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Comment by zztop44 | Hacker News Reader

This was a problem in 3 and 3.5 era too and was only exacerbated by the rise of forums and wikis. I don’t think it’s possible to release one-size-fits-all-the-crap-that’s-out-there campaigns that are going to be actually interesting. At some point the DMs job is to make decisions about what fits and what doesn’t, and to help cultivate a culture of collaborative storytelling.

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Yes, 100%. I DMed during the 3 and 3.5 era, and the “bullshit player option supplements” were a major problem. Players want to ask for the most out of pocket stuff they pick up from the splatbooks. It was beyond difficult to build a coherent party of players when everyone was using radically different concepts to build their characters. Game balance went out the window. 3 and 3.5 had terrible game balance to begin with, but once you bring in books like Exalted Deeds, it was even worse.

4E fixed a ton of problems here. Character classes were much more balanced and there were not many supplements with new classes and options—partly because it takes a ton of effort to make a new 4E class.

I DM'd during the 2nd edition era, and yeah... Some player's option supplements had decent things going for them. Others were pure munchkin galore (looking at you, Bard's handbook).

Game balance in 3rd Edition was gone from the PHB onwards, out of like top 5-7 most broken classes in the game, 3 were in the PHB (Wizard, Cleric, Druid). A lot of stuff people consider broken (eg. Tome of Battle) isn't even really a power level boost for melee classes, just lets them in on the same move action + interesting option playstyle casters were doing since release (just at a much lower power level) vs. charge-> full attack full attack.

Not to say there wasn't broken shit in splats, but like half of broken nonsense was Core to begin with.

Yeah, core 3 and 3.5 was broken. You want to make an overpowered character? Play a straight cleric, but don’t bother healing the rest of the party. I have no desire to replay those editions.

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