In the Year 2000...


I've gotten off the d20 band wagon. It's kind of sad, in a way. As silly as this sounds, I think I was literally one of the earliest adopters of D&D Third Edition. Way back in 2000, I was an active reader on Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D Third Edition News. I can still remember the excitement of those times. If I think hard enough, I'm mentally transported back to the radio station where I worked as an overnight DJ. During down time, I'd surf onto Eric's site and read snippets of the upcoming 3E. I remember how new and different it all felt. Reflex saves, Base Attack Bonuses, Feats...all that stuff that is part of the gaming lexicon now was exotic and new.

It was a new age in gaming, one that we'd never seen before. The grognards will tell you that the golden age of D&D was the late 1970s, and they're right. The early 2000s, though, was the age where the gap between the game designers and the players all but vanished. The internet was still a fairly new thing back then and it seemed that information about the new D&D was appearing at lightning speed. If Monte Cook came up with a new rule on Monday, you'd hear about it on Eric Noah's message boards on Tuesday.

For me, it was the first time I ever felt such a strong connection to D&D. The open communication, the willingness to address the hardcore fans, to give us information about the hows and the whys of the development process, made a lot of us feel like 3E was our game. TSR had been a faceless corporation with a hostile policy against houserules and fan sites. Wizards of the Coast, at least for a few short years in the early 2000s, embraced the fans. They leaked us information about the game. They not only encouraged house rules, they gave us the OGL so we could officially endorse and sell them.

I was so excited about 3E that my friend and I planned a last minute trip to Gen Con just so we could buy the 3E players handbook the moment it was available. I got mine signed by Jonathan Tweet, Skip Williams, and Monte Cook. Then I got both Gygax and Arneson to sign it. We went to an RPGA event and found that the judges were only vaguely familiar with the new rules. Thanks to Eric Noah's website, I knew more than anyone there about the new game. I started helping people make characters. I felt like an expert. I felt like 3E was my game, like I'd had a hand in creating it. I didn't, but I got to watch it develop.

Alas, Wizards of the Coast isn't what it used to be. How could it? None of the people working there are the same. The world is a different place, too. Paizo and Goodman Games released their entire game rules online for free as a public playtest. Almost every game that comes out now is under some kind of open license. Some of the good things that came out of those early 3E years are still around, but the magic has faded. It makes me sad in a way.

Pathfinder seems like a worthy heir to 3E. As I hear about Paizo's continued success, I can't believe that Wizards basically gave them 3E after D&D Fourth Edition came out. If the rumors are true and Pathfinder is outselling Dungeons and Dragons, then it means that Ryan Dancy's plan worked; no single company owns D&D any longer. The name may belong to Wizards, but the game belongs to everyone. Who could have seen any of this coming, eleven or more years ago?

I miss those early days, right before 3E came out. There was a buzz in the gaming world and a sense of community that I wish we could find again. I know that it wasn't the first time this happened. I guess that means that it won't be the last. Here's to the next gaming high period. It can't come too soon!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mutant Crawl Classics inspired patron for DCC: The Star Child

Image
The Mutant Crawl Classics Kickstarter is winding down to its final days. Using the free rules found here , I ran the Free RPG Day Funnel adventure Museum at the End of Time . Inspired by events that are very likely to occur within that adventure (and happened in my home game with the kids), I designed a new patron usable for DCC. Just a little something to tide you all over while you wait for the MCC game to release next year. Feel free to use, share, or whatever. I welcome feedback and would love to know if anyone actually makes use of this thing. PATRON: THE STAR CHILD Somewhere across the infinite realms of time, space, and possibility, there stands the greatest possible achievement of architectural design: a monolithic solid whose perfect and precise dimensions exist in a ratio utterly pleasing to the cosmos itself. Not only are the monolith’s height, width, and depth in perfect harmony with the divine ratio, but so too are its invisible dimensions, on into ...
Read more

Finally, Gen Con Event Luck (Torchbearer RPG)

Image
My oldest son and I are attending Gen Con together this year. It's pretty cool in that it will be the first time I've been in the United States during Gen Con in about 7 years. Without the Army to send me somewhere else during the big convention, I thought it might be neat to take my son. This will be my third Gen Con (I went in 2000 and 2002) and his first. The first year that I went, I barely did anything but wander around the dealer room, bleary-eyed and overwhelmed. My second Gen Con was a little more successful as my friends and I played in the D&D Open Tournament that year. Unfortunately, that event took up most of our available gaming time. This year, my goal was to sign up for a few different events that not only featured my favorite games, but also gave me a chance to game with some of the designers whose work I enjoy. I'm not a fan of gamer celebrities, but I do see the value in having the author of a module running his or her work for you right there at ...
Read more

Wednesday Dwimmermount: A Few Thoughts on Running the Game (Session 1)

A long time ago, I began to cobble together some GM aids that put all of the pertinent rules of ACKS into a 7 or so page document. Don’t get me wrong, ACKS uses OD&D as its base and is hardly a complicated game. The crunchy bits it introduces to that rules set are all things that I enjoy, such as clear mechanics for hiring henchmen and mercenaries. However, the book’s organization is a wee bit scattered, and I found myself flipping around more than I would have liked. Some of that will go away with experience, of course, but I’m now very motivated to finish said GM aid. As a further thought on organization, Dwimmermount has a few warts. Some of the important general information is set aside in its own chapter (doors, wandering monsters, etc.), which is very good for finding what you need during GM prep, but not so good when you’re trying to find something in the heat of the moment. For example, Zazik’s coughing fit was supposed to call for an encounter throw each round that ...
Read more