3rd Edition could have been E6 right out of the gate, in the year 2000.

Was never going to happen. WOTC is too fixated on the damn "five year plan". And Gary pretty much pitched a similar idea to WOTC. But instead they overhauled the system quite a bit. But no so much it totally alienated players of D&D. And 3e instead named BX would have pissed off the BX/BECMI/Cyclopedia players as they are nothing alike.

And cheering for a 6th ed can go straight to hell.

The ease and simplicity of BX was never a design goal of the 3e team. Certainly not with Monte "Rules Mastery" Cook's influence. But I suspect Adkinson was lobbying for a more robust system too.

Quote from: Blusponge;1085728The ease and simplicity of BX was never a design goal of the 3e team. Certainly not with Monte "Rules Mastery" Cook's influence. But I suspect Adkinson was lobbying for a more robust system too.

Adkison was fully on board with the idea that "D&D is the game with rules for everything." Look up his reminisces in Thirty Years of Adventure.

Quote from: Omega;1085720And cheering for a 6th ed can go straight to hell.

You mean you don't want a game that replaces Race/Class/Background with Race/Socioeconomic Class/Gender Identity? You racist sexist bigot homophobe

I, for one, can't wait for D&D: The Intersectionality Edition. If your competition wants to shoot itself in the foot, don't try to stop them... cheer them on.

BUT ... if they had ...

*) They would have had to overcome the "kiddie game" problem.
*) They would have had to have had a good reason to walk back race+class.
*) There would have had to have been a reckoning over the "rules for everyone" players
*) Similarly, there would have to be a reckoning over the revenue stream plan derived from "rules for everything"

The last two could have been mitigated. Rules for Everything could have potentially been mitigated by riffing off of the nascent story game crowd and the railroad hate from both circles. The revenue stream coudl have been mitigated by a focus on the larger brand. IE: the intent is not for the PHB to make money. The intent is to use the PHB to become a part of the cultural zeitgeist and then make boatloads of cash off of video game, tv, and movie licensing deals. (The Hasbro plan)

But, they fought last war: rules mastery, splat books, storytelling.

B/X was arguably the least successful version of old school D&D, lasting only from 1981 to 1982.  Even Holmes lasted longer.

I realize it's gotten a lot of love in the OSR, but so does White Box, which also had a short life span

They'll Love me when I'm Dead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_kOsnGzfYY

Quote from: Omega;1085720And cheering for a 6th ed can go straight to hell.

E6, not 6E. It's one of the more well-known 3E house rule sets that caps characters at level 6. XP gained past that point can be spent on certain things(maybe only feats; it's been a looooong time since I looked it up), but no more increases to HP, BAB, spell slots, etc. E10 was pretty popular in some circles, too. Which one groups chose mostly came down to whether they wanted to cap casters at 3rd level spells or 5th.

Quote from: Chris24601;1085737You mean you don't want a game that replaces Race/Class/Background with Race/Socioeconomic Class/Gender Identity? You racist sexist bigot homophobe

If you look at the new D&D-based games from the Woke (Paizo and the Middle Earth game) they replace Race with Ancestry. Which is ironic because "Your race is your ancestry, not a social construct" is terribly racist when Alt-Right Bigots say it.

Quote from: GeekEclectic;1085861E6, not 6E. It's one of the more well-known 3E house rule sets that caps characters at level 6. XP gained past that point can be spent on certain things(maybe only feats; it's been a looooong time since I looked it up), but no more increases to HP, BAB, spell slots, etc. E10 was pretty popular in some circles, too. Which one groups chose mostly came down to whether they wanted to cap casters at 3rd level spells or 5th.

If I ever run a 3e-based game again it'll be E5 or similar (eg PF/SF Beginner Box + Feats after 5th).
5e is actually E20; per the DMG you can gain Feats & ASIs after 20th level. Works well IME.

E10 creates a game that feels like 1e AD&D or Moldvay-Cook B/X. Good approach. I tended to run 3e so we ended the campaign at 8th-10th which has a similar effect.