Because I prefer that problem over OSR's "Reprinting B/X over and over again." I'm also a big proponent of mechanical innovation in game rules,--RPGs are woefully underdeveloped compared to even video games
Did you know about Vampire Survivors? It's basically a sort of reverse bullet hell shooter. But the most Important part is that it's designed like it's a slot machine(because it's designed by someone who worked on those) with all the lights and sounds, the game is basically replacing the need for money with reflex and time.
It is massively popular and has basically spawned it's own genre.
Point is, the problems you've said is easily just as much of an appeal as it'd be something that looks undesirable.
Conceptually, I like "build" systems. I love the creativity, the freedom to sculpt an idea, etc. And I was very good at it. But for all the reasons listed in the article, I came to dislike them in practice. So while I sometimes miss games like 3.x, I prefer to stick to games like DCC for my fantasy to avoid the issues that come from character builds and interconnected/interdependent rules.
My Vampire Survivors mention isn't about system knowledge really, but how 'negative' characteristics usually become something that not a minuscule amount of people want and look for. People do actually want more splatbook stuff, because that's where the fun as a player comes from seeing companies release stuff.
Like, OSR is basically an entire fandom 95% talking and selling to DMs. There's no player focused selling going on there, the people gushing about the stuff that's popular are gamerunners.
I don’t think there’s a lack of experimentation or development in RPGs overall. I think the issue is that most RPG players are far less interested in new ideas than videogame players are, so most experimental stuff stays niche. RPGs have a social and creative component that videogames don’t; videogames are passively consumed for the most part, so novelty is more sought-after in them.
The need for new ideas in RPGs can be sated with new characters or adventure ideas within the same system. Lots of players see learning new rules as a burden. Personally I love reading rulebooks and thinking about how rules interact, but I know I’m not the majority.
Most OSR games being compatible with TSR D&D is a feature, not a bug for most OSR fans. It ensures broad compatibility with a neverending firehose of content that couldn’t be fully explored in two lifetimes. Also, TSR D&D is modular, so you can experiment in pretty extreme ways without breaking it.
I spent a lot of the 90’s playing Shadowrun as a build game and it was great fun. That said, it wasn’t as fun for the GM or the players that wanted to just grab a pregen and play. I think video games are probably the best place for build-based RPGs for most people. Unless of course you have a group of players and a GM that also enjoy those types of games for extended periods, but that seems kind of rare.
Excellent article overall. I was introduced to DnD via 3.5 and as a result I have a deep and unshakable nostalgia for both it and Pathfinder 1e (which my group eventually moved to soon after the release of 4e). I tend to go through cycles of "ugh, this busted-ass system, how did I ever like it" and "you know, actually maybe that system wasn't too bad, maybe I should shine it up and give it another whirl" and your post really sums up a lot of the ups and downs. Playing and running 5e has given me a lot of appreciation for various design details, successes, and mistakes from all sorts of previous editions and makes me realize where my problems with modern 5e design came from. So many of the problems in modern DnD come from a core of a distaste for restriction and a demand for options, both of which are fantastic in measured doses and catastrophic when cranked up to 11. I think 3.5 has way too many options and a whole lot of restriction whereas 5e has not so many (but still a bit too many) options and not nearly enough restriction. Discarding XP as a whole, ignoring carrying capacity, and treating the magic item section of a DMG as a buying catalogue has certainly changed what players expect from a game called "DnD", and we could argue whether that's a good or bad thing till we're blue in the proverbial face, but just knowing about it and puzzling over it in my free time will teach me a lot about the hobby I love, I think. I appreciate you putting in the work to voice all of these thoughts and theories and ideas; stuff like this tends to stick with me while I'm constantly on the hunt for that Ideal System that doesn't exist (because the Ideal System is literally the friends we made along the way).
As someone who hates D&D 3.X but nonetheless continues to wrestle with it (*Entirely* because the brilliantly-realized He’ll of Mongoose’s Infernum doesn’t really work in any other system), I really appreciate this autopsy.
Take a look at 'Epic 6' or 'E6'; it was a movement to make 3.5 edition a lot easier and more 'Normal Fantasy' as it capped players at 6th level but they could still take feats as they progressed. It allowed for the game to max out at the 'funnest' level of play while still staying relatively simple. Great system.
The article was interesting as 5e is at quite a similar point now. there is SO MUCH content both official and 3rd party, DMs are burned out and no longe rhaving any fun running 5e (it seems to me), and the coherency of the Fantasy 'Worlds' that you play in had broken down so much due to the plethera of races; this is not the Forgotten realms of Early ADnD any more!
Great read. What's interesting is that many of the things you mention here, which I also consider problems, were embraced wholeheartedly by Paizo with Pathfinder. And they built a successful business on it.
wow... your experience playing D&D generally and 3.5e specifically must be very narrow and limited, or else you never really grasped how to run an RPG. i disagree with almost every section of your article. i've played 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and 5e, among maybe a dozen other RPGs.
all of the problems you describe above are in the hands of the DM to balance. who's letting the players do all these crazy things with characters, honestly? it's YOU, the DM! if it doesn't work, don't do it! i've seen "game-breaking" crap in almost every system i've played and i've never worried about it.
moreover, i find the rules matter less as long as you meet the expectations of the audience that sits down at the table to play. put on a good show with the tools you have and optimize as you go. if everyone walks away from the table having gotten what they came for, little else matters to them. and no one i know has ever walked away from my game and said "i quit because this game system isn't balanced".
i honestly don't understand why you're raging on about things that are in the GM's hands to manage. your entire article seems to omit the function of the GM entirely.
Thanks for your feedback! I don't understand where I have "raged" but your comment is welcome nonetheless.
I actually ran this by others who played 3rd edition contemporaneously to ensure my recollections weren't altered by time and they agreed it was accurate.
the game is ultimately made by the people who show up. no rules will fix the problems that people bring to the table. and if people come to the table with a good chemistry, few rule systems will be able to screw that up.
LOL. Yes, no game can ever be bad or have problems, because it's the job of the DM and players to fix it. I think much of the RPG-playing public is aware that no rules will fix problem people, players or DMs, but bad rules or systems will definitely screw things up for good people.
Like you, Marc, I played all those systems, actually still have to play 5e. Same problem there even though NSCs are easier to build now.
The difference in power level of allowed(!) charakter builds is just lunatic. The internet surfing player with a range attack build does 2 to 3 times more damage per round than the melee fighter who just wants to play without thinking about optimizing his charakter.
Encounter and therefor adventure building for level 6+ charakters is extremly painfull. And this has nothing to do with DM skill but with the rule system.
As was stated in the article: sure you, as the DM, can play the constant gatekeeper. But this will escalate with some players who love to spend there time online to enhance their character builds in legal ways. You get massive conflict were none should be: at the gaming table.
Because I prefer that problem over OSR's "Reprinting B/X over and over again." I'm also a big proponent of mechanical innovation in game rules,--RPGs are woefully underdeveloped compared to even video games
Did you know about Vampire Survivors? It's basically a sort of reverse bullet hell shooter. But the most Important part is that it's designed like it's a slot machine(because it's designed by someone who worked on those) with all the lights and sounds, the game is basically replacing the need for money with reflex and time.
It is massively popular and has basically spawned it's own genre.
Point is, the problems you've said is easily just as much of an appeal as it'd be something that looks undesirable.
This is absolutely a conundrum I have. I actually really enjoy the build game, and finding synergistic things that work together.
But there are many that don't.
Is the idea of making a game or system that explicitly encourages ridiculous builds right? And, if so, how do you balance out the challenges?
Vampire Survivors is easily broken past a certain level of system knowledge, but people expect more reactive difficulty from the DM.
Conceptually, I like "build" systems. I love the creativity, the freedom to sculpt an idea, etc. And I was very good at it. But for all the reasons listed in the article, I came to dislike them in practice. So while I sometimes miss games like 3.x, I prefer to stick to games like DCC for my fantasy to avoid the issues that come from character builds and interconnected/interdependent rules.
My Vampire Survivors mention isn't about system knowledge really, but how 'negative' characteristics usually become something that not a minuscule amount of people want and look for. People do actually want more splatbook stuff, because that's where the fun as a player comes from seeing companies release stuff.
Like, OSR is basically an entire fandom 95% talking and selling to DMs. There's no player focused selling going on there, the people gushing about the stuff that's popular are gamerunners.
In my experience most OSR players are also DMs themselves, taking turns running their homebrew settings in their latest flavor of choice system.
I don’t think there’s a lack of experimentation or development in RPGs overall. I think the issue is that most RPG players are far less interested in new ideas than videogame players are, so most experimental stuff stays niche. RPGs have a social and creative component that videogames don’t; videogames are passively consumed for the most part, so novelty is more sought-after in them.
The need for new ideas in RPGs can be sated with new characters or adventure ideas within the same system. Lots of players see learning new rules as a burden. Personally I love reading rulebooks and thinking about how rules interact, but I know I’m not the majority.
Most OSR games being compatible with TSR D&D is a feature, not a bug for most OSR fans. It ensures broad compatibility with a neverending firehose of content that couldn’t be fully explored in two lifetimes. Also, TSR D&D is modular, so you can experiment in pretty extreme ways without breaking it.
I spent a lot of the 90’s playing Shadowrun as a build game and it was great fun. That said, it wasn’t as fun for the GM or the players that wanted to just grab a pregen and play. I think video games are probably the best place for build-based RPGs for most people. Unless of course you have a group of players and a GM that also enjoy those types of games for extended periods, but that seems kind of rare.
Excellent article overall. I was introduced to DnD via 3.5 and as a result I have a deep and unshakable nostalgia for both it and Pathfinder 1e (which my group eventually moved to soon after the release of 4e). I tend to go through cycles of "ugh, this busted-ass system, how did I ever like it" and "you know, actually maybe that system wasn't too bad, maybe I should shine it up and give it another whirl" and your post really sums up a lot of the ups and downs. Playing and running 5e has given me a lot of appreciation for various design details, successes, and mistakes from all sorts of previous editions and makes me realize where my problems with modern 5e design came from. So many of the problems in modern DnD come from a core of a distaste for restriction and a demand for options, both of which are fantastic in measured doses and catastrophic when cranked up to 11. I think 3.5 has way too many options and a whole lot of restriction whereas 5e has not so many (but still a bit too many) options and not nearly enough restriction. Discarding XP as a whole, ignoring carrying capacity, and treating the magic item section of a DMG as a buying catalogue has certainly changed what players expect from a game called "DnD", and we could argue whether that's a good or bad thing till we're blue in the proverbial face, but just knowing about it and puzzling over it in my free time will teach me a lot about the hobby I love, I think. I appreciate you putting in the work to voice all of these thoughts and theories and ideas; stuff like this tends to stick with me while I'm constantly on the hunt for that Ideal System that doesn't exist (because the Ideal System is literally the friends we made along the way).
As someone who hates D&D 3.X but nonetheless continues to wrestle with it (*Entirely* because the brilliantly-realized He’ll of Mongoose’s Infernum doesn’t really work in any other system), I really appreciate this autopsy.
Great Article.
Take a look at 'Epic 6' or 'E6'; it was a movement to make 3.5 edition a lot easier and more 'Normal Fantasy' as it capped players at 6th level but they could still take feats as they progressed. It allowed for the game to max out at the 'funnest' level of play while still staying relatively simple. Great system.
The article was interesting as 5e is at quite a similar point now. there is SO MUCH content both official and 3rd party, DMs are burned out and no longe rhaving any fun running 5e (it seems to me), and the coherency of the Fantasy 'Worlds' that you play in had broken down so much due to the plethera of races; this is not the Forgotten realms of Early ADnD any more!
Will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Great read. What's interesting is that many of the things you mention here, which I also consider problems, were embraced wholeheartedly by Paizo with Pathfinder. And they built a successful business on it.
wow... your experience playing D&D generally and 3.5e specifically must be very narrow and limited, or else you never really grasped how to run an RPG. i disagree with almost every section of your article. i've played 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and 5e, among maybe a dozen other RPGs.
all of the problems you describe above are in the hands of the DM to balance. who's letting the players do all these crazy things with characters, honestly? it's YOU, the DM! if it doesn't work, don't do it! i've seen "game-breaking" crap in almost every system i've played and i've never worried about it.
moreover, i find the rules matter less as long as you meet the expectations of the audience that sits down at the table to play. put on a good show with the tools you have and optimize as you go. if everyone walks away from the table having gotten what they came for, little else matters to them. and no one i know has ever walked away from my game and said "i quit because this game system isn't balanced".
i honestly don't understand why you're raging on about things that are in the GM's hands to manage. your entire article seems to omit the function of the GM entirely.
do you even RPG? :)
Thanks for your feedback! I don't understand where I have "raged" but your comment is welcome nonetheless.
I actually ran this by others who played 3rd edition contemporaneously to ensure my recollections weren't altered by time and they agreed it was accurate.
If the GM has to be good for a game to not get ruined, than the game rules system is shit.
the game is ultimately made by the people who show up. no rules will fix the problems that people bring to the table. and if people come to the table with a good chemistry, few rule systems will be able to screw that up.
LOL. Yes, no game can ever be bad or have problems, because it's the job of the DM and players to fix it. I think much of the RPG-playing public is aware that no rules will fix problem people, players or DMs, but bad rules or systems will definitely screw things up for good people.
Like you, Marc, I played all those systems, actually still have to play 5e. Same problem there even though NSCs are easier to build now.
The difference in power level of allowed(!) charakter builds is just lunatic. The internet surfing player with a range attack build does 2 to 3 times more damage per round than the melee fighter who just wants to play without thinking about optimizing his charakter.
Encounter and therefor adventure building for level 6+ charakters is extremly painfull. And this has nothing to do with DM skill but with the rule system.
As was stated in the article: sure you, as the DM, can play the constant gatekeeper. But this will escalate with some players who love to spend there time online to enhance their character builds in legal ways. You get massive conflict were none should be: at the gaming table.