I know that it has a poor reputation among fans of old school D&D, which is really to say, TSR D&D, but is that reputation deserved? Was it truly a bad edition of "the world's most popular tabletop roleplaying game," to borrow a phrase – or does it simply catch a lot of grief for things not directly related to it as a game?
To place my thoughts in a little more context, let me provide a little personal history. I played Dungeons & Dragons – mostly AD&D – more or less continuously from late 1979 till about 1996 or thereabouts. That's around the time TSR released the "Player's Option" series of books. By that point, I'd already begun to tire of AD&D and had started to spend more time playing other RPGs, but something about the "Player's Option" volumes really vexed me. They were, in my opinion, a step too far, contributing further to my growing sense that AD&D was bloated and directionless.
During the period between 1996 and 2000, I largely abandoned playing Dungeons & Dragons in any form, in favor of many other roleplaying games. Late in this period, I also began to make my first forays into professional writing. One of my earliest employers was Wizard World, publisher of the magazine InQuest Gamer. InQuest initially focused on collectible card games, but eventually expanded to cover games of all sorts, including RPGs.
Though I was a freelancer, I was often assigned articles that gave me access to people and materials that would otherwise have been hard to come by. In early 2000, for example, I was given a major assignment: write about the upcoming new edition of D&D. To help me with this, Wizards of the Coast sent me pre-release proofs of the 3e Player's Handbook. I spent several weeks reading the text and giving the rules a test drive with my gaming group.This was the first time I'd played any version of D&D in several years – and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Indeed, I enjoyed it so much that, after I'd written the article for InQuest, I kept playing a Frankenstein version of "3e" cobbled together from the proofs WotC sent me augmented by 2e books to fill in any gaps (like monsters and magic items). We continued playing in this fashion until all three of the 3e core rulebooks were released between August and October of that year.
Third Edition brought me back to playing Dungeons & Dragons after a long hiatus. For that reason alone, I find it difficult to bear any ill will toward the edition. Then, as now, I had qualms about certain aspects of its design – its emphasis on "system mastery," for instance – but the fact that it reminded me just how fun D&D could be is a huge point in its favor. 3e simultaneously felt fresh and vibrant while also remembering its roots. Unlike late Second Edition, which was, to put it charitably, a chaotic mess without any clear sense of what it was about, Third Edition proudly advertised itself as a "back to the dungeon" edition. This restored to D&D a much-needed focus.
Of course, this wasn't the only way that 3e remembered its roots. A careful reading of the text of its three rulebooks revealed just how much of its verbiage it shares with previous editions, particularly when it came to the descriptions of spells, monsters, and magic items. This might not seem like a big deal, but it would prove to be very important. That's because Third Edition was the first "open" edition of D&D, most of whose contents (via its System Reference Document, or SRD) were made freely available for use by other publishers through either the Open Game License (OGL) or the D20 System Trademark License (STL). For the first time ever, the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons was offering a royalty-free means to produce adventures, supplements – and even whole games – compatible with D&D.The SRD and OGL quickly proved themselves very important and not just to the plethora of game companies that sprang up like mushrooms overnight to support 3e. By opening up the mechanical and conceptual "guts" of Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast inadvertently gave birth to the Old School Renaissance. As early as 2004, independent publishers were experimenting with using the SRD and OGL to create RPGs that resembled earlier editions of D&D. The rest, as they say, is history, with the OSR quickly becoming both a movement and a genre, not to mention a permanent part of the larger hobby.
Now, one might reasonably argue that neither of these qualities has anything to do with Third Edition as a game either. That's a defensible position, though I don't completely agree with it, as I'll soon explain. However, I think historical context is important here. After the mess that was late Second Edition, 3e was a surprisingly clear, rational, and accessible restatement of the classic RPG. Most of its major deviations from TSR era D&D, like ascending armor class or new saving throw categories, served good purposes, even if I am no longer wholly on board with many of them. Nevertheless, they worked and facilitated play that, in my experience anyway, was quite reminiscent of how we played D&D in the early to mid-1980s.That's the important thing for me. Had Third Edition not played at the table as well as it did, I very much doubt that I'd have stuck with it. 3e brought me back to Dungeons & Dragons precisely because its designers wanted to produce a "modern" game that played enough like its predecessors that earlier materials were roughly compatible with it. Wizards of the Coast even released a short conversion booklet intended to help 2e players convert characters, magic, and monsters to the new edition. This demonstrates, I think, how seriously WotC at the time took its role as the new custodians of the original roleplaying game. The company wanted to retain old players even as it hoped to reach a new audience.
Of course, Third Edition had a lot of flaws. Like 2e, its presentation left a lot to be desired, particularly its absurd "dungeonpunk" art style. Likewise, several of its new mechanical elements, like feats and prestige classes, soon overshadowed everything else, to the point where the elegance of its core rules design began to buckle and burst. By the end of its run, Third Edition was every bit as bloated and directionless as its predecessor, to the point that I once again abandoned official D&D, this time for good. Fortunately, the SRD and OGL made retro-clones of earlier editions possible and my abandonment of WotC's subsequent versions didn't mean I couldn't keep playing a version of Dungeons & Dragons I still enjoyed, even if it now bore names like Labyrinth Lord or Swords & Wizardry instead.
In the end, I don't see how one can reasonably claim that 3e was either a bad game or a bad edition of D&D, except on the basis of very narrow criteria. I'm as curmudgeonly as they come – remember that I hate plush Cthulhus and fake nerd holidays – and even I am no more willing to indict Third Edition for its worst excesses than I am to indict First Edition because of Unearthed Arcana. From my perspective, 3e injected some much-needed vitality into Dungeons & Dragons at a time when it needed it most. This not only ensured the game's continued pre-eminence among RPGs, but also laid the groundwork for the OSR. That's a legacy well worth celebrating.
That said, 3e's art really did suck. |
3e felt like D&D, still, though it did slowly get overloaded with too many options and feats and the weight of supplements. And it did hit a point where the effort to prep for a session as the DM felt more like accounting and project management than anything else.
ReplyDeleteBut the games I ran still felt like D&D games, at least to me and the groups I ran for.
"And it did hit a point where the effort to prep for a session as the DM felt more like accounting and project management than anything else."
DeleteThis is the biggest problem with 3E! I agree 100%.
"...though it did slowly get overloaded with too many options and feats and the weight of supplements."
DeleteAgree, and I think this is a problem with all editions ultimately. TSR and WotC were/are businesses. Their revenue stems in part from publishing. So they must constantly keep releasing new supplements and new editions whether we need them or not.
Imagine if every few years there was a new, updated version of chess, released for "today's audience" to "modernize the game." Ridiculous, huh?
I prefer to stick with AD&D or B/X (and chess) which all still work well enough and don't cost me anything to run after my initial investment from 40 years ago.
The rest is just marketing.
I don't think that chess is a good model to base your analogy on. And new or different chess boards and sets (sometimes with variations in rules) are made all the time.
DeleteNah it's a pretty good analogy. Unless you think there are as many variations of the rules of chess as there are the rules of Dungeons and Dragons?
DeleteAnd 6e is set to come out this year! Because obviously we don't have enough D&D rules yet! lol
Actually, the revised D&D rulebooks coming out this year are definitely *not* a 'new edition', it's all perfectly compatible with 5e. According to WotC.
DeleteThat's certainly what the marketing says. But 2e was compatible with 1e. And 1e was compatible with B/X. But I'd still call them new editions.
DeleteThey're adding new rules. The playtest of those rules has been very public.
There will be a new Player's Handbook. And a new Dungeon Master's Guide.
Because we need more D&D rules? Not likely.
Because WotC needs the revenue bump? Yup!
I guess it's sort of in the realm of how you choose to define things. Yes, there will be a new PHB, DMG, and MM. And I have to admit I have not been watching the play test material very closely. I guess we ultimately all just have to wait and see, when the new books get published.
DeleteBut the way I interpret things as of now is, that the 'core game mechanics' are not changed at all. We will still have attack rolls, saving throws, death saving throws, skills checks, crits, six abilities (scores and modifiers), AC, DC, etc. Yes, the classes, sub-classes, and spells and feats will be either revised or added upon. So for example, we might have a revised 'barbarian class' compared to the 2014 PHB. But to me, that no more classifies as a 'new addition' any more than that the new class or added player options on "Xanathar's Guide" or "Tasha's Guide" classified as 'new editions. Oh, well.
It's not a 6e, and it's not even a 5.5, based on the playtests. It's more like 5Er(evised) or 5.24. More importantly, it's giving them a chance to reorganize the books, which was sorely needed regardless of the mechanics. I'm impressed with what they've said in the 'preview videos' about how things will be where they belong, art and design will reflect the content more tightly, and other usability tweaks. Plus, it would just be stupid from a marketing perspective not to re-release the books on the 50th anniversary, so I won't begrudge them that.
Delete"We will still have attack rolls, saving throws, death saving throws, skills checks, crits, six abilities (scores and modifiers), AC, DC, etc."
DeleteHi. That was all true between 1e, B/X and 2e, and those are different editions. :)
"But to me, that no more classifies as a 'new addition' any more than that the new class or added player options on "Xanathar's Guide" or "Tasha's Guide" classified as 'new editions."
Except this will also have a new Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual. Which, up until now, always signified a new edition. Why doesn't this?
Because WotC want the benefits of a new edition (increased publishing revenue from new core rulebooks) without the negatives (customer backlash against endless new editions). So the solution is: it's a new edition that they won't call a new edition. Even though it meets the definition of previous new editions.
"It's not a 6e, and it's not even a 5.5, based on the playtests. It's more like 5Er(evised) or 5.24. More importantly, it's giving them a chance to reorganize the books, which was sorely needed regardless of the mechanics."
Wasn't all that true of 2e?
Look, I don't begrudge them. It's a business. But that doesn't mean I have to buy into what they're selling. I already have enough D&D rules to last a lifetime. In fact that was true in 1985.
"Hi. That was all true between 1e, B/X and 2e, and those are different editions. :)"
DeleteI have no real knowledge of earlier editions than 5e, so perhaps this is a stupid question, but: if you are saying that all of the 'core game mechanics' (as I stated about 2014 '5e' and the new 2024 PHB/DMG/MM) were the same across/between 1e, B/X and 2e (but correct me if I interpreted that incorrectly), then what - in your opinion - were the defining factors that actually made each of these releases 'new editions' ? (instead of additional player options for the same edition).
"...then what - in your opinion - were the defining factors that actually made each of these releases 'new editions' ? (instead of additional player options for the same edition)."
DeleteNew core rulebooks. In the case of AD&D (a.k.a 1e) and AD&D Second Edition (a.k.a. 2e), there was a new Player's Handbook and a new Dungeon Masters Guide. But 1e and 2e were still compatible.
This is the case with 5e and That Which Must Not Be Named 6e.
So, if AD&D 2nd Edition was a new edition, and it was, then so is what WotC is about to release, despite all their marketing team's protestations to the contrary.
"New core rulebooks. "
DeleteEven though - apparently - the new core rulebooks did not contain any actual new rules ?
;)
Sorry, I'll shut up now.
Hi. No need to shut up. :)
Delete2e had minor rule tweaks, and 1e and 2e were compatible.
Just like 6e will have minor rule tweaks (that WotC are playtesting now), and 5e and 6e will be compatible.
So, if 2e was a new edition (and it was), then so is 6e.
Anyway, all this to say: if you started D&D with 5e, and you bought those core rulebooks, then you have all the rules you need to play. Over the past several years your group has probably adopted house rules to fix what you thought needed fixing. Plenty of people play 5e. So, why do you need to buy new core rulebooks?
"Hi. No need to shut up. :)"
DeleteOk then, here we go.
" 2e had minor rule tweaks, and 1e and 2e were compatible. "
Just for clarification, perhaps I should be a bit more specific about what I believe to be examples of changes to 'core game mechanics' (in 5e in these examples below, but please correct me if I'm wrong here) :
1.) 5e's advantage/disadvantage mechanic, as a replacement for a lot of number crunching in earlier versions.
2.) At character creation time in 5e (for your 6 ability scores), roll 4d6, pick the highest 3 and add those up, instead of rolling 3d6 and add those up in earlier editions.
(Perhaps you can come up with better examples.)
I guess that if the new 2024 rulebooks make changes of this type to the game, I'll consider it a new edition.
" Anyway, all this to say: if you started D&D with 5e, and you bought those core rulebooks, then you have all the rules you need to play. "
I get that. For example, if you would like to keep playing AD&D, you can (as long as you can find a group to play with). It's not like the police will come and take your books away.
" Over the past several years your group has probably adopted house rules to fix what you thought needed fixing. "
Actually, even though I have played 5e for roughly about 2 years now (with sessions on average about twice a month), we have no house rules at all. I guess we already have our hands full with all of the 'rules as written', without having a need for deviations from that.
" Plenty of people play 5e. So, why do you need to buy new core rulebooks? "
Of course, there is no 'need' in the sense that someone will put a gun to your head if you don't buy the new books. But I can imagine wanting them for the very same reason that you would want to try out new/additional/revised races/classes/subclasses/monsters/spells/feats/etc.
Hi. Thankfully, the OSR revival and the internet has made it easier than ever to find players of B/X and AD&D.
Delete"But I can imagine wanting them for the very same reason that you would want to try out new/additional/revised races/classes/subclasses/monsters/spells/feats/etc."
After 10 years of 5e, I imagine most 5e players would have house ruled those already, or found them on the internet or in modules by now. :)
> Because WotC want the benefits of a new edition (increased publishing revenue from new core rulebooks) without the negatives (customer backlash against endless new editions).
DeleteI can't help but laugh at this. If we're saying a new version of the three rulebooks denotes a new edition, this is the timeline for new editions.
0e > 1e: 3 years.
1e > 2e: 12 years.
2e > 3e: 11 years.
3e > 3.5: 3 years.
3.5 > 4e: 5 years.
4e > 5e: 6 years.
5e > now: 10 years.
That's a new edition every seven years. If players who started with 5e are feeling burned out on new editions, they should count themselves lucky.
They should give Warhammer 40k / Age of Sigmar a try. There seems to be a new edition every 3 years or so. Sheesh.
DeleteI returned to RPGs in 2007 after having stopped playing completely in 1990. My initial excitement at the glossy, well produced 3e faded quite quickly largely because it seemed so complicated in comparison to the AD&D I remembered and hankered after. The first game I ran for a couple of newbies was a bit of a disaster took us a whole session just to make characters! But then I stumbled upon Goodman Games 3e Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures that promised a return to the 'good old days' that I was nostalgic for. This in turn led to Castles & Crusades which led to Labyrinth Lord and the fledgling OSR. I do wonder if without the OSR I would have drifted away from the hobby again.
ReplyDeleteWas it bad?
ReplyDeleteNo.
Was it good though?
I burned out on running it back then. The design put all the work into the position of the DM, and the scenario design focused on a rather annoying encounter structure.
It's not for me (too many moving parts, in particular once you get to level 11+) but I appreciate the design principles behind the game, and overall I think it's pretty good.
ReplyDeleteAfter a 10 year hiatus from RPGs, some friends and I tried 3e in 2001. Our wide eyed excitement at the rebirth of an old friend quickly faded as tedium took over. Took an hour to make a character and play was bogged down by too many options. The stat blocks were horrendous. - Always the Ranger
ReplyDeleteDefinitely not for me, I played maybe ten sessions of it and almost immediately knew I was going to hate it.
ReplyDeleteIt had many ideas that sounded good on reading them but that I felt uncomfortable with at the table.
Too long to make a character (for D&D), NPCs and Monsters waaaay to complicated (for D&D).
The things that I truly hated were system mastery/builds, like late 2e but worse, and the action ecenomy.
On the other hand I think Prestige Classes were actually neat (and a lot more interesting than 2e's kits) and we finally got rid of level cap and racial limits on classes and stats.
Was it a bad game? I'm tempted to say "Yes" because I hated how it did just about anything while still trying very hard to be your childhood D&D, though 3.0 was probably less bad than 3.5, and I had to fight against the system all the time.
And finally, I probably felt better with 4e, because though it had lots more of the same stuff I hated, it tried very hard to be a completely different game.
As a long-suffering aspiring artist, I can attest that some of 3rd Edition’s art issues were a factor of the era. Turn of the millennium fantasy/comics art was pretty dismal, filled with grimdark leather dudes and the beginnings of anime influence creeping in. That sorcerer image always rankled me too - aside from the anime-ish hair and tribal tattoos, he is supposed to be the “iconic” sorcerer, in that he is the representation of what your own PC Sorcerer might look like. While I appreciate that they tried to make it different enough from the typical beardy wizard to be flavorful, it implies a sorcerer can wear leather armor (at least, some of it I guess) which they can’t do without feats. Also - and this is purely art snobby on my part - how long does it take one to buckle all those straps in the morning? I guess he had to come up with something to do while the party wizard and cleric prepare spells? Just sitting by the long-dead campfire, Liefeld-ing up his right leg while saying “boy it sure is nice not to have to spend all morning praying”?
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand he has a white flag at the ready so he can waive it at the monsters if he hasn't finished his buckling routine!
Delete...but there's something for which I'm grateful for 3e:
ReplyDeleteIt boosted interest in RPGs after the MTG bomb (and though I loved MTG back in the day I still was utterly vexed it had devastated the rpg market).
Fantastic post.
ReplyDeleteI was in the middle of a 2E game when the first book came out and the entire group loved it so much, we converted on the spot and struggled for a few months until the other two books came out.
As a player, I loved how the rules empowered me to read the situation and let me play the way I wanted. I was tired of DM’s who thwarted me because my idea of fun was not their idea of fun. I’m playing a wizard for several levels, and I can’t wait to get Fireball, but the DM will never let me find it on a scroll to learn it. I played a druid and couldn’t wait to be able to cast Call Lightning, but the spell says the weather must be overcast at least and suddenly every day was sunny and dry. A group of five orcs come at us and I want to drop an area effect spell and get them all? Sorry, they are spaced so that you can hit maybe three. In 15 years of AD&D my thief never backstabbed a single thing! With 3rd edition I could chose a spell every level, Call lightning works everywhere at any time, and tokens on a grid let me know where everyone is so I can count out my area effect and move my thief in for a backstab (I love flanking rules).
By the end of 3E, I was tired of every combat taking over an hour, or longer at higher level. And all the expansions and options I couldn’t keep up with as a DM. Monsters with classes and leveling under the same rules as the PC’s was great at first but eventually bogged everything down and made game preparation a chore. Still, 3rd edition brought me back with a regular group that I still game with to this day. It was a great game.
At time of release 3rd was by far the best edition of D&D ever created, and the first to really have a coherently designed system that wasn't chock full of exceptions, contradictions and incompatible sub-systems. Dated as it is now, it marked the divide between modern game design and TSR's lifelong ad hoc approach. Yes, as time went by it (and 3.5) succumbed to the same kind of product bloat that AD&D went through and ultimately became pretty close to unplayable as GM workloads mounted. But the basic product? Outstanding.
ReplyDeleteThose three core books by themselves were genius. They provided enough material to play for years and are still perfectly playable on their own today - arguably much better than 5e is. They also spent a long time selling for $20 each (at least 50% below market norms at the time) which drew enormous numbers of people back to D&D after TSR drove them away. Even if you deny the importance of the SRD and OGL going forward for here, 3rd was initially a phenomenal success on every level.
That success got pissed away by overloading the engine with too many supplements over time and that's given it a bad reputation today, but it's hardly the first or last edition that's run into that problem. There's something fundamentally wrong with the business model used for roleplaying games that leads to same patterns of failure over and over again, and precious few games escape either bloat or starvation depending on which mistake their publisher makes.
I completely agree with this assessment. When I picked up 3.5 after years of having nothing to do with D&D--I was one of the players who completely skipped 2nd Edition altogether--I was impressed that somebody had been able to create a coherent rules system that was recognizably rooted in D&D.
DeleteMy personal heretical take is that BECMI and 1st edition AD&D were better ideas for games than they were actual games, and that this is a big reason that the introduction of D&D spawned dozens of games within the first five years of the White Box that were more than just "D&D, but in space" or "D&D, but with duck people as a playable species," etc.; for all of Gygax's experience as a designer, author, and editor, AD&D always felt like the several independent and unrelated game systems cobbled together that it really was (here's the percentile system for psionics, and for this check you'll roll a d6 but for this one roll d20, and sometimes high rolls are good but other times you're rolling under...). First gen games like Traveller, Runequest, et al. didn't just introduce new settings, they introduced relatively streamlined and consistent rules along with things that a huge number of players agreed D&D should have had to begin with (e.g. skills).
As a side note, re: WotC taking their custodianship of D&D seriously, a small thing that brought me great joy was 3.5's example of play obviously being the same dungeon and example of play from the 1st edition DMG, but using the new ruleset. That was a nice touch.
This guy gets it. The bit where it took as long as it did for someone to go 'what if we tried to make things intuitive and logically consistent' is kind of disgraceful.
DeleteIt is, in hindsight, deeply flawed. But it's absolutely a good game, and much fun can be had with it. Even more fun can be had with a streamlined version of it, mind you. lol
My favorite version of 3e is the 1st Edition Pathfinder Beginner Box. A stripped down complete game that covers levels 1 to 5.
ReplyDeleteLike many people I got re excited by 3e, but I was also at a time in my life whe. RPGs took a back seat to a very active social.life and as a game to play maybe four times a year on a weekend with old friends it was fun, but also too rules heavy.
Was 3E really that bad? Yes, yes it was. It gave people what the majority (of those polled at any rate) wanted, but most of those things make the game worse, not better. If everyone can be everything, the individual races lose their character. Rapid leveling fills people with glee initially, but it means that modules and monsters are swiftly outgrown, and that a spread in levels among the PCs is dire, and that you probably gain a new ability before you had a chance to use the last one even once. Scalability means that you're always playing the same game (until the math breaks) whereas in AD&D you start out playing something close to survival heroes, then become local heroes, then movers & shakers, and finally something like a demi-god out of myth. A high-level AD&D PC makes saving throws almost all of the time; a high level 3E PC still needs a high number for some things - maybe even a natural 20 (while a PC of a different class might need a 2). It is a *designed* system, in the way that earlier editions weren't, but that doesn't mean that it's a *good* design.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
DeleteMy sons began playing D&D with the 3rd, and later 3.5 edition. But they soon grew tired of it. A computer game with paper is what they called it. It tried too hard, in their opinion, to compete with the PC and video game RPGs that were all the rage. It also was, in their opinions, stale. One said like chewing tin foil. They asked me to find the old version I knew in high school. I never really played it, so the books were in excellent condition: the Basic and Expert, the AD&D library. They read those - especially the DMG - and immediately preferred that to the 3rd. Eventually they warmed to the 5th Edition as well. But they said while 3rd edition was a never ending set of rules based on a game, the original game was applying stats to 3000 years of literature, myth and cultural icons. And that did make a difference.
ReplyDeleteThird edition also bought me back to D&D. And then the ever growing lists of feats and classes, drove me away.
ReplyDeleteMy feelings about 3E are mixed - it had some good ideas but then made a lot of them more complicated than I liked. I liked saving throws being sorted out into reflex, willpower and fortitude, but then made calculating DCs rather arbitrary. I liked the range of skills, but then ranks and DCs also made it complicated. I liked the Challenge Ratings for monsters but then (at least by the DMG) calculating the XP and Encounter Ratings for a mixed gang of monsters could be a real headache. Creating new monsters also seemed to be less a creative exercise and more about dealing with all the different stats. As others have said here, preparing for it as a DM became too much like hard work. But the one thing that it brought that I will always be thankful for is it gave us the OGL, which allowed the OSR to get going.
ReplyDeleteHrm. I never played 3e or 3.5e (I only got into the game recently with 5e), but the inclusion of the art in this post makes me want to say: I find the covers of the core rulebooks of both 3e and 3.5e to be absolutely amazing. To me, the look gives me the impression of them being magical mystical tomes containing the secrets of the universe (not unlike some of the many holy/unholy books in fiction on general). It almost makes me want to play - even just for a single session - of 3e.
ReplyDeleteThat was exactly the feeling I had at twelve years old seeing those books in the store. Reading them really did feel like discovering the secrets of the universe, particularly when it was my first exposure to trying to simulate reality with rules.
DeleteYeah. The majority of the responses here (as well as in the actual blog post) seem to find the '3e-art' really bad, and I honestly don't get that point of view.
DeleteI actually really like the picture in the post here that has the caption
>
> "That said, 3e's art really did suck."
>
Oh well.
The 3e core rulebook covers look so good because they're actually sculptures. I'm not making this up, they're by an artist named Henry Higginbotham, if you look up his website he has some behind the scenes photos of the actual sculpture works that were then photographed straight on to be printed as the covers.
DeleteMany people bring up the supplement bloat of 3/3.5 as a problem, and there definitely was a ton of supplement bloat, but you didn't have to use any of them. I had a mostly strict 'core only' philosophy for my 3e games all through its lifespan and it worked great. Much cheaper in the long run, too.
ReplyDelete3e was the edition I started playing with (my dad had his 1e books around though), and even though I've moved to OSR systems, I still consider it "my" edition. Its biggest flaw is the bloat, though my particular point is numbers bloat rather than the prestige class/feat bloat, but at its core its got the bones of classic D&D. It's just there's a baroque Winchester Mystery House built around it.
ReplyDeleteI think "winchester mystery house" is the best analogy I've ever seen for what 3.5 became.
Delete3e bad? Heck no! It brought me back after giving up on the mess that was 2e.
ReplyDeleteNow, 4e is as bad as we say.
I agree completely. I too came back to D&D with 3e, after a 1e youth and long hiatus from gaming, and found much to admire. It took the OSR movement to articulate and clarify why 3e never scratched the itch I wanted it to, but I still think 3e does what it does very well. I wish it well, a recognizable cousin and part of the family if not the nuclear family, and your pointing out its care to emphasize its respectful continuities with the game is really helpful.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am so glad you note the art and aesthetics, which really are, as much as mechanics and gaming philosophy, a key aspect of why I did not continue with 3e. This goes both for its "dungeonpunk" characters and their ridiculous buckles, and the hideous pseudo-parchment urine-stained composition book design that sadly continues to be the default D&D product look. But then I grew up with fantasy connected primarily with reading books and a bit of Bakshi-era animation, not computer games.
I never played 3rd edition. I have looked through the books, but I feel no magic there. I feel magic with OD&D, Holmes, AD&D, B/X, Mentzer's D&D, 4th edition HackMaster, Castles & Crusades, Dungeon Crawl Classics, various retro-clones, etc. But 3rd edition? The magic is gone.
ReplyDeleteI could not have said that better.
DeleteNever liked 3rd ed. Why? Where do I start? The 22 page conversion book for characters for one was a HUGE negative for me. After that...well...don't get me started.
ReplyDeleteOne session. One session, a hard look at the rules. The art. The vibe. Nope.
ReplyDeleteI never even looked at 4e (although I checked out 13th Age: I was right). I gave 5e a short whirl…. WotC can play their games, I guess I’ll continue to play mine. I just make sure my players know my game looks like 14th century Europe, not a steampunk convention. And yeah, there’s random encounters and characters die for no good reason at all.
Bloated combat that was a chore, not a challenge. The game became unplayable by the time double digit levels were in sight.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if you are talking about this in particular here, but : my only personal experience here is 5e (at lower levels), but: I get the impression that high-level combat in 5e might also not be as epic as it initially sounds. For example, the 9th level 5e spell 'Meteor Swarm' does two times 20d6 damage (for a total of 40d6 damage). This initially sounds epic, until you realize you also have to roll and count those dice (and the target might have a 'zillion' hit points to match that damage).
DeleteFascinating and well argued. I've never played 3e or even 2e.
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely a three-way tension between having a smoothly running game, granularity and selling product. As the game moves away from the original designers who played the game as they built it to remote corporations driven by sales figure the selling product by giving people every feature they ask for then the smoothness of the game loses out.
Ultimately unsustainable.
It's only in retrospect that I see the flaws of 3.5 - while I was chin deep in the plethora of options, I absolutely loved it. It started showing its cracks to me in combat - the bonuses were so circumstantial (is he flanked? am I at least 10 ft away? is it my 3rd or 4th shot? and on and on). I essentially had to create a spreadsheet for every hit for every round with every circumstance listed. And while I enjoyed the prestige classes, unless you started with them and reverse engineered your character progression, a single mis-taken feat could derail your entire 'career path.' Ironically, despite my difficulties with 3.5, when they debuted 4.0, I actually entrenched further into 3.5 (to the point where I vowed I would create the 3.9999 foundation to keep it alive - I found 4e so abhorrent). While the DungeonPunk aesthetic wasn't exactly my cup of tea (it smacked of the Image comics straps on everything), I thought it was loads better than the anime-inspired oversized eyes and swords I saw in 4e.
ReplyDeleteIt's a massively overcomplicated system, for what it was trying to do. There's smart ideas in there, they finally salvaged a skill system that worked, until you got too high level. The feats let you make some choices in character direction, until you get too many. Multiple attacks were handled well. Ascending AC and Base Attack Bonus are awesome, again until high level. Everything breaks between levels 10-15, and by 16+ it's unplayable nonsense.
ReplyDeleteThe big problem was as a GM, you'd have these giant stat blocks, and couldn't possibly memorize them. Everything's HP inflated. How do you run a fight with a few different monsters? You can't. Maybe get a co-GM to run them? So now every fight's just one big boss and maybe some squishy 1 HP minions.
Such a pity. OSR stealing the core mechanics and dumping the rest is the best thing that could've happened, but WotC kept trying to overcomplicate it so they could stay in control.
It 100% sucked. It's the most pedantic of the systems and attracts power gamers / min-maxers.
ReplyDeleteJust like almost EVERYTHING in sub/pop culture... There is the "frontier" phase or first wave that is awesome. Then there is a second wave of technical refinement that really hits stride... And then things get far too big as capital wants to "normie-fy" and mine the subculture into pop culture (buy it out and destroy it)... Then the wheels completely fall off.
This happens with MANY music scene movements... It happened with skateboarding... it happened with D&D...
Young (mostly) Males love to get attracted to the most "technical" systems to feel smart/powerful (know it all syndrome) instead of the stylish, elegant, efficient and fundamentally strong systems.
By the time 3.5 came out, I had moved on. 3.0 read well, but was terrible to prep for and run past 5th or 6th level. I had bought tons of D20 stuff as well. Other d20.Games, modules, settings, etc.
ReplyDeleteHoping 3.5 would fix things, I bought the core books. 3.5 made it 10 times worse.
4e brought me back and it was way easier to prep and DM. Not a minis and grids guy, so I hacked 4E into something that worked better TOTM. it was far less work than trying to prep for 3.x, and my group and I had a blast.
I'll agree that overall 3.x was good for the hobby and certainly for the OSR. The OGL was the only lasting good thing from 3.x era. I still have a few d20 3PP I like, but most of it was awful too.
And again, this is me. I keep forgetting to select Google to sign in when I post.
DeleteGAHH!!!
DeleteLike others, 3rd edition drew me back to D&D (our group had moved on to White Wolf games in the 90s). However, as the main DM, I quickly grew to hate 3rd for so many reasons. The most egregious off the top of my head: prep, adjudicating edge case rules, the fucking lame action economy that sucked drama out of the game more than anything else. We just got tired of the ridiculousness of the game (became more apparent at high levels). I do not miss it and consider 3rd to be possibly the worst edition of D&D. Even if you ignore all the supplements (we did), the core mechanics get you focussed on rules minutiae rather than the exciting parts. It lacks the 'magic' of simpler versions of the game, imho (or perhaps its that with a more wieldy set of rules, the DM can work their magic more easily...)
ReplyDeleteFor all its much-remarked flaws, 3e was the point at which D&D finally gave in and absorbed ideas (some good) from its competitors - single resolution mechanism, skills, race/class independence, single statblock for monsters and characters.
ReplyDeleteIts ambition to be a complete rules set for all situations sometimes led to absurd scenarios but at least it took the task more seriously than 5e, which presents many subsystems (item damage, chases) that simply don't work at the table.
When people talk about 3e being "bad," I always ask them to clarify if they're talking about 3.0, or 3.5. It's often forgotten these days, but 3.5 wasn't just an update and clarifications to the core rules, but also a change in the edition's game design goals. Early 3.0 adventures (first party ones from WotC itself) often feel far more old-school, with much wider challenges for parties, unwinnable combats, and the "back to the dungeon" gameplay promoted. It's not until 3.5 that the first party adventures become all about balanced set piece combats. There's a lot more to it than that, but I think people often ignore 3.0 and tar the entire edition with 3.5's sins.
ReplyDeleteGreat table discussion with some of those in the room where it happened about the transition to 1e to 2e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVrrk0ONX_w
ReplyDeleteI bought 3e for the art! That said, there were an awful lot of unnecessary buckles and braids.
ReplyDelete" I bought 3e for the art! That said, there were an awful lot of unnecessary buckles and braids. "
DeleteAgreed.
And for what I would like to call the 'pouches' phenomenon (and muscles with extremely visible veins) that was also the style in comics at that time, I always like to blame companies like Image and artists like Rob Liefeld (even though it was way more widespread than that, like as you noted in the D&D 3e artwork).
I still think this is the best edition. Ive played all editions and been playing since 1980. After 4e I went back to 3e, after 8 years of 5e I went back to 3e (pathfinder 1e specifically). I even went back to 3e after revisiting OSR, AD&D and BECMI. It is the perfect in-between edition between TSR and WOTC. I also think, this edition, despite its mechanical complexity doesn't overly constrain creativity of PCs - depending how well you teach your PCs and how you construct the adventure.
ReplyDeleteI really like the dungeon punk look. Its style is really appealing to me and I honestly appreciate the art. This is also my preferred system and game mechanics, you can easily make it as lite or crunchy as you want.
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