Cool. As a suggestion (and perhaps I should post this elsewhere) should perhaps a 'Moderator' title be added as a conditional BBCode to identifying you as such? Might cut down on future confusion and similar miscommunication.

In a perfect world, that would be unnecessary, because we wouldn't break out our 'best behavior' just for Moderators, but treat all of our fellow posters with a modicum of respect.

And, yanno, not call each other haters or fanboys.

Also, there would be naptime and chocolate milk for everyone!

I might suggest if the way you decide to defend your choice of system is to attack another system, you are falling into the trap many have said that WotC has done when discussing older editions. You are acting exactly the same way. Pooping on others for not seeing things your way. Now I know that some people feel it is ok for them to do it because either (a) it is payback for how they feel they were treated or (b) their goals are more noble, WotC being an BBEC (big bad evil corporation) only cares about money while the other people care about being "true" to the "game".

Really, people (and companies) should be promoting what is great about their system, and not continuously rag on other systems. Of course there are going to be comparisons made, that is only reasonable, but in the end of the day, if you have said more about why the other system sucks than you have about why your system rocks, I feel you've failed in the discussion.

Back to marketing, let's face facts, name recognition is invaluable. For most people, they know the name D&D. And for younger folks, that is the game they are going to grab first. Merely because that is something they have heard about.

Back to my understanding of the topic. If you really want to move the market, buy Pathfinder. Make your friends buy Pathfinder. Run games that get more people interested in Pathfinder. Grab those two young whipper-snappers loitering on your lawn and run Pathfinder for them.

If everyone, and I mean everyone buys Pathfinder, WotC will take notice.

To say 3.5 didn't require the use of minis is disingenuous at best, but really, it's more flat out wrong.

To Sebasian:

If you are going to generate a re-invention of fantasy gaming which is almost a breed apart from your previous version, perhaps your should retitle it and allow your product to continue.

Well said.

Removed a post.

If you have a problem with a poster's assertion, then discuss the assertion. But,

AT NO TIME SHOULD YOU ATTACK THE POSTER, YOUR PERCEPTION OF THE POSTER'S ABILITY TO FRAME AN ARGUMENT, OR FINISH A POST WITH THE PHRASE "READ IT FAST, BECAUSE IT'S NOT GOING TO BE HERE LONG."

This thread is on its last leg, folks. Cool it.

Here is a simple reprint of Charles' message to you. Why have you taken such a stance against the use of v.3.5 without minis? Its played just fine with or without 'em.

Hey Pax and Charles,

I should probably clarify a little. I don't think it's impossible to play 3.5 w/o miniatures. I think it likely requires some fudging of the rules given that AoO's and flanking both require fairly precise tracking of position and movement and it would be difficult to do that tracking in the absence of miniatures. 4e definitely ramps up the amount of positional tracking and thus increases the need to use miniatures. That's an accurate statement, and one I would completely agree with. I would also agree that 3.5 can be played without miniatures if you can find work-arounds for the positional aspects (or ignore them). You could do the same type of thing in 4e as well, and I would agree that it would be harder to do than under 3.5 because of the increased number of abilities that manipulate or trigger off of position. No judgment intended against those who play that way and, if they are capable of running a RAW game without miniatures, my hat is off to them. I can't imagine doing it because it seems to me like tracking your hp in your head rather than on paper. Just like the paper is a tool to accurately track your hp, the miniatures are a tool to accurately track your position and the abilities relevant to your position.

But the statement that "3.5 didn't require miniatures and 4e does" is just plain wrong. 3.5, under the RAW, requires miniatures to the same extent that 3.5 requires paper and pen to track your hp and stats. 4e definitely increased the need to use miniatures because it has so many fiddly bits that interact with position, but 3.5 has many of the same elements. But both games really require miniatures if you want to play a strict RAW game and do it quickly and accurately (barring some other technology that allows you to track positions, which may well exist and be employed, but should be equally viable for either edition).

And, if you want to go back to the hammer analogy, yes, you can build a house without a hammer depending on what type of house your building. There are many rpgs out there that don't require miniatures because they don't place much mechanical emphasis on position - those are the analog to igloos and alternate construction methods. D&D 3.5 is not such a game or alternate house. Neither is 4e.

So, the statement that 4e requires miniatures and 3.5 did not is misleading and disingenuous.

I might suggest if the way you decide to defend your choice of system is to attack another system, you are falling into the trap many have said that WotC has done when discussing older editions. You are acting exactly the same way. Pooping on others for not seeing things your way. Now I know that some people feel it is ok for them to do it because either (a) it is payback for how they feel they were treated or (b) their goals are more noble, WotC being an BBEC (big bad evil corporation) only cares about money while the other people care about being "true" to the "game".

*clears his entire drafted post as this and Mod intervention by Joshua J. Frost handled a cooperative, mutually destructive thread-hijack in the making*

Thank you both. *sighs in relief*

Really, people (and companies) should be promoting what is great about their system, and not continuously rag on other systems. Of course there are going to be comparisons made, that is only reasonable, but in the end of the day, if you have said more about why the other system sucks than you have about why your system rocks, I feel you've failed in the discussion.

Ok ... I am going to pick up this baton in another thread (lest the purpose of this one gets hijacked) with a post titled "Things I LOVED about, 1st, 2nd, 3rd/3.5 and Fourth Edition as well as Pathfinder".

Back to marketing, let's face facts, name recognition is invaluable. For most people, they know the name D&D. And for younger folks, that is the game they are going to grab first. Merely because that is something they have heard about.

Agreed, but don't you find that inherently reprehensible as it supports a mentality of "We will market as best we can, and alter our design methodology and logos to make true the lie"? STRICTLY philosophically there. And no, I am not so naieve that Marketting being unethical and disingenuous is surprising to me, but the Nature and Degree of that deception and how much impact it should have on the intellectual property/product as a whole.

Removed a post.

If you have a problem with a poster's assertion, then discuss the assertion. But,

AT NO TIME SHOULD YOU ATTACK THE POSTER, YOUR PERCEPTION OF THE POSTER'S ABILITY TO FRAME AN ARGUMENT, OR FINISH A POST WITH THE PHRASE "READ IT FAST, BECAUSE IT'S NOT GOING TO BE HERE LONG."

This thread is on its last leg, folks. Cool it.

May I respectfully Request that I resurrect it with repostings of the productive, non-forum policy violating posts that stay true to the topic? I will copy and paste everything now and prune it like a bonsai sapling.

Would that be acceptable? I would like to think the ideal I was shooting for and the nature of the topic should -not- have caused the spiral of decay that has unfairly and surreptitiously engulfed my attempts at a "Meeting of Viewpoints" on the Topic.

In a perfect world, that would be unnecessary, because we wouldn't break out our 'best behavior' just for Moderators, but treat all of our fellow posters with a modicum of respect.

And, yanno, not call each other haters or fanboys.
Also, there would be naptime and chocolate milk for everyone!

I want Naptime and Chocolate Milk ... :P

Re: mini's.....
I can't speak for 4e, but we play 3.5/ 3.PF on the boards all day sans miniatures.
We track position on a grid; it's materially the same thing, but we don't need minis.
I'm assuming you could use vegetables for 4e if you wanted though....turnips for kobolds, carrots for behirs and remorhazzes; a raw turkey for a red dragon.
I like using food, then eating the food when you kill the enemy. It's much more primal.

Sebastian wrote:

To say 3.5 didn't require the use of minis is disingenuous at best, but really, it's more flat out wrong.

Yep, never owned a minature and still play 3.5 and PFRPG without them.

I use counters from Fiery Dragon or even self made ones! Take that Pony!

You should be using the official Bella Sara line of miniatures. All others are inferior and suck!

Re: mini's.....

I can't speak for 4e, but we play 3.5/ 3.PF on the boards all day sans miniatures.
We track position on a grid; it's materially the same thing, but we don't need minis.
I'm assuming you could use vegetables for 4e if you wanted though....turnips for kobolds, carrots for behirs and remorhazzes; a raw turkey for a red dragon.
I like using food, then eating the food when you kill the enemy. It's much more primal.

I always wanted to use a big pineapple instead of a red dragon like in the old ads in Dragon Magazine for DDM.

/me misses Dragon Magazine...

I tried using non-WotC branded miniatures in my 4e game once. True story: A WotC security team stormed the session, threw over the table, and beat us with our own dicebags. The next session, I bought the official minis, but I used a troglodyte bungholder mini to represent a troglodyte rodpolisher. I thought that was close enough, but apparently WotC thought differently. The security team returned, and this time they ran over my dog too.

Heathansson wrote:

Re: mini's.....

I can't speak for 4e, but we play 3.5/ 3.PF on the boards all day sans miniatures.
We track position on a grid; it's materially the same thing, but we don't need minis.
I'm assuming you could use vegetables for 4e if you wanted though....turnips for kobolds, carrots for behirs and remorhazzes; a raw turkey for a red dragon.
I like using food, then eating the food when you kill the enemy. It's much more primal.

I always wanted to use a big pineapple instead of a red dragon like in the old ads in Dragon Magazine for DDM.

/me misses Dragon Magazine...

I tried using non-WotC branded miniatures in my 4e game once. True story: A WotC security team stormed the session, threw over the table, and beat us with our own dicebags. The next session, I bought the official minis, but I used a troglodyte bungholder mini to represent a troglodyte rodpolisher. I thought that was close enough, but apparently WotC thought differently. The security team returned, and this time they ran over my dog too.

I don't sweat them ho's.

VedicDragon wrote:

If you are going to generate a re-invention of fantasy gaming which is almost a breed apart from your previous version, perhaps your should retitle it and allow your product to continue.

Well said.

Totally on board with this idea. You know if they simply reprinted 1e/2e I would buy a copy of every book, heck they could remove the risk of loss and allow a third party to reprint the old edition recieving a per sold book fee back, sort of how microsoft did with IBM all those years ago. They don't sell the rights to this third party they sell the right to print X copies to them.

Pax Veritas wrote:

VedicDragon wrote:

If you are going to generate a re-invention of fantasy gaming which is almost a breed apart from your previous version, perhaps your should retitle it and allow your product to continue.

Well said.

Totally on board with this idea. You know if they simply reprinted 1e/2e I would buy a copy of every book, heck they could remove the risk of loss and allow a third party to reprint the old edition recieving a per sold book fee back, sort of how microsoft did with IBM all those years ago. They don't sell the rights to this third party they sell the right to print X copies to them.

Or how Nintendo / Sony / Microsoft allow you to buy the old games on their next-gen consoles as downloads!

WHY do they (generic RPG companies with new editions, Wizards, White Wolf, FASA, AEG for L5R) not -seize- upon this as a revenue stream I do not understand ... it's so simple!

Agreed, but don't you find that inherently reprehensible as it supports a mentality of "We will market as best we can, and alter our design methodology and logos to make true the lie"? STRICTLY philosophically there. And no, I am not so naieve that Marketting being unethical and disingenuous is surprising to me, but the Nature and Degree of that deception and how much impact it should have on the intellectual property/product as a whole.

Oh, I understand the frustration of marketting. I've drawn the ire of the local powers that be by being critical of some of their marketting.

Still, what I am getting from you is that you don't view the current edition as really "D&D". That it doesn't have the same cows (though some of those weren't even heifers in earlier editions) or feel or whatever.

Ok, but now let's take a step back from the deeply entrenched position of the old school gamers and look at it from an outsiders point of view. This outsider has no idea about spelljammer or darksun or ravenloft or even the forgotten realms. They may vaguely recognize Drizzt, though not know his name, just from seeing the covers of books in the sci-fi/fantasy sections. So many of those cows and true to the past settings and whatever are totally unknown to them. So what is D&D to them? What are their basic ideas about it from what little exposure they have picked up in their life?

1. D&D is a game for geeks.
2. You use dice to play it.
3. You often use little miniature people to play it.
4. It is based on fantasy ideas.
5. You have elves, dwarves, humans, and halflings in it.
6. You have fighters, wizards, thieves/rogues, and a healer in it.
7. You have hps.
8. You have a lot of options on how to build your character.

Does 4e have these things? If yes, then to an outsider, someone who may just now be getting into gaming, that is what they are expecting. That is D&D to them. Not FR, not Darksun, not half-orc barbarians, not gnome illusions, not Gygaxian naturalism, not G-N-S theory. People get so wrapped up in what they have experienced and liked that they forget that very first day they played, before they even knew the rules. They weren't worried about minis or if the realms had been blown up or anything. They just wanted to play a fantasy game where they were a hero, and that is what D&D was for them. 4e, just like every other edition, provides that experience, and that is why it is still D&D.

I feel like heat can get more attention than light, so I wanted to say how much I've appreciated your posts on the thread, pres man. Good, solid stuff. And the fact that you aren't a 4e player (heck, I think I've read posts indicating that you're not even going to be a PFRPG player) makes me respect those posts all the more. Thanks for participating in the thread, you do a lot to keep these edition discussions as discussions rather than flame wars. Hats off.

Oh, I understand the frustration of marketting. I've drawn the ire of the local powers that be by being critical of some of their marketting.

Still, what I am getting from you is that you don't view the current edition as really "D&D". That it doesn't have the same cows (though some of those weren't even heifers in earlier editions) or feel or whatever.

Let me stop you right there.

1.) World of Darkness
2.) Traveller

And to a lesser extant ...

3.) Forgotten Realms (specifically) - Just how many times can you blow up this world and screw things up worse than before??
4.) Legend of the Five Rings (who's bidding for the Throne now? Which clan is the treasonous b@st@rds this week?)
5.) Exalted - Hearth stones ARE important. Hearth stones are irrelevent. Here's 1000% MORE Content that is INFINITELY more important than what the focus of the game was previously. Good look smoothly incorporating it into any ongoing chronicles.

The POINT is the PHILOSOPHY on why we as a market tolerate this, and if we don't how we can encourage more sensitivity from the companies we pay for goods and services. Or, conversely, what we can do instead that would be more productive than "just ignore it" or "Don't bother getting upset"

Please don't be offended that I ignore your list. It's not that it isn't topical, but I fear it once again focusses on the minutiae of -one- specific example. I would rather debate why should a product be redesigned according to the (naturally, not an insult) shallow perspective of those WHO'VE NEVER PICKED IT UP AND READ IT BEFORE. And how counterintuitively backwards a thought process / paradigm that is for R&D.

Or, conversely, what we can do instead that would be more productive than "just ignore it" or "Don't bother getting upset"

Stop buying their re-imaged products.

If you bought 2e, you are guilty.

If you bought 3e, you are guilty.

If you bought 3.5, you are doubly guilty.

If you buy Pathfinder...oops. :)

VedicDragon wrote:

Or, conversely, what we can do instead that would be more productive than "just ignore it" or "Don't bother getting upset"

Stop buying their re-imaged products.

If you bought 2e, you are guilty.

If you bought 3e, you are guilty.

If you bought 3.5, you are doubly guilty.

If you buy Pathfinder...oops. :)

Ahh but I "came in" on 2E and bought at discount through resale most of my 3.5 library after skipping 3.0 ... damn you got me there. Hell I'm even guilty with Pathfinder ... waitaminute! *catches you in a logical fallacy of "tum quotum" directed at Paizo*

Muaha! Got you, you cunning time-travelling helter skeltering eloquent malcontent poodle!!

Now to get that Feckless Doctor Lucky, since I got his "little dog" .... *rubs hands together evilly whilst slicing the rope that holds a chandelier which knocks over a dining cart which flings a knife which skewers you in a sufficiently epic Rube Goldberg-esque fashion with the biting acerbic slash of cruel, fickle logic*

The board appropriate response is to punt me, but at least you were more creative. ;)

The board appropriate response is to punt me, but at least you were more creative. ;)

Hey, I managed to fit in a plug "Kill Doctor Lucky ... and his Little Dog Too" reference. It was too juicy an opportunity to pass up.

Ahh but I "came in" on 2E and bought at discount through resale most of my 3.5 library after skipping 3.0 ... damn you got me there. Hell I'm even guilty with Pathfinder ... waitaminute! *catches you in a logical fallacy of "tum quotum" directed at Paizo*

And what about all those simple, lawn loitering n00bs who are "coming in" on 4e? Why is your first gaming experience more valid than theirs?

I do not think Paizo would even mind me saying it. They have a great product and they know it. They found a consumer market and they are providing something that market obviously wants. Considering 4e is selling, I would argue WotC did the same thing.

Please don't be offended that I ignore your list. It's not that it isn't topical, but I fear it once again focusses on the minutiae of -one- specific example. I would rather debate why should a product be redesigned according to the (naturally, not an insult) shallow perspective of those WHO'VE NEVER PICKED IT UP AND READ IT BEFORE. And how counterintuitively backwards a thought process / paradigm that is for R&D.

But is it really counterintuitive? Let's consider. Any game system that produces new material on even a semi-regular basis is going to increase in complexity. Complexity of mechanics and/or fluff. Now, if you start off on the ground floor, you are building on knowledge you already know. You can deal with it on a step by step basis, in a natural fashion. In that case, the increased complexity isn't a huge burden for the person who has been invested in it from the beginning.

But what about the newcomer. With each new product that comes out, that is another thing they have to deal with to catch up. It may be that they are only able to consumer products at the rate at which new ones are produced. This means they will never make any headway, they will always be far behind of the cutting edge of the system.

Now that can be pretty frustrating to the gamer, especially if they want to play in organized play. But consider the position of a new developer. For this new employee (and you will always have some turn over, even without "evil" reasons, marriage, death, retirement, change of career, progression of career), not only do they have to make new product, but they have to make it legitimate in light of all of those previous products. They have to consume all of those, let's say they do in a timely fashion (they are already fairly knowledge about the system to begin with), they are now hamstringed by the mechanics and the fluff that preceded them. That can be stifling to a designer. Anyone that has ever run their own homebrewed world probably has experienced this with just their own material.

So what is the answer then, you have a very complex system. Much of the complexity is now a burden to the new material and to bringing in new players. Old players are decreasing (death, change of system, grown out of gaming). Changing the dynamics of the system and the setting seems a very intuitive response to me. Start over from scratch, wipe the slate clean. Learn from the things that worked, drop the things that just added complexity but did not improve the experience. Of course this is going to be frustrating to those that have invested so much of their resources (time, money, sweat, etc) into the old systems, now they have to start over from scratch. But it is a natural way for companies to stay alive.

What about backwards compatibility? Again, that is just continuing the burden of complexity, the more backwards compatible the system is, the more added complexity from day one must be added in. Read some of the discussions about the Alpha and Beta testing for PF. There were people saying that they should abandon the idea of backwards compatibility because it was too restrictive, it didn't allow PF to make the changes that needed to be done (drop magic down and boost melee up) and that it remains as "broken" as 3.5.

The really only other choice is stagnation. To reach a point where the mechanics and fluff do not increase anymore and the company just maintains its products (doing reprints every so often). I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing for a big company, look at Monopoly, how much has it changed in the last 30 years? Still everyone pretty much has a copy of it, even if you never play it. But for small companies, they have to continue to make product. Thus they continue increase their complexity. And thus at some point it is untenable to maintain anything remotely coherent. And thus the new system.

EDIT: I remember when to Kill Lucky it was pretty cheapass instead of paying $35 to do it.

VedicDragon wrote:

Ahh but I "came in" on 2E and bought at discount through resale most of my 3.5 library after skipping 3.0 ... damn you got me there. Hell I'm even guilty with Pathfinder ... waitaminute! *catches you in a logical fallacy of "tum quotum" directed at Paizo*

And what about all those simple, lawn loitering n00bs who are "coming in" on 4e? Why is your first gaming experience more valid than theirs?

I do not think Paizo would even mind me saying it. They have a great product and they know it. They found a consumer market and they are providing something that market obviously wants. Considering 4e is selling, I would argue WotC did the same thing.

That was not an actual debate point per se, so much as me engaging in whimsical frippery based on your on tongue in cheek delivery.

*he says, tongue-in-cheek*

It was tongue-in-cheek, but I still think it is a valid point.

So what is the answer then, you have a very complex system. Much of the complexity is now a burden to the new material and to bringing in new players.

That is an excellent point, pres man. Something I had not really considered. For me, it explains why Hero has decided to include 'optional' rules in future supplements (Advanced Player's Guide). I do not like it, because I enjoyed having all the rules in one book. But what is the biggest complaint everyone always levels at Hero? It is too complex.

The market has demanded a lower barrier to entry and companies are listening.

I think, for any RPG publisher, there is a dilemma when an edition of their game has been out for a while. When the obvious ideas start to dry up, their options are limited:

1. Continue to support their current line with online tools, adventures, minis, campaign settings, etc.

This is limited, as these products do not represent the volume that rulebooks do. And of these products, only the adventures and campaign settings are made by game designers. Unless they bloat the market with campaign settings, they are probably laying off some of their design staff.

2. Continue publishing - there are always more ideas out there.

We've seen the kind of stuff that gets pushed out when an edition has run its course and a company is looking for something, anything, to put out for their system. Late TSR anyone?

3. New backwards-compatible edition

Pres man had some good things to say about this, but I'll point out that it is a valid option. Pathfinder is backwards-compatible with 3.5. 3.5 is backwards-compatible with 3.0. I would say there is a limit to how far one can take this, or how many times a company can get away with this. If we are using WotC as an example, could they create a new backwards-compatible edition after having just done so in 2003? Maybe, maybe not.

4. Wipe the slate - new edition

This is certainly the "reset button" of game design.

If we are talking about why a company would go with option 4, I think that lays it out. That's not to discredit anyone who disagrees with the choices that a company makes when they decide to "reset", but I think there are valid reasons for why a company would want to do that.

Fair enough et al (since my last topical post). That definitely shines a multidimensional light of perspective on the rigorous design process.

This is definitely fodder for more discussion and brainstorming as opposed to debate. In the interest of continuing the hypothetical "What should they have?" that was posed by CourtFool, I propose the following question / scenario as a challenge:

If the stated goal of a popular RPG Publisher was to revise their rules / put out a new edition while maintaining and retaining their current market by not invalidating the previously purchased and epic in proportion back-catalog, how would you do it?

What are several possibilities on how to accomplish this with minimum of product devision and confusion?

One suggestion I recall off-the-bat is dual system printings. It truly DID work in l5r/L5R d20 and Dragonlance 25th anniversary chronicles, with 2nd Edition and SAGA rules.

Fair enough et al (since my last topical post). That definitely shines a multidimensional light of perspective on the rigorous design process.

This is definitely fodder for more discussion and brainstorming as opposed to debate. In the interest of continuing the hypothetical "What should they have?" that was posed by CourtFool, I propose the following question / scenario as a challenge:

If the stated goal of a popular RPG Publisher was to revise their rules / put out a new edition while maintaining and retaining their current market by not invalidating the previously purchased and epic in proportion back-catalog, how would you do it?

What are several possibilities on how to accomplish this?

My choice, if I was running things (which I am not), is come out with a new edition while continuing to lend some level of support to the previous one. Use the design staff to work on the new stuff, while continuing to make the back catalog available for sale (and possibly supporting it with online tools and/or new adventures).

I don't know what impact the old edition support would have on sales of the new edition, though. But in the world of "Wouldn't it be nice?", that's what I would do.

A D&D light? Since lowering the barrier to entry may have been a mitigating factor as well.

That does not really grab your current customers, though.

Hmmm.

The problem I see with backward compatibility is that you get the 3.0 -> 3.5 angst. Paizo got away with it because Rome was alight.

If the stated goal of a popular RPG Publisher was to revise their rules / put out a new edition while maintaining and retaining their current market by not invalidating the previously purchased and epic in proportion back-catalog, how would you do it?

Hmm, that is hard, due to the concerns I posted above about building on complexity and the desire to get out from under it.

My suggestion would be to not write yourself into a corner to begin with. Don't try to fill in all the blank parts of the map of the setting and all the roles.

Thus when you come up with a new edition and want to "fix" the setting, you can start out in one of those unexplored areas of the setting (in X ed you learned all about the Eastern Continent, now in X+1 ed you'll see what has been happening on the Western Continent). Then you can start to slowly integrate the two possibly.

I think Paizo has kind of set themselves for this a bit with their entire solar system. When 2nd PF comes out, if the mechanics are drastically different, they can always drop it on one of the other planets with the explanation that magic/physics/biology work differently there. This would not invalidate the previous setting, just not build on it.

The problem I see with backward compatibility is that you get the 3.0 -> 3.5 angst. Paizo got away with it because Rome was alight.

I think there's quite a bit of 3.5 -> Pathfinder angst. Heck look at all of the threads bashing the various changes/nerfs/boosts. Just goes to show you can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time but you can never please all of the people all of the time.

But yeah, Paizo didn't get a full measure since they were positioned to look like the savior of OGL D20 gaming to those unwilling to switch to the new iteration.

As to the original piece which was copied into the first post of this thread, I really doubt that Wizards of the Coast has much interest in deliberately setting trends, or at least not as far as RPGs are concerned. I see them as operating on the much less risky basis of publishing rulebooks which cater to whatever they perceive that the demands of their current target audience are.

If you want to sell a group of people something, I suspect it's likely much easier (and cheaper?) to sell that group something which they already said that they want, than to go to the effort of explaining to them why they might want something marvellous you've designed and made but which they've never even thought of, much less thought of buying before.

Thing is, backward compatible isn't so unattainable. Fluff is always backward compatible, it's just when you absolutely require a large content of crunch that it starts to hurt. People say "but you still have to make sure everything new matches the old fluff". True, I guess. TSR had a traffic cop, and I don't imagine you can have a major campaign setting without one. This person/group can make sure it all works out for you.

Note also that the 3/3.5 era had distinct publishing strategies from WotC. First, after releasing the Sunken Citadel adventure path and Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, probably published to shape the concept of 3rd edition adventures to what they wanted, they gave the adventure publishing to third parties. Instead, they made quite a bit of support for settings, such as Silver Marches and the like.

A few years on, and no more setting products. Adventures again become the order of the day. Expedition to ..., Red Hand of Doom, Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde, and so on. Apparently that was a successful strategy.

However. During the 2nd edition run, there were a huge number of FR setting books. What was mainly different was that these were black and white print and fewer pages. All these are very useful today if you want to play FR. Certainly, time passed quite a bit, however very little of that fluff has been updated or superseded since 3rd edition really didn't spread too far across the land.

And everyone is whining about how rulebooks always sell better. I honestly think it's more a question of the level of glitz you put out. Yes, I want books on the Unapproachable East. No, I might not want to buy it for huge money, just because the company feels they have to do full colour. An adventure can be great without having huge presentation value.

Another holy cow that keeps coming is that you should never split your customers into different settings. This was adopted for 3rd edition, and apart from FR and Eberron, they haven't questioned it. Again, the only example brought forward is TSR and the 2nd edition circus, which is frankly not proof of anything. White Wolf has published a lot of different settings/games, and done well enough to stay in business. They adapted a little by making the World of Darkness line, but they still have more than five different lines in their new world. Their plan for Changeling: The Lost was six books only, it has now been extended twice, and are now up to 10(?) books due to popular demand. During the heyday of 3.5, would it have been suicide to publish a few different setting books that were a bit more experimental even if their concepts were still generally useful? I doubt it.

So: When you publish something, perhaps you should realize that adventures, setting modules and the like require different approaches, and perhaps not everything is best done by following the same recipe of new feats, new spells, new prestige classes, and generic material.

Also, there would be naptime and chocolate milk for everyone!

My sleep addled brain read that as napalm and chocolate milk...

As to the rest, +1

A D&D light? Since lowering the barrier to entry may have been a mitigating factor as well.

That does not really grab your current customers, though.

Hmmm.

Funny that, since the D&D Basic sets sit on my bookshelf. WotC was able to make a product that brought newbies into the game, but still made it enticing to the 'current customer' because of the tiles and minis that were included.

3. New backwards-compatible edition

Pres man had some good things to say about this, but I'll point out that it is a valid option. Pathfinder is backwards-compatible with 3.5. 3.5 is backwards-compatible with 3.0. I would say there is a limit to how far one can take this, or how many times a company can get away with this. If we are using WotC as an example, could they create a new backwards-compatible edition after having just done so in 2003? Maybe, maybe not.

I think there was a lot of pressure from the corporate side of WoC/Hasbro on this Issue.

Also I think, during the last years of 3.5, the OGL was more than ever perceived as a threat to WoC D&D sales. So the new edition had to be different enough that the mechanics could not be feasibly copied under the OGL. With the more restrictive GSL WoC now think that 3PPs will not come up with alternative systems like Mutants & Masterminds or True20 using the 4th edition engine.

Moreover a new edition opens the possibility of selling all the Splat Books again. And that is what a business is about. Selling stuff.

Lastly can a new edition attract new customers. And D&D 4th was ceratinly an attempt to retain old gamers and attract new ones.

Note also that the 3/3.5 era had distinct publishing strategies from WotC. First, after releasing the Sunken Citadel adventure path and Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, probably published to shape the concept of 3rd edition adventures to what they wanted, they gave the adventure publishing to third parties. Instead, they made quite a bit of support for settings, such as Silver Marches and the like.

I read somewhere that during the 3rd era, WoC thought that adventures can not really generate revenue and that Splatbooks ie. Crunch Books are the way to go.

A few years on, and no more setting products. Adventures again become the order of the day. Expedition to ..., Red Hand of Doom, Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde, and so on. Apparently that was a successful strategy.

WoC saw that companies like Goodman Games and Necromancer and Paizo sold a lot of adventures (otherwise they would stop producing them). So they naturally wanted part of the cake. And withn th GSL it seems that can eat almost the whole cake.

So from a corporate perspective, 4th edition is a brilliant model. That some aspects of the business plan do not jive with existing players is an unavoidable aspect.

One other thing to remember...

It's hard to predict what element people will pick up on. I mean could Bruce Cordell or WotC have known that Meepo of all things would be the most remembered part of the Sunless Citadel?

"Oh cool, players will talk about the vampire tree for years to come. And I'll work the vampire into this module *scribble scribble* and the red dragon into the climax *scribble scribble* Ah this is going to so rock..."

*a few years later*

"Meepo? WTF? Who wants to hear more about a kobold? Don't these people know 'kobold' is auld english for 'speed bump'?" *has an anyurism and goes on to write Complete Psionic.* :P

Exactly. And that's the whole point. From a corporate perspective it was great. From a customer perspective, it was everything but great. Every company who goes for a long-term customer relationship deals with this. From the printer-producers who sell their printers cheap but up the pricing on ink cartridges, to software companies who get their money in the support end of things. From the lowliest drug dealer who sells the first one for free, to the house-building company with tight cooperation with an insurance company.

Once your product is used more than once by the customer, you enter into a relationship with the customer. At that point, it's not enough to say "if you don't like the product, don't buy it". If Epson decided to suddenly up the cost of their ink cartridges 200%, do you imagine that people would be up in arms? If they suddenly made a new printer and said "hey, this one is AMAZING, all the old ones suck, therefore we won't be making any more ink cartridges for the old models", what then?

Yes, every company can make short-term profits by screwing over their customers. However, it does leave a mark, and trust is a valuable commodity. And outraged customers are no kind of a good business model. Ask Nestlé about their breast milk substitution campaign in Africa, if you want to get no answer at all. For some reason, companies don't like admitting to screwing over their customers. They much prefer to say "Hey, we have this new fantastic product, reeeeeally cheap, (spoken in a very small voice) only you will need to subscribe to huge monthly payments to use it (returning to full volume) and it will REVOLUTIONIZE EVERYTHING!!!1

Ok, let me take a spin in the wayback machine and go back to where I consider the turning point of OGL D&D went wonky, WotC turning their back on the OGL.

With the (noted) exception of Unearthed Arcana, the last mention of OGL material was in the MM II. The last WotC OGL material (not including UA or the XPH) was in the Epic Level Handbook.

I think this was the mistake in the sea change. WotC was beginning to see 3pp as a threat to their market share and circled the wagons. 3.5 was already gearing up (debuted a year later) for a new infusion of cash, but games like Spycraft and Mutants and Masterminds were out already. Unearthed Arcana was WotC's 'best of' book, taking not only a slew of new ideas and house rules, but also skimming the best of the OGL publishers and putting their stuff out there. I've no idea how well it sold, but I know it keyed me in to a number of 3pp.

I think WotC went the wrong direction here. Rather than just taking the best of the 3ppm, they should have made more OGL stuff, not less. Put things on a 3-6 month delay. Sell Monster Manual II? Good put the critters in Dungeon adventures, maybe one or two of the free adventures online. 3-6 months later, add them to your OGL content. You've gotten the rush of initial sales, then seen a drop off as the 'new toys' come down the pipeline.

What does this do? It allows those 3pp publishers to use your content and keep it active. Lets look at anecdotal evidence for example, Pathfinder.

Burnt Offerings uses material from both the Book of Fiends from Green Ronin and the Tome of Horrors from Necromancer Games. I own them both (excellent books) but even if I didn't I don't need the books because I have all the stats I need in the adventure. What they did was make me pull them off the shelf and read them again, reminding me why I bought them.

The Skinsaw Murders brought me the Lifespark template. I didn't have the Advanced Bestiary, but after reading it, I bought all three advanced guides (and just recently bought the PDFs for portability). Here a sale of a 3PP came from a book they had no investment in, all because of the OGL.

Now imagine in an alternate reality Paizo/Mongoose/Open Design/Green Ronin/Whomever puts out an adventure with a group of white dragon touched kobolds. Their leader's a gish type. They can either a) apply the half dragon template, making a number of glass cannons. b) make up new stats, which takes time of effort or c) in this alternate reality, pull down the MM III and use the white dragonspawn stats. It saves them time, uses a new monster, and space since they don't need a full monster entry in the bestiary. Likewise, they can make him a fighter 1/wizard 2, or pull that PHB II off the wall and make him a duskblade.

Now when the DM sees 'white dragonspawn MM IV, pg XX' he goes, 'hmm, wonder what else is in this book?' and checks his wallet, Amazon and his FLGS...

It might have worked, it might not (I'm a call auditor, not a businessman). It might have worked, but at Paizo/Green Ronin sustainable numbers, not WotC/Hasbro numbers.

Now, it does seem that WotC is satified with their business model for 4.x, and from what others have said, there are things that seem like a good idea. (keeping the hardbacks G-PG, and keeping the PG-13 stuff on the website) But I can dream of what might have been.

Does anyone have any actual citation from WoTC or anyone regarding the "3PPs are doing too well so we're going to stop the OGL" theory? I'm surprised that people consider that likely - WoTC crushed and continues to crush (as far as I can see) all the other pen and paper producers in a volume/brand name/market share sense.

I had always assumed their true "enemy" and target/reason for shifting strategies was competition with online RPGs. I presumed that restricting other publishers ability to print support material was seen as useful in boosting subscriptions to DDI, which I also presumed was a large part of the motivation for 4th edition.

I doubt WoTC lost any sleep over Goodman Games sales or had any interest in mimicking their particular version of success, WoW on the other hand would have been much more likely to be both a threat and an opportunity, imo.

-Stuff about how OGL could have been used-

That is what could have and should have been.

Does anyone have any actual citation from WoTC or anyone regarding the "3PPs are doing too well so we're going to stop the OGL" theory? I'm surprised that people consider that likely - WoTC crushed and continues to crush (as far as I can see) all the other pen and paper producers in a volume/brand name/market share sense.

I had always assumed their true "enemy" and target/reason for shifting strategies was competition with online RPGs. I presumed that restricting other publishers ability to print support material was seen as useful in boosting subscriptions to DDI, which I also presumed was a large part of the motivation for 4th edition.

I doubt WoTC lost any sleep over Goodman Games sales or had any interest in mimicking their particular version of success, WoW on the other hand would have been much more likely to be both a threat and an opportunity, imo.

I am to lay to google for a citation.

I do not think that WoC lost sleep over a single 3PP.
But as a whole, took to large a portion of the D20 "Core and Splat Book" cake for corporate WoC.

Look at the new GSL and what it does not allow. You can not create alternative Rule-systems (like above mentioned ones) under the GSL.

But I wonder if WoC really does understand the OGL. Would it not be posible to use the OGL and create a "Iron Heroes 2", using a lot of the mechanics from 4th but 3.5 terminology?

Does anyone have any actual citation from WoTC or anyone regarding the "3PPs are doing too well so we're going to stop the OGL" theory? I'm surprised that people consider that likely - WoTC crushed and continues to crush (as far as I can see) all the other pen and paper producers in a volume/brand name/market share sense.

I don't know why they stopped the OGL support, and in hindsight I don't really care. I do know that even the orginaly ugly GSL was an uphill battle by Scott Rouse, Lidda, Clark and others, based on statements on EN World.

Addressing the 'why hate WotC for 4x but not Paizo for Pathfinder' part of it for me at least, is loyalty. Pathfinder RPG feels like I was there for the birth, if not for the conception. It addresses some 3.x issues, while keeping the mechanics that I enjoy. Also Paizo has built a bit of 'credit' with me in their quality and feedback.

Once your product is used more than once by the customer, you enter into a relationship with the customer. At that point, it's not enough to say "if you don't like the product, don't buy it". If Epson decided to suddenly up the cost of their ink cartridges 200%, do you imagine that people would be up in arms? If they suddenly made a new printer and said "hey, this one is AMAZING, all the old ones suck, therefore we won't be making any more ink cartridges for the old models", what then?

Uh, no.

Epson sells you a printer and outside of any support agreement, they owe you exactly zip. If Epson decided to suddenly up the cost of their ink cartridges 200% people would laugh at them and buy the generic ones. I know I do for my HP.

I am not intimately familiar with Epson, but I am willing to bet they have one or two printers that they stopped manufacturing and no longer produce ink cartridges for. And yet, the world continues to turn. It is possible there were people who bought those printers. When Epson decided to stop supporting them, I am sure they were upset. If they turned around an bought another Epson, well, who is really the fool then?

The second problem I have with your analogy is that a printer is useless without ink. A RPG book is not useless without adventures. Furthermore, everyone that buys a printer needs to buy ink for it. Only about one in four (rough guess) of the people who buy a core rule book need to buy an adventure.

If you did not buy every single product WotC published, how loyal to them where you? Why do you insist they owe you anything?

The second problem I have with your analogy is that a printer is useless without ink. A RPG book is not useless without adventures.

While I may have to go ritually purify myself for agreeing with the poodle, he's got a good point here.

Indeed, with the 'rules bloating' that gets introduced with supplements, it could even be argued that a set of core rulebooks might even be *more generally useful* without a ton of splatbooks. (As it's from splatbooks that we get stuff like Persistant Spell, Divine Metamagics and Nightsticks, three of the cheeses of choice to top that scrumptious pizza they call CoDzilla.)

IMO, most splatbooks restrict creativity (by hammering things down) as much as they open it up, with Unearthed Arcana being a rare exception.

I'll buy gaming crap like there's no tomorrow, and have thousands of dollars worth of 2E Realms stuff I read once and put away (ditto my complete Wraith, Mage and Werewolf collections), but I never *needed* that stuff, any more than I *need* a spoiler or a bra or detailing on my car.

I'll buy gaming crap like there's no tomorrow, and have thousands of dollars worth of 2E Realms stuff I read once and put away (ditto my complete Wraith, Mage and Werewolf collections), but I never *needed* that stuff, any more than I *need* a spoiler or a bra or detailing on my car.

I've never been able to find a copy of The Great War, I'm envious.

OTOH, I did find a first printing of Dark:Reflections and I have Land of 8 Million Dreams for Changling :-)