More on D&D 3/3.5 - making up for short shrift

So, in my first actual character post of this creating a PC for every game project, I think I gave short shrift to D&D 3/3.5. I feel like I should say more about the games I'm creating characters for, even the games everyone and their uncle knows.

Dungeons & Dragons is the most known, most sold, and most played tabletop role-playing game around. Their latest revision came out last year: 4th Edition. I don't have that so I won't be creating a character for it. D&D has a long history, the longest among RPGs, and has held the spot of top dog since inception. Sure, it's less difficult to stay top dog when you're pretty much the founding game of the genre and have always been the top dog, but despite some flaws D&D does have other reasons for being so popular. In almost every revision there's been a balance of simplicity and complexity that makes it relatively easy for new players to start playing and keeps them interested and advancing their game skills as they play. Further, especially these days, they have some of the highest production values in the industry, with high-quality color printed books, mostly hardbound.

No RPG is perfect and D&D, in every form, is no exception. In its Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition form it almost killed tabletop roleplaying games altogether, ala Atari and the video games crash of 1983. AD&D 2E wasn't responsible, but TSR's unrelenting releases of books, supplements, and games during the later years, particularly games with inadequate markets, combined with increasing paper and printing costs, almost killed the premier producer of RPG products. Wizards of the Coast (of Magic: The Gathering fame) bought TSR (and D&D with it) and attempted to revive the product line by releasing D&D 3rd Edition shortly after being bought by Hasbro (due, likely, to the success of the collectible card games Magic: TG and Pokemon and a patent on collectible card games). Both simpler and more complex, D&D 3.0 was really the first major changes D&D had seen in roughly 13 years. 3 years later 3.0 was revised and re-released as D&D 3.5. For old-school players of D&D who are keeping score, 3.5 is to 3.0 as AD&D 2E is to the original AD&D. Well, roughly, anyway.

D&D 3 and 3.5 saved D&D, after a fashion, and injected some new life into the RPG industry, because as TSR was failing the industry saw other changes as well. FASA, makers of the then popular Shadowrun and Battletech RPGs, and also an independent game software developer, was bought by Microsoft, largely so MS could make games based off their properties. FASA disappeared from role-playing games and their properties, at least in RPG form, were apportioned out to other companies. Their games have never been as popular since. White Wolf, makers of the World of Darkness games Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage, were also, at the time, major competitors with TSR. The rise of LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) and increased interest in the more modern "romantic" image of vampires and the supernatural fed White Wolf's initial popularity, but when a titan stumbles all feel the shock.

The new D&D is (this is true of 4th edition and was true of 3/3.5), in all likelihood, more popular than its closest competitors by probably a greater margin than ever. In this sense it's pretty much the standard.

So there's your background. I'll be more brief for future games, I promise, but I felt I needed to explain the game to help flesh out the character to go with it.