D&D 3E/3.5 Thoughts of a 3E/4E powergamer on starting to play 5E

[Tony Vargas]

I really enjoy Drake's RCN series.

Exactly the one I was thinking of.

I don't know about that Tony, there has been a lot of hostility in this thread. Hostility towards taking a 3E or 4E approach to playing 5E, and hostility towards any sort of criticism of 5E. Maybe not the level of hostility of the 4E edition wars, but comparable to the hostility during the 3E era amongst the 3E community IMO.

I recall both periods, and I'd disagree. There's always some apologist getting hot under the collar over the slightest even implied criticism of the current edition, but what I'm seeing here isn't going far beyond that.

And, no offense, but your posting style - rather than your gaming style - makes you a bit of a lightning rod.

As for my claim that 3E was the biggest tent for D&D, it dominated the RPG world more than any edition before or since.

d20 certainly did. Erstwhile competitors dropped or slowed production of their own flagships to jump on the bandwagon. But it was also dominating a hobby that was recovering from a pretty deep low after being pummeled by the introduction of CCGs in the 90s.

3e, for instance, never sold like 1e or the old basic sets did.

5e, OTOH, is back on top, and bringing back players who have been out of or at the fringes of the hobby for decades. It has a real shot at rivaling the fad years of the 80s.

As for the rules themselves, they tried to be everything to everyone, and had some mixed success in that regard.

Sorta. 5e really depends on/Empowers the DM to adapt it to the desired style. The rules, themselves, point towards 2e and, to a lesser extent, with the MC & Feat options available, to something like a 3e style or feel (just less player-empowering).

But, that does make it a big tent, for DMs, for players it's just a matter of searching that tent for the right DM.

People certainly used 3E for a wider range of play styles than anything before or since.

Can't begin to agree with that one. 3e's 'rewards for system mastery' and the community's insistence on RAW came darn close to calcifying a One True Way to play for the era. Challenging that formula was probably one reason for the backlash of the edition war. Catering to it one reason for the success of Pathfinder.

Also, look at the online community, I was present for the online community during 3E's era, and it was a lot livelier than it is now. Enworld itself is a lot quieter now than I remember it back then.

I was present for the on-line community in 90s as well as the 3e era. And, hey, usenet is deadsville compared to what it was in the 90s. Doesn't mean that the community's less vibrant, just that it's shifted venues. Social media is supposedly where it's supposedly at, but I'll be damned (I'm an atheist, technically I already am, it's just a figure of speech), if this old man gets on Twitter or Facebook. ;P

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Cops and Robbers was ok when I was a kid, but then I grew up and now I'd rather play Grand Theft Auto 5.

 

[Neonchameleon]

One player in our cops-n-robbers games was always designated 'the judge'. So we did have a rules adjudicator when things got fuzzy. Still didn't wreck our immersion...

In short the judge stepped in when things got fuzzy. They didn't start out by asking for approval and demanding in the way of an entitled DM that it was their game and they should overrule the rules whenever they liked. The players were free to act, to establish, and to endow, and the judge's job was to resolve disputes.

That's not entitled DMing.

Um, when Nik Wallenda crossed the Grand Canyon, he did so on a cable that was 2" wide.

Which doesn't mean that he couldn't walk on narrower. Just that he didn't when he strung something that would support both his weight and its own across the Grand Canyon. That's hardly an average use-case.

Our game worlds typically have pretty much one all-inclusive "rope" while in the real world we use different rope for tying up bundles, climbing, tightrope walking, and mooring large ships.

This is a good point

True, as I understand it, but I don't know if it is applicable, as historical battles are with hundreds and thousands of men, and your adventuring party is maybe a half-dozen. And, you know, the historical battles didn't have magic, and all.

There are better arguments than this historical analogy. Like, how any group in combat, no matter the size, gains much of its power and ability from mutual support of the members (which is why treachery is so devastating). If you break and run, you stop supporting each other, while the enemy does not. This means you lose tactical strength, and they don't, which is probably not a good bet when you aren't *sure* you can break off the fight entirely by doing it.

I think my argument is applicable. But I'll take that as an additional better one. And add to it that once your group has broken once unless it's done it in a controlled way you need to worry about it breaking again, and so are going to need to spend more time protecting yourself and less reinforcing each other.

As for my claim that 3E was the biggest tent for D&D, it dominated the RPG world more than any edition before or since.

Not even close. The high point of D&D wasn't 2001. It was 1982. And the greatest dominance was about 1975.

 

[dave2008]

Cops and Robbers was ok when I was a kid, but then I grew up and now I'd rather play Grand Theft Auto 5.

Then I guess you didn't grow up! Just kidding - sorry I couldn't help it. You were just handing it out like candy and I couldn't resist.

 

[lowkey13]

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[happyhermit]

I guess it depends on what you consider necessary. If you consider DM Empowerment and player Empowerment to be antithetical, some sort of 0 sum kinda thing, then it's necessary to discourage (or at least, subordinate) styles that depend on player empowerment. That includes the system-mastery-rewarding style of 3.x, and the kind of more 'narrativist' player-driven-storytelling styles that 4e hinted at supporting (but is really more the realm of indie games).

Thing is, the DM can always just choose to change the system to support whatever style he has in mind.

Thanks for responding, that does make a kind of sense to me now. The last part is what has always made the difference seem rather insignificant from my perspective. I will agree that in general 4e by default tended to put a bit more of the mechanics in the players hands than 5e does (though a GM could always overrule).

On a slightly tangential note, this might explain to me why one particular player seemed to really have a hard time with 5e, they have for years struggled with "control issues" as they put it. Somehow I never really quite put the two things together, it makes perfect sense that the difference would be magnified for them.

5e does provide for some crazy levels of player control over the universe and/or story with the optional "plot points", but I'm not sure that would scratch the same itch at all.

4e was a good edition of D&D, but I started with 1e, and the observation I'm making applies to all editions.
...

I find that fascinating, especially since early editions often quite obviously rewarded one for avoiding combat or solving things differently (ie; gold as XP). We ran, oh boy did we run, often around the corner to where we had either a means of escape or some sort of "traps" waiting. All that mattered was the treasure in most dungeon crawls, and we got it!

More difficult than what? Other editions of D&D? Not really. D&D has always used nice, precise ranges and areas and movement rates which make TotM a PitA without a lot of arbitrary DM hand-waving. Funny you should mention 'RAW' though, the community's insistence on RAW probably shrank that tent a good deal.

More difficult that 5e, which I was stating probably fit the definition of "bigger tent" a lot better than 3e. 5e "caters" to both styles in the core rules, by giving the grid based options and yet not assuming their use by default. In 4e for example, it is possible to run totm, but a lot of player powers make that either difficult or less satisfying to the player.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Not even close. The high point of D&D wasn't 2001. It was 1982. And the greatest dominance was about 1975.

That was the height of the D&D fad, which in my opinion was an outlier. AD&D really didn't compare to 3E after things calmed down. As for 1975, there wasn't any competition yet.

3E was what it was in an era where strong competition existed, overwhelmingly established itself as the D&D almost everyone played, and did so without the help of a temporary fad.

I'm not saying this as a fan, I'd rather play 4E or 2E any day of the week, and I absolutely refuse to ever DM 3E again.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

In short the judge stepped in when things got fuzzy. They didn't start out by asking for approval and demanding in the way of an entitled DM that it was their game and they should overrule the rules whenever they liked. The players were free to act, to establish, and to endow, and the judge's job was to resolve disputes.

Funny. That's how we play 5e. Go figure...

 

[Neonchameleon]

Funny. That's how we play 5e. Go figure...

Nothing to figure - 'tis a sensible way to play almost any RPG. There are however too many entitled DMs who really object to the idea of players endowing parts of the world and deciding to act.

And [MENTION=6834463]happyhermit[/MENTION], XP for GP was a fine rule - and the first rule dropped by many groups to the point it was relegated to the status of optional rule in 2e (and the game was poorer for it IMO).