Is 3E losing traction in the D&D community?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:02 pm

I have heard of people switching from nWoD to oWoD after learning how to play the first system.

Part of the reason is the accumulated wealth of material--which is important for playing WoD I imagine. But I also think that some people actually like overcomplication. For example, if you're really into character customization and dumpster-diving and magic item tweaking, I'd imagine that someone would prefer 3E more. If you wanted.

Customization can make or break a game. This is why to this day people continue to make mods and play Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate II despite the very large problems that these games have.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:04 pm

Ah, I suppose that makes sense. If I were still big into CO stuff, I would prefer character generation in 3e.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:11 pm

It goes beyond just powergaming.

Some people, such as myself, get off on being able to be a Sacred Fist Knight of the Rose after starting their life as a fighter/cleric and having a magic ring that they talk to and ask for advice. Not just for powergaming, mind, but because it helps us fully realize our character.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:30 pm

It's way beyond that with nWoD and oWoD though. Noone cares about any of the stuff that happens in the nWoD world. There's like a supernal tower and shit in new mage? No one gives a shit. In nWoD Vampire, three of five of the major vampire political organizations have no political agenda!. In nWoD werewolf the war between the forsaken and the other guys is specifically pointless and the only thing you get for fighting it is a drop in Gnosis.

oWoD was way overcrowded, and full of stupid shit. But a lot of the conflicts were things you could understand fighting in. There was like stuff at stake. nWoD is just crushing in its banality. Your character doesn't even get freebie points. Not only are the battles not worth fighting, but the characters aren't even different one from the other - they literally all have exactly the same stat array.

-Username17

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sun Jul 19, 2009 3:00 am

Psychic Robot wrote:I am thoroughly surprised at this. To be honest, if I had cut my teeth on 4e, I wouldn't want to switch back to the overcomplicated mess that is 3e.

We started with 3.5, then a few years later 4e came out. We tried it for a year, then we realized: we can't do half the crap we could in 3e, and combats turned into how long will the frigging overinflated bags of hp take to die? So we went back.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Sun Jul 19, 2009 6:13 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:It goes beyond just powergaming.

Some people, such as myself, get off on being able to be a Sacred Fist Knight of the Rose after starting their life as a fighter/cleric and having a magic ring that they talk to and ask for advice. Not just for powergaming, mind, but because it helps us fully realize our character.

And some just like to play, I don't know, undead-raising necromancers, or one of the many other fantasy/DnD archetypes, that 4E plainly does not support. Relative simplicity of 4E is bought by the lack of options. And nWoD isn't even simpler than oWoD, particularly early editions of oWoD - for example dumpster-diving for bonus dice from equipment and shit makes the resolution of non-combat actions at least just as complicated, as floating difficulty did.