I think the next revival movement in a sinilar vein to the OSR is going to be 3rd edition focussed. I think that granular, complex build focussed market isnt really served by 5e or pathfinder truly, and theres empty space in the market/community.
>>97299433What would this even look like?a retroclone for 3.5? >35 essentials
>>97299433I think otherwise because "first-wave d20" didn't really have a slump like OSR did, thanks to Paizo ending their magazine licenses with advertising their own system smoothly continuing, supported by third-parties filling out the wonky tangential material Paizo steadfastly refused to touch. This is highlighted by the apparently most significant effort at repeating what they did to PF1e in turn, Legendary Games' Corefinder, languishing in apparent development hell for the past five years and seemingly losing the plot given the latest free Patreon post is about revisions to the basic movement rules.Though my own thoughts on designing a system mostly revolve around just such a "heartbreaker", with the main "focuses" being shifting complexity from the mountain of bespoke pieces to emerging from combinations of far fewer and improving the diegetic sensibility of mechanics. The former being stuff like rolling the Archivist into Wizard, the latter being stuff like having preparation time defined by the spell with different "grades" of delaying the cast after to render one version of the fluff into explicit rules.
>>97299742i think its possible because mainly a lot of people don't have a word for what they want, and a lot of people want that character building focus that 3.5 has. I think there's a pretty big untapped market for it, especially with a lot of overlap of videogame fans because that whole character building thing is VERY popular in videogames (see path of exile and Diablo)Also Pathfinder evolved quite significantly away from 3.5 overtime, PF2E is basically its own game now. D&D is a community of niches, and the modern newschool crowd has the latest 5.5/5e iterations currently, 4e has 4e and tactical RPGS ala draw steel, and 2e & prior has the OSR scene. 3.5/3.x is very much unserviced IMO atm, i think its due for some sort of resurgence, but it needs the right people to do it.
>>97299433>3.5 retrocloneI can see it
>>97299433The problem with this idea is that only 3.5 fans think that. The number of people who think PF2 or 5e are so light and fluffy mechanically as to not be worth playing but that 3.5 is just right are vanishingly small. The OSR was about getting back to a playstyle that had gone extinct in official product--a whole different way of playing. "I need a bit more crunch but otherwise basically the same build-focused epic linear fight quest D20 fantasy game" is not a compelling base for a game design movement that's going to enjoy anything in the way of success.
>>97299433It wouldn't really be OSR, because 3.5's love of specific mechanical resolution is antithetical to the "rulings not rules" philosophy. Now they could always call it something else, but I still don't know if it works out because we've already had dozens of "like 3.5 BUT BETTER" OGL clones and heartbreaks. 5e is already 3.5 but they attempted to streamline and simplify things (fewer fiddly +1s, fewer trap options and extreme edge case feats, less splat bloat etc)So what is there to revive? A game with dozens of splats of questionable quality where turbo spergs can theorycraft retarded broken builds by cherry picking from all the feats, magic items, spells, prestige classes, and other Punpun shit?
>>97299433Part of the reason the osr happened is because those old games and modules were out of print and hard to come by, so retro clones were made. 3.5 and Pathfinder are easy as fuck to buy, there doesn't need to be a revival because if you want to play 3.5, it's dead easy to just get copies and play it.
>>97299765>I think there's a pretty big untapped market for it, especially with a lot of overlap of videogame fans because that whole character building thing is VERY popular in videogames (see path of exile and Diablo)Those are driven quite sizably by a rapid-reset loot-loop to provide somewhat chaotic support and applications for, which necessitates very quick resolution that would be under immense pressure to support in pen-and-paper.>>97299977Despite them having most of the skeleton, there's a large swath of kitchen-sink-gonzo 3.5 they don't work well for from their respective balance-by-normalization approaches REALLY not liking the wild shit-flinging. Though with how much of the "skeleton" has stuck around in 5e without THAT much hard contradiction there's definitely room for working on it with smaller asks of variant and supplemental rules.>>97300073>It wouldn't really be OSRThe point is something to 3.5 as OSR is to the TSR period it calls back to, not a direct 3.X-as-OSR. Which is ironically a valid explanation of part of how OSR got started.>So what is there to revive?The kitchen-sink-gonzo of dozens of splats producing dozens of ways to do the same thing, which does not actually need dozens of splats if you studiously purge overlaps from the core rulebook to save page-count for novelty.
>>97300073>So what is there to revive?Id say the complex character building stuff and a more compelx d20 systemId personally say a few 3.5 retroclones are in order, along with a scene around releasing splats for options and a handful of d20 adventures would be nice.
>>97300166You CAN just produce OGL content for 3.X and PF1e to this day, you know. The trouble is entirely network effects of establishing a new standard.
>>97300188true, i still think that a retroclone would be a great way to get attention back on it, because theres naturally going to be some hesitance to pick up the older rules. they need something new and flashy.
>>97299433Doubt, i don't really see that sizeable interest aside from people that grow up with 3.x.Most people that started with 5e are fine with it, to the point very little of them are planning in updating to 5.5e and the ones that had issues switched to rulesystem with even less crunch (eg: shadowdark), more focused (FitD or PbtA) or to different genres altogether. The ones that actually wanted, comparatively speaking, more crunch and granularity got served already by pf2e and 5.5e, which are familiar enough with 5e to minimize whiplash.I just don't see 3.x having a realistic comeback.
>>97299433As the other posters mentioned, I don't see it happening.There is no demand for anything like that as far as I can tell, and 3.5e is already part of the lineage of everything created under the d20 system.Anybody craving something like 3.5e can just go and play 3.5e, what's with the PDFs being so easy to get, you can buy plenty of used books, and even newly printed ones via POD, at least for some of them.
>>97299433I want to bed that elf
>>97300192What you're describing already exists, it's 5th edition and Pathfinder 2e. You literally do not need to repackage the 3rd edition rules the same way they had to with the b/x rules for osr because the 3rd edition rules are still readily available. You don't need a restatement of those rules, because they are easy to get, and you have two different forks of 3.pf style game design if you want a new, flashy version of that.
>>97299433I feel like you would have to publish an absolutely immense amount of content right away to properly imitate the amount of build variety and crunch autism that defines 3.5 retroactively. You can't afford to drip feed it to people that would be interested but you're also going to scare the hoes with that
>>973001663.5's character building wasn't complex. It was bloated and poorly playtested, and depending on who you believe, intentionally filled with garbage and bullshit trap options because they thought they were encouraging "system mastery" by forcing players to sort through thousands of options and figure out which ones that were actually useful and which ones were a cruel joke
>>97300480>Doubt, i don't really see that sizeable interest aside from people that grow up with 3.x.That's a lot of people though.
>>97303121But the subset of those people who want to play 3rd edition can just... Play third edition.
The other thing you're missing here is the philosophical angle of the osr; the entire idea was that we had lost certain things inherent to the design of old d&d. That just isn't the case with 3rd edition, not only was it not really the originator of the design philosophy that it came out of (in fact it's entire purpose was to integrate the 10 or 15 years of game design that d&d had either been ignoring or implementing in a haphazard way), but those design philosophies are still extant in plenty of systems that are around today.
>>97302978Dnd is a community of different games, i think whoever could make a 3.5 retroclone would gave their work cut out for them in that regard.
>>97302978There is a lot of redundancies and poor wordings in the core rules that could be condensed to make room for further novelty in core, like procedurally defining spell variants within single entries the way Psionics crushed its chains into its Augmentation mechanic and compacting similar classes into feat choices and core-rulebook ACFs.>>97302979It was complex BECAUSE of sorting through all those options, through the subset of juggling their prerequisites and figuring out room to take them. In higher-minded game design circles this is usually considered terrible form, but the way it makes getting novel bullshit working into a "puzzle" is a major aspect of how 3.X build autism works. Unfucking or removing the bad options is of course preferable, but design-by-landfill provides for much entertainment sifting for bits to assemble "Your Dude".
>>97304991I think a lot of the problem is that what's still compelling about 3.5 compared to the other editions is the implicit setting that arises from its kitchen sink of classes. It's gonzo with lots of secret societies with their idiosyncratic magic and martial traditions. There's a certain "kung fu movie" quality it has - where your adventurers travel exotic lands, picking up new skills from teachers along the way.
I can name 3 3.5 clones and 3 games that are not clones but are inspired by themDefy the Lengends Is a combonation of the deep cuts of 3.5 and Pathfinder 1ed. All the various books are pay what you want mostlyhttps://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/450397/defy-the-legends-player-s-tomeDxD20 A hybrid of d20 modern and 3.5. Totally freehttps://diceandcapitaldice.com/the-books-of-dxd20Edition Pi: a straight forward clone of dnd 3.5 that is also freehttp://www.daemoneye.net/editionpi.html Universal Decay: a sci-fi version of dnd 3.5 where psyonics are handled by feats. Has a fantasy splatbook with magichttps://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/382758/universal-decay-dead-stars-rule-book-revised-2nd-editionhttps://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/382761/universal-decay-dragonfire-1st-editionHallowed Earth Classless 3.5 where you gain abilities as you level up your hit dice.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/498379/the-harrowed-earthTier Another classless dnd game, this time based off of featshttps://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/304153/tier-the-enhanced-role-playing-game-3rd-edition
>>97305892You are mistaking tedium for complexity. A needle in a haystack is not a complex problem to solve. It's just a tedious one that will waste your time.
>>97306513To repeat myself:>through the subset of juggling their prerequisites and figuring out room to take them
>>97299433Pathfinder 1e was pretty much straight up 3.5. it's been replaced by 2e for over six years now though, so maybe people still want that itch? Honestly though there was so much 3e derived shit because of the OGL that it's silly to be nostalgic for it. Odds are higher that 4e would get some kind of revival considering how much that mother fucker was ignored making hipster fags treat it like some kind of esoteric version or something. Of course this is very much the pot calling the kettle black as I thought WFRO 3e was the superior edition of that game.
>>97299765OSR is Basic/Expert, not AD&D.AD&D doesn't have much of a niche, basically 5e with more byzantine rules. DMG and setting material is worth reading, but the rules are a total mess.5e is dogshit where bags of hp take turns kicking each other. Skills don't do anything, spells don't do anything. Every rule has a thousand exceptions. No keywords so piles of text.PF2 is just a cleaned up 4e.What we need is a cleaned up 3.x probably starting with the good parts of Pathfinder Unchained as a base.Rework the feat system it has too many trap options feat taxes etc, 90% of improved x should be freebies for full martials.Skill points may as well be replaced with proficiency since at higher levels the only points you should have in any skill is 0, 1 or 1point per level, anything else is a trap option.The main point is there is still plenty of iteration to be done.
>>97306596>Pathfinder 1e was pretty much straight up 3.5It's actually worse, far more bloated and unbalanced than 3.5 where those were already serious problems.
>>97307859But it also is far more appealing to players with more front-loaded classes, some QoL adjustments, and removing some of the more stubborn sacred cows.Some of it did feel a bit like bribery via power creep to encourage people to switch over, but it worked.
>>97299433Why would I play that trash when Ialready have games that provide far more freedom and variety in the concepts they support while being simpler and easier and more fun to play?
>>97299765What do you mean unserviced? Anyone who wants to play 3.5 can. They're exactly as serviced as anyone else.
>>97299433The past is dead. Bury it.
>>97308335Like what?
>>97308463Yeah we should stop playing the game we like because Corporation has released New Product we can consume instead.
I can't see it happening.Pathfinder extended the life of the 3.5 era, and 5e is made in 3.5's image. There has basically always been a 3.5-like on the market since 3.5 came out.While there's a lot of that goes into the existence of an OSR-like game, a big part of it is wanting to play something that you can't really experience anymore. For a lack of a better way to put it, "how can we miss you if you never went away?"This is why, genuinely, I think a 4e OSR is more likely than a 3.5 OSR. Because that at least had its own experience that kinda went away in a way that 3.5 didn't.
>>97308481Yeah.
>>97306543The PreReqs were never that hard to reconcile and if you ever found yourself spread too wide across too many classes, that usually meant you fucked up and were making a worthless character. All the Pun-Pun-type builds where they used a dozen different classes and loopholes and highly specious interpretations of rules and how they'd interact. None of that is how you are meant to play the game, and even Pun-Pun's creator fully admits that the entire concept of abusing the rules in that way to make an infinitely powerful is effectively a big pile of bullshit. Much like the Peasant railgun and other gamebreaking memes.
>>97308481But the OP isn't talking about playing the game that they love, they are talking about how the are awaiting someone to rerelease a game that is already readily available so that they can consoom it. They literally want New Product.
>>97308469Sure, I'll put way more effort into the discussion than you, even though I know you're not interested in the answer or games in general.Let's start with the three standard tests : thor, dragon, and monk.Can I make Thor as a new character without jumping through hoops, and without being unbalanced?I'll need an at will ranged lightning damage attack that doesn't become irrelevant. I need to be able to fly as much as I want using my hammer. And I need to be a viable and competent melee fighter, able to deal and take damage. Well, it's not looking good. I'll need at least two classes, which means I've already gimped my spellcasting. And there is no easy way to get an inherent lightning attack in core. And since I have caster levels, I'm much less effective in physical combat. And all day Flight is basically impossible without lots of caster levels, and even then I'm not flying with my hammer, I'm casting a spell. Maybe you can pull it off with dumpster diving, but then we're jumping through hoops. Or, I could get Strike - hammer, Blast - lightning, and Flight - hammer, and I'm already done and playing the game. Wow, that sure was way easier in prowlers!Can I make a dragon as a new character without being significantly weaker or stronger than the other players? Not a wyrmling, not a wyvern, not a drake, not a guy with dragon themed magic, not a dragon that's really a robot being piloted by a guy. An actual dragon.Maybe with massive amounts of level adjustment and severe nerfs to your abilities that make playing a dragon fucking lame as shit. Or, I could get Blast - fire, area, Shockwave, Flight - wings, Leaping, Immunity - fire, Armor - scales, Strike - claws, Unusual Size, Unusual Shape, Very Heavy, Vulnerability - Cold, Frightening, and I'm done. Can I make a Diablo 3 monk? Lol good fucking luck. Prowlers : Exploding Palm, Blinding Flash, Deadly Reach, Seven Sided Strike, Dashing Strike, Serenity, Inner Sanctuary. I can do it all.
Yep, run away from the discussion, exactly as I knew you would, bitch. When you come back in a few hours pretending to be someone else, I'll know it's you instantly.
>>97308925I don't consider being able to make those things an indicator of quality or success.
LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPO
>>97306293Where the fuck did you find this shit? You could have at least used Fantasycraft or Iron Heroes as examples.
>>97307424>OSR is Basic/Expert, not AD&D.What?
>>97309029It doesn't matter what you consider. I asked why I would play 3.5 when there are other games that can do everything it can and more better than it can, you asked me to name one, and I did. The discussion is concluded, and you lose.
>>97308925You are like wrong on most counts.Except for monk. Monk fucking sucks.
>>97309170Name any specific thing I was wrong about. Even one thing.
>>97308700>Much like the Peasant railgunThe peasant railgun doesn't even fucking work. It uses RAW for most of the idea, and then suddenly pivots to applying real world physics. It's selective reading of the rules if there ever was one.Because you didn't invent the peasant railgun. You invented the peasant pneumatic tube system.
>>97308925That is an incredibly dogshit standard test.
>>97309210Concession accepted.
>>97309170Yep, couldn't name a single thing LOL
>>97309217This isn't a debate, you retard. I'm calling your test dogshit.But tell me what, anon. Name a game that meets your three requirements. Tell me what your idea of a good game is.I'm also going to be clear here - if the answer is GURPS, you're basically admitting "I don't have an answer" because GURPS is not a real game system.
>>97309269Didn't read the post? The test is good, it is a debate, and you lost btw
>>97309284Wrong. the objectively correct test for if an RPG is if I (me specifically) like it.If I like it, it's good.If I don't like it, it's shit that should not have been printed.
>pici loved that game so much. apparently 3E's whole premise was 'back to the dungeon' (i suppose as opposed to storygames/plots?) and this box set was my introduction to D&D. this HeroQuest-style game, was really looking forward to all sorts of custom dungeons in full D&D.in the end we all played 'theatre of the mind' and didn't even bother with a mapper or anything like in old-school D&D. tbqh 4E (with all the tiles and miniatures) ended up being what i ORIGINALLY wanted, but in practice it was way too fucking slow.as for the question: i never really got the obsession with making up 'builds', complex feat trees and all that. i really just wanted to explore dungeons with pals, figure stuff out, battle monsters by rolling dice. the actual events and actions of the games ought to be where the fun lies.
>>97309366>apparently 3E's whole premise was 'back to the dungeon'I've read that repeatedly as well, but I've never been able to find a single advertising element from back in the day showing this. It's been a long time and a lot of link rot so it's not entirely surprising, but I'd love to find something with this.
>>97309346Incorrect.
>>97308925You're weirdly pissy about this.
>>97309200Well first you are comparing high level heroes/supers - Thor and Dragon to starting adventurers which are way closer to normal people.Second Thor is trivially done in core through a hammer enchanted with flight and lightning, you can even make it an ego item so that it would be able to choose its bearers. At which point any decent combatant can play as not-Thor. Also the dragon your example provides is in no way comparable to D&D dragon which also has intelligence, skills and whole lot of magic on top of its physical stats. And, you know, you can just fucking play the dragon. The rules are there. And you can make a dragon that is not significantly weaker or stronger than your party members as long as they are Archmage and Bob the Dragonslayer and not a bunch of snot nosed rookies. If you tell me that people expect a dragon capable of razing down towns to be on the same power level as a farmer that took up the sword first time a month ago you are fucking retarded.
>>97309550Thor statted in D&D had a hammer that explicitly did this.Iirc, it was that way in mythology, as well.
>>97299433Because it makes for un-fun running of games. 3.xpf is a fucking travesty. I get that players like to sit for hours theory-crafting their characters, but it's fucking shit-ass horrible garbage for GMs to actually try to run. So it's really only suited to people who want to build characters, rather than play games.So you're probably right that it'll become the next fad.
>>97309382yeah i think it's mostly second-hand info i've heard from /tg/ tbqh. although i can see the thinking, with the more 'simulationist' rules. Greyhawk as the default setting (did you even notice?) and modules weren't tied to, say, Dragonlance canon or the Drizzt books.if anything it was more about developing your own world again, or brand new settings entirely like Eberron and Ghostwalk.do you have that magazine article where the reviewer complains 'this is NOT Dungeons & Dragons' (or something to that effect)?
>>97309399Nah, I'm right. Objectively. Prove I'm not.
