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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ExploderWizard" data-source="post: 6636897" data-attributes="member: 66434">That is certainly part of it. The other part is the paradigm shift in the objectives of play. Those objectives began to change once the build concept was fully realized. Early TSR D&D featured play objectives that were based in the game world. Gaining power and political influence, commanding armies, becoming the master of a thieves or mages guild, etc. Treasure XP was a neutral score keeping mechanism that tracked progress toward those objectives. Treasure could be won or discovered by combat, interaction, or exploration. Reaching high level was a pre-requisite to obtaining the end game objectives. Characters of the same class were very similar to one another mechanically speaking. Actual play of the characters and player input is what created unique and memorable adventurers. Surviving to high level was fairly difficult and took quite a while. WOTC D&D shifted play objectives radically with 3rd edition. The end game objectives from older editions were largely removed. Characters had many more mechanical options to choose from. XP now came strictly from overcoming challenges, largely combat, and the expectation was that the PCs would continue to face challenges from level 1 to 20. There was no endgame, no objective connected with the game world to strive for. The focus of play was now heavily on how effective you were at overcoming these challenges. A build that continued to grow in effectiveness and peak at level 20 fueled the desire to reach that level without taking years to do so. Not seeing the end result of a build in play was like playing with a puzzle with some of the pieces missing. What a character could accomplish mechanically via the rules became the most important aspect of play.</blockquote>

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