I don’t let in unvettted new content, no matter how shiny. Some things rapidly unbalance the game. It’s your game, you call the books and supplements that are allowed. 3.x is really bad for tons of possible content, some of which when mixed has detrimental effects. Lizards of the Coast is even worse about 4e and 5e sheer volume of material. Rewrite and rebrand every book 3.c had and as quick as possible.
Hey, I have to eat and pay the mortgage. I try and keep the rules simple.
From what few videos I’ve watched on the 5E and OneD&D topic, that seems to be the biggest argument, if not in the video I posted. Everything seems to be geared for the players and if the DM/GM doesn’t have it, it puts them at a disadvantage. And I totally agree it’s easy to throw out whatever items you want, since most of us do only have a finite amount we can put towards our hobby. The only game I can say I have all the books for in my collection is the Star Wars Saga Edition, and I had the means to make sure I could get them. Can’t do that with D&D.
There is simply too much. I have groaning shelves of various AD&D and D&D books and I don’t have close to a complete line of anything. TSR or Lizards.
Huh. I took another tactic entirely. I simply learned pretty much all the exploits that 3.x has. It’s a finite list.
Then I figured out how I wanted to deal with each of them.
I picked a small number of things to disallow (nigh infinite and excessive alignment stuff, basically).
I happily let my players use the rest of the exploits, if they figure them out, if they even want to use them (most don’t go for any big time things) … and if they dare to try. Heheheh.
Candle of Invocation infinite wish loop that has broken the core game since at least 2e? Sure, give it a go and see what happens!
Venerable Dragonwrought kobolds taking epic level feats pre-20th level? I’ve got you covered!
Sarrukh shenanigans? I’ve been waiting for you to say that!
Your monk does an average of 100 damage per strike? That’s a bit low, but I can still work you in, no problem!
You can attack 20 times in a round? Is that all? We can handle that.
You can hit 60+ on your skill check? Not bad, I think you’ll enjoy the challenge!
My gaming group, Epic Fetch, has an optional character to party truing service for those who are new to our family.
My players all know I’m well prepared, and I’m used to high powered play, so sadly a lot of my preparations go unused… but we all have fun playing and my players are happy with their character toys, so it’s all good.
It’s a game, play what you like. I played D&D&, AD&D, and Pathfinder. I enjoyed them all, except for AD&D 4e. Haven’t played Pathfinder 2e and never will, don’t like it. The races as classes in D&D, never understood that, even when I was learning the game, I never understood that.
Anyway, just play what you enjoy. No one is forced to play a certain edition.
I started with 1st edition AD&D, went to 2nd ed when it came out and never went to the newer versions. I still have players and run campaigns in the 2nd edition (know some campaigns running 1st edition as well). I limit the “options” books and have all the reference books/materials for any new players that want to learn the 2nd or 1st edition systems.
They are not hard to get either. That AD&D Core CD was a ghoddsend. All the core Second Edition books, on disk.
Somehow I have ended up with enough 1st Ed books for a whole gaming group.
I’m not sure I can relate to the curmudgeonly vibe the guy gives out, but I can sympathize. Being outraged at corporations, sticking it to the man, and spreading the word of their unholy endeavors can be cathartic… but feels unhealthy when dragging it out like a grudge that just can’t be shaken. Then again, where would we be if anti-whatevers didn’t exist, pushing the envelope to what may yet come to pass.
I’ve enjoyed 2nd edition, the 3’s, 4e was a blast and felt the most balanced of all the editions, 5e is nicer than the previous editions, and One will be One. Whatever they come up with, I’m sure I’ll enjoy that as well. LevelUp: Advanced 5th Edition made significant changes to 5e, making characters less restrictive, at the cost of making the rules more complex. Pathfinder and PF2 were fun.
Overall, though, D&D has never been at the heart of my gaming desires. I do D&D because it’s fun and because so many others play it. When all else fails, D&D. It’s the players that make it worth it.
Finding players for specific games, well, that’s difficult for some and easy for others. I played RPGs before I knew there were “adult” rules that regulated balance, theme, and anachronism.
My main reason for not progressing through editions was the damn lines behind the text in 3.x made it hard to read. 4e was cleaner, but was not the same game. 30 year old gaming world vs all new with new game.
I got off the churn bus. I will not be buying D&D One, good, bad, or otherwise. My game is my game, a sort of 2.75 with other house flavor. Not hard to play at all.
Great conversation here!
I also suspect a lot of fans confuse “new” with “automatically better.” This would naturally create a lot of stress if one encounters a new version of something one loves, only to like it less than the previous version. It “makes no sense” for the new version to be “bad.” This creates cognitive dissonance, which then gets resolved by turning the creator of the new version into a villain.
To be clear: I’m not saying that new things are automatically bad; just that they’re not automatically better. Whatever “better” means in this context.
Much more useful to treat new versions as simply different, and more to some people’s tastes and desires than others.
It’s weird.
I’m old, okay? Not little white books old, but pretty old.
And I fully don’t get the attitude that some have that only the old stuff is good stuff. Honestly… a lot of it was crap. It was amazing at the time. It was this new, crazy thing where you pretended to be someone else and have cool adventures. The sense of discovery, of adventure, the thrill of taking down your first dragon…
But… as a craft, the hobby was in its infancy. And sure… if your baby makes you a crayon drawing, you stick it on the fridge. But you still know there’s room for improvement.
I mentioned elsewhere I played iterations of D&D from blue box through second edition… about to when TSR put out the “revised” book. I gave it up for other reasons, in my early 20s. I’d discovered the plethora of other games and spent the next several years experimenting and finding my own thing. I still do. But looking back… those games… they had a lot of problems. They were the gateway for me and I’ll always think fondly of them, and of my first character and his bold adventures as my friends and I stumbled through rules supplement, as I took my own first steps into DMing.
But… man those books and rules needed fixing.
These days, my primary game is fifth edition D&D, and it’s not perfect. But with the vast community of homebrew and third party creators, it’s a near-infinite opportunity to build and refine. (And… when I advertise a D&D game, I actually get players, as opposed to the desperate struggle to build a group out of almost anything else.)
So… I don’t understand the folk who want to live in that past of half-written rules and ill-considered and arbitrary limitations… even though part of me still loves those half-written rules and ill-considered and arbitrary limitations.
The lines were to make it hard to photocopy. For some reason that was more important than being able to read it. Brown text on beige paper with taupe strike through 
I find this very interesting and insightful. Disclaimer: I am not making absolute statements, but subjective ones. YMMV. Or, Suum cuique to each their own.
Modern systems have become much more “mechanics bound.” We don’t create a fantasy persona, we build a mechanical construct. More “about the build and combat.” I came back to RPG’s via D&D Next. But even while playtesting, we had conversations about how long before the bloat comes back. Not if, but when.
In most/all games, more mechanics means more time, more “in the books,” more looking over charts, etc. I remember the glory years of Empire 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc editions until it all became too much. Where was the game in all this? Many walked away looking for simpler - more fun - rules.
So I have thrown away most of the mechanics, while still keeping the “skeleton” of D&D. You might say it’s a question of “paint by numbers” versus a blank canvas. I prefer a blank canvas. However, “paint by numbers” brings in far more players to the game. Which is great. But it comes at a cost.
For me, I want to emphasize creativity and imagination over mechanical constructs and “paint by latest edition/supplement.” Role-playing versus roll-playing. Get out of the books/charts/cards/latest cool product and focus on the story being created. For me, the story is the game; the mechanics only exist to support that endeavor. Once this balance changes, I’m out. And so I left official D&D.
Some advice: Find a group that is willing to compromise. Without which, you are going to have problems that drive away many potential DM’s. The DM’s have more responsibility and put in more time/effort, and hence deserve more say in the game. But still require the willingness to compromise. Establish on day one what is and isn’t allowed. Do not budge as the players will then constantly try to push those boundaries and you will either burn out or concede, in which case, you will still burn out. This idea might seem like an anti-compromise, but it is a way of saying “here are the boundaries for this game, within which I am willing to compromise. If not to your taste, we can still part as friends.”
In the end, it is a game, nothing more. All the “flame wars” over rules etc. seems silly. If it is fun for you, great. Who cares what others find fun. Let them have it, as you have yours.
Which is the nature of all DRM, it hurts the legitimate user far more than any would be “pirate”.
The second thing is the seeming necessity for all gaming books to be full bleed color. It just makes them more expensive. I would prefer that money be put into the construction of the book, not the pretty. Ink should be superior to a bloody news magazine and not smear when you touch it (4th). Bindings should not fall apart after 6 months heavy use (Pathfinder)
How much better would any 3.x or latter books have been if they looked more like 2ed and were build like 1st.
I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what’s not happening. Pretty much every one of those alluded to people have “fixed” their preferred version of D&D to their liking.
Other people like the limitations, and even want more, just look at the e6 crowd.
Just like you found what you like, so did they.
And I can almost 100% guarantee that their version is not “book perfect rules as written”, not a single one of them. I know people that prefer the original rules, and more that prefer 2e, and even more that prefer 3e… and none of them run it as the book says.
About the only people that run book version that I know of are the 5e crowd, and even that is quickly eroding as people learn the system and start finding its flaws, and eventually realize they can change the rules. So that’s becoming less true with every day that passes.
Hah, if I really went all out and “fixed” my preferred version of D&D (3.x as it happens) to my personal preferences, it would become a complete conversion to a point-buy system without any magic; having only psionics, tech, and biological sources for powers, and not be mechanically recognizable as D&D to most people.
Yeah, planned obsolescence should have no place in manufacturing.
I’ve tried to explain this on the “OSR” thread. People who choose to play older systems or systems based on older systems aren’t doing so because they like shitty rules. They/we think the rules are fine. D&D’s play style gradually changed between 1st and 3rd edition. They/we prefer the earlier play style. That’s all there is to it.
As others have expressed, and I agree, play what you like.
I’m not even ironic about that.
I don’t want to be buying new books all the time. And I have the rules right were I want them between ease of play and crunch. It’s not any edition, it’s mine. We go whole sessions without ever cracking a book.
There is an old mechanics’ truism “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” My game ain’t broke, we have fun and no one gripes about the rules, perfect. I do not owe any game company my money, period.
The Little Brown Books (+supplements) were not broken, so much as they were a license to write your own rules and create your own game/setting. That aspect of the game has tended to stick with most of us who started with those books (so-called 0e/OD&D). Everything since has been trying to cram that particular cat back into the Genie bottle with mixed results.
It’s not about living in the past; it’s very much about pursuing our own paths as independent creators who enjoy creating worlds, settings, adventures and what-not and don’t need or care to be bothered with the Corporately Approved stuff. We’re not inclined to be sharecroppers who rely on the Official Rules or the latest releases. We do our own stuff on our own terms. And that is what the original game was all about, and for some of us, still is.