Off Topic -- Weird First Ed. rules
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Post Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 9:02 am 
 

Epicrates_cenchria wrote:Perhaps I should give 3E a bit more reading time, but fear my first conclusion was right I AM old and crotchety.
<snip>
Perhaps I will take a random selection with me on my business trip and try harder to understand the new system.

Cue the rant!

I wouldn't try that hard, it's not you.  Well, maybe it is, but mostly it's the ridiculously over-detailed rules.  Sure, the artwork is crap, but that's irrelevant for gameplay.  The d20 system is a nice, well thought out system that makes a lot more sense.  So what, the old system taught you basic mental math skills.  

The thing about 1st Edition was, for the most part, you forget the books at home and still play a successful campaign, unless you were a total neophyte.  I'm not talking about memorizing rules here, although that helps.  I'm talking about the DM making a decent judgment call without/in spite of the rules.  DMs today are horribly boxed-in by a slew of feats/skills/rules/exceptions/specialty whatevers.  

Today, a player can pretty much make up any character he wants, and the reason often given for this is "roleplaying" (as opposed to "hack-and-slash", they claim.  Ha!).  The game is no longer fatalistic in the sense that you play the cards you are dealt.  Want to play a feral half-troll/half-orc  assassin/barbarian/shaman?  Go for it, just make sure you write a good backstory.  He's exiled and um...doesn't speak common, that's a fair trade.  Do directors let actors just randomly pick roles?  Don't think so.

With the emphasis on personal achievement and progression, players are attached to their characters like never before, which leads to min/maxing and a general lack of teamwork.  As many have pointed out before, "supercharacters" don't need other's help, and every 3E character is now a "supercharacter"!  Got a bad hit point roll?  No problem there's a skill to fix that up.  Etc.

Now, I'm sure some avid 3E fan will choose pick this post apart, or suggest I pick up a copy and really read through it.  I'd suggest the opposite.  Read 1st Ed.  Learn how roleplaying is meant to be, learn it's history, learn how it evolved into what it is today, and why that's not a good thing.  It will look very, very boring, as boring as "Pac Man" looks today.  That's because you need to fill in the imaginary blanks.

P.S. "Krusk" sucks.  Characters have now become brands.  I look forward to 4th edition where the DM will pause every few minutes to talk about how wonderful Coke/Microsoft/Ford is.  :roll:

 YIM  
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