tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post4508004941613856977..comments2024-03-19T03:02:38.228-04:00Comments on GROGNARDIA: In Praise of D&D IIIJames Maliszewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00341941102398271464noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-64851137009607832742022-08-19T12:16:58.824-04:002022-08-19T12:16:58.824-04:00I loved reading this one, thanks for sharing. It r...I loved reading this one, thanks for sharing. It reminded me my obsession for 3e, the waiting for its release...good times! I agree with what you say about continuity from 2e: statistics-wise they did nothing but to convert AC from descending to ascending, unifying the mechanics under the "roll the d20" and introduce the new ST (which is another merit imo) but it's AD&D at its core. I have a question if I may...when you say "running the game the way I'd run 1e and 2e in the past." I bet you mean you completely got rid of feats and found out it didn't break the game at all, isn't it so? This is my point as well btw and I'd love to find someone else who proved it true. Thanks for your time!Marcohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01539484827373520163noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-31493008864323173852010-11-25T19:28:14.762-05:002010-11-25T19:28:14.762-05:00I join those in not understanding the value of a d...I join those in not understanding the value of a disunified XP system, especially if we disregard balance. From above "At 10,001 XP a cleric is 4th level with a little way to go to get to 5th. A dwarf, fighter, or halfling is 4th level with a fair way to go to get to 5th." What's the victory in trying to split the difference between the cleric and the halfling in a sublevel way? Even a larger difference, like the elf, would be adjustable by tweaking the levels, instead of using a sublevel metric like XP.<br /><br />It's funny; not having unified XP and having descending AC would be two of my biggest turnoffs for a D&D. Completely unnecessary complexity, IMO.Prosfilaeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08567819936724569257noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-56871093508897321802010-11-23T16:23:33.944-05:002010-11-23T16:23:33.944-05:00I played 1st ed when it came out, as a young '...I played 1st ed when it came out, as a young 'un and can remember the astonishing vaults of possibility opening before me. However it wasn't long before the system felt cramped. We ended up adding the Rolemaster combat system to the game, which worked quite well, and then making the leap to Rolemaster in toto (ah, rolling 60 percentile dice to work out stats! ah, doing algebra to work out skill bonuses!) in various permutations.<br /><br />3e bought me back to it, just as James described, and we had a fine old time with it before running into the higher level doldrums of the game. I started a 4e game half as a joke, and it became our main game within a few months. <br /><br />It's a lovely system, made by people who deeply care about D&D's past and future. It has its flaws (long combat, mainly... a lack of flavour in magic items perhaps) but those flaws are rarely the ones identified by edition warriors.<br /><br />I think we're lucky to have so many options actually. Play on, my geeky buddies.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18399032405253592794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-69175865810385808412010-11-23T06:58:46.169-05:002010-11-23T06:58:46.169-05:00Feats and prestige classes are generally much weak...<i>Feats and prestige classes are generally much weaker in vanilla 3e than they are v.3.5, for example, while, conversely, a lot of spells and magic items are weakened in v.3.5.</i><br /><br />That's something occurring across all the editions. The classes started out minimalist, but could find stonking great spells and intelligent swords made of instant win just laying about the dungeon (amongst some incredibly unfair traps).<br /><br />The editions (and sub-editions) slowly moved from OD&D's "30 second" Wizard with 1d6 hp (and a dagger doing 1d6 damage) casting a sleep spell which knocks out half the dungeon level, to 4e's "3 hour" Wizard with ~22 hp (and three pages of special-case modifiers for their useless cantrips) casting a sleep spell which might slow down a small rat or two for a few seconds.<br /><br />The numbers fool most people though, thinking a 2d6+4 "at will" 4e power better than the old 1d6 dagger, despite the target hit points being over ten times what they were.tussockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01624091727724404725noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-54976706717999425242010-11-21T00:08:02.950-05:002010-11-21T00:08:02.950-05:00I'm new to tabletop gaming. I was brought up o...I'm new to tabletop gaming. I was brought up on video games and exploring the tabletop game has been an interest of mine over the past couple of years, mainly because I have many ideas for games I would like to create, and D&D seems to be the perfect creative tool no matter the edition. I have haunted many "old-school" blogs and other resources such as this and found all of it fascinating. This post caught my eye because I recently bought all of the Pathfinder books, and I do own the 1st edition core books also. Long-winded intro but the point is, I get geeked on discussions like this - how this system or that one got me back into gaming, what system turned me off, etc. This is the type of discussion that will intrigue people like myself and make them want to explore the hobby. So, thanks guys.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-45558767136487325002010-11-19T23:18:34.803-05:002010-11-19T23:18:34.803-05:00Personally I started playing with AD&D, Played...Personally I started playing with AD&D, Played some second edition. Didn't like 3E and went off to play other games. Now I play 4E and C&C. Go figure.Gaming Roninhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10253743423151982339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-79574340425842358622010-11-19T18:41:01.222-05:002010-11-19T18:41:01.222-05:00All these comments by people saying D&D 3 got ...All these comments by people saying D&D 3 got them back into D&D suggest to me that the thing that really drove people away from D&D was AD&D. I too returned to the D&D fold through 3rd edition, having given up on AD&D and moved on to rolemaster (amongst other things). I didn't come back to D&D3 by accident either - a friend recommended it as "so much better" than AD&D.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-42713740386398988612010-11-19T16:28:22.309-05:002010-11-19T16:28:22.309-05:00It seems to me that editions 3 and 4 tend to make ...It seems to me that editions 3 and 4 tend to make D&D more of a wargame and in the case of 4th edition even more like a board game with it's obsession with balance. <br /><br />I have played D&D since 1981 and I loved each successive edition of the game, though I stopped playing in 1995 during 2nd edition because I thought that things were just getting out of hand with all the rules additions. <br /><br />I was a firm 3.5 e convert until a buddy of mine ran a 1st edition game (heavily houseruled) and we all had an awesome time playing. It was then that I realized that it wasn't the game that mattered, but rather the gamers.By The Swordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16799389743529116360noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-51467679923937239002010-11-19T16:26:37.102-05:002010-11-19T16:26:37.102-05:00Far from being a unifying design, the "d20&qu...<em>Far from being a unifying design, the "d20" format is a formula for uncountable special case "bunny" rules (ie feats).</em><br /><br />Yeah just like how no one is able to play that <em>Magic: The Gathering</em> game because every single card is, like, different. No wonder that game sank like a stone.Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12215651059418273961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-59064336596518905352010-11-19T16:24:43.657-05:002010-11-19T16:24:43.657-05:00- 3.5 also increased the obsession with fine tacti...<em>- 3.5 also increased the obsession with fine tactical positioning. Just look at how much space is devoted to showing how to move miniatures on the grid; how movement is described (diagonals counted differently than horizontal/vertical spaces); the exact spell templates for placement on the grid; when I (rarely) use minis with 3.0, I use hex grids, so all that stuff in 3.5 is simply wasted space.</em><br /><br />Like the Whore Encounter table, and the ten pages of ludicrously detailed hireling/henchman information, and the obsessive compilation of 'varieties of mental illness,' all ballooning the 1e DMG to breathtaking length?<br /><br />The difference between WotC D&D's complexity and TSR AD&D's complication is night and day. Gygax didn't know the difference because there were no other RPGs to build off of. That's <em>his</em> excuse. People today need to find their own.Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12215651059418273961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-91539669685415292742010-11-19T16:15:55.907-05:002010-11-19T16:15:55.907-05:00People who started with 1st Ed. often skipped 2nd,...<em>People who started with 1st Ed. often skipped 2nd, came back for 3/3.5, and are skipping 4. Many who started with 2nd skipped 3rd and are coming back for 4th. Maybe people who started with 3rd will skip 4th and come back to the OSR.</em><br /><br />Bad breakup --> disingenuously/huffily swearing off dating for a while --> 'maybe this time it will be DIFFERENT'<br /><br />Not that complicated, really.Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12215651059418273961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-75889921541580196622010-11-19T14:27:34.542-05:002010-11-19T14:27:34.542-05:00"The differences are subtle and are as much a..."The differences are subtle and are as much about tone as about mechanics..."<br /><br />Well that explains why I don't understand the differences; I'm tone deaf. ;)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-38914335154121929092010-11-19T14:04:18.943-05:002010-11-19T14:04:18.943-05:00I started after the blogger and most of the commen...I started after the blogger and most of the commenters but had a broadly similar experience. I started playing in 2nd ed AD&D after the class books had been out for a while, and never did like the system (though I liked getting to play). Even as a new player I could tell that the options weren't balanced and there was an arms race going on - a kit was just flatly better than a base class, and you needed to powergame just to pull your own weight. After my initial run with 2E I played Rolemaster and considered that a better system.<br /><br />So when 3E first came out I loved it. It was a clean, "fair" version of D&D, which was something I had never seen before. Then, of course, the splatbooks came out and if you used them all you needed to powergame again just to pull your own weight. But I think core 3.0 is still a pretty clean system until you start hitting high levels. (Though I'm playing other games at the moment.)<br /><br />So I've only started to follow the OSR after the fact. I did get to play in an AD&D campaign only after 3.5 came out and enjoyed that. But my understanding of the "deep structure" of OD&D and AD&D has mainly come from reading blogs and forums about the OSR. Which I think is okay, it would not have been self-evident to me otherwise. And it did take 3.0 and the OGL to get us there.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-80283251564104998702010-11-19T12:52:55.546-05:002010-11-19T12:52:55.546-05:00A pattern that we've seen many times (though n...A pattern that we've seen many times (though not very strongly among this group, it seems) is that people tend to skip an edition. People who started with 1st Ed. often skipped 2nd, came back for 3/3.5, and are skipping 4. Many who started with 2nd skipped 3rd and are coming back for 4th. Maybe people who started with 3rd will skip 4th and come back to the OSR.<br /><br />SteveStevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11677895164302972957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-13920069974887025552010-11-19T11:50:43.378-05:002010-11-19T11:50:43.378-05:00Back in the early 80's literally everyone I kn...Back in the early 80's literally everyone I knew who owned any AD&D books, or even expressed the slightest interest in the game, also played. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but the idea that overall only a third of the people who owned 1st edition books actually played the game strikes me as comically unlikely. D&D was everywhere in the early days.TheShadowKnowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11073693648569864707noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-26190733264754195132010-11-19T10:19:52.510-05:002010-11-19T10:19:52.510-05:00"Many people talk about what a great game AD&..."Many people talk about what a great game AD&D was but I remember very clearly during that time that not many people were actually playing it or played it often."<br /><br />What on earth are you talking about? Unless you've got some kind of genuine data somewhere, this is generalizing your rather unusual personal anecdote.<br /><br />I don't believe your experience was even remotely universal, and your numbers are made up out of whole cloth.Pathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11381628150285913370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-18612979680414054802010-11-19T09:16:00.040-05:002010-11-19T09:16:00.040-05:00Over my groups 25 year D&D career we have gott...Over my groups 25 year D&D career we have gotten many more gaming hours and gaming fun from 3E (specifically 3.5) then any other version of the game that we have played. As many of the posters here have already indicated 3E to us was a better version of AD&D. Clearly great pains were taken by the designers to make the two games close siblings yet still make great improvements in the 3rd edition. 3E did not bring us back to D&D (we were regularly playing 2E at the time) but it felt like it brought us back to 1E in spirit and we have never looked back (or forward to 4E). To us 3E is mechanically superior to and spiritually connected with 1E, so we don't need anything else.<br /><br />As a side note I also believe that each successive version of D&D is PLAYED more then the previous. I don't mean each successive version sells more units or has a larger audience. I mean each version (regardless of sales) actually gets PLAYED more. I think every version of D&D has customers that buys and reads the products but never plays them. I think this happens less and less as each version comes out. Many people talk about what a great game AD&D was but I remember very clearly during that time that not many people were actually playing it or played it often. My group did play 1E, a lot, and we never saw any other groups spend nearly as much time as we did playing the game. Each successive version of the game seemed to move the needle more toward playing the game then the previous. I suspect today that the 4th edition crowd has the highest "buy and play" ratio of all the previous versions. I would guess the all time highest would be Pathfinder. If I had to list the percentage of people that bought AND played a D&D product by version it would look like this:<br /><br />D&D 1e---35%<br />D&D 2e---40%<br />D&D 3e---60%<br />D&D 3.5e---70%<br />D&D 4E---80%<br />D&D PF---82%<br /><br />I believe for each version of D&D that came out it was LESS likely to be bought by people that were NOT planning on playing it regularly. So if you read a lot of 1E but didn't play it much you had less interest in 2E. If your read a lot of 2e stuff but never played it you didn't have any interest in 3E, and so on. The break in this pattern comes with 4e and PF. When the PFRPG was published it allowed the D&D base to fork and (I believe) resulted in the highest "buy and play" percentage in the games history. For the most part you are not buying PFRPG or 4th edition stuff unless you are actually playing the game.<br /><br />So what do I think this means? Over time I think the game has been "designed" by and for the people that were actually playing it most. I think this is why each new incarnation of the game has been thought of as mechanically superior but perceived as spiritually inferior.cibethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16815626047653230637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-91497443156856618882010-11-19T08:34:31.879-05:002010-11-19T08:34:31.879-05:00My experience was slightly different probably beca...My experience was slightly different probably because I'm younger. 2e was the first edition I played, and I got into it when it was pretty new. Though I stopped playing as much in high school, I still kept up with what was out at the time. I was excited about 3E when it came out, and I got the 3 core books and read them. I even got the starter game to try to get into it, but something about the aesthetic of Wizards just rubbed me the wrong way. "Dungeonpunk" as they call it - but not just that, the whole framing of the artwork seemed to change. As cheesy as the 2e art was, it was still a lot of small people exploring a big and mysterious world. In 3e, the art is all superhero splash pages. I think that kind of sets the tone for the style of play regardless of if the text says you can or can't leave out rules. It just sort of felt "not for me". Mind you even though I came into the hobby at 2e, I had an immediate affinity for all the 1e stuff that belong to older cousins and brothers of peers and friends. When 4e came out, I read the books, but didn't buy them. The criticism is how video-gamey it is, and I think that's a culmination of how WotC have thought of the game itself as software since they bought it (open source licensing, .5 version numbers, etc.) Again, not a bad game, just not for me. <br /><br />Another sort of unrelated thought though, I always thought the very nature of the 1e books - the density, the complexity - I found it very evocative of the "old-school" in the same way that the art in 3e was of the "new-school". You had to DELVE into the old game. It felt ancient and secret. Now it feels slick and new and plastic-y - just like a video game. <br /><br />Anyway, as usual James you create a weird mix of both nostalgia and reflection that give me a new perspective on old, unvisited thoughts. :)Colin Theriothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03195958645464540510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-53493135177632928332010-11-19T08:15:26.505-05:002010-11-19T08:15:26.505-05:00@Joshua
I agree with the "tool" perspect...@Joshua<br />I agree with the "tool" perspective. This point is repeatedly stressed in the 3e DMG, in particular when it deals with campaign styles. In one of them there is the suggestion to completely scrap the combat system if it does not fit the expectations of the players!<br />I suppose the main "fault" of 3e, is the fact that they provided rules for everything, so that many players felt "authorised" to quote the rulebook on the DM. Obviously they did not read the DMG, where it clearly says that the DM is the sole responsible for what enters into the game...Antoniohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17258180992723371727noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-13212627351603825442010-11-19T08:14:29.641-05:002010-11-19T08:14:29.641-05:00I've always believed that AD&D2E, at its c...I've always believed that AD&D2E, at its core (PH, DMG, MC - using none of the "optional rules" listed within), is a super-solid game - which I find runs as fast & as smoothly as any version of "Classic" D&D out there. If my group wants a change-up from "Classic" D&D (Mentzer/Rules Cyclopedia), AD&D2E (core) is our "go-to" game.<br /><br />Although I ran a 3.5 campaign for around a year, it just didn't feel like what I thought D&D should feel like. What it DID do, however, is brought me back to both "Classic" D&D & AD&D2E (core). I hold no animosity towards WotC, but I find that their particular flavor of D&D just wasn't (& isn't) for me. Too each their own.<br /><br />However, I DO have to give WotC credit. If it wasn't for my brief flirtation with D&D 3.5, I probably would have never have regained interest in my favorite hobby after a decade-long hiatus. Or met my wife, for that matter...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-84060177652370324302010-11-19T07:35:39.980-05:002010-11-19T07:35:39.980-05:00Whatever subtle tone or feel each game had seems m...Whatever subtle tone or feel each game had seems most likely to be completely subsumed under the much greater impact of the groups taste and preferences. In my group, there was no change from 3e to 3.5 in tone or feel.<br /><br />My dissatisfaction with the change was that, while it did indeed fix a few rough patches of 3e (a very few) it broke as many as it fixed, and it changed much, much more that was neither better nor worse; just different, so you could never quite remember what the "correct" rule was and you had to look it up all the time. And it left glaring problems like grapple and whatnot unchanged.<br /><br />Plus, I was really quite irked to have to go "rebuy" a bunch of stuff just because they were now rereleasing it all updated. I never did pick up a PHB or DMG because almost everything I'd need there is in the SRD, but I rebought the entire Complete series. Because they were much better than the books that they replaced (Sword & Fist, Song & Silence, etc.) I more or less forgave them over time and embraced the 3e->3.5 change. But I still don't see it as substantial, nor do I think it needed to happen from any design perspective.<br /><br />Of course my history was similar to the original post, and yet also radically different. I too had left D&D and came back to it via 3e back in 2000, and I too was put off by 3.5, although for different reasons. But I left D&D long before 2e came out, because I was frustrated with all the various D&Disms that "held me back" from playing the game that I wanted to. 3e still had a lot of those, and I struggled with them for a time, but one of the strengths of 3e was that it allowed a lot of flexibility, too. While many of the folks posting comments here have talked about using 3e in an old school way, what I liked about it was that I could play games that never heard of dungeons, didn't use any of the cliched D&Disms or D&D archetypes, and I found that the game was robust enough to support it still.<br /><br />Maybe too robust, as I've heard lots of people complain about feeling stifled by the rules, but I always took WotC at their word when they said "tools, not rules" (and it's my style with every game I play or run anyway; I have no problem handwaving or changing aspects that don't suit me) so to me, the robustness of a skill system and feat system wasn't stifling and out of control, it was a tool that could customize and define characters in ways that prior editions of D&D could never have dreamed of.<br /><br />Anyway...Desdichadohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14774274812688958457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-11482540190945031452010-11-19T05:47:01.249-05:002010-11-19T05:47:01.249-05:003e=ODDities. It introduced a new sub-genre in fant...3e=ODDities. It introduced a new sub-genre in fantasy rpgs, namely "5-ft & AoO".Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04024267933616457503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-74521695078575072222010-11-19T04:52:02.790-05:002010-11-19T04:52:02.790-05:00- 3.5 also increased the obsession with fine tacti...- 3.5 also increased the obsession with fine tactical positioning. Just look at how much space is devoted to showing how to move miniatures on the grid; how movement is described (diagonals counted differently than horizontal/vertical spaces); the exact spell templates for placement on the grid; when I (rarely) use minis with 3.0, I use hex grids, so all that stuff in 3.5 is simply wasted space.<br /><br />- the explosion in the number of feats (many feats in 3e were split into 2 or more feats in 3.5e) and the introduction of pairs of skill-augmenting feats (whereas in 3e there was only Skill Focus). In 3e the feats were very focused, and each one addressed and augmented one specific aspect of the rules.<br /><br />- monsters are considered characters in 3.5e, so all of them have feats and skill points which strongly depend on hit dice. Instead, in 3e only a few monster types had feats, and far fewer skill points. This makes monsters easier to modify and run in 3e than in 3.5<br /><br />- In 3.5 there are no more class-specific skills, so everyone can access any skill. In 3e some skills were special, and they helped maintain a sort of niche protection.<br /><br />All these facets easily add up to make for a much more (and needlessly) complex game, without any practical returns.<br /><br />Oh, and paladins invoking their horses out of thin air? How LAME is that?Antoniohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17258180992723371727noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-8469886072501043052010-11-19T04:39:34.019-05:002010-11-19T04:39:34.019-05:00I like 3e (3.0, actually) and I still DM it. In ma...I like 3e (3.0, actually) and I still DM it. In many respects, it brings back to the game many things which were removed from the 2e core books, like assassins, half-orcs, barbarians, demons, devils. The separate spell lists for many character classes are a clear tie with 1e. And actually, I find it easier to convert 1e stuff to 3e than 2e stuff.<br />I never used any of the splatbooks and the game worked (and works) fine with just three core books. I play it when I have players who are willing to devote time to character creation and development, and are willing to cope with its complexity.Antoniohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17258180992723371727noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-79482301967361206232010-11-18T23:53:33.960-05:002010-11-18T23:53:33.960-05:00I am with you on this one.
Early 3rd Edition was ...I am with you on this one.<br /><br />Early 3rd Edition was a) exciting and b) as if all those late-2E splatbooks had never happened.<br /><br />3E felt like a return to AD&D v1 roots, but with more consistent mechanics--which I didn't mind a bit--and (well, except for the grapple and attacks of opportunity) a welcome simplification in the combat system.<br /><br />Hell, 3E brought me back from GURPS to D&D.<br /><br />Sure, then it grew a bunch of baroque excrescences, but I really thought (and think) straight-up 3E was a clean and elegant design.<br /><br />Even though I play a houseruled Microlite74 now.<br /><br />AdamAdam Thorntonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06368676086759298705noreply@blogger.com