Third Edition Grognards

Grognard
Definition: In D&D, a person who prefers an older edition to the newer one.
Gamer A: "After playing 4th edition for six months, our group decided to give it up and go back to 3.5."
Gamer B: "You are officially grognards."

On the Virtues of Third Edition

It was very, very easy for me to adapt third edition to non-fantasy settings, and to do so in such a way as to not scare away my players, who would otherwise shy away from learning a new rules system. It served varied fantasy campaigns equally well.

Unfortunately, this easy flexibility that I felt to be the primary strength of the system did not seem to be accessible to the Wizards staff, whose non-fantasy books were without exception uncreative rehashes of previously released material. I suppose they know that it's already successful and so it's sensible to be conservative and build one's intellectual property up through re-use.

I wish I could say that the OGL publishers picked up the slack. They did not. The OGL is an amazing way to trick older nerds into publishing vanity press, and younger nerds into buying it. Oh well, it's better than being sent cease and desist orders by TSR's lawyers for putting your home brew module on the web --which used to be standard operating practice.