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From: Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: OSRIC 3.0 announced
Date: Fri, 24 May 2024 10:10:09 -0400
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On Thu, 23 May 2024 09:22:44 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>On 5/23/2024 1:03 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
>> spallshurgenson@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Thu, 16 May 2024 13:34:45 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Source:
>>>> https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php
>>>>
>>>> Seems they are trying for an approach targeted at younger players that
>>>> have a 5e culture instead of going full old school this time. Which
>>>> might be a good approach, I think Old School Essentials had basically a
>>>> very similar approach.
>>>
>>> Meh. If I'm playing old-school* then I'm playing old-school with my
>>> original rules-books. My creaky, held-together-with-duct-tape rule
>>> books.
>> 
>> Don't make me Troll-O-Meter you, bro!
>> 
>> The original rules were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana
>> never seemed to last more than a couple years of use.
>
>Yet another reason not to use UA.

Even as an uncouth and crass young(er) player at the time, I wasn't
fond of Unearthed Arcana. It wasn't that a lot of the ideas didn't
appeal to me, but they all felt poorly integrated with the greater
game. They were good ideas tossed into the pot without consideration
for how they affected the overall game balance and style. These days
I'd accuse the developers of 'kitchen-sinking'* the game; throwing in
new ideas without a real understanding of its effects, just to say
that they've added something new.

Another 130 pages of Gygax's dense prose wasn't a welcome prospect
either. Especially since his style of play started to feel extremely
dated compared with newer games.

Still, a good half of the manual was advice and clarifications of
existing rules; essentially, a compilation of answers people had been
asking TSR for ten years. This wasn't entirely unwelcome, even if I
didn't always agree with the answers (again, Gygax and I didn't really
seem to want to play the same type of game), and if figuring out what
was intended required dredging through acres of Gygaxian prose printed
in tiny print and way too many charts. 

It also didn't help that Unearthed Arcana's status was so uncertain.
Was it an official expansion to the rules, or was it optional bits the
DM could pick-and-chose from? And that it came out just a few years
before the 2nd Edition revision didn't help either.

I never thought UA was /bad/... just not necessary and not
particularly well thought out. I had a lot less respect for "Fiend
Folio". ;-)













* I'm gonna make this phrase happen, just you watch.