I LOVED 3e when it first came out because my constant frustration with D&D was how scattered and heterogeneous the rules were.

FINALLY. Coherent, consistent rules!


Granted, in time the flaws, rule proliferation, power scaling, and other stuff became more obvious.

Quote from: Omega;777759Pundit is just jealous because no one would read his... :pundit:

No, I have no interest in biology.  I write long essays on pseudo-history and pseudo-religion that no one reads.

I really liked when 3e came out too.

Quote from: Larsdangly;779437I distinctly remember liking 3E when it was first published, perhaps not as much as I'm impressed by 5E but it felt really solid and exciting. And it was. But then it got a case of the galloping feats and sort of collapsed under its own weight. 5E is starting stronger, but we'll all have to keep an eye on the way in which it is tended.

Quote from: Will;779442I LOVED 3e when it first came out because my constant frustration with D&D was how scattered and heterogeneous the rules were.

FINALLY. Coherent, consistent rules!

Granted, in time the flaws, rule proliferation, power scaling, and other stuff became more obvious.

(I wasn't around when 3E was first released).

With that being said, these sentiments and parallels are similar to how I felt about 4E when it was initially released.  (Mostly over the summer and fall of 2008).

As time went on, 4E's flaws were just as bad as 3E/3.5E/Pathfinder.  (If not worse).

Quote from: Will;779442I LOVED 3e when it first came out because my constant frustration with D&D was how scattered and heterogeneous the rules were.

FINALLY. Coherent, consistent rules!

Personally, I think 3e's homogenization of the rules was a huge, huge mistake.  But it's water under the bridge now.

Quote from: ggroy;782080(I wasn't around when 3E was first released).

With that being said, these sentiments and parallels are similar to how I felt about 4E when it was initially released.  (Mostly over the summer and fall of 2008).

As time went on, 4E's flaws were just as bad as 3E/3.5E/Pathfinder.  (If not worse).

I agree; I was perfectly happy to give 4E a try. I bought the starter box, spent a couple of afternoons at the local store playing pick-up games (something I rarely do), and spent a few weeks trying to figure out what new things were in it that appealed to me. Actually, the general concepts of HP 'surges' and periodic special powerzzz of some sort for all classes seemed great (and still seem great; note they are core elements of 5E, which I am enjoying a lot). What I quickly realized was that it took close to 2 hours to resolve a moderately complex combat. That's the only real problem with the game, I would say. But it has a cascading effect: you only resolve 1-2 combats per session. And, you spend almost all of your time in each session resolving those fights. Thus, the game is effectively 'about' set-piece rumbles involving a dozen or so combatants. So, the only real point to your character is their effectiveness in combat. So, the only sensible way to play the game is to 'build' (blech...) an effective combatant.

Ironically, my all-time favorite fantasy roleplaying game (The Fantasy Trip) is just a modest expansion of a board game for set-piece fights (Melee/Wizard). But, with the vitally important difference that it was written so that combats are resolved in a few minutes — perhaps 10 minutes per fight when played by experienced players and involving no more than ~10 combatants. Thus, you have the fun of a super granular tactical combat engine, but there is ample time in a typical night of gaming for those combats to be just part of the overall experience.