consistent than previous versions, but the sheer number and complexity of the rules are such that they overburden the underlying brilliance of the system.
And the "balance" of the rules do not help either. This makes adapting or deleting rules a nightmare because it can have a cascading effect that ruins the game for a certain class while making it easier on another.
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
Okay, that's fine. I think it IS sufficiently consistent and logical, and certainly my experience has been that when I make off-the-cuff rulings, they're usually very similar to the actual rules as written.
Again, though, you seem to be saying the same thing I'm saying: that making off-the-cuff rules tends to diminish the value of rules mastery, because certain rules inevitably get nerfed and thus the people who put in time to learn and take advantage of those rules don't get any value out of having done so.
Some see that as "ruins the game". I see it as "discourages rules mastery". Same thing. I would argue, however, that your use of the former reveals YOUR tendency to value rules mastery. Both you and eyebeams seem to think that anything that renders rules knowledge less useful is objectively bad.
I'm saying it devalues rules mastery. That's not a bad thing in and of itself. A game that devalues rules mastery to some degree is a game that encourages things besides rules mastery, any of which might be MORE valuable to some people than rules mastery. Having your Combat Reflexes feat nerfed is only important if you CARE about your Combat Reflexes feat. People don't have to care about that. They might care about how much money their character has. They might care about hanging out with their friends. They might care about what's going to happen next.
But you find 3E too complex to easily wing it. That's fair enough, and explains to me why you find it encourages more than discourages rules mastery. I hope it's clear that since I find it simple to wing it, from my perspective it discourages rules mastery.
There doesn't have to be one right answer. There almost never is. But it's interesting hearing how other people think.
Again, though, you seem to be saying the same thing I'm saying: that making off-the-cuff rules tends to diminish the value of rules mastery, because certain rules inevitably get nerfed and thus the people who put in time to learn and take advantage of those rules don't get any value out of having done so.
Some see that as "ruins the game". I see it as "discourages rules mastery". Same thing. I would argue, however, that your use of the former reveals YOUR tendency to value rules mastery. Both you and eyebeams seem to think that anything that renders rules knowledge less useful is objectively bad.
I'm saying it devalues rules mastery. That's not a bad thing in and of itself. A game that devalues rules mastery to some degree is a game that encourages things besides rules mastery, any of which might be MORE valuable to some people than rules mastery. Having your Combat Reflexes feat nerfed is only important if you CARE about your Combat Reflexes feat. People don't have to care about that. They might care about how much money their character has. They might care about hanging out with their friends. They might care about what's going to happen next.
But you find 3E too complex to easily wing it. That's fair enough, and explains to me why you find it encourages more than discourages rules mastery. I hope it's clear that since I find it simple to wing it, from my perspective it discourages rules mastery.
There doesn't have to be one right answer. There almost never is. But it's interesting hearing how other people think.
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