The Gaming Den

I STARTED my roleplay with 3E (but I was introduced to 2E's rules through various computer games), so all of my future perception of other roleplaying systems are going to be compared against 3E D&D. So when people start going back into the past and talking about morale checks and vulgar magic and crap, I'm all like

That said, I'm asking for some basic improvements 3rd edition D&D had over popular roleplaying games in the past. I don't really care much for 3.5E, since I feel that the improvement was small and weak, so I'll omit it and have 3E stand alone.

Okay, let's start with the basics:

Third Edition D&D had significant advantages over all other RPGs on the market in these categories:

Low Initial Entry Price (the initial $19.99 US for the 3.0 PHB was a steal compared to the 29.95 most other RPGs went for at the time)
Hardbound
Color Artwork throughout the book
Well-Edited (comparatively)
Open Gaming License (A lot of gaming had worked on something kinda like this in the days of 1st and 2nd ed, but this pretty much left anyone who didn't have a legal staff open to lawsuit by anybody that did - it's a massive improvement to have this threat removed)
Both Tables of Contents and Indexes in all core books (and most non-core)

Most of the other positives of 3.x D&D I can only point out as compared to other specific game systems, (Clearer than 2nd ed; more accessable to new players than HERO; more standardization of game-mechanics terms than Storyteller).

Lago_AM3P at [unixtime wrote:1093365096[/unixtime]]
That said, I'm asking for some basic improvements 3rd edition D&D had over popular roleplaying games in the past. I don't really care much for 3.5E, since I feel that the improvement was small and weak, so I'll omit it and have 3E stand alone.

I'm trying real hard to think of some, and I'm just not coming up with any. There were vast and significant advances over other editions of D&D, of course, but 3E is an evolutionary system, not a revolutionary or even particularly innovative one.

Prestige Classes: Existed in 1981 as part of the "Wizardry" computer game.

Unified Mechanics for everything: Existed in countless games since forever, Champions and Chaosium BRP being two of the earliest.

Feats: Existed in concept at least since Champions (lots of Talents and Perks like Perfect Pitch represent the binary on/off, have-them-or-you-don't nature of feats).

Encounter-Balancing Mechanics: Written up as early as the 1980s for Basic D&D by Frank Mentzer (article somewhere -- in Dragon, maybe).

Monsters or Exotic Races as PCs: Existed in white-box D&D (well, sort of).

Consistent (sort of) Magic Item Creation Rules: Existed in Ars Magica and probably plenty of other games I can't think of.

Unified XP Progression For All Classes: Arguably existed in 1978 as part of the original Gamma World, and elsewhere since then.

All Abilities Use Consistent Bonus Chart: Existed at least since Ars Magica (actually, in Ars Magica, your abilities are the bonus or penalty associated with them).

If I had to guess, I'd say the use of NPC classes or the multiclassing scheme are most likely to be innovations, but I couldn't swear to you that no other game has made use of them.

--d.

d.'s list there reminds me of just how much of 3e D&D is cribbed from earlier editions of Rolemaster, which really shouldn't be a surprise given that Monte Cook worked on RM for several years before shifting to 3e D&D.

Josh_Kablack at [unixtime wrote:1093367934[/unixtime]]
Low Initial Entry Price (the initial $19.99 US for the 3.0 PHB was a steal compared to the 29.95 most other RPGs went for at the time)

It was certainly cheaper than other hardbound books available at the price, and it was a good deal even versus old school if you accounted for inflation (I bought my first PHB for $15 in 1981 or so), but there were and are plenty of complete games available for $20. In terms of quality for money, it was a new floor, I guess -- few games managed the combination of being cheap and pretty.

Hardbound

Enh? TSR's been issuing hardbacks since 1977, and lots of other companies (White Wolf, Games Workshop) well before 3E.

Color Artwork throughout the book

2E had full-color throughout (though the design sucked much more). WFB had color plates left and right, although the paper quality was ass. LUG's STTOS game was as good or better, a year earlier.

Open Gaming License (A lot of gaming had worked on something kinda like this in the days of 1st and 2nd ed, but this pretty much left anyone who didn't have a legal staff open to lawsuit by anybody that did - it's a massive improvement to have this threat removed)

This one I had overlooked, I don't know why. Serves me right for being too focussed on mechanics.

--d.

Josh_Kablack at [unixtime wrote:1093369161[/unixtime]]d.'s list there reminds me of just how much of 3e D&D is cribbed from earlier editions of Rolemaster, which really shouldn't be a surprise given that Monte Cook worked on RM for several years before shifting to 3e D&D.

Yeah, I don't know enough about Rolemaster to talk about it without revealing my ignorance. The Ars Magica influence is not surprising, either, given that Tweet had a major involvement in the design of that game.

--d.

Well, yes, a lot of 3es mechanics are cobbled together from other sources, but I think it is the first system to integrate so many of them successfully (for the most part).

d,

You're right in that there had been earlier books which were hardbound, earlier books which were full color, and even cheaper games on the market - but my point is that 3ed D&D managed to be in the top tier in all of those categories - and none of them are things that you can take for granted in RPGs.

d wrote:All Abilities Use Consistent Bonus Chart: Existed at least since Ars Magica (actually, in Ars Magica, your abilities are the bonus or penalty associated with them).

Basic D&D (the colored boxes/Rules Cyclopedia rules) used the same bonus chart for all abilities. It wasn't completely linear like 3e, though. You got a +1 for 13, 14, or 15; +2 for a 16 or 17; and +3 for an 18. The penalties for low scores were symmetrically arranged starting with -1 for an 8, 7, or 6.

Absentminded_Wizard at [unixtime wrote:1093430227[/unixtime]]

d wrote:All Abilities Use Consistent Bonus Chart: Existed at least since Ars Magica (actually, in Ars Magica, your abilities are the bonus or penalty associated with them).

Basic D&D (the colored boxes/Rules Cyclopedia rules) used the same bonus chart for all abilities. It wasn't completely linear like 3e, though. You got a +1 for 13, 14, or 15; +2 for a 16 or 17; and +3 for an 18. The penalties for low scores were symmetrically arranged starting with -1 for an 8, 7, or 6.

I actually looked this up yesterday, because I thought the same thing, and I wanted to make double-sure before I posted it, and the edition I have lists the bonuses as almost consistent, but not quite -- e.g., for Charisma it goes +1, +1, +2 rather than +1, +2, +3.

This was the middle-edition Basic rulebook, though (the one with the Erol Otus cover painting, not the blue-cover one or the later edition), so it's possible they changed some stuff between editions -- the XP bonus chart definitely changed, for instance, as my old-skool Expert rulebook doesn't match up with the breakpoints listed in the Companion rules.

But yeah, it's pretty much close enough.

--d.

I forgot how many different versions of BD&D there were. Who knows how many times they changed it. I only know the one I played, and they were my cousin's sets, so I don't have them to refer to the printing date. I'm pretty sure he bought it sometime in the mid-80s, though.