Are there any other D&D geeks here? I’ve been playing 3rd edition for the past year or so, and this weekend they’re coming out with version 3.5.
This basically means the we have to buy the books again. They’re not even totally rewritten. They’re advertising the Player’s Handbook as having “60 new pages!” for our gaming enjoyment. I’ve heard rumors that all the new stuff will be available as PDFs on the WotC site, but as I ask myself how that would work ("Insert this page between pages 39 and 40 of your PHB, and ignore the first two paragraphs about bards on page 40), I begin thinking that those rumors are just rumors.
All my fellow geeks already have them all preordered, and I was kind of resigning myself to picking up a new PHB, but I read an interview of Monte Cook (one of the original authors of 3rd edition) where he said that this release was basically an economic decision from the WotC suits. He said there was some great stuff in the new edition, but there was other stuff that he wouldn’t let anywhere near his campaign. Needless to say, I don’t think Monte’s employed by WotC anymore.
So basically everyone is buying 3.5, right? And somewhere down the road, after the damage is done, we’ll all look back and say what a horrible debacle it was and how 4.0 is much better.
I’m definitely buying them. A friend who had Amazon pre-orders for the books received 2 of the 3 Tuesday. After paging through them I was quite satisfied. They fixed a lot of the problems with the game and I’ll buy the set for that alone.
Yes I could theoretically just adapt some of the changes as house-rules to correct the problems and go on with 3.0 DnD, but actually having the books will work better. I have the kind of players that will argue about an issue forever unless I can point to some black and white print and say, “That’s the rule, like it or leave,”
They will have PDFs of the new rules, but not in update format. They will actually put all the rules online for free public consumption. They did that with 3.0 DnD also. The reasons you want the books instead of just using the free online rules are; A. Hard to haul a computer to the gaming table just so you can flip through rules, and B. the online rules have no art, examples, flavor text, or most of the optional rules. The online PDFs are distilled down to JUST the core rules and it’s very dry and sometimes hard to follow them without examples.
The new Monster Manual sounds interesting, with the inclusion of round-by-round combat tactics for the creatures (especially useful for critters with literally dozens of powers/abilities/spells) and monster descriptions that can be read out to the players.
I agree with Denny. I always used the 1st Edition as a base and just made up my own rules to cover the gaps. Besides, why would we need “Round by Round” tactics for creatures? We first edition fans had “Claw/Claw/Bite” and we were happy dammit!
Although I think I am dangerously close in age to Mr. Atkin I can’t help but visualize him on his front porch yelling, “Get off my lawn you damned kids!!”
Sure, Denny, that’s the reason why we should all be playing PC games like Wolfenstein 3D instead of new-fangled stuff like UT and Half-Life 2. :D[/quote]
<CURMUDGEON>
Wolfenstein 3-D? Hah! Let’s go back to the original Castle Wolfenstein (which had better gameplay, anyway). Or Zork! Who needs graphics…
</CURMUDGEON>
Well, there’s a difference between computer games and “real-life” (cough! cough!) role-playing games. We never fixated on the rules or detailed combat – we rolled the dice and the DM added the play-by-plays. Hell, we’d been playing for a while before the Monster Manual even came out. You know it was FUN to make up your own monsters…
One of the great things about AD&D was the imagination involved. A good DM could make a really fun experience. We didn’t need or want codified behavior for monsters – the DM could handle that.
Now with all the books and rules and pre-generated this and that, they’ve become the tabletop equivalent of hardcore flight sims. So many rules and so much to learn that they only appeal to the hardcore geeks.
Ihaven’t played D&D in ages. 15 years at least. But I bet the D&D DM’s you’re talking about still play that way Denny. All this added stuff just acts as “hand-holding.”
Wait, I’m a bit confused. Denny said that all the new additions appeal only to hard-core D&D players, while Andrew said all the new stuff is “hand-holding” for newbies? :?
I don’t exactly agree with Denny. I think he’s right that 3E was built for the hardcore… but stats that, for example, tell a DM exactly how a monster should fight, well, that sounds like hand-holding for unimaginative DMs to me.
D&D back in 1980 had pages telling DMs to disregard, change, and make up your own rules. We did - because there were a lot of gaps. Now all those options and possibilities are covered. Based on that, come to your own conclusions.
I haven’t played D&D for ages (at least a decade). When did, it was with a good crew that (for the most part) didn’t obsess over the rules and monster stats etc.
I didn’t do much DM’ing except for a few one-off adventures. The most memorable was one was where I simply ignored the rules and did what I what I wanted. It played out much more like a heroic fantasy epic. All the players had a great time. All except one that is. He was the on who obsessed over rules and was upset that I had monsters that didn’t follow the official D&D monster manual behaviour.
I think the obsession over rules takes away from the enjoyment of the role-playing.
That’s still true of 3E, and is addressed in the DMG. I do agree that most monsters don’t need a round-by-round combat description, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that some high-level creatures like demons and celestials might have two or three dozen abilities, and that some guidance about tactics would be useful.
Although I think I am dangerously close in age to Mr. Atkin I can’t help but visualize him on his front porch yelling, “Get off my lawn you damned kids!!”
– Xaroc[/quote]
I thought that was Jeff Green. I read it in one of his columns.
2nd Edition killed it for my crew. We liked 1st, and didn’t like a lot of the changes in 2nd, which seemed to make things more clique-ish and unfun and other made-up words that describe unentertaining pursuits.
I hear 3rd is pretty good, maybe 3.5 will give me a shot at getting the (now literally getting) old crew back in the game.
I admit it, My name is Miramon (ok, Laurence Brothers) and I play RPGs.
When I run, I never use commercial systems… See http://www.oneiromancer.com/aegis for the current version of the one I’ve been developing for some years.
But I play D&D sometimes, I’m playing a D&D campaign now. For that matter I played the original D&D when it was 3 fawn-colored pamphlet-books. (OK, I actually started when Greyhawk had just come out, so make that 4 fawn-colored books :) )
I will buy the updated Player Handbook when it comes out, but nothing else. I don’t need to memorize the Monster Manual (ogres; 5 hit dice; strictly bleeders) or even look at the DM’s guide, and if there are a thousand other random supplements, the DM will tell me what I need to know. So the addiction is relatively low cost if you are a reasonably normal player, anyway.
I started with AD&D too, played it from the age of fourteen or so until I graduated college. Never even tried 2E.
D&D back in 1980 had pages telling DMs to disregard, change, and make up your own rules. We did - because there were a lot of gaps. Now all those options and possibilities are covered. Based on that, come to your own conclusions.
I can’t tell you how many times this led to “better” versions of D&D that just weren’t. Think of the Simpson’s comic book guy telling you that he’s developed a variant of D&D that’s much better and covers all the holes that D&D has. So you spend an hour rolling up your characters for this fabulous new game, you start out, and you fight some wolves. It takes three hours to fight the wolves because each blow requires rolling fifty dice, each of which mean something to the DM (since he made up the game) like where on the body you hit and with how much force and if you cut muscle or tendon, after which three out of four of you are dead and the fourth is crippled for life because he was hamstrung on round 2. You say “That sucks.” And the DM screams, “What do you want? You’re barely more than peasants!! This is more realistic than D&D!!!”
Sorry. I had to get that off my chest.
I’ve played 3E for a year now and it’s much better. AD&D was very dependent on having a good DM. I like being able to look up rules.
My hangup with 3.5E is more with WotC, since they are the collectable masters. When it becomes more about getting the fans to buy shit than making a game, I worry. How long has it been since 3E came out? 3 years? 5?
For instance, the old core rulebooks used to be $20, then the “booklets” like Masters of the Wild and Song and Silence came out and they were $20 too. People started complaining, “Hey, I paid $20 for this nice hardcover rulebook and now you’re foisting these paperbacks off on us for the same price.” WotC solved that by raising the price of the hardcovers to $30.
Also, I was thinking of getting the Epic Level Handbook, but now I guess I’ll get the PHB again instead. Oh well.
