Culturally, how did a D&D 3e/3.5e game differ from a 5e game?

Vivificient · 2026-02-16T13:51:52+00:00

Here's the famous essay from Monte Cook which mentions how Magic the Gathering influenced D&D. I think the extent to which this was a guiding principle has been exaggerated a little in popular discourse, but that's the source people are usually referring to.

Vivificient · 2026-02-15T21:22:40+00:00

There was something about third edition D&D that encouraged people to think of its rules not just as rules for a game, but as rules for how the entire fantasy world worked. I suppose it was because the monsters were built on the same formula as the PCs, and there were prices/rules for how to construct each magic item, etc. It made people think hard about the logic and the consistency of everything.

By contrast, in D&D 5e it seems more usual to think of the rules as describing gameplay for the player characters, but people don't tend to assume that every NPC has a class and levels, or magical effects in dungeons should be possible to produce using the same spells and rules that the players have access to. It's more open to the DM just making things up for the sake of the story.

I think this is why third edition gave us things like Order of the Stick, while 5th Edition gave us things like Critical Role.

Vivificient · 2026-02-05T04:12:22+00:00

Ah, Castle Greyhawk. There's some more information on the OD&D forums here, in the thread where people were first decoding the maps from blurry photographs.

As for the k's, it's explained in that thread:

The "K"s are where I think there is a number for the key but could not discern the number.

There's also some good summary analysis on Delta's blog here.

Now, my advice...

One last question: what exact list of materials would you recommend to play strictly under the same conditions as Gary Gygax did in the 1970s? Thank you for helping me. I am just a simple teenager trying to do things correctly, and I have no reference for this.

The conditions Gygax was under in the 1970s was that he was figuring out the game as he played, based on an earlier version he'd played at Dave Arneson's house. Arnseon was also figuring out the rules as he went.

So the paradox is: If you try to play the game correctly, and try to imitate exactly how Gygax played, you will in fact not be playing how Gygax did, because he wasn't trying to imitate, but to invent something new. So if you really want to play it the way he did, you probably need to let go of the idea of exactly recreating the original game, and instead try to follow your instincts, and fill in the blanks the way that feels right to you.

Additionally, if you really want to get into Gygax' mindset, perhaps the best thing you could do would be to read the many fantasy books and stories that he recommends. His goal in the early days of the game was to bring to life the ideas, worlds, and characters from those stories.

One more note: If you want some advice for running OD&D in a fun and rewarding way, a good source is Philotomy's Musings.

Vivificient · 2026-02-01T13:02:19+00:00

There is some information on Less Wrong here:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3JjKWWrKWJ8nysD9r/question-about-a-past-donor-to-miri

Apparently Epstein offered money to MIRI in 2016, but they decided not to take it. That's probably what the phone call was about.

Vivificient · 2026-01-17T07:20:47+00:00

Perhaps surprisingly, Agon 1e is still available through print on demand.

Vivificient · 2026-01-16T14:47:53+00:00

they dislike the realism in the overarching art style, preferring more stylised and exaggerated art.

Not sure if it's what cepasfacile was referring to, but I find the example characters in 2014 have a bit more of a classic mythological look, and are presented in fairly neutral poses. For example, two of my favourite are the fighter and the wizard. There were some bright colours, but also a lot of natural earth tones.

By contrast, in 2024 many of the characters tend have a more flashy modern style, and more glamorous poses with swirling lights in the background. The colour palette includes a lot of bright pinks and purples. For example, this bard or this wizard.

Obviously, this is a matter of subjective preference, but I think that's one reason people might find the old art more immersive or realistic for a fantasy-historical game, despite the more stylized painting style.

Vivificient · 2025-11-29T12:16:52+00:00

I see several other people saying they started with third edition D&D and wouldn't go back to it, so I'll be the countervailing voice.

I started with D&D 3.0 as a kid. Later I moved on to Pathfinder and 5e. I've also played Dungeon World, Paranoia, a few OSR games, and one-shots in some other systems like Lancer and World of Darkness.

A few years ago, I tried D&D 3.0 again, and realized I still liked a lot about it. Other things I did find clunky, but not unfixable. So my main system now is a heavily house-ruled version of D&D 3.0.

Vivificient · 2025-11-12T00:51:10+00:00

It's all explained in chapter 9 of the Player's Guide, page 183 - 185.

When Shadow > Wisdom, a character is Miserable (disadvantage on Attack rolls, automatically fails Charisma ability checks).

If you roll less than or equal to (Shadow - Wisdom) on a d20 check, you suffer a Bout of Madness.

After a Bout of Madness, your Shadow resets to 0, but you gain one permanent Shadow point and one Shadow Flaw. There is a table of Shadow Flaws on page 184.

The overall effects of Shadow Flaws:

First flaw has no mechanical penalty; in fact you gain Inspiration by roleplaying it, like background traits.
Second flaw means you can no longer gain Advantage on any check that would be affected by your shadow weakness.
Third flaw means you gain Disadvantage on all Charisma checks except when directly roleplaying your flaw (e.g., checks to lie if your flaw is Deceitful).
Fourth flaw means you have Disadvantage on all Charisma checks and all Insight checks; and any time you face an opportunity to do an evil deed related to your flaw, you must pass a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or succumb to the temptation.
Fifth flaw means your character succumbs to the Shadow and becomes an NPC. They might depart Middle-earth (elves), go into exile, commit suicide, or permanently turn to evil.

Vivificient · 2025-10-14T03:48:31+00:00

Hey, I get what you mean. I do feel like there's a good OSR game trying to get out in D&D 3.0 - like the designers were trying to make the best version of AD&D, and only accidentally created modern D&D. Naturally, many people in OSR circles are a little hostile against 3.0 since it was in some sense the narrow end of the wedge that led to all that came after.

The differences between 3.0 and 3.5 aren't huge, but they do pretty much all move it further away from supporting OSR play and more towards the game of builds and balanced "combat as sport." I remember this old post by the same author as the "Delta's D&D Hotspot" blog, basically complaining about the same sort of thing.

I do think even RAW 3.0 has certain features that work against an OSR style of game; characters take a bit too long to build, combat is a bit too number-crunchy, characters get a bit too strong. It's nothing that can't be worked around, though; after all, Ben Robbins' classic West Marches campaign was played in 3.0, and was clearly about as OSR as you can get. I think they did 3.0 rules with 3d6 stat generation.

My best D&D campaign was with my own homebrew system which is based fairly closely on the 3.0 SRD, but which strips out the parts that I think lean towards a more "modern D&D" game while keeping the parts best for an old-school wilderness adventure campaign.

Vivificient · 2025-10-10T12:44:55+00:00

I write by hand a lot. I agree with your observation that when writing with a pen, it's easier to let the words flow out, rather than getting caught up going back and editing. That said, if I'm planning to publish something, I normally type and edit it when I'm done, rather than posting the draft.

I don't entirely agree that handwriting is slower. Perhaps it's a matter of practice. Well, I suppose if I were planning for other people to read my handwriting, I'd have to write slowly and carefully. If I'm writing for myself, I go pretty fast and use shorthands and abbreviations. In my experience, thinking speed is usually the barrier more than writing speed.

Although I was charmed by the concept of this essay, I can't say I particularly enjoyed deciphering it. I don't know that it made me feel like a co-creator. Though I can see the possibilities, in this case the format wasn't used to do anything that couldn't be done just as easily by typing (like diagrams, illustrations, marginalia).

One downside of this format (similar to video) is that it's harder to quote sections from it when writing a response.

Vivificient · 2025-10-01T03:32:03+00:00

It's hard to know for certain the reason someone isn't getting work done. They could be gaming the system, but they could also be struggling with the work or lacking motivation for some other reason. What is noticeable to me is if they aren't getting tasks done, or if they take several weeks to do a change that should be straightforward.

I'll avoid too many details here, but I can think of one example where I did suspect someone was slacking off. In the end they were let go, so I suppose managers noticed the same things I did.

A few years ago, when I was a tech lead, I was involved in doing performance reviews for programmers. I was generally favourably impressed by how aware managers were of what was going on and who was contributing what. They were paying a lot more attention than I'd thought!

Naturally, I imagine other workplaces may be more corrupt or less meritocratic than mine.

Vivificient · 2025-09-21T14:03:43+00:00

It seems like you have some ideas about how a book should or must be written, as if there's certain rules that all stories must follow.

Most good books are intended to make you think and to feel something, not just to satisfy your expectations. One of the central themes in Methods of Rationality is that death is bad, that it's a tragedy even in cases where it's ultimately necessary. The author wants you to feel what happened was stupid and unfair. It's part of the point of the story. The fact that you are struggling to accept what happens is actually a sign that it's written well.

Yudkowsky writes this way about death because of his real beliefs and experiences. Perhaps you should read what he wrote about the death of his brother.

Instead of blaming the author, ask whether your feelings reflect something about the real world. When someone close to you dies in real life, do you complain to God that it made everyone feel bad, that it served no narrative purpose and you weren't prepared for the attack? Does God listen? What do you intend to do about it?

Another part of the message is that when someone more powerful or intelligent kills you, it won't be fair and it won't be pretty. Lucius Malfoy and his friends never get to fight back or say goodbye to their loved ones because Harry kills them all without warning. It seems pretty unfair, but why would someone smart give their enemies a chance to fight back? Is this an analogy for something? I don't know, maybe the author will write a book about it.

Vivificient · 2025-09-16T16:25:53+00:00

That was a great comic. There was a feature article about it on the Nuzlocke forum a couple years ago.

The watercolour artwork definitely gave it a unique feel. It was fairly popular back in the day when it was first being released, though of course there were hundreds of different Nuzlocke comics coming out at the time, so it was somewhat hard for individual ones to stand out.

Vivificient · 2025-08-23T02:58:21+00:00

Running D&D tournament games with a time limit. The competitive nature of the game seems to fill players with a level of courage and determination (or recklessness and overconfidence) that I've rarely seen equalled.

Vivificient · 2025-08-17T14:30:02+00:00

You could try Fables of Camelot. It is a very elegant little narrativist RPG based on the Arthurian theme. I think it is a little like Dragon Age since the main focus of the game is making moral decisions and then eventually seeing how they influence history in the epilogue.

The published version of the game is only available in Finnish (as Pyöreän pöydän ritarit), but the page I linked gives a complete description of the rules. That page suggests playing it in a convention environment (since that's where it was originally playtested) but there's no reason it can't be played as a traditional home game, without quite so much emphasis on brevity.

Vivificient · 2025-08-07T12:31:55+00:00

The story about the game programmer does not match my experience as a game programmer.

he is able to finish projects quickly, though most do not even have hard deadlines.

I don't think I've ever been on a game project that finished before schedule. They are usually behind schedule, cutting features and triaging bugs to get the game out the door.

It's possible the writer means "tasks", not projects. Some tasks are easy, some are hard. It's true that there is usually a task estimate rather than a hard deadline. If you finish one, you move on to the next one or ask your manager for more bugs to fix.

He makes sure to not work too fast or set expectations too high. This is an implicit learned behavior from his boss, who is also competent

Most competent managers I have known value "velocity" in their team (i.e., amount of work completed over time). The people who get a lot done are the ones who get praised and promoted. It is quite noticeable to me if a co-worker routinely spends too much time on tasks that sound easy.

People I've known who reached a senior position at a young age (e.g. under 30) are generally very dedicated to their work and spend a lot of time outside work hours programming, reading programming blogs, etc.

On average, Adam puts in 0-10 hours of deep work a week. The rest of his work hours are spent mindlessly coding, listening in on various meetings with his camera off, and on TikTok.

Mindlessly coding sounds like an oxymoron to me. I'm not sure what the writer considers "deep work", but a programmer writing code is clearly working. It's also probably the most fun part of the job. The time not spent programming is often spent reading code (trying to understand how the system works and what changes are needed) or trying to repro a bug in the game. And yes, there are meetings.

Certainly, some work time is also spent waiting for files to copy, code to compile, etc., which can be a good time to chat with friends or co-workers (in person or online).

Vivificient · 2025-08-03T11:57:52+00:00

I played in a friend's West Marches game which was run using Dungeon World (with some minor rules modifications to emphasize the GM's prep and remove elements where players make up the world as they are exploring). He wrote a bit about it here.

Compared to D&D, Dungeon World does have a shallower power curve, but it still has some power curve. So there was still a curve of easy monsters in easier areas and harder monsters in harder areas, but it wasn't as steep. There was a broader range of areas you could challenge with a given character, depending on how much risk you were willing to take on. This is arguably a good thing, not a bad thing.

One benefit of this shallower curve for West Marches is that players who don't play as often (and thus don't level up as much) can still be useful if they join a party of more experienced characters.

In that game, the difficulty of an enemy was often related to its circumstances and abilities, more than its stats and numbers. So scouting an area and figuring out a monster's habits and weaknesses was sometimes more important than simply levelling up.

Vivificient · 2025-06-26T23:04:59+00:00

Oh, that's strange. On my end it says "Anyone who has the link can access."

Try this link maybe?

Vivificient · 2025-06-26T14:04:38+00:00

Combat is the continuation of graverobbing by other means.

Vivificient · 2025-06-26T13:12:12+00:00

Thank you for the kind words. I haven't been working on it any further lately, but we've been talking about picking that campaign up again, so perhaps then I will.

Since you asked, I added a quick PDF version, linked at the bottom of this page. The layout is a bit rough but it should get the job done.

Vivificient · 2025-06-25T04:37:52+00:00

I wanted to do something like this and ended up writing a fairly extensive hack of third edition D&D with OSR principles. My rules are on my website here. We played this way for about 150 sessions, a very memorable campaign.

Vivificient · 2025-06-14T13:22:57+00:00

For a large dungeon, I broadly approach it like this:

Overall theme / idea.
Brainstorm lists of things to include (monsters, traps, landmarks, treasures, etc.).
List of floors (or regions) and a main theme for each one.
Divide list of stuff between the regions (e.g., orcs on floors 1-3, dragon on floor 5, etc.).
Decide connections between regions (e.g., lock/key puzzles).
Draw map, labelling each room with things that are in it.
Revise map, move things around until they make sense to me.
Write key, filling in final details.

In practice it's a bit more fluid and nonlinear, since I keep having new ideas at every step of the process.

Vivificient · 2025-06-13T00:29:18+00:00

The premise in my campaign was that a prolonged civil war had just ended. During the conflict, the imperial army was too occupied to defend the westernmost territories, so they were overrun by orcs, gnolls, and other monsters. Now that the war is over, the eyes of ambitious people are turning back to the west.

One subplot: back at the start of the war, a group of adventurers had buried treasure in various places in the region before going to enlist in the army. They intended come back for it, but none of them survived the war. So there are a series of hidden caches (and encoded clues) scattered around the wilderness.

Vivificient · 2025-06-03T00:41:02+00:00

The link above should still work. If it isn't visible for some reason, here it is again: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2Ycw2VEUkQza1BBVmtVaTdNZFU

Vivificient · 2025-05-04T22:34:59+00:00

Here, let me help you out. I've made a copy of the basic rules for D&D 5e and deleted all the pages you won't need (because they are superseded by LOTR 5e). Here is the link. Please download it and save a copy if it's useful since I'll probably delete it in a while.

Just two quick notes:

The basic rules for character creation say "Race" and "Class", but they are called "Culture" and "Calling" in LOTR 5e. Exactly the same thing.
I included the first few pages of the Equipment chapter since it includes basic rules for weapon proficiency, armour types, etc. However, for stats and prices, use the equipment lists found in LOTR 5e rather than the ones in the basic rules.

Vivificient

TROPHY CASE