I will say that I never played 3.x  rules as written. I never used Challenge Ratings or the magic economy that wound up borking Fighters -- I controlled access to magic spells with an iron fist, which I'm told was not how the game was supposed to work -- and I reserved veto power over both feats and prestige classes. I also started my group at first level, which frustrated the heck out of my "build-a-tron" player, because he had his entire list of feats, skills and class changes to make the" ultimate Sorceror Arcane" planned out to level 15 or 20.

So when people started complaining online about how "broken" 3.x was, I was like, "You're the DM, why are you letting your players get away with that?"

I wasn't a fan.  Apart from playing in a couple of games that friends were running I went and explored with Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Exalted, and Deadlands.

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 20, 2021, 03:05:33 PM
Personally I think 4E had the right level of "per level" complexity (one choice at each level up), but botched it by having about twice as many levels as was needed for most campaigns and so ended up with about twice the complexity most players would be comfortable with

I'm GMing 4e again currently (alternating with another GM) and this is exactly my feeling. She was planning on just 10 levels, but I think the game is good for 15. After that it gets too much.

As for 3e, if you half the XP awards and use 3.5 it's ok for about 8 levels. It really breaks hard later on, or if advancement is too fast, or if PCs get too little(!) magic.

Quote from: S'mon on August 20, 2021, 06:26:23 PM
As for 3e, if you half the XP awards and use 3.5 it's ok for about 8 levels. It really breaks hard later on, or if advancement is too fast, or if PCs get too little(!) magic.

It doesn't break after 8th level, or at least that's not quite the right word. It becomes a lot more of an art to run, and it requires players to be on the same page.

But in general, you can't go wrong with E6.

QuoteWorst of all, it seemed that power at the table had shifted away from the DM to players who had spent all their time mastering the system. At the one table I experienced, the DM was being browbeaten by smug players who could quote rules, and everyone else seemed ok with this

.

Which is... VERY GOOD. If you play system X - social obligation is to play system X, that's like you know social contract between people. D&D 3 and it's close kin are demanding game with high level of crunch, and well it's expected from DM to rule game according to rules (as with any other system). If DM is lousy, then sure players knowing their mojo gonna brownbeat him for doing bad job.
DM as god mentality is one of things... that's dying, and that' ok.

Quote from: Pat on August 20, 2021, 06:56:06 PM

Quote from: S'mon on August 20, 2021, 06:26:23 PM
As for 3e, if you half the XP awards and use 3.5 it's ok for about 8 levels. It really breaks hard later on, or if advancement is too fast, or if PCs get too little(!) magic.

It doesn't break after 8th level, or at least that's not quite the right word. It becomes a lot more of an art to run, and it requires players to be on the same page.

But in general, you can't go wrong with E6.

I was personally played in a high level 3e campaign which got up to level 16.

I didnt notice the system breaking.

Without 3e there would not be an OSR as they used 3e's OGL as an excuse to pretty much steal games by "recreating" them. uh-huh. riiiiiight.

3e appeals to a certain type of player most. And I have seen alot of overlap between 3e and gurps players. 3e also seemed to cause every char-opper and min/maxer to crawl out from under every rock possible - and then tried to infest 4 and 5e. Hence there is a slight, but deserved, negative aspect to 3e.

Otherwise its playable. Gets the job done and gets one thing right 4 and even 5e fail at. It keeps enough of older D&D to still be very recognizable as D&D. Whereas 4e tries to be as far removed from D&D as one can get without being totally not D&D. But it is 4e that really pushed the OSR into the limelight as 4e and WOTC did their damndest to antagonize fans of older D&D.

The OSR seem split on liking and not liking 5e. For many it harkens back to TSR era D&D. And others read "feat" and go insane.

Quote from: Shasarak on August 20, 2021, 07:22:42 PM

Quote from: Pat on August 20, 2021, 06:56:06 PM

Quote from: S'mon on August 20, 2021, 06:26:23 PM
As for 3e, if you half the XP awards and use 3.5 it's ok for about 8 levels. It really breaks hard later on, or if advancement is too fast, or if PCs get too little(!) magic.

It doesn't break after 8th level, or at least that's not quite the right word. It becomes a lot more of an art to run, and it requires players to be on the same page.

But in general, you can't go wrong with E6.

I was personally played in a high level 3e campaign which got up to level 16.

I didnt notice the system breaking.

I played in epic campaigns that got into the high 20s, and a couple one-shots or short games at even higher levels. The system at those levels requires a lot of babysitting. Most of the DM's tools for assessing danger or building appropriate encounters become completely worthless, so you need a DM who knows the system and can make good judgment calls, which requires a lot of experience. The types of characters who can work together is constrained, so you need players who are on the same page, and even then you have to periodically rebuild your characters to ensure nobody's too out of whack.

Quote from: Omega on August 20, 2021, 07:22:57 PM
3e appeals to a certain type of player most. And I have seen alot of overlap between 3e and gurps players. 3e also seemed to cause every char-opper and min/maxer to crawl out from under every rock possible - and then tried to infest 4 and 5e. Hence there is a slight, but deserved, negative aspect to 3e.

Char opping really took off with the Internet.

No one has seriously claimed that it invented min maxing though.  Gary had plenty to say about that in the old ADnD days.

Quote from: Shasarak on August 20, 2021, 07:57:38 PM

Quote from: Omega on August 20, 2021, 07:22:57 PM
3e appeals to a certain type of player most. And I have seen alot of overlap between 3e and gurps players. 3e also seemed to cause every char-opper and min/maxer to crawl out from under every rock possible - and then tried to infest 4 and 5e. Hence there is a slight, but deserved, negative aspect to 3e.

Char opping really took off with the Internet.

No one has seriously claimed that it invented min maxing though.  Gary had plenty to say about that in the old ADnD days.

Third edition was also uniquely well suited to char ops. The whole build thing, plus all the sourcebooks and all the moving parts.

Which is also why third edition works best with a strong DM who can keep all the players at least in the same ballpark when it comes to capabilities. But those types of DMs also became rarer as the edition progressed, because char ops also led to a rules over rulings or player entitlement mentality.

Quote from: Pat on August 20, 2021, 08:57:42 PM
Third edition was also uniquely well suited to char ops. The whole build thing, plus all the sourcebooks and all the moving parts.

I lived through the 2e source book bloat era so I am not sure "all the 3e source books" argument is as effective as you imagine it is.

QuoteWhich is also why third edition works best with a strong DM who can keep all the players at least in the same ballpark when it comes to capabilities. But those types of DMs also became rarer as the edition progressed, because char ops also led to a rules over rulings or player entitlement mentality.

Once the DM makes a ruling then a good player can always site that as case law.  So the real difference is that everyone knows the rules in the first case and the players finding out the rules later on in the second case.

Quote from: Shasarak on August 20, 2021, 09:10:39 PM

Quote from: Pat on August 20, 2021, 08:57:42 PM
Third edition was also uniquely well suited to char ops. The whole build thing, plus all the sourcebooks and all the moving parts.

I lived through the 2e source book bloat era so I am not sure "all the 3e source books" argument is as effective as you imagine it is.

QuoteWhich is also why third edition works best with a strong DM who can keep all the players at least in the same ballpark when it comes to capabilities. But those types of DMs also became rarer as the edition progressed, because char ops also led to a rules over rulings or player entitlement mentality.

Once the DM makes a ruling then a good player can always site that as case law.  So the real difference is that everyone knows the rules in the first case and the players finding out the rules later on in the second case.

That's not how you handle char ops. You handle char ops by saying no, or by telling a player to rework a character to be more in line with the other PCs, or by looking at their character sheet and going nuh-uh this is way too high. It's not about precedents, it's about ensuring everyone can have fun because there's nobody who can run roughshod over the rest of the party, and some of the PCs aren't completely ineffective.

Also, 2nd edition had more settings, and many of the rule weren't intended to work together. How many different castle building systems were there? At least 3? How many times did they try to revise the psionic system? 2e still had some of that classic D&D different subsystems for everything. Third edition was more holistic; all the parts were supposed to go together, in theory at least.

Not a huge OSR fan (nor critic, just not my thing).

3.5 is the edition I like the least, followed closely by 3.0.  3.0 at lower levels is playable (as is any version of D&D) but flawed in ways that become steadily more annoying for the GM the longer it is used.  It requires similar prep work to play within the rules as GURPS or Fantasy Hero, but without their flexibility.  If I'm going to not run it within the rules but wing it to cover up its flaws, there are several better systems for that, including most other versions of D&D. 

I also absolutely despise "adventure paths"--which are hardly unique to 3E but the place where they really took off "the thing".

I can see how some people would find it a good mix--especially if they don't mind working around its design flaws--but for me it sits in such an uncanny valley between too many rules but too little payoff that I'll never run it again.  To a lesser extent, 5E has the same problem, in that in its quest for wide appeal it is not quite sure what it wants to be.  However, it is a simpler system with better underlying math, which makes it more adaptable.

3.X was an abomination, though not quite the nadir - THAT was 4e.

But as others have said, 3.x was the next step after 2E's 'Players Options' series - a series of books that I refuse to own, such is my disdain for the direction they took the game.

3.x was the age of the character 'build', when theorycrafting peaked, when the hideous idea that you planned your character in advance really came to the fore.

I prefer characters in my gain to be defined by their actions and their discoveries, not by hours spent swotting over rulebooks trying to find optimal combinations.

Simple character mechanics. Complex game world. THAT's the epitome of gaming for me.