The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I learned about 3e when they announced it at GenCon '99 (I wasn't there, just read the press releases). Since then, my curiosity has been piqued, especially since WoTC did a good job leaking just the right amount of info. I have a copy now and instead of doing a full review (so many of them already) I'll just present my opinions on the game for the benefits of those interested in what's different with 3e.

Fluff

The good

Lots of repetition of certain tidbits of information prevents constant page flipping and index referrencing.
The spells chapter is nicely organized as a single large alphabetized list of all the spells in the game. Makes looking up spells very simple indeed.
Good quality art. No cheesey cartoony stuff. Consistent representation of a few key characters really ties things together. Execellent diagrams illustrating the effects of combat manuevers and spell effects. Nebin the gnome illusionist rocks! (lots of character captured in that one)

The bad

The art, for all it's quality in execution, fails to evoke any sense epic fantasy unlike a good Elmore or Parkinson vignette. Maybe I'm just old school, but when I think d&d I think poster art depicting well detailed characters in evocative scenery such as the cover of the current edition of Fantasy Hero. 3e's art is more like that found in the Fighting Fantasy game-books and in Earthdawn (one of the few things I didn't like about ED).
The art is far to sparse. Not enough. Pages and pages of text with nary a picture to be found.
The text is crammed together section after section, page after page. Not enough whitespace to ease the browsing/searching experience. To much wrapping of text around what little art there is. Good for saving space, bad for actual use.
The combat chapter is presented before the Adventuring chapter. I just think that this sends a really crappy message. Combat lots, explore/interact with the environment little. Typical D&D, but with a new game a new outlook (or even overtures to a new outlook) would've been nice.

Stuff

The good

The unified mechanics are a godsend to the legions of D&D players. No longer do you have to be a guru of arcane knowledge just to adjudicate the simple matter of finding a secret door or determining if a sneaking character is heard by a monster. All things are resolved via 1d20 +/- bonus/penalty compared to a difficulty number. Most actions already have examples of how to resolve them. It's about time!
The new class/race system is light years better than the old versions. Flexible yet providing character direction and focus. It lets both veterans and newbies appreciate the game. It's an old concept but a much needed addition to D&D and should've been in 2e.
The skills/feats systems adds the depth that was always missing from it's predecessors. No more need for house rules, skills and powers, or some copycat "game to end all games", D&D with more dice, awfully overpowered clone. No need for the good clones either as it appears to be an easily extensible system that is capable of handling more than just heroic fantasy situations.
Alignments were given a face lift simply by rewriting all of their definitions. Surprisingly, the new definitions are excellent and I believe that they better reflect the meaning of what most players intuitively assumed. Some might argue that the alignment system cheapens the role playing experience but I'm a proponent of it because it helps give a real quick synopsis and source from which to draw character inspiration from. It also allows the player to create the numbers then develop the character through play rather than pre-define the character and stick to the concept at all costs.
The abilities (stats) descriptions were also rewritten and are much better integrated with the game in terms of mechanical effects. Charisma actually has value beyond good looks and the amount of hirelings that you can have.
Every creature in the game now has stats that define it in the same way as every other creature in the game, including the player characters. No more wondering what the strength of a Gnoll is or the intelligence of a Beholder, it's all there. They even get feats, skills, and abilities in the same manner as the PCs. IMHO this is one the biggest improvments in the entire game as it will help resolve more issues than I can possibly think of.
Furthermore, each creature/trap is assigned a "challenge rating". This is an overall score representing how challenging it is for a party of four characters. It helps determine how many experience points it's worth which is relative to the party's level. In this way, a group of 10th level characters must face a great deal of goblins in order to get any experience points. This will help combat oriented DMs a great deal.

The bad

Hit points are still there. They're still a combination of luck, structural health, skill at dodging, and all sorts of other metaphysical chicanery and you still roll for hit points when you level up. This is an extremely dated concept and strikes me as the appendix of this system. With the dodge skill there's no need to figure that portion into hit points, so why not just go whole hog and simply call it Structual Damage Capacity (or keep it as Hit Points) and have it represent the absolute limit of physical damage that the character can take before collapsing. It is determined at character creation and changes only slightly (up or down) over the course of the campaign. Earthdawn still has D&D beat in this category.
Combat here combat there. Everywhere you look this game seems focused on beating the crap out of things. Of course, it lets you DO all sorts of other things and it's up to you to determine how your game is run, but when 90% of the rules focus on combat and combat related effects, it's easy to forget about walking around talking to townspeople in search of the clues necessary to get to the big fights that the text constantly illustrates. Smells like teen audience.
Way to many combat options all geared towards detailed miniatures play. Utter bollocks! I can't be bothered with the myriad rules necessary to determine "attacks of opportunity" or missle weapon ranges or movement rates. This just serves to slow the game down. Some people will like these details, but me and my group can't be bothered, therefore half of the combat chapter is ass useless to us. We like well described cinematic action that takes place in the imaginations and just want to get the sword fights over with as painlessly as possible (haha). Other than that, the details are excellent and would easily make for a good squad based war game but for an RPG they're just overkill.
The freakin DMG and the Monster Manual won't be released until later dates leaving players with a very limited set of things to do at the launch date. You'd easily run out of things to do by 3rd level unless you A) play in a mainly human/elf/dwarf/etc... opponents campaign or B) buy all of the 3e Dragon/Dungeon mags, the adventure game, and then comb the net for new creatures and traps. Dumb move on WoTCs part but in two months this part of my review will be dated and everyone will be happy.

------ My background ------

Read LOtR in 1982. Have loved epic fantasy ever since. 90% of my shelf space can attest to that. Also read the first EndlessQuest books around that time. It was the ads in the back of those that led me to the dungeon boardgame and then onto dnd.

I've been an avid RPG gamer since 1983 with my introduction to the Elmore covered "red-box" dnd basic set. I and my friends chased Bargel and his merry band of cohorts around the rest of the chromatic sets then woke up one day and started playing ad&d 2e as soon as it was released. During that time we also played the Palladium games (lots of Ninjas and Superspies and TMNT) as well as Star Frontiers, James Bond (mayfair games), and MERP. During the 90s there was less and less playing and more and more collecting of interesting games as I got really disillusioned with the whole RPG thing and got into computer games... My bookcase is filled with lots of games I'll never ever play even if they were good, simply because my interests in gaming were varied but my group's interests were strictly adnd 2e heroic fantasy (grrrrr).

Played some EarthDawn with a different group and that's the game by which I've judged all others since. I love ED, it is what AD&D 2e was supposed to be... and I also recently discovered FengShui which has quickly become my theoretical favourite game system (I've never played it, I just read and re-read it marvelling at it's awesomeness). 3e has kept me very curious for the past year though, and I'm quite pleased with how it stacks up. I can quit whining about how much better ED is and I'll stop trying to convince my friends to switch (even though they'll be switching more than they realize ;-). Unfortunately that means no one will want to play FengShui with me now as all their time will be occupied with 3e :-(

If you've read this far, you deserve a kick in the 'nads. I'm not THAT interesting! :-) Get back to slaying the orcish hordes.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, 3rd Edition
Author: Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook and Skkp Williams Category: game Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Line: D&D Cost: $31.95 cdn Page count: 285 ISBN: 0-7869-1550-1 SKU: TSR11550 Capsule Review by Curtis Batt on 08/21/00. Genre tags: Fantasy	I learned about 3e when they announced it at GenCon '99 (I wasn't there, just read the press releases). Since then, my curiosity has been piqued, especially since WoTC did a good job leaking just the right amount of info. I have a copy now and instead of doing a full review (so many of them already) I'll just present my opinions on the game for the benefits of those interested in what's different with 3e. Fluff The good Lots of repetition of certain tidbits of information prevents constant page flipping and index referrencing. The spells chapter is nicely organized as a single large alphabetized list of all the spells in the game. Makes looking up spells very simple indeed. Good quality art. No cheesey cartoony stuff. Consistent representation of a few key characters really ties things together. Execellent diagrams illustrating the effects of combat manuevers and spell effects. Nebin the gnome illusionist rocks! (lots of character captured in that one) The bad The art, for all it's quality in execution, fails to evoke any sense epic fantasy unlike a good Elmore or Parkinson vignette. Maybe I'm just old school, but when I think d&d I think poster art depicting well detailed characters in evocative scenery such as the cover of the current edition of Fantasy Hero. 3e's art is more like that found in the Fighting Fantasy game-books and in Earthdawn (one of the few things I didn't like about ED). The art is far to sparse. Not enough. Pages and pages of text with nary a picture to be found. The text is crammed together section after section, page after page. Not enough whitespace to ease the browsing/searching experience. To much wrapping of text around what little art there is. Good for saving space, bad for actual use. The combat chapter is presented before the Adventuring chapter. I just think that this sends a really crappy message. Combat lots, explore/interact with the environment little. Typical D&D, but with a new game a new outlook (or even overtures to a new outlook) would've been nice. Stuff The good The unified mechanics are a godsend to the legions of D&D players. No longer do you have to be a guru of arcane knowledge just to adjudicate the simple matter of finding a secret door or determining if a sneaking character is heard by a monster. All things are resolved via 1d20 +/- bonus/penalty compared to a difficulty number. Most actions already have examples of how to resolve them. It's about time! The new class/race system is light years better than the old versions. Flexible yet providing character direction and focus. It lets both veterans and newbies appreciate the game. It's an old concept but a much needed addition to D&D and should've been in 2e. The skills/feats systems adds the depth that was always missing from it's predecessors. No more need for house rules, skills and powers, or some copycat "game to end all games", D&D with more dice, awfully overpowered clone. No need for the good clones either as it appears to be an easily extensible system that is capable of handling more than just heroic fantasy situations. Alignments were given a face lift simply by rewriting all of their definitions. Surprisingly, the new definitions are excellent and I believe that they better reflect the meaning of what most players intuitively assumed. Some might argue that the alignment system cheapens the role playing experience but I'm a proponent of it because it helps give a real quick synopsis and source from which to draw character inspiration from. It also allows the player to create the numbers then develop the character through play rather than pre-define the character and stick to the concept at all costs. The abilities (stats) descriptions were also rewritten and are much better integrated with the game in terms of mechanical effects. Charisma actually has value beyond good looks and the amount of hirelings that you can have. Every creature in the game now has stats that define it in the same way as every other creature in the game, including the player characters. No more wondering what the strength of a Gnoll is or the intelligence of a Beholder, it's all there. They even get feats, skills, and abilities in the same manner as the PCs. IMHO this is one the biggest improvments in the entire game as it will help resolve more issues than I can possibly think of. Furthermore, each creature/trap is assigned a "challenge rating". This is an overall score representing how challenging it is for a party of four characters. It helps determine how many experience points it's worth which is relative to the party's level. In this way, a group of 10th level characters must face a great deal of goblins in order to get any experience points. This will help combat oriented DMs a great deal. The bad Hit points are still there. They're still a combination of luck, structural health, skill at dodging, and all sorts of other metaphysical chicanery and you still roll for hit points when you level up. This is an extremely dated concept and strikes me as the appendix of this system. With the dodge skill there's no need to figure that portion into hit points, so why not just go whole hog and simply call it Structual Damage Capacity (or keep it as Hit Points) and have it represent the absolute limit of physical damage that the character can take before collapsing. It is determined at character creation and changes only slightly (up or down) over the course of the campaign. Earthdawn still has D&D beat in this category. Combat here combat there. Everywhere you look this game seems focused on beating the crap out of things. Of course, it lets you DO all sorts of other things and it's up to you to determine how your game is run, but when 90% of the rules focus on combat and combat related effects, it's easy to forget about walking around talking to townspeople in search of the clues necessary to get to the big fights that the text constantly illustrates. Smells like teen audience. Way to many combat options all geared towards detailed miniatures play. Utter bollocks! I can't be bothered with the myriad rules necessary to determine "attacks of opportunity" or missle weapon ranges or movement rates. This just serves to slow the game down. Some people will like these details, but me and my group can't be bothered, therefore half of the combat chapter is ass useless to us. We like well described cinematic action that takes place in the imaginations and just want to get the sword fights over with as painlessly as possible (haha). Other than that, the details are excellent and would easily make for a good squad based war game but for an RPG they're just overkill. The freakin DMG and the Monster Manual won't be released until later dates leaving players with a very limited set of things to do at the launch date. You'd easily run out of things to do by 3rd level unless you A) play in a mainly human/elf/dwarf/etc... opponents campaign or B) buy all of the 3e Dragon/Dungeon mags, the adventure game, and then comb the net for new creatures and traps. Dumb move on WoTCs part but in two months this part of my review will be dated and everyone will be happy. ------ My background ------ Read LOtR in 1982. Have loved epic fantasy ever since. 90% of my shelf space can attest to that. Also read the first EndlessQuest books around that time. It was the ads in the back of those that led me to the dungeon boardgame and then onto dnd. I've been an avid RPG gamer since 1983 with my introduction to the Elmore covered "red-box" dnd basic set. I and my friends chased Bargel and his merry band of cohorts around the rest of the chromatic sets then woke up one day and started playing ad&d 2e as soon as it was released. During that time we also played the Palladium games (lots of Ninjas and Superspies and TMNT) as well as Star Frontiers, James Bond (mayfair games), and MERP. During the 90s there was less and less playing and more and more collecting of interesting games as I got really disillusioned with the whole RPG thing and got into computer games... My bookcase is filled with lots of games I'll never ever play even if they were good, simply because my interests in gaming were varied but my group's interests were strictly adnd 2e heroic fantasy (grrrrr). Played some EarthDawn with a different group and that's the game by which I've judged all others since. I love ED, it is what AD&D 2e was supposed to be... and I also recently discovered FengShui which has quickly become my theoretical favourite game system (I've never played it, I just read and re-read it marvelling at it's awesomeness). 3e has kept me very curious for the past year though, and I'm quite pleased with how it stacks up. I can quit whining about how much better ED is and I'll stop trying to convince my friends to switch (even though they'll be switching more than they realize ;-). Unfortunately that means no one will want to play FengShui with me now as all their time will be occupied with 3e :-( If you've read this far, you deserve a kick in the 'nads. I'm not THAT interesting! :-) Get back to slaying the orcish hordes. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, 3rd Edition

Fluff

The good

The bad

Stuff

The good

The bad

------ My background ------