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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Toben the Many" data-source="post: 1545301" data-attributes="member: 19273">Here's my take on the whole thing. Everything's a pendulum. The height of the "role-playing" craze came out with Vampire and White Wolf's World of Darkness. People got back into live-action roleplaying. Now, the pendulum has swung back the other way. People are back to the table with their miniatures and maps. But the pendulum will swing back the other way eventually. I think that people who say that 3rd Edition caters more to "roll" players certainly have a case. The rules are far more complex, more involved, and detailed than they ever have been before. The more rules intense a game is, the more it "caters" to roll-playing. The less rules-intense a game is, the more it "caters" to role-playing...simply because you have alot more room to "make it up as you go."Now, that being said, I think 3rd Edition, despite its deep rules system, caters more to roleplayers than its predecessors in 1st and 2nd Edition. And I can prove this. Go open your 1st and 2nd Edition Player's Guides and Dungeon Masters guide. How much of those books is dedicated to roleplaying? Next to none. The 2nd Edition Player's Guide has about a page or two on the subject, and the 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide has a chart of NPC personality traits.In 3rd Edition, there's actually advice about how to create a campaign world, how different characters approach a situation; metagaming; versimmiltude; etc.So what happened? Why are all of these people going back to rolling instead of roleing? Here's my theory. Back in 2nd Edition, there was a large push towards roleplaying, because the system was soooo loose:"I want to jump across the chasm!" "Okay. Um. Roll a Dex check?" "Why not a Strength check? I'm using my Strength to jump across." "Um. Sure. Whatever. Wait, aren't you wearing armor?""Yeah. So? Can't I try?""Um. Okay. But you have a -4 penalty. I guess."It was loose, but we all loved it. We played it. Winged it. Enjoyed the hell out of it. Then came 3rd Edition. Everyone started back at ground zero. No one knew the rules. No one knew what you had to roll to jump across a chasm (but now they do). So in order to become familiar with the rules again, people sat down, took their time and went by the book. I think it was at that time many of my buddies who were used to the "loose-and-free" mentality of gaming got discouraged.Now, years later, we're still in that by the book mode. Partly because not everyone is still not 100 percent cool with the rules yet. (Especially because of 3.5) We might be 90 percent cool, or 80 percent cool, but few people are 100 percent cool with the rules. Those who fear the fate of roleplaying fear not. I feel the pendulum swinging back. You might have to wait a couple of years, though. It'll also depend on how well White Wolf's new World of Darkness works, too.</blockquote>

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