Monsen's page

I'm upset that I haven't gotten it yet. The problem is, I don't know at whom to be upset.

I think the best people to be upset at is

1) Rich Burlew, for the way this was initially distributed. He claims it will arrive faster through Ape Games because there are less delays in the process, which is true, but when he manage to give them the book a long time before his distribution partner even heard it was ready, that only serves to further increase the delay, that makes me annoyed.

2) The printer, which did mess up and cause an initial delay of over 30 days.

One thing is for sure, I'm never going to purchase anything from APE games ever. It seems obvious that their relationship with Rich is a bit to close for my preferences. I prefer doing things the proper way, and in my opinion, letting APE games get the books weeks before his distribution partner, is not acceptable. I expected it would take a bit longer through Paizo when I ordered, given there is at least one or two extra steps in the distribution chain, but I think this behaviour is unexcusable. Considering the fact that his distribution partner hadn't even been told the book was ready, when APE games had already begun to distribute it, certainly smells like deliberate sabotage or favourism.

I'll have to agree with Lawgiver here. It all depends what you want for the system. For me (And I know I speak for the rest of my gaming group here as well), AD&D 2nd edition is far superior to the rest. For me, this is because of the "flavour" of the rules 2e provides. I've played both 3e and 3.5, but they don't do it for me. To be fair to 1e, I've never played that version, but I do have the rulebooks and have read them though.
When it comes to 3.x, I've played it to some extent, and I find a lot of negative aspects of this version. I won't go into detail here though, for the reasons that that would most probably guarantee a flame war, and also beacuse I don't really feel like bashing a game many people enjoy. We all have our favourites, 3.x just doesn't happen to be a step in the right direction for me.

Some people talk about newer editions being better balanced. That might be an important issue for some, but not for me really. For me, "fun to play" trumphs "balance" any day. And if some balancing act is needed in 2e to make it fun to play, my playing group knows that as a DM, I do put my foot down and make the required changes.

Some people also argue that since the 3.x rules were opened up, they provide a streamlined system that could be used for any game. Might be, but I actually enjoy learning new rules, to get a change of pace. Which is why find it a real downer each time I see a good old gaming system converted to d20 in it's newest edition. Right now, I am GM'ing Warhammer FRPG (2nd edition), a game I would probably not have touched if they hade gone down the d20 route for this new edition.