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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7884056" data-attributes="member: 6785785">While I agree with you that a lot of the elements could be easily ignored (and were, by my group) there were many where that decision was a harder one to make. Sure, Wealth by Level and Monster Creation rules are best as guidelines, and can easily be ignored....but I think it's harder to do that with options for player characters. The Complete series of books...Complete Warrior, Complete Divine, Complete Scoundrel, etc.....is where things really started to get tough for my group. Players would see these books and get excited and pick them up....and then they'd want to use the options presented within, and I couldn't blame them. But then it's a new book of material that the DM either needs to be familiar with, or willing to accept that there's going to be new mechanics and elements that he's going to have to learn on the fly in play. This was a real sticking point in our game. Especially in the form of third party books that weren't even known commodities. It led to all kinds of issues. Yes, we could have instilled a "core only" rule or something similar. I really didn't want to do this because it was a case of me being the most aware of the problem because I was the primary DM. It was much more obvious to me because I was constantly changing the game on the fly to account for a steady stream of new mechanics and players' options. For the players, it seemed like there were minor issues here and there, and they only started realizing there was an underlying cause as time went on, and some took longer to realize it than others. So I didn't want to be the kind of DM who decides everything for the group, and I kept trying to adapt and deal with the problem. In retrospect, I should have addressed it head on much sooner. So that's not to say that I didn't like the edition, or that it wasn't worthwhile....far from it. I'd probably say that It was the edition I played the most and had the most fun with (although 5E is great, too). But as a system, I think the criticism that it became more cumbersome and unwieldy over time is valid. Your decision to keep to "Core Only", although a good decision, doesn't excuse the edition for the bloat problem.</blockquote>

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