# What's stopping WOTC from going back to 3.5?



## GregoryOatmeal (Sep 23, 2011)

_Edit: My thesis_ _was wrong. 4E actually does have a surprisingly large fan base and unlike the folks ranting about "imaginary numbers" I have data to prove it. The RPG.net poll suggests the game has an older fanbase that stick with the game through edition changes.

_http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php...e-best-and-when-did-you-start-playing-D-amp-D
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...eons-dragons-editions-where-do-you-stand.html


With Monte Cook back at WOTC everyone's talking about 5E. Before the game is even announced I'm very skeptical of buying a new system, as I already have various resources for 2E, 3E, 4E, C&C, and PF. This game would have to be unbelievably good for me to invest money in it. I have a feeling I'm not alone.

I'm not trying to flare an edition war, I'm not even commenting on the quality of the games - I actually like 4E. I just want to talk about what I've noticed amongst gamers in my community and the economics of the market. I'll play anything - which is part of the reason I gave up on 4E. Everyone I know seems to _hate_ it. I know like 7 circles of gamers and I just can't find enough 4E players. Some things I've noticed amongst the gamers I know.



I live in a college town. I can't comment on kids under 18 but most of the adults (20s, 30s, 40s) seem to feel similar about 4E. These notes may be age-biased.
Of the 40 or so gamers I know I'm probably one of the five that's interested in playing 4E. After years of running it I prefer 3.5 or PF or C&C. I just assume most gamers I meet don't like 3.5 because it's almost always true.
_Everyone _who plays games regularly has played 3.5
Amongst D&D games (I'm referring to WOTC, TSR, or Paizo Dungeons and Dragons games or clones, not Cthulu/Dragon Age/etc.) about 60% run on 3.5 rules. 20% are Pathfinder. I've heard of two AD&D 2E groups and two 4E groups.
I've never met anyone in this town that subscribed to D&D Insider.
Most gamers I know that have gaming collections worth more than $500 have stopped purchasing D&D books entirely.
The most frequently recommended gaming purchase to new gamers if the 3.5 PHB. That incredibly popular book is out of print.
3.5 is far more popular than Pathfinder. People say the ship has sailed but most players I know haven't made the switch.
The players that play Encounters at the local comic store don't even tend to like 4E or the Encounters format. They tend to show up because they need a D&D fix and don't have time for anything else.
The WOTC staff is incredibly small. The release catalog looks very sparse. 3E saw a flurry of 1st and 3rd party books on just about anything. They weren't always good but apparently the demand was there.
People I know tend to make their gaming purchases at used book stores and not the comic shop that sells new D&D products.
While I respect their attempt at moving forward, it really doesn't seem pragmatic for WOTC to release products that aren't 3.5 compatible. It makes sense that WOTC wants to attract a younger audience and boost revenue with D&D Insider but it just doesn't seem to be working. Paizo, meanwhile, seems to be flourishing using the old business model of printed products and a complicated and wonky rules system. But it really doesn't seem like Paizo has captured even half of the 3.5 market. 

I've read on these forums "These people won't be happy with WOTC unless they rerelease 3.5". Well...why don't they? All of my personal experience indicates that group of consumers that cling to an out of print game is larger than the 4E base and the 3.5 base. Gamers would swoon to a "D&D Classic Revival" campaign that would immediately revive WOTC's image. Players that switched over to PF could still buy new 3.5 products since they're compatible. They could have D&D Insider support 3.5 as well. We could see Dark Sun for 3.5. What's stopping them?


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## GregoryOatmeal (Sep 23, 2011)

On a somewhat related note, it may be telling that Gary Gygax always wanted TSR to reprint AD&D, his baby. Monte Cook was tied to the development of 3E so he may be pushing for WOTC to revive his most successful product.


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## Ron (Sep 23, 2011)

WotC sells the same products at each edition. They already released a full 3.5 line and, thus, they will have trouble creating new products for it. Also, customers who want this kind of thing are already served by Paizo and thus WotC will have to differentiate their line.

Anyway, Mearls column clearly champions an edition inclusive enough to attract players interested in a less structured game with less detailed rules. Third edition is pretty much the opposite of this goal, reaon why I find Cook return to the development team quite weird.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 23, 2011)

1) I think WotC has the reputation, pull, infrastructure, $$ and the skillsets to support multiple RPG products at one time, including prior editions.

2) I doubt that they would republish/revise prior editions in anything but barebones physical product supplemented by mostly PDFs or other electronic data formats.  Part of that is because of the number of retroclones already in the market.  Part of that is because it is an echo of heir evolving business model.


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## MichaelSomething (Sep 23, 2011)

Hey if they think that selling more 3.5 stuff would be worth their time, then they would.


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## GregoryOatmeal (Sep 23, 2011)

Ron said:


> WotC sells the same products at each edition. They already released a full 3.5 line and, thus, they will have trouble creating new products for it. Also, customers who want this kind of thing are already served by Paizo and thus WotC will have to differentiate their line.
> 
> Anyway, Mearls column clearly champions an edition inclusive enough to attract players interested in a less structured game with less detailed rules. Third edition is pretty much the opposite of this goal, reaon why I find Cook return to the development team quite weird.




There's still a ton of ground they haven't covered from 1E/2E/4E. I'd love a Feywild/Shadowfell books, Planescape, Dark Sun, more Eberron, reprints of classic modules, and so on. And they totally recycled all their psionics/warriors splat books ad-nauseum and could do it again. I knew a lot of people that would buy anything that said "3.5" on it.

Theoretically they should buy Paizo stuff (or other retroclones), but for some reason a lot of them don't. "Dungeons and Dragons 3.5" as a brand is more valuable than "Dungeons and Dragons 4E" *and* the Pathfinder brand. When people talk about D&D they talk about 3.5, not Pathfinder.

And Mike Mearls says a bunch of stuff.


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## Mark CMG (Sep 23, 2011)

*cough*PDFs*cough*


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## Oryan77 (Sep 23, 2011)

You can't go *backwards*! That's impossible! Well, you can if you do a prequel, but D&D has already released episodes 1, 2, 3, & 3.5. 

They could have rereleased 3.5 in high def, but Paizo already did that and called it Pathfinder.

Plus, if they did go back to 3.5 (which they can't cause I already said how it is impossible) then all that would do is prove that they failed with 4e. Nobody likes to be wrong, and companies never admit to their mistake unless it is a publicity stunt to advertise Quikster or a sales pitch to advertise that guns will be back in the anniversary disk of the E.T. movie.

Wait, that's it! That's the angle. An anniversary release of older editions!


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## Thunderfoot (Sep 23, 2011)

Mark - I think WotC is done with PDFs, they got burned pretty hard on the pirate market.

There are two main reason I see that WotC won't backtrack (plus a bonus secondary reason).

1) Marketing - Hasbro is the #1 seller of toys in North America and quite possibly the world.  If you've noticed, they re-release successful lines (Transformers, GI Joe, My Little Pony, etc) about every 4 - 7 years.  As WotC is a wholly owned subsidiary thereof, it makes sense that they too would follow this business model.
2) Money - following on the coat tales of 1 above, the reason for this is continued positive cash flow and a replenishing revenue stream.

B) Pride - I can't imagine any company going back to an older product other than Coca-Cola, and even they balked at it for a long time (New Coke was out and in production for 3 years before it was finally pulled completely.)  Newer is always better in marketing regardless of proof to the contrary, that's why we have those nifty catch phrases like "shifting the paradigm", "wave of the future", "redefining style/class/precision/etc. and "raising the bar".  Marketing research folks are a sad combination of yes men and scientists, however, they are for the most part, VERY effective at either guessing the next trend or forcing it upon you without you noticing.  Either way, they are the rudder what steers the boat.  And when it's all said and done, if the first two reasons are covered, then they can be forgiven by the board of directors.


EDIT: To clarify, I'm not slandering marketers or even bad mouthing them.  I don't think marketing folks are Evil, maybe Chaotic Neutral (with Evil tendencies) but, they are efficient.  While I don't agree with their tactics or the means, it is the most widely accepted business practice for product development and very unlikely to be replaced anytime soon.


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## Fanaelialae (Sep 23, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> There's still a ton of ground they haven't covered from 1E/2E/4E. I'd love a Feywild/Shadowfell books, Planescape, Dark Sun, more Eberron, reprints of classic modules, and so on. And they totally recycled all their psionics/warriors splat books ad-nauseum and could do it again. I knew a lot of people that would buy anything that said "3.5" on it.
> 
> Theoretically they should buy Paizo stuff (or other retroclones), but for some reason a lot of them don't. "Dungeons and Dragons 3.5" as a brand is more valuable than "Dungeons and Dragons 4E" *and* the Pathfinder brand. When people talk about D&D they talk about 3.5, not Pathfinder.
> 
> And Mike Mearls says a bunch of stuff.




They've stated in the past that setting books (Planescape, etc.) aren't as profitable as other books for them.  While there is certainly a subsection of 3.5 players who will purchase anything with 3.5 stamped on it, there are also plenty of people who just aren't interested in Complete Warrior XVI.  Had it been profitable for them to just keep cranking out new books along those lines, I have little doubt they would have done so. 

IMO, there's so much already out there produced for 3.5 that it wouldn't be all that profitable for them to reprint it.  The people who play 3.5 tend to have their books already.  I'm fairly certain that new players can find a used PHB on ebay (a quick search found one for $11), or print the SRD to Lulu (or barring that, from their printer) for a reasonable price.

It certainly would be a kindness if WotC did offer a reasonable print on demand (or similar) service for out of print materials.  I've little doubt though, that convincing the higher ups at Hasbro that they should internally support competition for the current edition would take quite some doing.  It's entirely possible that WotC has tried to do just that and was denied.  It isn't as though we'd hear of it if they had (due to NDAs and all that jazz).

Personally, I think it's very interesting (and great) news that Monte Cook is back on board, but I expect that when we eventually see 5e, it'll be a significantly different animal from both 3rd and 4e.  (Albeit, informed to some greater or lesser degree by all editions.)  Just because he was a major force behind 3rd edition doesn't mean that he doesn't have different ideas about how the game might be approached.  As evidence, I'll cite the skill system suggested by Monte Cook in Mearl's column.  A significant deviation from anything we saw in 3.x.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 23, 2011)

> EDIT: To clarify, I'm not slandering marketers or even bad mouthing them. I don't think marketing folks are Evil, maybe Chaotic Neutral (with Evil tendencies) but, they are efficient. While I don't agree with their tactics or the means, it is the most widely accepted business practice for product development and very unlikely to be replaced anytime soon.




I consider myself to be LCGN.


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## TheAuldGrump (Sep 23, 2011)

Thunderfoot said:


> Mark - I think WotC is done with PDFs, they got burned pretty hard on the pirate market.



 I think that they set themselves up to fail in the PDF market - charging full hardcover prices for their PDFs was a mistake.

I suspect that the Pathfinder PDFs are doing just fine, but they are reasonably priced, and only have watermarking, not DRM.

In theory WotC did not want inexpensive PDFs to compete with book sales, instead they made piracy more attractive. (I also doubt that PDFs would have placed much drain on book sales - I know that I have both books and PDFs for Pathfinder material.)



> There are two main reason I see that WotC won't backtrack (plus a bonus secondary reason).
> 
> 1) Marketing - Hasbro is the #1 seller of toys in North America and quite possibly the world.  If you've noticed, they re-release successful lines (Transformers, GI Joe, My Little Pony, etc) about every 4 - 7 years.  As WotC is a wholly owned subsidiary thereof, it makes sense that they too would follow this business model.
> 2) Money - following on the coat tales of 1 above, the reason for this is continued positive cash flow and a replenishing revenue stream.
> ...



 I actually think that B is the major reason, along with one not shown - Control of Product Identity. There were WotC folks who thought that the OG and D20 Licenses allowed too much third party material to dilute their brand. (I disagree, but....)

Going back to 3.5 and the open licenses that fueled it is unattractive if you consider it dilution rather than reinforcement of the brand. The problem is that they were trying to put a genie back into its bottle, and it did _not_ want to cooperate.



> EDIT: To clarify, I'm not slandering marketers or even bad mouthing them.  I don't think marketing folks are Evil, maybe Chaotic Neutral (with Evil tendencies) but, they are efficient.  While I don't agree with their tactics or the means, it is the most widely accepted business practice for product development and very unlikely to be replaced anytime soon.



 Oddly enough, I think that much of 4e's birthing problems could have been avoided by leaving marketing in the hands of Marketing - letting the design team wing it on their own is part of what made the changeover seem so insulting to those who still liked the older engine.

The Auld Grump


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 23, 2011)

> Oddly enough, I think that much of 4e's birthing problems could have been avoided by leaving marketing in the hands of Marketing - letting the design team wing it on their own is part of what made the changeover seem so insulting to those who still liked the older engine.




I couldn't agree more- mistakes were made that would have gotten marketing professionals fired.


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## Lanefan (Sep 23, 2011)

What's stopping WOTC from going back to 3.5? 

Mostly that Paizo has already taken 3.5's stuff - without even bothering to kill it first.

Lanefan


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## Thunderfoot (Sep 23, 2011)

TheAuldGrump said:


> I think that they set themselves up to fail in the PDF market - charging full hardcover prices for their PDFs was a mistake.
> I suspect that the Pathfinder PDFs are doing just fine, but they are reasonably priced, and only have watermarking, not DRM.
> In theory WotC did not want inexpensive PDFs to compete with book sales, instead they made piracy more attractive. (I also doubt that PDFs would have placed much drain on book sales - I know that I have both books and PDFs for Pathfinder material.)



Yeah, I'm not sure if it was WotC or Hasbro that didn't understand that PDF is not hardcover.  The folks at WotC keep saying that Hasbro doesn't run the show, but those meeting notes they used to print showed me otherwise.  Not that they micro-managed, but that the had an eye on things...  Without being there, it would be hard to speculate who made the decision and why, but hindsight being what it is - it was a bone headed move.



TheAuldGrump said:


> I actually think that B is the major reason, along with one not shown - Control of Product Identity. There were WotC folks who thought that the OG and D20 Licenses allowed too much third party material to dilute their brand. (I disagree, but....)
> Going back to 3.5 and the open licenses that fueled it is unattractive if you consider it dilution rather than reinforcement of the brand. The problem is that they were trying to put a genie back into its bottle, and it did _not_ want to cooperate.



That would still fall under 1 & 2 for me, but it's really just mincing words.  You're quite right the OGL was somebody's personal target and they were very effective in killing it off for 4E.



TheAuldGrump said:


> Oddly enough, I think that much of 4e's birthing problems could have been avoided by leaving marketing in the hands of Marketing - letting the design team wing it on their own is part of what made the changeover seem so insulting to those who still liked the older engine.
> The Auld Grump



I'm not sure that the design team had all that much to do with it.  Having been there and watching the whole thing at GenCon, it seemed to me like it was kind of dropped in their lap.  The presentation was moved once and was an hour late.  Then at the "Q&A" (such as it was) it seemed that some of the key questions outside of design were never really discussed, there was even some debate on the release date and the inclusion of the OGL (something they said would be included at GenCon).  It seemed like it was as if while they were leaving someone said, "Oh, by the way, while you're at GenCon, make sure you announce the new edition that's being released next year, okay?  We'll pack some freebie hand out stuff for you so it will be a smooth announcement.  Thanks."


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## GregoryOatmeal (Sep 23, 2011)

Thunderfoot said:


> 2) Money - following on the coat tales of 1 above, the reason for this is continued positive cash flow and a replenishing revenue stream.
> 
> B) Pride - I can't imagine any company going back to an older product other than Coca-Cola, and even they balked at it for a long time (New Coke was out and in production for 3 years before it was finally pulled completely.)  Newer is always better in marketing regardless of proof to the contrary, that's why we have those nifty catch phrases like "shifting the paradigm", "wave of the future", "redefining style/class/precision/etc. and "raising the bar".  Marketing research folks are a sad combination of yes men and scientists, however, they are for the most part, VERY effective at either guessing the next trend or forcing it upon you without you noticing.  Either way, they are the rudder what steers the boat.  And when it's all said and done, if the first two reasons are covered, then they can be forgiven by the board of directors.




Is there any evidence D&D has been profitable for WOTC since 4E? It seems to have resulted in a shrinking staff, aimless products (fortune cards, power cards), diminished release schedule, fewer revenue streams (the miniatures line), a fractured community, a damaged brand, etc. When you've alienated three quarters of your customers it's time to set aside ego and give people what they want.

This seems *a lot *like New Coke. Releasing 5E would be like Coke, 3 years after releasing New Coke, releasing "Newer Coke! Since you loved New Coke so much". I can't imagine how marketing would have any credibility in proposing Newer Coke when the off-brand is doing so well by blatantly stealing the idea the marketing department thought needed replaced. 

Pathfinder, 4E and the instant nostalgia for 3.5 have made the 3.5 brand very strong. Nothing WOTC could do could match match the existing affection gamers have for 3.5. Call it "Classic 3.5 Edition", "3E Renaissance Edition", "3E Reborn". Gamers would eat that up. WOTC would immediately solve its image problem.


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## Thunderfoot (Sep 23, 2011)

And go broke trying to compete with Paizo.  No, if people are actually looking for a re-release of 3.X, they have very little understanding of business.  When 2E came out it was close enough to 1E that no one complained.
When 3E came out there was just as much flak as there was when 4E came out.  And as far as a "3/4 of your customer base" that number is no where near correct.

The fact is 4E brought in as many old players as was lost, if anything it was a turn over more than an actual shift, so, no I don't buy it.  The shrinking staff statement is incorrect, WotC did not have their annual Christmas layoffs this year.  The last time that happened 3E came out.  Likewise the diminished release schedule also ushered in 3E, so if anything that is stronger evidence that a new edition is in the works rather than the failing of WotC.

While I am no fan of 4E by any stretch of the imagination, from what I could tell at GenCon, since 4Es release, the tourneys were still manned, the products still sold and there were still lines into WotCs booth.  What is evident is more of the "new grognards" (ie 3.X fanboys(for lack of a better term)) were hanging out at the Paizo booth.  More telling was the number of retro clones that were available and selling, which means interest in OD&D, BECMI, 1eAD&D and 2eAD&D were more prevalent than ever.  Or, more to the point, 3.X edition isn't the "Holy Grail" that some folks seem to think it is.

As to the question is there any evidence to 4e was profitable, I am unsure as the quarterly WotC financial reports are no longer posted on-line.


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## TheAuldGrump (Sep 23, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> What's stopping WOTC from going back to 3.5?
> 
> Mostly that Paizo has already taken 3.5's stuff - without even bothering to kill it first.
> 
> Lanefan



Hell, Paizo cast True Resurrection on 3.5's corpse and polished the sword and armor in the process. 

The Auld Grump


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 23, 2011)

Y'know...I can't say Pathfinder has really supplanted 3.5Ed- or Arcana Evolved- in my heart.  Just sayin'.


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## delericho (Sep 23, 2011)

There's nothing stopping WotC from going back to 3.5e as such. However...

- By the time 4e was released, the product line for 3.5e was really played out. The last few products seemed really tired, sales were dropping, and there really didn't seem to be much that they could sell... in large numbers anyway.

- A lot of 4e fans are fans precisely because of the vast differences with 3.5e. Going back would quickly and effectively alienate those fans.

- A lot of the 3.5e fans have moved over to Pathfinder, and won't be easily won back. It's not impossible, but bear in mind that WotC need a lot of sales to make something worth their while.

And I don't agree that WotC _could_ support multiple editions concurrently. The big problem here is that that leads to them competing with themselves, so instead of having one product that sells enough copies, they have two that are both failures. And my gut feeling is that D&D sales (both 4e and late 3.5e) are _just barely_ enough to support the line, and no more. This would certainly explain the vastly reduced release schedule of late - books that were just barely doing well enough are now more expensive and so not worth doing, while the DDI has heavily canibalised sales of the 'crunch' books that used to be the bigger sellers.

Basically, I'm pretty sure moving back to 3.5e would mean the end of 4e, and I think that would be a losing proposition. (Though I'm not at all convinced 5e would be a good idea either, nor indeed continuing with 4e. D&D-RPG may just be too small for a company the size of WotC/Hasbro to bother with.)


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## MerricB (Sep 23, 2011)

It's very well worth considering that a major reason a lot of us changed to 4E (and there were a lot of us) is because 3.5E had failed to capture us for the future. For myself, there are significant problems with running higher level 3.5e, and properly preparing 3.5e was more difficult than I had the time to do.

There are things I don't like about 4e, but those things wouldn't be fixed by returning to straight 3.5e: I'd be giving up too much which was a success.

For 5E, my expectation is that it will build on both 4e and 3.5e, whilst becoming its own beast. 

Cheers!


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## Aberzanzorax (Sep 23, 2011)

I'm not sure about the 3.5>Pathfinder assumption.


Looking at third party publishers, there seem to be few to none working on 3.5 products at this point. All seem to have moved to either Pathfinder or 4e (or both).



While people may play 3.5, I don't think there remains a market for it. I mean, just look at the Tome of Horrors news from yesterday. They COULD have released it as 3.5 instead of Pathfinder. Instead they put in the work to convert it (same with Slumbering Tsar).


This is not to say that these third party publishers can't be wrong, or that WotC might be a different beast....but it certainly seems those who have their companies and salaries on the line are betting on Pathfinder versus 3.5.


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## zlorf (Sep 23, 2011)

i think the market for pretty much flooded to a point where sales were dropping off - not enough demand and enough material (+3rd party) to keep most people happy for there whole lifetime of rpging. Sure they can reprint a new 15th aniversity 3.x edition, and it would sell. Pathfinder are flying the 3.x flag now, but eventually they will also see a decline in sales, at least they have pretty good adventures to backup there products.
Wizards are a company that needs to make money...so they bring out 4e and Online subscription, and like previous editions eventually not profitable to sell.
Go on ebay and buy 3.5 stuff or just online to many sites that pretty much give you the rules you need for free.

Zlorf


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## rkwoodard (Sep 23, 2011)

*going back....Lucas*

Hello,

They could reprint or provide PDFs again, and that would be cool (for those that want them).

But you would hate it if they made 3.5 their core engine again.

There is no way they would just go back as is.  

They would pull a Lucas.  They couldn't help themselves from tinkering.

Sure the books would look the same, until you turn to a certain page and BAM, there are rules for Healing Surges.  They would try to build in their new ideas as if they had been there all along.

And then we would have another uprising of hate and venom.

rk


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## Desdichado (Sep 23, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> I just want to talk about what I've noticed amongst gamers in my community and the economics of the market. I'll play anything - which is part of the reason I gave up on 4E. Everyone I know seems to _hate_ it. I know like 7 circles of gamers and I just can't find enough 4E players. Some things I've noticed amongst the gamers I know.



Everyone you know probably isn't really very many people.  Nor do they seem to be representative of what's going on anywhere else.  WotC can't make business decisions based on the casual survey of one guy in one area and the gamers he knows.


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## Dice4Hire (Sep 23, 2011)

Hobo said:


> Everyone you know probably isn't really very many people.  Nor do they seem to be representative of what's going on anywhere else.  WotC can't make business decisions based on the casual survey of one guy in one area and the gamers he knows.




Yes, yes, everyone knows that. 

But for all you know from your limited perspective, his story is true everywhere except where you game.

True?


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## Desdichado (Sep 23, 2011)

Dice4Hire said:


> Yes, yes, everyone knows that.



Not they don't.  That was his primary evidence for posting his recommendation.


			
				Dice4Hire said:
			
		

> But for all you know from your limited perspective, his story is true everywhere except where you game.
> 
> True?



No.  I talk to people about gaming in places other than where I game.  I read gameblogs.  Occasionally I even read threads here.

Not suggesting that that's more "scientific" than his assumptions, but your assertion also wasn't true.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 23, 2011)

Thunderfoot said:


> When 3E came out there was just as much flak as there was when 4E came out.




That doesn't match my memories. The Internet wasn't as big at the time, and I was playing GURPS, but the local group of D&D players quickly and unanimously switched over, while there's still some dissension in that same group over 3E versus 4e.



> The fact is 4E brought in as many old players as was lost, if anything it was a turn over more than an actual shift, so, no I don't buy it.




I don't buy that; looking at the local D&D Meetup for D&Desque campaigns, I see two Pathfinder, one D&D 3.5 and one D&D 4. Looking at Amazon, the best seller is Pathfinder, and the basic 3.5 books are in the 20-30 range. Looking on LibraryThing, with the exception of a few months in 2008 and 2009, each quarter, more people have added copies of PHB 3.5 to the system then PHB 4. It's slid off recently, with quarter-by-quarter more people adding PHB 1 than PHB 4 to the system. It's not the evergreen older PHBs were. I won't argue that's hard data, but there's a picture being painted.



> Or, more to the point, 3.X edition isn't the "Holy Grail" that some folks seem to think it is.




Maybe not the Holy Grail, but it seems decidedly more successful then 4e.


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## RedTonic (Sep 23, 2011)

Unfortunately, it's impossible to do a factual, rigorous financial analysis of WotC. Hasbro does not provide the disaggregated financial reports of their subsidiary for the asking. (I tried.) However, Hasbro itself is doing _quite_ well.

I would be skeptical of any information regarding WotC's sales/revenue gained from interviews with/remarks by their competitors' leadership.


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## Umbran (Sep 23, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> Is there any evidence D&D has been profitable for WOTC since 4E?




We don't have real sales numbers, so we have no direct evidence, either way.  However, you don't go on selling a product for years if it isn't making a profit.  The question isn't whether it is profitable, but whether it is as profitable as they think it could/should be.



> It seems to have resulted in a shrinking staff, aimless products (fortune cards, power cards), diminished release schedule, fewer revenue streams (the miniatures line), a fractured community, a damaged brand, etc.




3e had shrinking staff after release (and folks said the same thing about its health, because of it), so that's not indicative of anything.  There was some major concern about the health of the minis line back in 3e days.  When they had a fast release schedule for 3e, folks accused them of "rules bloating"...

So a bunch of that does not necessarily mean what you think it means.  There is a difference between "evidence" and "things that hang together to tell the story I want to tell".



> When you've alienated three quarters of your customers it's time to set aside ego and give people what they want.




Do you have evidence that it is "three quarters"?  Let's not posit numbers, and then start talking as if those numbers are actually true.  We have no idea how many of their players were "alienated".


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## Gondsman (Sep 23, 2011)

while i could maybe see some value in WOTC just reprinting some 3.5 books and testing out the response, see if they can pick up some extra cash, I don't think ultimately it would change anything so far as their popularity and reputation among gamers as a whole.

If they do come out with a 5e, the only way they are going to make a lot of people happy is if they come out with some kind of ala-carte system where they have multiple options that can be mixed and matched, but would ultimately be extremely difficult to balance.

Something where you have 3 choices of skill systems, or an HP system with high HP, high damage, and healing surges, compared with a low HP, lower combat damage/survivability system.  The idea being that a group can tailor the rules to their play styles such as combat/tactics heavy vs. story/realism heavy.  Unfortunately to create such a system with so many swap outs would be a tremendous problem.


----------



## BriarMonkey (Sep 23, 2011)

From what I know of the Print-On-Demand model, it would take a little time and effort up front, but after that, it'd pretty much take care of itself.  Thus, with a little time on WotC's part, they could make available the core books, and more popular other books, available from prior editions for sale.  That doesn't mean they need to invest resources into the upkeep or development of the line - just make the old stuff available to those who want them.

I know many people, myself included, that would love to get a new hardcopy of some older books (which have been lost or maimed through time).


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## Thunderfoot (Sep 23, 2011)

Yep, as always Umbran, you put my words into far sharper contrast/focus than I could, I salute you!


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## Roland55 (Sep 23, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> What's stopping WOTC from going back to 3.5?
> 
> Mostly that Paizo has already taken 3.5's stuff - without even bothering to kill it first.
> 
> Lanefan




We can't really blame Paizo for this.

I hear they found poor old 3.5 stumbling around in an alley with a 5-day old beard, filthy clothes, and a real bad hangover.

I guess they saw some potential after they showered up the old boy and gave him a hot meal.


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## Thunderfoot (Sep 23, 2011)

Roland55 said:


> We can't really blame Paizo for this.
> 
> I hear they found poor old 3.5 stumbling around in an alley with a 5-day old beard, filthy clothes, and a real bad hangover.
> 
> I guess they saw some potential after they showered up the old boy and gave him a hot meal.



I heard the was a small amount of therapy involved, both mental and physical, but is was rather quick and painless.


----------



## Mark CMG (Sep 24, 2011)

Thunderfoot said:


> Mark - I think WotC is done with PDFs, they got burned pretty hard on the pirate market.





I'm not one who believes that a stolen copy is a lost sale whether it is a PDF or a hardcopy.  I do believe that some folks can manage to track who and how many electronic copies are stolen, and I don't blame a company for wishing the prosecute those who steal, if that is possible where those people happen to be.  However, I do not believe that stolen copies translate to lost sales.  So, the idea that they were "burned" isn't something I believe either.

Nor is anything but pirated current edition materials the reason they gave for pulling their entire PDF collection, so not having PDFs of older editions makes no sense by their logic.  Once it is setup (and I helped RPGNow set it up), it is practically no cost for a revenue stream that, given how long WotC was in the top sellers, was obviously substantial.  Fortunately, they just hired a guy to write their Legends & Lore column who knows this for a fact since he was periodically a top seller and has some sense of what WotC is actually losing.  Furthermore, I have no doubt that RPGNow has all of the old code still available (they'd be knuckleheads not to).  So, if given the go-ahead, they could probably get all of the old PDFs back up for sale in short order and with little fuss for WotC.

No, the assessment that they were "burned" just doesn't ring true to me.  No offense to you, of course, as that is a fair way of describing what they projected as true, it just isn't something I believe to be true.  If they really want a big tent, they could drop an email on RPGNow and have a big tent before the weekend was over.


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## Erik Mona (Sep 24, 2011)

Roland55 said:


> We can't really blame Paizo for this.
> 
> I hear they found poor old 3.5 stumbling around in an alley with a 5-day old beard, filthy clothes, and a real bad hangover.
> 
> I guess they saw some potential after they showered up the old boy and gave him a hot meal.




In point of fact, we burned off its scruffy beard only to discover that it was, in fact, Prince Namor.

--Erik


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## GregoryOatmeal (Sep 24, 2011)

Hobo said:


> Everyone you know probably isn't really very many people.  Nor do they seem to be representative of what's going on anywhere else.  WotC can't make business decisions based on the casual survey of one guy in one area and the gamers he knows.




So I said they were anecdotal observations in my original post, but do they ring true for others reading this? I don't have much data but it's really rare to hear people claim 4E has more momentum than 3.5 in their community. Do you feel more gamers you know are teaching their siblings, nephews, and friends 4E than 3.5? Are they recommending new players get 4E and go out and buy the books? 

I can piece together some evidence

Amazon - Pathfinder is outselling the 4E PHB. This indicates PF is about as popular or moreso than 4E but misses a whole demographic that plays a game that is essentially the same. If you believe more people play 3.5 than PF that indicates at a minimum the 3.5 system (PF and 3.5) is twice as popular as 4E.

Meetup - I've seen 4 3.5 games start here and a 2E game. No Pathfinder yet. I'm the only one to propose a 4E game. I consider this to be a very useful and neutral benchmark and I'm curious what others have noticed.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/311906-edition-buy.html - this post seems to reflect a lot of what I hear in my community. 3.5 recommendations outnumber PF and 4E.

I saw a WOTC designer write a really dour blog about freelancing, which devolved into a rant about his frustrations with the industry. In it he stated the D&D R&D team is the smallest it's ever been. I can't recall his name or find the blog (help me out) but I think it would be hard to dispute what he said about the size of the design team and what it indicates about D&D.

Again, this is all very anecdotal evidence. But I haven't seen any evidence that suggests WOTC's customer base hasn't shrunk dramatically. Can anyone show me any evidence that suggests more than 70% or even 51% of gamers play the version of D&D WOTC is selling.


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## Moon_Goddess (Sep 24, 2011)

Thunderfoot said:


> B) Pride - I can't imagine any company going back to an older product other than Coca-Cola, and even they balked at it for a long time (New Coke was out and in production for 3 years before it was finally pulled completely.)





Actually New Coke was simply renamed Coke II kept around in limited production runs but finally discontinued in 2002.    So yeah, nobody wants to admit they were wrong.


----------



## RedTonic (Sep 24, 2011)

Also, from a marketing perspective, re-releasing a recent-but-discontinued product when you still plan to invest in and develop a current product doesn't make sense when you are reasonably certain that the re-release would simply cut in to your current market share rather than expand it. You're cannibalizing your own base and diluting your brand. Supersaturation like that only "works" for a limited amount of time and only in certain circumstances, and for a certain value of "works." I don't believe it would be a successful strategy in the tabletop market. Disclaimer: I'm not in marketing, I'm just a business school grad who had to take it. Long story short, trying to pop out 3.5 again would more than likely be a bleeder for WotC, which isn't good for D&D and isn't good for the fans.

eta

We shouldn't forget that this is a recession, either. A recession is a pretty unique environment, as I think we can all agree. Layoffs at Hasbro and its subsidiaries should come as a surprise to no one. Nor should anyone be surprised that a product released during the recession (2008!) may not be burning the fat out of the market: a tabletop game is an entertainment product; most of us aren't exactly flush with cash, so we're avoiding optional spending. Likewise, we're more likely to stick with tried-and-true products like the now venerable 3.5e, of which Pathfinder is an inheritor.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 24, 2011)

DarwinofMind said:


> Actually New Coke was simply renamed Coke II kept around in limited production runs but finally discontinued in 2002.    So yeah, nobody wants to admit they were wrong.




You almost got it right: Coke II was found in some foreign markets as late as 2006.  After that, though, I don't know.


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## gamerprinter (Sep 24, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> So I said they were anecdotal observations in my original post, but do they ring true for others reading this? I don't have much data but it's really rare to hear people claim 4E has more momentum than 3.5 in their community. Do you feel more gamers you know are teaching their siblings, nephews, and friends 4E than 3.5? Are they recommending new players get 4E and go out and buy the books?
> 
> I can piece together some evidence
> 
> ...




I don't think looking at your local conditions, nor an EnWorld poll will be anything but anecdotal.

That said, if you are looking at local anecdotal conditions only. Here in north central Illinois, I know of 1 group playing 4e, 2 groups playing 3.5, 8 groups playing Pathfinder, 1 playing Tales of Gaeia, 1 building its own classless RPG system.

This is not indicative of anything beyond local nuance, so it really says nothing about the entire market. At least locally here, Pathfinder is the game that rules, however.


----------



## gamerprinter (Sep 24, 2011)

Actually I believe that New Coke was a ruse so Coca-cola could take sugar out of Coke and replace it with frucose, so when Coke was reintroduced we would think we got the original back - the taste is slightly different. If they gone form sugar Coke to frucose Coke directly, we'd have noticed the difference. While New Coke took our mind off it, so they could sneak in the frucose - I really believe that!


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## amerigoV (Sep 24, 2011)

Oooo, awesome idea on going back to 3.5! That way 3.5 can finally be whole with the Complete Commoner and Plantonomicon! Or maybe they could make a book on undead constructs, since undead and constructs were the "filler" in most of the Monster Manuals (hmmm, I probably would buy a book call Dead Metal....). Yep, tons of fertile ground still left there!  Now, if Wizards could consistently make good modules, then we got another discussion. But Paizo already has that market.

While people may or may not like 4e, the 3.5 line was done. It was either do 3.75 or  do "4e" (4e being "different", not necessarily being the current 4e). They decided to do something different. Paizo picked the 3.75*. But 3.5 is a cold corpse now - ain't nothing new to make other than a setting. Any why bother at this point.

*I have wondered how many of the people that bitched about 3.5 being a money grab are Pathfinder lovers now (who, of course, would have cried foul to the high heavens if Wizards would have done the same thing). Ah well, I am too lazy to make a poll as I really do not care that much to know.

I loved 3.x, but its now dead. I have no problem with that (and its not cuz of 4e - its cuz of Savage Worlds,  but that is a different story).

Now, off to make some Undead Constructs...


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## The Shaman (Sep 24, 2011)

Umbran said:


> We have no idea how many of their players were "alienated".



Well, I was turned into a newt.

Does that qualify?


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## The Shaman (Sep 24, 2011)

amerigoV said:


> That way 3.5 can finally be whole with the Complete Commoner and Plantonomicon!



How sad is it that I read that and thought, "Hey, I could make a fun game out of those!"?







amerigoV said:


> Or maybe they could make a book on undead constructs, since undead and constructs were the "filler" in most of the Monster Manuals (hmmm, I probably would buy a book call Dead Metal....).



Please add me to your pre-release mailing list.


And the irony of ironies, of course, is that I don't play (1) 3.5 or (2) any other fantasy roleplaying games, outside of an annual old school con. But they still sound cool.


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## Fox Lee (Sep 24, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> That doesn't match my memories. The Internet wasn't as big at the time, and I was playing GURPS, but the local group of D&D players quickly and unanimously switched over, while there's still some dissension in that same group over 3E versus 4e.



Gosh, that's not what I remember ^^; There were threads all over the newsgroups about how horrible the new rules were. My local gaming club was awash with controversy. Halfling paladins? "Feats"? "Skills"? NEVER!

Hell, I remember defending it against the 2e/AD&D diehards exactly the way I defend 4e against the 3.x diehards now  Personally I'm still quite fond of 3.5e, though I prefer 4e because I find the rules much tighter and more robust (I do miss the OGL pretty profoundly). But the broader claim (not yours) that 4e is a failure? I simply have not seen evidence of that.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 24, 2011)

> prosfilaes
> That doesn't match my memories. The Internet wasn't as big at the time, and I was playing GURPS, but the local group of D&D players quickly and unanimously switched over, while there's still some dissension in that same group over 3E versus 4e.




I'm with you there: our group had only one holdout on 3Ed, and even he switched after a few months (though he griped for over a year).

As for 4Ed, the only reason we're playing it right now is the guy running the active 3.5 campaign in early 2010 needed a break, and the new guy volunteered to run a 4Ed game.  There are still people in our group who have not made a PC for the game.  Speaking for myself only, while I gladly play the game, it hasn't won me over.  3.5Ed is still my D&D of choice; I have no desire to run 4Ed.


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## Umbran (Sep 24, 2011)

amerigoV said:


> Oooo, awesome idea on going back to 3.5! That way 3.5 can finally be whole with the Complete Commoner and Plantonomicon!




Well, to be fair, D&D is hardly the biggest offender there.  You'd imagine by now SJG would have gotten to _GURPS: Rocks, Plants, and Trees_.



The Shaman said:


> Well, I was turned into a newt.
> 
> Does that qualify?




Only if you were a particularly disgruntled newt.

Which always made me wonder - you can be disgruntled, but you can't be gruntled?  What's up with that?


----------



## Mark CMG (Sep 24, 2011)

RedTonic said:


> We shouldn't forget that this is a recession, either. A recession is a pretty unique environment, as I think we can all agree.





I don't think anyone should or would agree.  While avoiding the politics and posting only regarding the economics, there have been eight in my lifetime and 47 in the history of the USA, fwiw.  Nearly a third of the years of my life have technically been said to be during periods of recession.

List of recessions in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




RedTonic said:


> Layoffs at Hasbro and its subsidiaries should come as a surprise to no one.





Layoffs at WotC are part of the business plan not a reaction to economic recession.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 24, 2011)

Umbran said:


> Well, to be fair, D&D is hardly the biggest offender there.  You'd imagine by now SJG would have gotten to _GURPS: Rocks, Plants, and Trees_.




They rebooted everything in 2004 with GURPS 4th Edition and haven't even got back to GURPS Cyberpunk. The solution of most major game publishers seems to be, produce books until you're producing pretty marginal books and reboot the system and sell all those splat books all over again. I'm happier with SJG (who gave us 16 years of GURPS 3e ... or 10 if you want to count the massive errata on everything non-core that was Compendium 1) than companies that do the reset every three years or so.


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## Pentius (Sep 24, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> So I said they were anecdotal observations in my original post, but do they ring true for others reading this?



Not even kind of.


> Again, this is all very anecdotal evidence.



Let me demonstrate the problem with anecdotal evidence.

I live in a small town.  I am part of the only gaming group any of my group knows about, in this town.  Before I came, they were looking(hoping might be more accurate) for one, but it was just a bunch of guys sitting around talking about they'd like to play.  We are six players, myself included.  I am a fairly enthusiastic 4e fan.  Another player was a strong 3.5 fan, and hadn't even heard of pathfinder.  A third played Rifts.  A fourth didn't care what the game was.  Five and Six were new entirely.  From this evidence, I could conclude:

-The 4e player base has grown 500% in the last couple months.
-The TTRPG player base has grown 50% in the last few months.
-Rifts and 3.5 are now completely dead.  0 playership.
-Pathfinder never even got off the ground.


Completely inaccurate.  But it's what the evidence in my area suggests.

Yes, I'm sure your town trends heavily to 3.5.  In my experience, areas tend to trend hard to one game or another.  Last town I lived I was 4e central, easily a dozen 4e groups to one lone pathfinder group, and no 3.5s.  But all these little pictures don't mean much.  Yeah, I know you can find blogs and sites to support that 3.5 is stronger.  I could find them for 4e, too.


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## GregoryOatmeal (Sep 24, 2011)

amerigoV said:


> That way 3.5 can finally be whole with the Complete Commoner and Plantonomicon!




I want a Plantnomicon! And more modron stuff - I'm just that kind of nerd. 

Seriously, how can you run out of ideas for D&D? If you think hard enough you get something. I think the most interesting ideas come after you've exhausted the basic core material - so this could force some creativity. If I thought long enough about plants I could probably write come up with some really interesting ideas about treants. And it would be cool because no one ever gave treants much thought. Or 500 pages of interesting and flavorful "commoner" NPCs. But if you want to rehash old stuff their is plenty of crazy planescape material that never made it to 3E.

Al-Qadim never made it to 3E or Dark Sun. It'd be really cool and pertinent IMHO to do an Arab-Spring themed campaign for those settings (maybe they kinda did in 2E for DS). Or d20 modern.

Every five years D&D reprints the same material. If they got away from that model maybe they could make something truly compelling.


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## Moon_Goddess (Sep 24, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> You almost got it right: Coke II was found in some foreign markets as late as 2006.  After that, though, I don't know.



Hmm, coke website says they killed it in 2002

Wonder what else they are covering up...


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 24, 2011)

Erik Mona said:


> In point of fact, we burned off its scruffy beard only to discover that it was, in fact, Prince Namor.
> 
> --Erik




I heard Prince Namor had a serious splat book addiction, leading him to a life on the streets.


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## amerigoV (Sep 24, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> I want a Plantnomicon! And more modron stuff - I'm just that kind of nerd.
> 
> Seriously, how can you run out of ideas for D&D? If you think hard enough you get something. I think the most interesting ideas come after you've exhausted the basic core material - so this could force some creativity. If I thought long enough about plants I could probably write come up with some really interesting ideas about treants. And it would be cool because no one ever gave treants much thought. Or 500 pages of interesting and flavorful "commoner" NPCs. But if you want to rehash old stuff their is plenty of crazy planescape material that never made it to 3E.
> 
> ...




I don't disagree in principle with what you have said. But at the end of the day, they are not money making ideas. There are tons of little cool ideas that will interest people, but is the idea cool enough that a bunch of people will buy it?

As you point out, D&D has fallen into a rut since 2e. Print core, print a few modules (tend to be average at best), print the main settings, print splat, print a few interesting ideas, then print splat that is the test material for the next edition. The one thing that kept 3.5 alive for awhile longer was Eberron (something new, yea!). I wish they would break the pattern.

Thats why I buy Savage Worlds stuff - tons of new ideas crammed into every book. That is want I want - discovery, not rehashed Flumph stats.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 24, 2011)

amerigoV said:


> I don't disagree in principle with what you have said. But at the end of the day, they are not money making ideas. There are tons of little cool ideas that will interest people, but is the idea cool enough that a bunch of people will buy it?
> 
> As you point out, D&D has fallen into a rut since 2e. Print core, print a few modules (tend to be average at best), print the main settings, print splat, print a few interesting ideas, then print splat that is the test material for the next edition. The one thing that kept 3.5 alive for awhile longer was Eberron (something new, yea!). I wish they would break the pattern.
> 
> Thats why I buy Savage Worlds stuff - tons of new ideas crammed into every book. That is want I want - discovery, not rehashed Flumph stats.




I actually think much of the 2E model could work for D&D (maybe minus a few settings). Their problem was largely financial mismanagement and (toward the end) lack in quality in the products themselves IMO. 

If anything Paizo has demonstrated people want modules, they want supplements that don't break the game. The splat books from 3E were, in my opinion, the worst thing about 3E (can't speak for 4E because I only have two core books: DMG and PHB). Even the supplement line during 2E (The Fighters Handbook, the Bards Handbook, etc) was mostly flavor followed by NWPs and some kits that didn't really do much to break the game. Also you really didn't need them to play. There was a ton of setting and flavor material (something I think there is a strong appetite for). IMO wizards has just never been very good with the whole flavor thing. The problem with the WOTC approach so far is there is a natural mechanical breaking point. They can only release so much before they have to reboot or stop.


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## scourger (Sep 24, 2011)

amerigoV said:


> ...why I buy Savage Worlds stuff...




For me, *Savage Worlds* is a superior game in many ways.  Mainly, it keeps the rules simple enough to be easy to GM but complex enough to keep the players interested in the character advancement mini-game.  

I think WotC should strive to a similar design model for D&D.  And, I believe it can be done with d20.  I would love to see a blending of the core rules with *D&D Minis* to achieve a similar ease of play.  I've run both d20 games and a minis skirmish campaign.  A full d20 game really is too complex for a DM to easily maintain, especially the increasing complexity of the NPCs & foes; and that level of difficulty increases as the character levels increase.  The minis skirmish campaign, on the other hand, is not complex enough to fully engage the players in character development.  A hybrid is needed.  I think Monte Cook is man to the task, especially if he involves Jonathan Tweet and some of his excellent design techniques seen in *Omega Wold d20*.   

As for going back to 3.5, I absolutely think WotC should reprint that and other older editions.  There is no good reason for WotC to lose that market share.  It can't be the flagship product, but older editions should be available and supported.


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## DEFCON 1 (Sep 24, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> The problem with the WOTC approach so far is there is a natural mechanical breaking point. They can only release so much before they have to reboot or stop.




It's only a problem if people stop buying it.

So long as people continue to purchase new games and spend money on the product... then the company brings in enough money to keep their workers employed, and therefore able to write more stuff.

Just because YOU don't like it, doesn't mean it's a problem.  It might be a problem _for you_... but not a problem necessarily on the whole.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 24, 2011)

DEFCON 1 said:


> It's only a problem if people stop buying it.
> 
> So long as people continue to purchase new games and spend money on the product... then the company brings in enough money to keep their workers employed, and therefore able to write more stuff.
> 
> Just because YOU don't like it, doesn't mean it's a problem. It might be a problem _for you_... but not a problem necessarily on the whole.




I guess I am saying that people do stop buying it (hence 3.5 and 4E), and there is growing fatigue now that people see the pattern pretty clearly. I think it is also one of the key reasons pathfinder is catching up, possibly exceeding, them.


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## RedTonic (Sep 24, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> I don't think anyone should or would agree.  While avoiding the politics and posting only regarding the economics, there have been eight in my lifetime and 47 in the history of the USA, fwiw.  Nearly a third of the years of my life have technically been said to be during periods of recession.
> 
> List of recessions in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> Layoffs at WotC are part of the business plan not a reaction to economic recession.





I didn't say that _this_ recession is unique. I wrote that "a recession" is a unique economic environment; that is, it's unlike other economic environments--not exactly a keen insight, but worth being pointed out. I'm also well aware of the history of recessions we've had in the U.S.

I have no proof either way that WotC layoffs are sensitive/insensitive to the state of the economy. Given that WotC is an American business owned by another American business, I would be surprised if their business plan is wholly insensitive to the anemic condition of discretionary spending here. And, despite an upswing in consumer spending in July, such spending _is_ still weak.

Any business whose planning does not account for the reality of its market is asking for whatever pain results.


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## Mark CMG (Sep 24, 2011)

RedTonic said:


> I didn't say that _this_ recession is unique. I wrote that "a recession" is a unique economic environment; that is, it's unlike other economic environments--not exactly a keen insight, but worth being pointed out. I'm also well aware of the history of recessions we've had in the U.S..





"Unique" means one of a kind.  Perhaps you meant "unusual" though that isn't true either.  Maybe "distinct?"




RedTonic said:


> I have no proof either way that WotC layoffs are sensitive/insensitive to the state of the economy.





You do have proof, right here on EN World.  Use google to do a search of the word layoff (Advanced search with "enworld.org" in the website field) and you'll see that they have regular layoffs during recessions and otherwise as part of their business plan.  They used to do it in either summer or mid-December (almost?) every year.  The lack of a recent layoff might portend that either they simply have as few employees as they can have and still run things (bringing the mags back in-house must be a blessing to those close to the edges) or that they have begun working on 5E in earnest.


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## RedTonic (Sep 24, 2011)

Just because they lay off regularly doesn't mean this lay off isn't related to the recession, is what I'm saying. "Unique" also means "not typical; unusual" and "having no like or equal." I think a recession fits the bill.


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## Mark CMG (Sep 24, 2011)

RedTonic said:


> Just because they lay off regularly doesn't mean this lay off isn't related to the recession, is what I'm saying.





If it is going to happen regardless of the recession, as the evidence of regular (nearly yearly, sometimes twice in a year) layoffs would suggest, then saying it is related to the recession doesn't match the facts.




RedTonic said:


> "Unique" also means "not typical; unusual" and "having no like or equal." I think a recession fits the bill.





If there are regular recessions that happen in nearly a third of the last fifty years then saying that they are unusual or, worse, have no like or equal, seems incorrect.


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## RedTonic (Sep 24, 2011)

I don't want to further derail the topic, so I'm dropping this. If you want to continue our dictionary slap-fight, let's do it over PM.


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## nedjer (Sep 24, 2011)

Umbran said:


> Which always made me wonder - you can be disgruntled, but you can't be gruntled?  What's up with that?




Good news on the grammar-slapping front. We can unite in our joy that anyone who wants to feel gruntled can go right ahead. It's straight anglo-saxon for grunt or snort like a piggy. The dis is an emphasis, so we can snort like a pig or, when disgruntled, seriously snort like a pig


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## Thunderfoot (Sep 25, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> <SNIP>
> Al-Qadim never made it to 3E or Dark Sun. It'd be really cool and pertinent IMHO to do an Arab-Spring themed campaign for those settings (maybe they kinda did in 2E for DS). Or d20 modern.<SNIP>



WotC stated they wouldn't support Al-Qadim directly for 3.X, however, for a short time they did "unofficially support" a web site that was fan based for Al-Qadim.

They gave them access to maps, helped stat the monsters and gave guidance on the conversion from 2e kits to 3.X classes and prestige classes.  It was a pretty neat little site until they started to develop 4e in earnest when everything went dark for a while.  If you do a web search I'm sure you can still find most of the info out there in the ether somewhere.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 25, 2011)

Thunderfoot said:


> WotC stated they wouldn't support Al-Qadim directly for 3.X, however, for a short time they did "unofficially support" a web site that was fan based for Al-Qadim.
> 
> They gave them access to maps, helped stat the monsters and gave guidance on the conversion from 2e kits to 3.X classes and prestige classes. It was a pretty neat little site until they started to develop 4e in earnest when everything went dark for a while. If you do a web search I'm sure you can still find most of the info out there in the ether somewhere.




I loved Al Qadim, but I have to wonder if they would have trouble marketing that setting today. So many potential issues with offending people.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 25, 2011)

And they existed back then, too.  Forget the West, the East has been fighting radicalized Islam for going on 50 years.

Or are you thinking more of a reaction akin to "The Satanic Panic" of the 80s, in which people would protest it's quasi-Arabic nature?

Either way, I think we're* bigger than that




* as in gamers.


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## GregoryOatmeal (Sep 25, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> I loved Al Qadim, but I have to wonder if they would have trouble marketing that setting today. So many potential issues with offending people.



Meh, gamers would get it, others might be offended, it could get some attention in the press. These kind of gambits could make D&D more relevant. You could explore Arabic culture and conflicts in a very interesting way that would give people much more empathy for the issues in the area. I find it interesting when roleplaying intersects actual modern political issues. They should probably preface it with a disclaimer about stereotypes like "it's all fun and games. We draw on stereotypical icons like genies which are about as representative of actual Arabic culture as Paul Bunyan is of America"

You could totally turn terrorists and oppressive monarchs into the bad guys. You would have to emphasize that the vast majority of commoners would be essentially good people yearning for peace and less oppression. Which is exactly how the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims feel _- just like everyone else._ You would have to create a few crazy people that support the oppressive politicians or sew sectarian conflict or stir up terrorism.

It would be very very intersting and even educational to explore the influence of imperialism and colonialism from the US/Britain. Or the history of Palestinian statehood. Or Algeria and Franz Fanon, or the Berlin conference. I can't see any American company wanting to go anywhere near that.

I wouldn't touch religion with a ten-foot pole.

It might be smarter to explore those issues through Dark Sun since it's less obviously Arabic.


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## gamerprinter (Sep 25, 2011)

Well, Paizo released Legacy of Fire Adventure Path which is set in the Arabic parts of Golarian, last year or so. I haven't heard any specific flak or derision to Paizo or to this specific AP. I don't think any specific general fear by the public regarding the middle east today, as even dententing the spirits of gamers wanting some Arabic fun.

I think gamers are more mature than the general public anyway.


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## SSquirrel (Sep 26, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> So I said they were anecdotal observations in my original post, but do they ring true for others reading this? I don't have much data but it's really rare to hear people claim 4E has more momentum than 3.5 in their community. Do you feel more gamers you know are teaching their siblings, nephews, and friends 4E than 3.5? Are they recommending new players get 4E and go out and buy the books?




No this doesn't ring true at all.  Actually all the gamers I am friends with here in Louisville are playing either 4E or Savage Worlds.  We've taught several people 4E, some of which gave D&D a try in 3.5 and said learning 4E was much easier and they enjoy it more.  The only other game people generally talk about is Pathfinder, but I don't know anyone who actually PLAYS PF.   No one talks about 3.5.




GregoryOatmeal said:


> Amazon - Pathfinder is outselling the 4E PHB.  This indicates PF is about as popular or moreso than 4E but misses a whole demographic that plays a game that is essentially the same.




Actually, here's the relevant info from the top 20 gaming books on Amazon right now.  PF is #1 yes, but look at how many books are D&D in that top 20.    The top 4 D&D books are the Starter set, the Rules Compendium, the PHB, HotFL and the new Madness at Gardmore Abbey comes in at #6.  Monster Vault is #9 and the DMG is #17, so we certainly have the core of 4th edition well covered.  Plus various other books.

Pathfinder: 1, 7, 10, 12
D&D 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 16, 17, 19
Non D&D Books: 11, 13, 15, 18
Other RPGs: 14 (Black Crusader W40K for the curious)
D&D Novel: 20 (the first Dragonlance Chronicles book)

Using the Amazon list to proclaim PF the winner also fails to take a few other things into consideration.  $10 or less a month gets you DDI access and I know some people who haven't bought any books and just pay the $10.  How representative they are we don't know, but it does happen.  Also, PF is newer than 4E and the greatest influx of sales of even the core products occurs within the first several months after release.  4E could well have quickly reached a saturation point and new purchases are slower than PF.  How many of the people buying PF already own a 4E PHB?  Same question goes the other way too really.  There is a large unknown quantity for WotC revenue in the form of DDI.  If DDI is very popular, they are pulling n lots of money from that.  One group I played with still uses the side loaded OCB instead of the online version and I was its only DDI subscriber, but my current group uses multiple DDI accounts.  That other group is currently running Savage Worlds, but when they are done w/their back to back Savage Worlds campaigns, they are going back to a 4E game.



GregoryOatmeal said:


> Meetup - I've seen 4 3.5 games start here and a 2E game. No Pathfinder yet. I'm the only one to propose a 4E game. I consider this to be a very useful and neutral benchmark and I'm curious what others have noticed.




There are 2 meet up groups listed in the Louisville KY area (metro size of about a million people).  One group is 13 people and sounds like a pretty open bunch, but they list Story RPGs (which says Indie RPGs next to it), so I'm guessing they're probably a bit more Dogs in the Vineyard etc than D&D or Pathfinder.  The other group has 273 members and it's focus is D&D.  Encounters, 4E, apparently at least one PF game going.  They mention they have members into variety of games, but the group is not built around PF and from what I can see of recent events, it seems almost entirely 4E focused.  Just my anecdotal regional info.



GregoryOatmeal said:


> Again, this is all very anecdotal evidence. But I haven't seen any evidence that suggests WOTC's customer base hasn't shrunk dramatically. Can anyone show me any evidence that suggests more than 70% or even 51% of gamers play the version of D&D WOTC is selling.




Can you show us any evidence that they don't?  Didn't think so.  You could teach a math class in imaginary numbers with all the numbers you are imagining and putting forth as fact.



Bedrockgames said:


> Even the supplement line during 2E (The Fighters Handbook, the Bards Handbook, etc) was mostly flavor followed by NWPs and some kits that didn't really do much to break the game.




*cough*Bladesinger!!*cough*




Bedrockgames said:


> IMO wizards has just never been very good with the whole flavor thing.




The most flavorful thing WotC has come up with to date was actually Keith Baker's Eberron work.  So yeah, I can totally go w/this.  I actually liked a good bit of what they did with the new Realms, there was certainly a decent bit of flavor there.  Whether people like it is another story


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## prosfilaes (Sep 26, 2011)

SSquirrel said:


> Also, PF is newer than 4E and the greatest influx of sales of even the core products occurs within the first several months after release.




PF is 2 years old, 4E is 3. There's no reason to think that PF's age is a major factor in sales.



> There is a large unknown quantity for WotC revenue in the form of DDI.




Not that unknown; the discussion has aged off the boards, so I can't find the numbers, but IIRC Wizards lists a forum group of all the DDI users on the forum that has 60,000 members; they may or may not be adding new members of DDI who haven't signed up for the forums to that group, but there was general consensus that represents the lower bound of DDI users, with the upper bound being some small multiple of that value, say maybe 200,000 DDI members at most.


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## GregoryOatmeal (Sep 26, 2011)

SSquirrel said:


> No this doesn't ring true at all
> ...
> There are 2 meet up groups listed in the Louisville KY area (metro size of about a million people).  One group is 13 people and sounds like a pretty open bunch, but they list Story RPGs (which says Indie RPGs next to it), so I'm guessing they're probably a bit more Dogs in the Vineyard etc than D&D or Pathfinder.  The other group has 273 members and it's focus is D&D.  Encounters, 4E, apparently at least one PF game going.  They mention they have members into variety of games, but the group is not built around PF and from what I can see of recent events, it seems almost entirely 4E focused.  Just my anecdotal regional info.




So I'll just disregard the rude comments about using imaginary numbers. There's an obvious zeitgeist here against 4E, and it's curious how much two pools can vary. What geographic factor would cause folks in Louisville to play different games than in Flagstaff? Those kinds of numbers (on meetup) vary so widely it's unbelievable. If you're a gamer I'll talk to you, so it's strange how their can be such a large hidden 4E community.

I've met a lot of gamers, mostly millenials, and I can count the number of 4E enthusiasts I know on one hand. Two of those were swayed by positive experiences in *my *own 4E game. In my more limited experience with older gamers they seem to be a bit more open to 4E, but tend to stick to older editions more often than not. I imagine the meetup applies to an older crowd than the 18-24 group that dominates a college town. So is it a generational thing?

I hang out at a comic store that sells 4E and PF and the owner says the customer base feels about the same way. I actually came in the store after it opened and convinced him to order 4E books and that was the beginning of his business in tabletop roleplaying. He later bought Pathfinder since so many customers complained to him about not wanting to buy 4E. Oddly he seems to sell more 4E books than PF because they're required for the Encounters event. But interestingly the folks at the Encounters that bought the books don't care much for 4E or Encounters - they're just busy professionals with kids looking to get a fix on a Wednesday night from an event that doesn't require prep or much time commitment. So WOTC is profiting from a game where the ambiance of the table damages it's brand image - it's weird.

Your PF/D&D tally of amazon doesn't account for all of the people that play 3.5/PF off their SRDs. Also lots of college kids play off of pirated PDFs. While that obviously isn't a group WOTC wants to chase, those people are teaching new players 3.5 and the edition is gaining new loyalists.

It's weird - I hear comments all the time from the 4E crowd like "It'd be fun to give that a try but I can't find people because everyone hates 4E". That implies of the lets say forty gamers they knew, from whichever state they came from, they've had the same experience as me (Flagstaff sees a lot of out of state students coming in for college). How is that not indicative of something? You can say the 3.5 grognards are the loudest and whiniest (and you'd probably be right in many cases) but it really feels like the 4E crowd must be entirely in the closet. Until I got here...


----------



## Hussar (Sep 26, 2011)

gamerprinter said:


> Well, Paizo released Legacy of Fire Adventure Path which is set in the Arabic parts of Golarian, last year or so. I haven't heard any specific flak or derision to Paizo or to this specific AP. I don't think any specific general fear by the public regarding the middle east today, as even dententing the spirits of gamers wanting some Arabic fun.
> 
> I think gamers are more mature than the general public anyway.




Not to be snarky, but, Paizo could probably produce pretty much anything it wants and it wouldn't get any specific flak or derision simply because it wouldn't even come close to appearing on the radar.

OTOH, WOTC is a whole lot more visible to the general public.  WOTC does occassionally get mentioned in mainstream press, for example.  And, I'm pretty sure that the lawyers overseeing things at Hasbro would nix anything like Al Qadim, if for no other reason than the similarities of the name to hot political topics.

As to why doesn't WOTC re-release 3e?  Why bother?  For one, it couldn't possibly compete with the used book market - how much 3e stuff is still out there on shelves?  For another, there's no way the distributors would do it either because they'd know they'd be in for a pretty hard sell.  Finally, if you owned an FLGS, would you stock a newly released 3.5 PHB to sit right beside the original 3.5 PHB you've still got sitting on your shelf?

Let's not forget, before 4e, before Pathfinder, 3.5 was dying.  Sales had dropped off, virtually every 3pp was out of D&D (with a couple of notable exceptions) and it was bringing in no new blood.

Why on earth would you rerelease that?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 26, 2011)

> Let's not forget, before 4e, before Pathfinder, 3.5 was dying. Sales had dropped off, virtually every 3pp was out of D&D (with a couple of notable exceptions) and it was bringing in no new blood.




The first question a marketer would ask is "Why were sales flagging?" (If indeed they were.)

Market saturation is possible.  Declining quality of products could be as well.   Etc.


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## gamerprinter (Sep 26, 2011)

Perhaps, but some pretty obscure things make it to the limelight if it pushes the right buttons. What I'm saying Paizo, no matter how obscure you want to make it, had it been using some subject matter that the public found particularly vile or disturbing might - if it offended someone, it might have gotten some kind of public view of it.

I just don't think avoiding Arabic settings in light of current events, as being some kind of issue. As long as such a setting isn't about terrorists, suicide bombers, religious war, or any kind of 'crusader' motif - if you stick with Arabian Nights in flavor - I don't think it would be a troubling subject, even for WotC.


----------



## SSquirrel (Sep 26, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> Not that unknown; the discussion has aged off the boards, so I can't find the numbers, but IIRC Wizards lists a forum group of all the DDI users on the forum that has 60,000 members; they may or may not be adding new members of DDI who haven't signed up for the forums to that group, but there was general consensus that represents the lower bound of DDI users, with the upper bound being some small multiple of that value, say maybe 200,000 DDI members at most.





So we have anywhere from 60-200k DDI members.  We have no way of knowing how many of those are single month members and then dropped or how many are paying subs in any of the 3 options.  If even half of those people are averaging in the $8 range as the quarterly option is a median price point between the likely smaller group who pays for a whole year at once and the larger group that pays month to month.  This is true in MMOs, I don't see why similar behavior wouldn't apply here.

If even half of the members are paying that average price, WotC is seeing anywhere from $240-$800,000 per month on top of any book sales.  I will freely admit this is merely an example w/no basis other than potential extrapolation from the numbers provided in the above post.  Just trying to show that there is a significant chunk of money that is not viewed from hobby store sales.



GregoryOatmeal said:


> So I'll just disregard the rude comments about using imaginary numbers.




If you pluck numbers out of thin air and state them as fact (which is the opposite of my above example), someone WILL call you out on it.  I'm sorry if the truth hurts.




GregoryOatmeal said:


> What geographic factor would cause folks in Louisville to play different games than in Flagstaff? Those kinds of numbers (on meetup) vary so widely it's unbelievable. If you're a gamer I'll talk to you, so it's strange how their can be such a large hidden 4E community.




It isn't a hidden community.  The Louisville metro area is 8 times the size of Flagstaff's (Google, it's fun) and we have a ton of colleges here as well as a large number of hospitals.  People move here from all over and it's in an interesting place when compared to other large metro areas.  We're 2 hours from Cincinnati, Nashville and Indianapolis.  3 hours to Columbus, just over an hour to Lexington.  4 to Chicago and St Louis and Knoxville.  6 to Pittsburgh.  We're very centrally located to a wide variety and in the end Meetup is very hit or miss.  Some areas use it a lot, some areas don't use it much at all.  I used it to meet a D&D group when I lived in Iowa City.  I haven't really used it since.




GregoryOatmeal said:


> I've met a lot of gamers, mostly millenials, and I can count the number of 4E enthusiasts I know on one hand. Two of those were swayed by positive experiences in *my *own 4E game. In my more limited experience with older gamers they seem to be a bit more open to 4E, but tend to stick to older editions more often than not. I imagine the meetup applies to an older crowd than the 18-24 group that dominates a college town. So is it a generational thing?




I dont' know.  The people I have gamed with in Louisville ranged from about 40 all the way down to 18, I'm toward the top of that range at 35 and I've played for 24 years now.  We have some people who are newer to gaming as well as many who have played since Basic.  



GregoryOatmeal said:


> So WOTC is profiting from a game where the ambiance of the table damages it's brand image - it's weird.




Encounters is just sort of weird all the way around.  I'm not a big fan of gaming w/completely random people, so I don't participate.  I don't really play in games at cons either tho. *shrug*




GregoryOatmeal said:


> Your PF/D&D tally of amazon doesn't account for all of the people that play 3.5/PF off their SRDs. Also lots of college kids play off of pirated PDFs. While that obviously isn't a group WOTC wants to chase, those people are teaching new players 3.5 and the edition is gaining new loyalists.




Ok.  You were the one using Amazon to proclaim PF as selling so much better, but then when I showed you that over half of the top 20 was actually WotC product you move the goalposts and push toward pirated pdfs, which none of us are capable of tracking.  Who are all these people pushing 3.5?  I never hear anyone talking about 3.5 games when I'm in stores in town.  



GregoryOatmeal said:


> How is that not indicative of something? You can say the 3.5 grognards are the loudest and whiniest (and you'd probably be right in many cases) but it really feels like the 4E crowd must be entirely in the closet. Until I got here...




B/c it's all anecdotal and it's all data collected from opt in options.  People who choose to use Meetup.  People who choose to go to a gaming store instead of pirating or ordering from amazon or B&N.  What exactly is the 4E crowd in the closet about?  I've shared my experience locally and it has been pretty strongly 4E.  Savage Worlds comes up second.  I know people playing games of both happily.  Clearly I won't' claim to know even a fraction of the gamers here in Louisville, but of all the ones I know that are gaming in the area, those are the 2 games getting played.


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## Relique du Madde (Sep 26, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> I loved Al Qadim, but I have to wonder if they would have trouble marketing that setting today. So many potential issues with offending people.




THIS (assuming their isn't a target group marketing survey that saids Dervishes, bedouins, and shiekhs not as cool or exciting as pirates, ninjas, samurai, or barbarians, vikings or knights).

WoTC wouldn't have to worry just about Arabian groups protesting because of the "stereotyping of middle easterners",  or the "white washing of their culture", they will also have to contend with the ultra conservatives who would be misguided into believing that WoTC was trying to turn some child into a jihadist. 

By the end of the day their would be much facepalming by the rpg community as a whole.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Sep 26, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> I want a Plantnomicon! And more modron stuff - I'm just that kind of nerd.
> 
> Seriously, how can you run out of ideas for D&D?



Look at WotC's release schedule in the last two years of 3.5. It's clearly possible to do. Yes, they could have released a Giantanomicon -- something many of us wanted -- and the second wave of "Complete" books was better than the first, but by that point, most of the rules being introduced were wildly different than what was in the core books -- reserve feats and the Book of 9 Swords were clearly dry runs for 4E, for instance -- and the main well had been drained.

If 3.5 was still selling at the levels you seem to think it could/should, they would still be selling it. They gave us a new edition because 3.5 wasn't making the kind of money they needed it to. End of story. Restarting a failing line years later isn't likely to give them a different result, either.

(And I say this as a 3.5 DM and a 3.5 player.)


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## prosfilaes (Sep 26, 2011)

SSquirrel said:


> B/c it's all anecdotal and it's all data collected from opt in options.




Those are contradictory. In any case, so what? Social scientists don't throw up their hands at answering a question even if they know they'll have to use opt-in interviews and their subjects may have reason to lie. At that point you accumulate information, and try and figure out what you know and what you don't know, and try and suss out inconsistencies and biases.

And part of the dynamic here is that Pathfinder fans tend to find the data and 4e fans tend to dismiss it, because in the absence of evidence, people assume (implicitly or sometimes explicitly) that D&D is the best selling game.


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## ANewPosterAppears (Sep 26, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> Those are contradictory. In any case, so what? Social scientists don't throw up their hands at answering a question even if they know they'll have to use opt-in interviews and their subjects may have reason to lie. At that point you accumulate information, and try and figure out what you know and what you don't know, and try and suss out inconsistencies and biases.
> 
> And part of the dynamic here is that Pathfinder fans tend to find the data and 4e fans tend to dismiss it, because in the absence of evidence, people assume (implicitly or sometimes explicitly) that D&D is the best selling game.




As someone who is a social scientist, please do not conflate my work with this.  Thank you!

Incidentally, I believe the dynamic is that Pathfinder fans either make up or extrapolate "data" - note sarcasm quotes - from unofficial sources, bend it to fit their narrative, and when 4e fans dismiss the "data" - note again sarcasm quotes - Pathfinder fans get upset that people aren't buying into their neverending claims that 4e's death is just months away guys, any day now WotC will throw in the towel and our game will prove the superior one!


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Sep 26, 2011)

ANewPosterAppears said:


> As someone who is a social scientist, please do not conflate my work with this.  Thank you!
> 
> Incidentally, I believe the dynamic is that Pathfinder fans either make up or extrapolate "data" - note sarcasm quotes - from unofficial sources, bend it to fit their narrative, and when 4e fans dismiss the "data" - note again sarcasm quotes - Pathfinder fans get upset that people aren't buying into their neverending claims that 4e's death is just months away guys, any day now WotC will throw in the towel and our game will prove the superior one!



I find it amusing that people who don't financially profit from either game decide to divide themselves up into teams and get emotionally invested about the outcome. What next, people arguing about whether "heads" or "tails" is inherently superior?

Play the game you want to play and let the rest of the world do their thing; you're not diminished by their choice.


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## Pentius (Sep 26, 2011)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> I find it amusing that people who don't financially profit from either game decide to divide themselves up into teams and get emotionally invested about the outcome. What next, people arguing about whether "heads" or "tails" is inherently superior?
> 
> Play the game you want to play and let the rest of the world do their thing; you're not diminished by their choice.




Tails is better, Whizzy.  It just is, there's no arguing it.  My american quarters have an eagle on the tails side, it's way better than some dead guy's head.  It's not even an accurate portrait, we all know he's a skeleton by now.


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## Grydan (Sep 26, 2011)

Pentius said:


> Tails is better, Whizzy.  It just is, there's no arguing it.  My american quarters have an eagle on the tails side, it's way better than some dead guy's head.  It's not even an accurate portrait, we all know he's a skeleton by now.




Canadian quarters (well, the standard ones) have no tails. It's heads (the Queen) or heads (a caribou).


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 26, 2011)

I am stopping them.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 26, 2011)

ANewPosterAppears, whose sockpuppet are you?



Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Play the game you want to play and let the rest of the world do their thing; you're not diminished by their choice.




The problem is, we are. If Pathfinder were the far and away winner, I'd probably be playing Pathfinder on a weekly basis. If D&D 4 were the far and away winner, I'd probably be playing D&D 4. As it is, I'm playing D&D 3.5. If D&D 4 manages to take most of the D&D market share, my Pathfinder books will lose most of their value, and I'll probably end up playing D&D 4. If Pathfinder manages to take most of the D&D market share, I might be able to find a Pathfinder game with less travel time. So, yeah, there are consequences to me as to what the world plays.


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## gamerprinter (Sep 26, 2011)

ANewPosterAppears said:


> Pathfinder fans get upset that people aren't buying into their neverending claims that 4e's death is just months away guys, any day now WotC will throw in the towel and our game will prove the superior one!




Certainly some PF fans might have this point of view, but some of us realize that a better selling quarterly cycle while having meaning for the game in question isn't necessarily a death movement for the other editions. A momentary fluxuation in the market.

There is no superior game, there are only games that some prefer and others do not. No matter what share of the market any given edition holds, somebody is enjoying it and that's all that matters.

I'm a PF fan and am glad when ICv2 shows PF doing better than competitors in a given quarter - no matter how incomplete that data is compared to unknown data that is not being released through other sources. I'm glad for the successes, but in no way should that equate to PF wins, 4e loses.

Not all PF fans are whiners and death-tellers. I'd go so far as saying most PF gamers aren't this way - but then there's a whole other set of numbers nobody can prove or disprove, so that would just anecdotal at best.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 26, 2011)

> Canadian quarters (well, the standard ones) have no tails. It's heads (the Queen) or heads (a caribou).




I like the early nickname for the Canadian 2 dollar coin: the "Moonie."  It was called that because it had the Queen on the front and "a Bear behind." (IOW, there was a bear on the reverse.)

*Some*body felt disrespectful!


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## Desdichado (Sep 26, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> So I said they were anecdotal observations in my original post, but do they ring true for others reading this? I don't have much data but it's really rare to hear people claim 4E has more momentum than 3.5 in their community. Do you feel more gamers you know are teaching their siblings, nephews, and friends 4E than 3.5? Are they recommending new players get 4E and go out and buy the books?



_My_ group still plays 3.5, but I strongly believe--but cannot prove, of course--that we are a marginal niche exception.  Most other D&D players are either playing 4e or Pathfinder, with a small group into retro-clones.


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## Desdichado (Sep 26, 2011)

gamerprinter said:


> I think gamers are more mature than the general public anyway.



I highly doubt that.  Claims of gamer specialness of one kind or another have been common since the beginning of gaming, but I've never seen anything to suggest that it's other than wishful thinking.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 26, 2011)

Hobo said:


> _My_ group still plays 3.5, but I strongly believe--but cannot prove, of course--that we are a marginal niche exception.  Most other D&D players are either playing 4e or Pathfinder, with a small group into retro-clones.




One poll on Enworld had D&D 3.5, D&D 4 and Pathfinder about neck to neck. I'd be surprised if D&D 3.5 was less than 20% of D&D-like games being run.


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## Desdichado (Sep 26, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> So I'll just disregard the rude comments about using imaginary numbers.



I wouldn't.  They really aren't that rude, and that's really kinda the whole point.  Your numbers _are_ made up.  I know, I know, 74% of all quoted statistics are made up on the spot (that one included) but it still doesn't help your case.  You've had a lot of folks telling you that your evidence isn't compelling.  I wouldn't ignore the reasons why not.


			
				GregoryOatmeal said:
			
		

> There's an obvious zeitgeist here against 4E, and it's curious how much two pools can vary.



I think the obviousness of that zeitgeist is _very_ debatable.  As in, I don't belive it at all.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 26, 2011)

Hobo said:


> I highly doubt that.  Claims of gamer specialness of one kind or another have been common since the beginning of gaming, but I've never seen anything to suggest that it's other than wishful thinking.




Gamers are slamers.


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## Vascant (Sep 26, 2011)

ANewPosterAppears said:


> Incidentally, I believe the dynamic is that Pathfinder fans either make up or extrapolate "data" - note sarcasm quotes - from unofficial sources, bend it to fit their narrative, and when 4e fans dismiss the "data" - note again sarcasm quotes - Pathfinder fans get upset that people aren't buying into their neverending claims that 4e's death is just months away guys, any day now WotC will throw in the towel and our game will prove the superior one!




You can't limit this to just Pathfinder fans, I am not even sure you can limit it to gamers in general.  Just look at the current news cycles, a lot of what you read is based on "The sky is falling".


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Sep 26, 2011)

Hobo said:


> I highly doubt that.  Claims of gamer specialness of one kind or another have been common since the beginning of gaming, but I've never seen anything to suggest that it's other than wishful thinking.



The need to separate the 3E, Pathfinder and 4E communities here on ENWorld certainly suggests against any sort of special maturity.


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## Henry (Sep 26, 2011)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> The need to separate the 3E, Pathfinder and 4E communities here on ENWorld certainly suggests against any sort of special maturity.




Heck, just perusing threads in General Discussion by itself will reveal threads about people who can't honestly tell members of their gaming group when they're causing problems, gamers who attack immediately the second their favorite game/vendor/politician is slighted, stories about gamers who were engaged in secret crushes or even love triangles within their groups, and gamers who posted things just to get a rise out of other posters. (Note a number of the above are in closed or deleted/hidden threads, so harder time finding those without privy knowledge. ) I'm willing to be long-time posters remember examples of all the above in the past. I'm guilty of at least pointless Edition War-ish discussions occasionally, myself. 

Gamers are people, same as other people, and do stupid stuff as well.


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## jaerdaph (Sep 26, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> What's stopping WOTC from going back to 3.5?
> 
> Mostly that Paizo has already taken 3.5's stuff - without even bothering to kill it first.




Pretty much this. Pathfinder's successful existence makes it not a viable option anymore for WotC.


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## Hussar (Sep 26, 2011)

Just to go back to the OP for a second - why can't WOTC go back to 3.5, ask yourself this - Why didn't Paizo?

If 3.5 was still viable as a vehicle for profit, why would Paizo, a pretty savvy bunch of businesspeople, take the risk of developing a new system? 

 I have no idea how much Pathfinder cost to bring to market, but, it is my opinion that it can be summed up as the mathematically exacting term of <i>a lot</i>.  Now, if 3.5 was still perfectly fine, as is being suggested in the OP, then why bother?  Why spend all that money on something that very well might not work when there is a perfectly viable option right there to be used?

After all, 3.5 is OGL, and it's already been shown that you can repackage [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Mongoose-Pocket-Players-Handbook/dp/1904577660] the Players Handbook[/ame] and sell it.  Why wouldn't Paizo save themselves a WHOLE lot of hassle, reissue the Core 3 with new art and new flavour text and be done with it?

Unless, of course, 3.5  was largely played out and there truly did need to be something new in order to get people buying again.

So, in answer to the question, "What's stopping WOTC from going back to 3.5?", I'd simply point to Paizo and say, "Well, if it was a viable option, why didn't they do it?"


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## gamerprinter (Sep 26, 2011)

Hobo said:


> I highly doubt that. Claims of gamer specialness of one kind or another have been common since the beginning of gaming, but I've never seen anything to suggest that it's other than wishful thinking.




Its not gamer specialness, rather (at least those I run into - not everyone) those that use other cultures as part of game play, have a greater appreciation for other cultures. So one sided views on many aspects of world concepts are less apt than those who do not expose themselves to outside cultures - at least IME. Plus gamers tend to be 'readers' more than others - it depends on what you read I guess.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 26, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Just to go back to the OP for a second - why can't WOTC go back to 3.5, ask yourself this - Why didn't Paizo?
> 
> If 3.5 was still viable as a vehicle for profit, why would Paizo, a pretty savvy bunch of businesspeople, take the risk of developing a new system?
> 
> ...




I think there are a few possible answers. First there were some legitimate mechanical concerns with 3E (and the game had been pushed a little too far by many of the splats on top of that). This bothered some, and didn't bother others. But clearly there was a demand for some more balance in the system. Paizo was answering this demand.

Another key reason, IMO, is Paizo wanted to set up something distinct enough that their control of the Pathfinder log and license would matter. If they just remade 3E, then all they would be doing is putting out the old SRD document and arguable they wouldn't have much of an IP claim to their own line. 

Personally I think Pathfinder is a bit different than 3E, but not by a whole lot. It still looks and feels like the same game to me (it is even less different from 3E than 2E was for 1E IMO). 

Effectively Pathfinder has repackaged and sold 3E. It is more like a 3.75. And they have made it very profitable. The key thing for me is they eliminated a lot of the junk that came with the splat books and refocused the game on flavor and putting out great adventures (something I had been calling for all through 3E). They balanced it out a bit, but I think on the whole most fans of 3E aren't as obsessed with the balance issue (personally I wanted a touch more balance in 3E than it had, but the balance in 4E just goes way too far for my tastes---I think there is a fine line between balance and making choices matter).


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## gamerprinter (Sep 26, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Just to go back to the OP for a second - why can't WOTC go back to 3.5, ask yourself this - Why didn't Paizo?
> 
> If 3.5 was still viable as a vehicle for profit, why would Paizo, a pretty savvy bunch of businesspeople, take the risk of developing a new system?
> 
> ...




Paizo actually said why, and I agree (I don't have a link to such). If you're going to spend money getting a hardback printed version for the Core rules, why just settle for what is already in the SRD. Game developers are game developers why not tweak the rules to fix issues one may have had with the previous game. Why not improve combat maneueverability, improve the base classes, combine skill sets, etc.

Sure they could have just reprinted the 3.5 core rules, Mongoose Publishing did that with a smaller format softbound version - obviously that did not 'catch on'.

Paizo stated it was viable, but 'why not' was there best answer. I'm glad they went the way they went. I like PF better than 3.5.


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## Hussar (Sep 26, 2011)

Oh, don't get me wrong.  I think what Paizo has done is freaking fantastic.  They put out great stuff and they deserve their success.  They are working their asses off and it shows.  

That's not really what I was getting at though.  The original question is why doesn't WOTC re-release 3.5.  My answer is pretty simple - it's not economically viable.  If it was a good money making route to go, Paizo would have been all over it.  They'd be stupid to not do it.  If it was viable, then spending a whole parcel of money on developing something that might not work would be blindingly stupid.

I would never call the people at Paizo bad businesspeople.  

Does anything think that a republished 3.5 would actually have succeeded?


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## gamerprinter (Sep 26, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Oh, don't get me wrong. I think what Paizo has done is freaking fantastic. They put out great stuff and they deserve their success. They are working their asses off and it shows.
> 
> That's not really what I was getting at though. The original question is why doesn't WOTC re-release 3.5. My answer is pretty simple - it's not economically viable. If it was a good money making route to go, Paizo would have been all over it. They'd be stupid to not do it. If it was viable, then spending a whole parcel of money on developing something that might not work would be blindingly stupid.
> 
> ...




Oh, I actually agree with you. I don't think 3.5 is a viable course for WotC, making PF a slightly different game with a clean slate (as in not including huge piles of existing splats as necessary material) is what make it viable for Paizo.

And if WotC tried to emulate that mentality with there own different version of 3.5 - it would look like they are copying Paizo's plan and I doubt WotC wants to ever appear as a 'follower' in the industry. They would rather lead.

Its not that WotC couldn't do this. It's that they wouldn't do it. And going back to 3.5 is not a solution for WotC, most definitely.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 26, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Does anything think that a republished 3.5 would actually have succeeded?




yes, I do. All it needed was a change in direction (toward flavor material like modules) and some fresh paint.


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## billd91 (Sep 26, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Oh, don't get me wrong.  I think what Paizo has done is freaking fantastic.  They put out great stuff and they deserve their success.  They are working their asses off and it shows.
> 
> That's not really what I was getting at though.  The original question is why doesn't WOTC re-release 3.5.  My answer is pretty simple - it's not economically viable.  If it was a good money making route to go, Paizo would have been all over it.  They'd be stupid to not do it.  If it was viable, then spending a whole parcel of money on developing something that might not work would be blindingly stupid.
> 
> ...





I don't know if it would have succeeded or not, but the fact of the matter is that it couldn't have been done by anybody *except* WotC. The SRD is incomplete. In order to package and publish it as a whole game, it must be completed. That virtually requires the elements that complete it to be different or run a lot more risk of IP infringement.

Once you're already jumping through that hoop, you might as well make other changes to the system to fix perceived deficiencies, streamline play, and so on.


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## darkseraphim (Sep 26, 2011)

They need to stop thinking in terms of Editions, and need to start thinking in terms of Brand Franchise.  Every time they reinvent the wheel, another wheel flies off and more old players fall out of the car. 

They need to embrace .pdf and print on demand.  (I'll refrain from posting my position on piracy to avoid inciting.)  They keep thinking that their Current Edition is the new hotness, and that people just need to be convinced that old editions are bad and the Current Edition is something they've just gotta have.

The reality, however, is that players latch onto a system that feels right and stick with it.  The solution?  Offer all of the products of all of the editions.  Reinstate .pdfs.  Offer POD lines online.  If you're worried about new customer confusion (when you should be worried about new customers *period*, but nevermind), then only offer the Current Edition in storefronts, and offer all of the .pdfs and PODs online.

This is all my roundabout way of saying that they should offer 3.5 in its entirety, in addition to all over versions.  Add a "Classic Edition" starburst to old modules etc. to preserve the collectability of the originals.

But above all, instead of telling people what they want, be quiet and start listening to what people want, and provide that.  Instead of considering your fractured community a problem to be solved, consider it a diversity of opinion to be embraced.  Sell to that diversity by diving into your rich back-catalog of 38 years of D&D goodness.

A lot of us have been waving our money at WotC for years waiting for them to (re-)offer what we want, but have been turned down because they didn't like our particular shade of green.  Stop angering people and start catering to them!


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## gamerprinter (Sep 26, 2011)

Granted Paizo is a smaller company than WotC (man for man, I don't know how much smaller it is, but...), but Paizo has mentioned for those asking them to create 4e versions of their APs to offer adventure material for 4e fans. They've stated that currently they are almost undermanned to accomplish their production schedule for just Pathfinder. They'd have to hire out double their current staff (well almost) to do both rulesets - which at this time is out of the question (and more likely forever out of the question.)

With the above thought in mind, how practical would it be for WotC to support all the editions. Even if they could provide the manpower for such a thing, would it be profitable enough to consider.

My answer, I doubt it. So even with WotC being the bigger company, I don't think its in their best interests to support more than one edition.

Now if you're only talking about having access to the older editions in some electronic format only, and not creating anything new for older editions - that might be possible. But would doing so, affect their flagship product, and their sales bottomline too much... Maybe they could support that, but anything more is too costly, and simply not profitable.

I'm sure supporting all past and current editions is not going to happen, and really its not even a practical consideration (nor a profitable one.)


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 26, 2011)

To restate my position: I think WotC/Hasbro has what it takes to support multiple RPGs, much like Coke & Pepsi have hundreds of sub-brands each.

I just don't think they have the will to try that business model.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Sep 26, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> To restate my position: I think WotC/Hasbro has what it takes to support multiple RPGs, much like Coke & Pepsi have hundreds of sub-brands each.
> 
> I just don't think they have the will to try that business model.



I don't think, as a division of Hasbro, they can make a compelling argument to their masters. The RPG market is shrinking, not growing, the licensed products most recently released have all gotten a lukewarm reception and there are other divisions that will more obviously generate more profits if Hasbro were to plow more cash into expanding them.

If WotC hadn't been swallowed by Hasbro, maybe they'd try several versions. But there's no way I can imagine convincing a bunch of MBAs who've never played D&D to start publishing competing versions of the same product when investing capital elsewhere is much more likely to create larger dividends.


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## technoextreme (Sep 26, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> Well...why don't they?



Well it doesn't help that Monte Cook actually admitted that some of the design attributes of 3E made a huge mess out of the game.


> Al-Qadim never made it to 3E or Dark Sun. It'd be really cool and pertinent IMHO to do an Arab-Spring themed campaign for those settings (maybe they kinda did in 2E for DS). Or d20 modern.



Ooo god no.  If there is one thing that I have learned about any Pen and Paper RPG is that if you start borrowing from real life you are more often than going to get something that is whitewashed and borderline racist.  I don't even like how 4th edition has the thin vestiges of it left in there.


> Granted Paizo is a smaller company than WotC (man for man, I don't know how much smaller it is, but...), but Paizo has mentioned for those asking them to create 4e versions of their APs to offer adventure material for 4e  fans. They've stated that currently they are almost undermanned to  accomplish their production schedule for just Pathfinder. They'd have to  hire out double their current staff (well almost) to do both rulesets -  which at this time is out of the question (and more likely forever out  of the question.)



That is really weird considering the fact that a lot of the 3.5E modules I have would probably take a day for me to rework them.  As long as you aren't trying to do something funky like convert a module designed for a setting like the Forgotten Realms you are peachy keen.  In fact it even surprised me because the statblocks on 3.5E monsters are huge.


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## Desdichado (Sep 26, 2011)

gamerprinter said:


> Its not gamer specialness, rather (at least those I run into - not everyone) those that use other cultures as part of game play, have a greater appreciation for other cultures. So one sided views on many aspects of world concepts are less apt than those who do not expose themselves to outside cultures - at least IME. Plus gamers tend to be 'readers' more than others - it depends on what you read I guess.



Er... yeah, that's specialness.  And I don't believe it.


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## Dausuul (Sep 26, 2011)

technoextreme said:


> That is really weird considering the fact that a lot of the 3.5E modules I have would probably take a day for me to rework them.  As long as you aren't trying to do something funky like convert a module designed for a setting like the Forgotten Realms you are peachy keen.  In fact it even surprised me because the statblocks on 3.5E monsters are huge.




Have you actually done this? I haven't played a converted 3E adventure, but I have played early 4E adventures which seem to have been designed with 3E sensibilities, and they're a godawful slog. 3E assumes a lot of small, trivial combats; but there is no such thing as a small, trivial combat in 4E.


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## Pentius (Sep 26, 2011)

Dausuul said:


> Have you actually done this? I haven't played a converted 3E adventure, but I have played early 4E adventures which seem to have been designed with 3E sensibilities, and they're a godawful slog. 3E assumes a lot of small, trivial combats; but there is no such thing as a small, trivial combat in 4E.




I've converted 3e addies to 4e.  Not a lot of them, but a couple.  Usually I just drop or condense some of the smaller encounters.  And small, trivial combats can be done in 4e, but you have to come at it a little differently, and you have to intend them to be small, trivial encounters.  4-5 minions and maybe a L-1 or 2 standard works out.


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## Hussar (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> yes, I do. All it needed was a change in direction (toward flavor material like modules) and some fresh paint.




How many modules do you need for 3.5?  There are several HUNDRED modules for 3.5.  Between WOTC, Paizo, and various others, there's more modules than any dozen people could possibly play in their lifetime.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Hussar said:


> How many modules do you need for 3.5? There are several HUNDRED modules for 3.5. Between WOTC, Paizo, and various others, there's more modules than any dozen people could possibly play in their lifetime.




Wizards produced very few modules for 3.5. Paizo mostly did dungeon adventures, and the third party material was hit or miss. I am talking about official releases by the company making the game. That kind of stuff matters. One of the strengths of the AD&D era was the number of modules available. This is totally a matter of taste, but when I was playing 3E and WOTC was supporting it, I just never got why they focused so much on splat books and so little on modules.


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## Hussar (Sep 27, 2011)

Well, going by List of Dungeons & Dragons adventures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I see 14 3.5 edition modules (Not counting Fantastic Locations) spread over 2004-2007 all directly from WOTC.  That's about three or 4 per year.  Not a lot, but, then again, Dungeon was meant as the vehicle for modules.  I'm not sure why you wouldn't include them with 3.5.  They were 100% official.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Well, going by List of Dungeons & Dragons adventures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I see 14 3.5 edition modules (Not counting Fantastic Locations) spread over 2004-2007 all directly from WOTC. That's about three or 4 per year. Not a lot, but, then again, Dungeon was meant as the vehicle for modules. I'm not sure why you wouldn't include them with 3.5. They were 100% official.




But dungeons existed as far back as AD&D. For me there were two issues with WOTC adventures during that period: 1) volume and 2) quality. I would have much prefered more modules than they put out and I would have liked the quality of the modules they did release to be greater. I just wasn't impressed with the modules they put out during 3E. I was impressed with much of the dungeonn content. But I always felt like modules were an afterthought with WOTC. The most dissapointing game product I purchased in the last few years was the Expidition to Castle Ravenloft. Was looking forward to it and it truly dissapointed. I just felt I was on a completely different page than WOTC when it came to my expectations about modules and setting material. 

This is a completely subjective call. You are free to disagree with me. But trying to convince me it was better than I remember isn't going to change my opinion (especially since I was a very active GM and player during that period).


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## Hussar (Sep 27, 2011)

Oh, hey, that I won't disagree with.  I was simply disagreeing that they didn't produce modules.  That they didn't produce GREAT modules, oh yeah, totally with you on that.  The modules were there, they just weren't that great.  

Then again, Paizo was producing great stuff for 3.5, that was 100% official, so, while WOTC might not have been doing module support, the module support was certainly there.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Oh, hey, that I won't disagree with. I was simply disagreeing that they didn't produce modules. That they didn't produce GREAT modules, oh yeah, totally with you on that. The modules were there, they just weren't that great.




I never intended to imply they didn't produce any modules, just that they produced far fewer than TSR and that the quality (imo) was not very good---something a lot of people seem to agree with. 



> Then again, Paizo was producing great stuff for 3.5, that was 100% official, so, while WOTC might not have been doing module support, the module support was certainly there.




Sure, and it was handy to have dungeon but that format is only helpful to supplement actual full blown module lines. With dungeon there is a built in space limitation (these are not full modules, they are short adventures written largely by fans). Dungeon was great, don't get me wrong, but no subsittute for a well produced module.


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## ANewPosterAppears (Sep 27, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> ANewPosterAppears, whose sockpuppet are you?




New poster + disagrees with you = must be a sock puppet, eh?



> The problem is, we are. If Pathfinder were the far and away winner, I'd probably be playing Pathfinder on a weekly basis. If D&D 4 were the far and away winner, I'd probably be playing D&D 4. As it is, I'm playing D&D 3.5. If D&D 4 manages to take most of the D&D market share, my Pathfinder books will lose most of their value, and I'll probably end up playing D&D 4. If Pathfinder manages to take most of the D&D market share, I might be able to find a Pathfinder game with less travel time. So, yeah, there are consequences to me as to what the world plays.




This is assuming it's a zero sum game, an assumption I see often in these edition wars (though typically from_ only one side_).  That's a very high assumption to make!  Now, let's see, I've played 4e, 3e, Pathfinder, and 2e.  I guess I prove your entire assumption wrong since people like me _cannot_ exist for your assumption to work.  After all, if people are capable of playing both games, then there's no intrinsic tie to one game going down and the other going up!  Whoops!

Fact is, when it comes down to it, the consequences you make up are non-existant.  The only consequence of both games doing well is that you can't lord it over other people.  You'll forgive me if my heart doesn't break over this.


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## Hussar (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrock Games - Umm what?  The 3.5 Dungeon modules were pretty much as long as most 1e modules.  Never minding the AP's.  3 modules per magazine - about 20 pages per module, they're not exactly fanfic.

Besides when you have modules by professional module writers in Dungeon, again, I'm not sure what you're looking at.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Umm what?  The 3.5 Dungeon modules were pretty much as long as most 1e modules.  Never minding the AP's.  3 modules per magazine - about 20 pages per module, they're not exactly fanfic.
> 
> Besides when you have modules by professional module writers in Dungeon, again, I'm not sure what you're looking at.




I wan't just thinking 1e, but 2e as well. By 1990 modules could be anywhere from 30, 60 to 90 pages. Many 1e modules were over 30 pages as well. As an old subscriber of dungeon i remember tgeir adventures clocking in at about 10-15 pages.

Dungeon magazine had modules by pros and by fans. Anyone was free to submit an adventure for publication. There is also a huge difference between adventures released as part of a regular magazine versus a well produced module. Dungeon was great and all, but I really wanted a solid line of modules. To me that is what I like to purchase. Especially the old boxed set modules that came with tons of setting material.


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## billd91 (Sep 27, 2011)

ANewPosterAppears said:


> New poster + disagrees with you = must be a sock puppet, eh?




No, it's pretty much your user name that makes you look like you might be a sock puppet. It can give the impression you're a spawned monster looking to make trouble. That and immediately jumping into a low-intensity edition war. We've had a number of trolls do that recently. Assuming you're not a sock puppet, that's not exactly your fault, but the history of the board is going to color people's perceptions.


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## Sutekh (Sep 27, 2011)

Im currently running a 4e Gamma World game, playing in a 3.5 homebrew game and a 4e Eberron game. I even get a chance to play in the new Arcanis system occasionaly. I dont really care if 3.5 comes back. Im still using it as it was


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## prosfilaes (Sep 27, 2011)

billd91 said:


> That and immediately jumping into a low-intensity edition war.




Also, not as a new fanboy, but immediately giving a perspective on a dynamic that could only exist on the Internet, and only places where PF fans and 4e fans meet, so EN World and a few other forums. And he doesn't strike me as a lurker, so he's either a sockpuppet or someone who came over from another forum to carry on the same arguments.


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## Dausuul (Sep 27, 2011)

ANewPosterAppears said:


> This is assuming it's a zero sum game, an assumption I see often in these edition wars (though typically from_ only one side_).  That's a very high assumption to make!  Now, let's see, I've played 4e, 3e, Pathfinder, and 2e.  I guess I prove your entire assumption wrong since people like me _cannot_ exist for your assumption to work.  After all, if people are capable of playing both games, then there's no intrinsic tie to one game going down and the other going up!  Whoops!




In my experience, very very few groups play both 4E and 3E/Pathfinder at the same time. They may try both, but settle on one or the other. It is obviously _possible_ to maintain campaigns of both, but in practice highly unusual.

Also, watch those asymptotes.


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## Hussar (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> I wan't just thinking 1e, but 2e as well. By 1990 modules could be anywhere from 30, 60 to 90 pages. Many 1e modules were over 30 pages as well. As an old subscriber of dungeon i remember tgeir adventures clocking in at about 10-15 pages.
> 
> Dungeon magazine had modules by pros and by fans. Anyone was free to submit an adventure for publication. There is also a huge difference between adventures released as part of a regular magazine versus a well produced module. Dungeon was great and all, but I really wanted a solid line of modules. To me that is what I like to purchase. Especially the old boxed set modules that came with tons of setting material.




Boxed set modules?  Now we're into 2e.  Let's be honest here, 2e isn't exactly known for it's great modules.  There's some REALLY hit and miss stuff here, but, there just so much sheer volume, that they managed to make some good stuff more by accident than design.

I just happen to have Dungeon 149 within reach, so, I'll look at that one.  3 modules, as was standard after the Paizo relaunch.  One Savage Tide AP module - Enemies of My Enemy, which is 45 pages long written by Wolfgang Baur, War of the Wielded, a generic low level module (and a really fun one too) that weighs in at 14 pages and Twisted Night that is only 12 pages long.

So, on a fairly random sample, I've got a magazine with a major name in gaming and two no-name ones, the longest of which weighs in at about half what a really long module comes out to.  Granted, it is one of the twelve in the series as well.

I really have to echo the guys at Dungeon here and wonder why gamers weren't taking more advantage of Dungeon magazine.  As a resource, you just can't beat it.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 27, 2011)

> In my experience, very very few groups play both 4E and 3E/Pathfinder at the same time.




Just as a frex- we're currently in a 4Ed campaign run by our newest member while the 3.5Ed campaign is on hiatus so the DM can get a break.

...but there are more players in the 3.5Ed game than in the 4Ed game.


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## Fox Lee (Sep 27, 2011)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> If 3.5 was still selling at the levels you seem to think it could/should, they would still be selling it. They gave us a new edition because 3.5 wasn't making the kind of money they needed it to. End of story. Restarting a failing line years later isn't likely to give them a different result, either.




This.

I believe I am paraphrasing from Brian Dunning of Skeptoid, but it's really just Occam's Razor at work: "The simplest explanation is probably the correct one, and my explanation has one word: MONEY."


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## Fox Lee (Sep 27, 2011)

darkseraphim said:


> The reality, however, is that players latch onto a system that feels right and stick with it.



I disagree with that - or at least, Id like to see some good evidence for it. The gamers I have had experiences with have played multiple systems and enjoyed several of them thoroughly, including a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of 3.5e, but as a group we still shifted to 4e because while 3.5e felt right, 4e still felt better. We initially resisted 4e precisely _because_ we were already comfy with 3.5e, but 4e won us over - which is almost exactly what you describe WotC mistakenly expecting to happen.

Now, I realise that's absolutely anecdotal - but, because I'm coming from that position, I'd need to see something convincing before I believe somebody else's anecdote instead.

I think your broader point is correct though. I'm sure it's not economically viable for WotC to produce print-versions of books for all editions, especially because their production values are fantastically high (like 4e or not, the physical and visual production is top-notch). However, releasing PDFs is a ridiculously low investment, to the point where even indie publishers can do it sustainably. No doubt they would still push new editions and would want those to have the biggest playerbases, but it's undeniable that there _are_ diehards who will never shift. If all it cost me was an online store and PDF production, I would surely volunteer to take their money as well.

OTOH, there is also brand management at work here. If WotC doesn't want D&D to be associated with older imagery and ideas, I can kind of get that. There are things in 1st, 2nd and AD&D that would have seriously turned me off if I had known about them before I'd gotten into D&D (like the artwork). D&D would have seemed like goofy, silly fantasy to me, which was the exact opposite of what I wanted (hey, I was a teenager in the 90s - it was all about being taken seriously). Not to mention its attitude toward women.

I _still_ look at the recent Red Box and imagine it giving a negative impression to people who found their way to gaming through, say, anime, or _Lord of the Rings_ movies, or Harry Potter. We've come to the point where elves and wizards and stuff can be cool again, and part of the reason is that they now tend to look amazing and be played by sexy stars in big-budget productions (I believe that this aesthetic is one of the primary draw cards for female gamers, too, though I have no evidence to present). The Red Box... sure, it's an awesome retro callback for the people who enjoyed classic D&D, but for new players I can only imagining it presenting a weird, old-fashioned, cheesy image that's totally wrong for a system that's probably the closest match to contemporary, big-budget fantasy.

OH BOY can I ramble! Anyhoo, I agree with you mostly, and really I don't think it would hurt their brand to resell overpriced PDFs to old-edition grognards  But then, I'm not their brand manager, and it seems likely that they disagree.

Or, like many big game publishers, they are just _that_ scared of piracy. It's hardly impossible.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> Wizards produced very few modules for 3.5. Paizo mostly did dungeon adventures, and the third party material was hit or miss.



Goodman Games, Necromancer Games and Green Ronin were all well-known third party publishers with (deserved) excellent reputations for their adventures. No one who really wanted a bunch of 3.5 adventures went starving for them, especially with Dungeon magazine in the mix, pre-Paizo.



> when I was playing 3E and WOTC was supporting it, I just never got why they focused so much on splat books and so little on modules.



There are more players than DMs and creating products everyone at the table might buy a copy of seemed to make more sense to them than selling to only one person per table.


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## ANewPosterAppears (Sep 27, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> Also, not as a new fanboy, but immediately  giving a perspective on a dynamic that could only exist on the Internet,  and only places where PF fans and 4e fans meet, so EN World and a few  other forums. And he doesn't strike me as a lurker, so he's either a  sockpuppet or someone who came over from another forum to carry on the  same arguments.




Only in places where PF fans and 4e fans meet?  So you mean _anywhere on the internet_ that people talk about D&D?

Well ok, maybe not Dragonsfoot.

But hey, if it helps, I can solomnly swear I am not the sock puppet of any poster on EN World.



Dausuul said:


> In my experience, very very few groups play both 4E and 3E/Pathfinder at the same time. They may try both, but settle on one or the other. It is obviously _possible_ to maintain campaigns of both, but in practice highly unusual.
> 
> Also, watch those asymptotes.




But in these cases they play the game that suits them most.

The challenge brought forth is that somehow people who hate 4e are still being _forced to play it_ because 4e still, I don't know, exists, I guess?  And that Pathfinder must reign supreme or else people will still play 4e.  That so long as 4e is popular, people will play it, and that this is somehow bad.

I can't imagine the sociopathy needed to want a gameline to end because you think people shouldn't be allowed to enjoy it, that they have to convert by sword to your system of choice instead.  Or that people, deprived of 4e, will all start up Pathfinder games (Most 4e fans will not play Pathfinder regardless of what happens to 4e.  Sorry!).

The idea that Pathfinder is this glorious ideal that people would join automatically were it not for the sinister 4e is something that hits the level of _religion_, and that quite frankly scares me.


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## SSquirrel (Sep 27, 2011)

Dausuul said:


> Have you actually done this? I haven't played a converted 3E adventure, but I have played early 4E adventures which seem to have been designed with 3E sensibilities, and they're a godawful slog. 3E assumes a lot of small, trivial combats; but there is no such thing as a small, trivial combat in 4E.




For a local example, especially if you're a community supporter around here, you could always compare the 3.x and 4E versions of War of the Burning Sky.  I never played the original and I haven't played the 4E version either, but that is an easy to compare thing right there.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 27, 2011)

> The idea that Pathfinder is this glorious ideal that people would join automatically were it not for the sinister 4e is something that hits the level of religion, and that quite frankly scares me.




Despite my owning AU, AE, Midnight 2Ed, True20, FantasyCraft, Warriors & Warlocks, AAAAAND Pathfinder, I doubt I'll ever run a campaign in any- as a group, we're pretty happy with 3.5Ed.

Even if 4Ed didn't exist, I can't really see Pathfinder as the Holy Grail of gaming either.  Like all the clones, it makes changes I love...and it has some holdover elements & new flaws that, to me make it just a reasonable alternative or supplement to the original, not a replacement.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Boxed set modules? Now we're into 2e. Let's be honest here, 2e isn't exactly known for it's great modules. There's some REALLY hit and miss stuff here, but, there just so much sheer volume, that they managed to make some good stuff more by accident than design.




Again I am thinking of the whole span of 1E through 2E. Personally i thought both editions released good modules. And I think many of the 2E mdoules (especially early on before say 94) were excellent.  



> I just happen to have Dungeon 149 within reach, so, I'll look at that one. 3 modules, as was standard after the Paizo relaunch. One Savage Tide AP module - Enemies of My Enemy, which is 45 pages long written by Wolfgang Baur, War of the Wielded, a generic low level module (and a really fun one too) that weighs in at 14 pages and Twisted Night that is only 12 pages long.




Well I don't have my dungeons anymore that this sounds like a very atypical issue. Anyways, you can argue in dungeons favor all you want (like I said I liked dungeons and wasn't trying to criticize it) but for me it wasn't the same as having a full line of modules. 



> So, on a fairly random sample, I've got a magazine with a major name in gaming and two no-name ones, the longest of which weighs in at about half what a really long module comes out to. Granted, it is one of the twelve in the series as well.




The longest adventures sounds very unusual in length to me. I don't remember seeing that many dungeon adventures that were over twenty pages. The other two are quite short. 



> I really have to echo the guys at Dungeon here and wonder why gamers weren't taking more advantage of Dungeon magazine. As a resource, you just can't beat it.




I was. I was a regular subscriber. But it had its shortcomings and it wasn't the same as having modules. And like I said before, dungeon existed prior to 3E. So it wasn't like I suddenly had a new option when third edition came out.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Goodman Games, Necromancer Games and Green Ronin were all well-known third party publishers with (deserved) excellent reputations for their adventures. No one who really wanted a bunch of 3.5 adventures went starving for them, especially with Dungeon magazine in the mix, pre-Paizo.




I liked some of Green Ronins stuff, didn't care much for goodman or necromancer. What I really wanted to see was modules with the production quality of other wizards material. Green Ronin was excellent at times. But I wanted more official modules, fewer official splat books. 

And after a while, when I realized I liked green ronin's stuff better than WOTC, I began to wonder why I was even playing a game made by WOTC. That is when I started to look for alternate systems. 




> There are more players than DMs and creating products everyone at the table might buy a copy of seemed to make more sense to them than selling to only one person per table.




I understand that position (though I think Pathfinder is demonstrating that GMs will buy an awful lot of material if its out there). However I thought the endless slew of splat books made the game worse over time. It became like an expansion thing where the whole point of buying them was to get an edge over the other guy. If they had toned down the power creep, uped the flavor content, and maybe put them out as softcovers ratehr than hard covers (presumably with lower prices) I would have been as bothered by it.


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## Eridanis (Sep 27, 2011)

"ANewPosterAppears" has just become "Sir-Not-Appearing-On-These-Boards." (Don't create alts to try to get around a ban, folks; it's too easy for us to catch you!)

Let's keep the discussion polite, please.


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## technoextreme (Sep 27, 2011)

Dausuul said:


> Have you actually done this? I haven't played a converted 3E adventure, but I have played early 4E adventures which seem to have been designed with 3E sensibilities, and they're a godawful slog. 3E assumes a lot of small, trivial combats; but there is no such thing as a small, trivial combat in 4E.



Actually, I would say that 4E does small trivial combat far better than 3.5E can ever have hoped to attained.  I don't think even LFR  runs combat encounters like how you are supposed to but if you actual follow their guidelines you will get exactly what you claim is missing.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> If they had toned down the power creep, uped the flavor content, and maybe put them out as softcovers ratehr than hard covers (presumably with lower prices) I would have been as bothered by it.




Making them hardcover was done because the softcover 3.0 books didn't sell that well, and apparently they got feedback that distributors and bookstores were prioritizing hardcovers (from 3rd parties) over softcovers.

Power creep is hard. The new magical classes in the Complete books tended to be less powerful then the cleric and wizard in the core book, so I for one tend to think for a while before I play one of them. If a book has a lot of new content, and all of it is less powerful then the core options, people aren't going to be happy and probably aren't going to use it. (This may not be as true if they designed material as replacements for the core material instead of alternatives, but most of the Complete material didn't come across that way.) So you have to try and make options that are powerful enough that people will take them instead of core material, without making them so powerful that they are more powerful then the core material. It's a tough line to walk, and the Complete books had a lot of stuff that was distinctly underpowered, while having a few things that were overpowered.

Flavor is another complex line to walk. Personally, I found the prestige classes in Complete Arcane to have a bit much flavor, making them hard to weave into a campaign. It perhaps would have been better if they felt like they came from one world where they all made sense.


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## Desdichado (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> Sure, and it was handy to have dungeon but that format is only helpful to supplement actual full blown module lines. With dungeon there is a built in space limitation (these are not full modules, they are short adventures written largely by fans). Dungeon was great, don't get me wrong, but no subsittute for a well produced module.



lolwut?

Actually, there were a number of really long adventures.  The Adventure Path concept was crystalized (I won't say that's when it started, because heck; some of Gary Gygax's modules themselves followed a loose arc, like Against the Giants, etc.) during this era.  And the writers were freelance professionals, mostly.

Can't argue with you that you didn't get the modules you wanted during that era, but the more you go on, the more clear it is that you want something very, very specific and very, very niche.  Lots of modules were produced during this era, and lots of people liked them.  Quite possibly, your tastes have evolved into something a bit esoteric, or they remained in the 80s somewhere while the market went on to other things.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Hobo said:


> lolwut?
> 
> Actually, there were a number of really long adventures. The Adventure Path concept was crystalized (I won't say that's when it started, because heck; some of Gary Gygax's modules themselves followed a loose arc, like Against the Giants, etc.) during this era. And the writers were freelance professionals, mostly.




My memory could be fuzzy, but I recall the adventure path being a much later development. I could be wrong though. I also don't remember being especially fond of the adventure path stuff (which is one reason I haven't made the switch to pathfinder). 



> Can't argue with you that you didn't get the modules you wanted during that era, but the more you go on, the more clear it is that you want something very, very specific and very, very niche. Lots of modules were produced during this era, and lots of people liked them. Quite possibly, your tastes have evolved into something a bit esoteric, or they remained in the 80s somewhere while the market went on to other things.




I don't think it is very niche. It is one of the single biggest complaints I hear about the 3E era. Sure there was high volume from 3rd parties. But the quality (both content and production) was usually not that great. Some companies like Green Ronin did an excellent job for certain. However my shelf is littered with dissapointing 3rd party modules.


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## Desdichado (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't think it is very niche. It is one of the single biggest complaints I hear about the 3E era. Sure there was high volume from 3rd parties. But the quality (both content and production) was usually not that great. Some companies like Green Ronin did an excellent job for certain. However my shelf is littered with dissapointing 3rd party modules.



I've never hread that complaint about the 3E era.  And in fact, when you made it here, there was a chorus of replies asking what you were talking about, because if anything, the opposite was true.  The 3E era was in fact _well-known_ for being a hotbed of good module production.

But you've chimed in and said, no, you want it to be official.  You want it to have high production values.  You want boxed sets.  You want a mix of setting and adventure material.  You want a specific length.  You don't like adventure paths.  You want professional writers.  You want them exactly like the modules you really liked form about 1990 or so... except, y'know, different.

You've put on nearly a dozen caveats that excludes most of the content of the 3E era in order to make your argument that you didn't have "good modules" during the 3E era.  How is that _not_ niche?  That's like the textbook example of niche.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Hobo said:


> I've never hread that complaint about the 3E era. And in fact, when you made it here, there was a chorus of replies asking what you were talking about, because if anything, the opposite was true. The 3E era was in fact _well-known_ for being a hotbed of good module production.




I've heard this complaint pretty consistently and seen it online quite a bit. I am not denying the overall volume of third party modules, but the quality of those products is something people debate. I guess we just disagree on this issue. Fundamentally I was looking for high-quality, official material. 



> But you've chimed in and said, no, you want it to be official. You want it to have high production values. You want boxed sets. You want a mix of setting and adventure material. You want a specific length. You don't like adventure paths. You want professional writers. You want them exactly like the modules you really liked form about 1990 or so... except, y'know, different.




You are free to disagree with me. This isn't a matter of life and death. Just a matter of taste. However I think my preferences are perfectly reasonable and I have found they are shared by many. I think you are also building something of a straw man out of my position. 




> You've put on nearly a dozen caveats that excludes most of the content of the 3E era in order to make your argument that you didn't have "good modules" during the 3E era. How is that _not_ niche? That's like the textbook example of niche.




Not really. I said quite bluntly the quality wasn't very high during that period in my opinion. You can disagree, but that isn't a niche caveat, quality is a pretty universal expectation.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Hobo said:


> But you've chimed in and said, no, you want it to be official. You want it to have high production values.




I think this is a reasonable expectation. I purchased tons of 3rd party material during 3E, remain a huge fan of the system and the open license, but just think this is one area where WOTC fell short. I admit, it was nice having such high volume material at the time. Would have been nice to have high quality production modules on top of that. What I am saying is I just never found myself enjoying the official WOTC products after the core book (with a few exceptions). And would have liked to see them put out some strong module series. 



> You want boxed sets.




No, I gave the wrong impression there. I don't care about the form (all a boxed set gives you is a fold out map a seperate booklets (occassional overlays, dice and stock cards). What I want is the kind of content you used to get in those boxed sets: great locations, great setting and background information, excellent adventures, etc. They were comprehensive. You could easily reproduce this in a large book. 



> You want a mix of setting and adventure material.




Yes, and I don't think I am alone here. This might not be your thing, and that is fine, but I like having lots of setting material and modules for inspriation. When the two are combined, even better. 



> You want a specific length.




No. I just want length, more than a 12 page dungeon adventure. Want a full sized module. I wasn't really complaining about the length of 3rd part or even official modules during 3E, just explaining why Dungeon wasn't enough for me (I liked dungeon but I do have a host of reasons why it didn't cover the ground of official module material). 



> You don't like adventure paths.




Yes, this is something that just never clicked for me. 



> You want professional writers.




Personally I am not hung up on a the writer's credentials. I may have overstated this point. I do want good quality adventures. While dungeon was good at times, there were entire issues I found I couldn't use.



> You want them exactly like the modules you really liked form about 1990 or so... except, y'know, different.




Not at all. I just want them to take a lesson from some of the things going on from the 80s to 90s. There was also a lot of problems with modules form that period. No denying that. Like I said in another post, I don't want to go back to 1982 or 1990.


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## Desdichado (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> You are free to disagree with me. This isn't a matter of life and death. Just a matter of taste. However I think my preferences are perfectly reasonable and I have found they are shared by many. I think you are also building something of a straw man out of my position.



I don't think so... I agree that your tastes and expectations are perfectly reasonable.  That doesn't mean that they were shared with the majority of the rest of the customer base.  By and large, the customer was well-served by a large variety of module styles during the 3E era.  That you found few that met your needs doesn't make your preferences unreasonable... just niche.

That's not an insult or denigration, by the way.  It seems you are reading it as such.  It just means that the market didn't cater specifically to what you wanted because it didn't percieve that there was a large segment of the customer base that would pay for what you specifically wanted.  Supply meets percieved demand, after all.

Heck, my tastes are quite a bit more niche than yours, I'd say.  Please don't take that as some kind of put-down.  I'm proud to be on the bleeding edge of what I want in my games.  Although I wish it didn't bleed quite so much sometimes.


			
				bedrockgames said:
			
		

> Not really. I said quite bluntly the quality wasn't very high during that period in my opinion. You can disagree, but that isn't a niche caveat, quality is a pretty universal expectation.



Oh, sure.  But your definition of quality was... quite comprehensive, shall we say.  And included a number of things that aren't strictly related to quality at all.  You've basically come up with a definition of quality that exactly equals "your taste."  And hey, that's fine.  But I do disagree.  I'll think you'll find that many do.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Hobo said:


> I don't think so... I agree that your tastes and expectations are perfectly reasonable.  That doesn't mean that they were shared with the majority of the rest of the customer base.  By and large, the customer was well-served by a large variety of module styles during the 3E era.  That you found few that met your needs doesn't make your preferences unreasonable... just niche.
> 
> That's not an insult or denigration, by the way.  It seems you are reading it as such.  It just means that the market didn't cater
> Oh, sure.  But your definition of quality was... quite comprehensive, shall we say.  And included a number of things that aren't strictly related to quality at all.  You've basically come up with a definition of quality that exactly equals "your taste."  And hey, that's fine.  But I do disagree.  I'll think you'll find that many do.




Sorry if i misread your tone. I admit that is how it came across to me but clearly that wasnt your intention (i've been squeezing this between a project i am working on and may havd read your post too hastily).

I dont think my opinions are universally shared buf i do thing a broad segment of the 3e fanbase was not happy with official support material, and would have liked to see more modules. In fact i think this is why paizo is getting such an enthusiastic response.


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## GregoryOatmeal (Sep 27, 2011)

technoextreme said:


> Well it doesn't help that Monte Cook actually admitted that some of the design attributes of 3E made a huge mess out of the game.



My thesis is that edition changes make a mess out of the game logistically for players that can't keep up with the changes. Is that a bigger mess than the pitfalls of 3E? For me it is



> Ooo god no.  If there is one thing that I have learned about any Pen and Paper RPG is that if you start borrowing from real life you are more often than going to get something that is whitewashed and borderline racist.



On the side - I can see how it could and getting Hasbro to publish it just wouldn't happen. But if you're even-handed you could create a product that really explores the depths of a problem like colonialism in an interactive way that promotes empathy for both sides. I'd like to learn a little bit more about the Berlin Conference, Cortez and Columbus before I go into my Isle of Dread campaign. And that definitely won't be whitewashed.


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## Desdichado (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> I dont think my opinions are universally shared buf i do thing a broad segment of the 3e fanbase was not happy with official support material, and would have liked to see more modules. In fact i think this is why paizo is getting such an enthusiastic response.



:shrug:  I think a large segment of the gaming population didn't care that it wasn't official.  Paizo was going that already, for years before the 3e era came to an end.

Which was really the whole point; the module demanding public was well-served during this era.  They just had to (mostly) get their stuff from 3rd party OGL sources.  But within the third party OGL sources, they were _really_ spoiled for choice.

Frankly, the splats that came out from WotC were much more useful to me than modules would have been.  But I've already admitted my tastes were extremely niche.


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## Desdichado (Sep 27, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> My thesis is that edition changes make a mess out of the game logistically for players that can't keep up with the changes. Is that a bigger mess than the pitfalls of 3E? For me it is



Curiously, I think the worst offender in this regard was the change from 3E to 3.5.  With 4e, the game was significantly enough overhauled at a fundamental level, that you didn't have all these carryover associations.  With 3E and 3.5--heck, we still sometimes can't remember if a rule belonged to one or the other, or what the "correct" rule is for the game that we purport to be playing.  And with few exceptions, we've been playing 3.5 non-stop since it was released.  And although I've mostly made my peace with 3.5 by now, I'm still somewhat bitter about the change, which I think was completely unnecessary, which broke as many things as it fixed, and which changed a good many things in ways that were neither better nor worse--just different, so that you couldn't remember what the rule was anymore.

Also curiously, a big part of what eventually won me over were the splatbooks, which were greatly improved from their 3E counterparts.

Also curiously, I think the exact same problem exists for the transition from 3.5 to Pathfinder, although the market in general certainly doesn't seem to agree with me.  If Pathfinder eventually wins me over, which has more to do with whether or not our group decides to change over than anything else, it'll be all the tracks and a la carte options within the classes that'll eventually convince me that it might possibly be an improvement after all instead of just change for change's sake.


			
				GregoryOatmeal said:
			
		

> On the side - I can see how it could and getting Hasbro to publish it just wouldn't happen. But if you're even-handed you could create a product that really explores the depths of a problem like colonialism in an interactive way that promotes empathy for both sides. I'd like to learn a little bit more about the Berlin Conference, Cortez and Columbus before I go into my Isle of Dread campaign. And that definitely won't be whitewashed.



If Disney can make a series of Aladdin movies and more recently a Prince of Persia movie, then certainly Hasbro can remake Al-Qadim and have it succeed in the marketplace if its a quality product.  All this fear about it being racist, or not sensitive enough, or whatever, seems more like paranoia than reason to me.


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## Dausuul (Sep 27, 2011)

technoextreme said:


> Actually, I would say that 4E does small trivial combat far better than 3.5E can ever have hoped to attained.  I don't think even LFR  runs combat encounters like how you are supposed to but if you actual follow their guidelines you will get exactly what you claim is missing.




Which guidelines do you have in mind? The ones I know about, if followed, produce challenging set-piece battles that can be a lot of fun but take a solid 45-60 minutes to play out. If you design the adventure with that in mind, it works great, but if your adventure incorporates a bunch of small fights to wear down the party (the standard model for 3E and earlier), it really bogs down. "Keep on the Shadowfell" was a godawful grind because of this; the big fights were excellent but the little ones were maddening.

One can, of course, throw in _totally_ non-threatening fights, e.g., a handful of minions and 1-2 normal monsters as suggested above. However, the resource drain from such a combat is minimal.


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## GregoryOatmeal (Sep 27, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> One poll on Enworld had D&D 3.5, D&D 4 and Pathfinder about neck to neck. I'd be surprised if D&D 3.5 was less than 20% of D&D-like games being run.



There. I've seen about the same number on other boards. Can anyone find a link? Maybe other websites have similar polls? I tried googling this for my original post and couldn't find any polls...

If two thirds of gamers aren't willing to make a major change in games and half of those aren't even interested in a minor change, eleven years after the debut of the system (or eight depending on how you slice it) I'd say you have a pretty strong brand that merits support.

Can someone dig this poll up?


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> Making them hardcover was done because the softcover 3.0 books didn't sell that well, and apparently they got feedback that distributors and bookstores were prioritizing hardcovers (from 3rd parties) over softcovers.




I am sure they had a valid reason for the shift. If the softcovers weren't selling I suppose there isn't much they could have done differenty; however going over the softcovers I did own for 3E, I have to wonder if it was more an issue of the content than the cover. The one that leaps immediately to mind was the hero builders guide (or something on that theme). It was pretty bad. 



> Power creep is hard. The new magical classes in the Complete books tended to be less powerful then the cleric and wizard in the core book, so I for one tend to think for a while before I play one of them. If a book has a lot of new content, and all of it is less powerful then the core options, people aren't going to be happy and probably aren't going to use it. (This may not be as true if they designed material as replacements for the core material instead of alternatives, but most of the Complete material didn't come across that way.)




Power creep is difficult but also almost inevitable if you keep expanding the game. I guess I just never understood why they went that route. It was simply something that didn't appeal to me. It got to the point where their books were built around prestige classes, feats and spells. I guess I just wanted more than that. I also felt many of these options could have been playtested more thoroughly to vet for unexpected combos. 

I also don't think I buy the assumption that most gamers just want options that are more powerful than core. D&D is like building a magic deck. There were always be min/max-optimizing players, but in my regular gaming I encounter that mentality somewhat infrequently. When I do encounter it, I am happy to cater to it as a GM, but I have only met a handful of people who were all about finding more powerful options for characters. What I suspect most people want is cool and interesting material with flavor that inspires them. 



> So you have to try and make options that are powerful enough that people will take them instead of core material, without making them so powerful that they are more powerful then the core material. It's a tough line to walk, and the Complete books had a lot of stuff that was distinctly underpowered, while having a few things that were overpowered.




I don't think you do. I'd much rather have a solid core game with minimal splat material (perhaps occassional optional feats or prestige classes when it is truly warranted). By the end I just felt all the splat material created a clutter effect more than anything else. 



> Flavor is another complex line to walk. Personally, I found the prestige classes in Complete Arcane to have a bit much flavor, making them hard to weave into a campaign. It perhaps would have been better if they felt like they came from one world where they all made sense.




It depends on the kind of flavor. When I say flavor I mean I want lots of flavor material to draw from and not just stats or mechanics. I don't expect all the flavor material to apply to my campaign, but I'd like to see stuff that provides it. To be fair some of their releases did a good job of this. I felt the 3E Oriental Adventures had plenty of inspiring flavor material in it. I can't remember if it was an official WOTC product but the d20 Cthulu book had lots of excellent flavor as well (I thought some of it was more impressive than the original CoC stuff). I think what I am saying is I really would have liked to see more stuff for the GM rather than the player (which is kind of what I meant when I said they could have learned from the old 80s to 90s approach).


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## Dausuul (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> Power creep is difficult but also almost inevitable if you keep expanding the game. I guess I just never understood why they went that route.




Splat sells, pure and simple. Adventures don't bring in the kind of cash that a popular splatbook does. That's not to say you can't make a living doing adventures--Paizo did quite well out of that--but it's not where the big money is.



Bedrockgames said:


> It depends on the kind of flavor. When I say flavor I mean I want lots of flavor material to draw from and not just stats or mechanics. I don't expect all the flavor material to apply to my campaign, but I'd like to see stuff that provides it.




Heh. I see a lot of this feedback nowadays (have provided some of it myself), and I bet it makes the older designers want to scream. What they kept hearing from players in the 3E era was "We want more crunchy mechanics, less flavor text." 4E gave the gaming masses what they said they wanted, and they abandoned it in droves.

I think the lesson here is that what gamers really want are _flavorful mechanics._ Splitting them out into separate sections is a mistake; the two should be integrated, so that you take in the flavor at the same time you're learning the mechanic.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Dausuul said:


> Splat sells, pure and simple. Adventures don't bring in the kind of cash that a popular splatbook does. That's not to say you can't make a living doing adventures--Paizo did quite well out of that--but it's not where the big money is.




I agree splat sells initially. however I question whether it is sustainable over the long haul. This is just speculation, but I think the reason WOTC keeps releasing new editions or half editions in such a short span is because the splats paint them into a corner eventually. Whereas if they took the approach Paizo seems to be taking I think they would have less of a big burst initially but more steady sales across the span of a single edition. Just speculation, and admittedly it is informed by my preference for non splat material.  




> Heh. I see a lot of this feedback nowadays (have provided some of it myself), and I bet it makes the older designers want to scream. What they kept hearing from players in the 3E era was "We want more crunchy mechanics, less flavor text." 4E gave the gaming masses what they said they wanted, and they abandoned it in droves.




And I think this was because the loudest gamers were the ones saying they wanted more crunch, less fluff and a perfectly balanced game. I don't think they reflected the feelings of the majority of gamers though. 

Also I think part of the issue if "fluff" gets a bad name and people associate it with meaningless material thrown in to increase page count. So if you ask, do you want flavor/fluff material, a lot of people will say no. 



> I think the lesson here is that what gamers really want are _flavorful mechanics._ Splitting them out into separate sections is a mistake; the two should be integrated, so that you take in the flavor at the same time you're learning the mechanic.




I agree they should be integrated but I also think the desire for pure flavor is there as well.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> I also don't think I buy the assumption that most gamers just want options that are more powerful than core. D&D is like building a magic deck.




I find that a confusing analogy in the context of your statement.



> There were always be min/max-optimizing players, but in my regular gaming I encounter that mentality somewhat infrequently. When I do encounter it, I am happy to cater to it as a GM, but I have only met a handful of people who were all about finding more powerful options for characters. What I suspect most people want is cool and interesting material with flavor that inspires them.




I think you're being too binary. I don't consider myself all about finding more powerful options for characters--I played a catfolk favored soul, for one example. I like cool and interesting material with flavor that inspires me. But what I don't find cool and interesting is when my character is constantly outshadowed by the other characters, when my character isn't useful in the party. I've felt that way before, and take great care to look up what's considered optimal and make a conscious choice to take suboptimal options, instead of creating a character to find out that what was cool and interesting in design is boring and powerless in play.


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## technoextreme (Sep 27, 2011)

Dausuul said:


> Which guidelines do you have in mind? The ones I know about, if followed, produce challenging set-piece battles that can be a lot of fun but take a solid 45-60 minutes to play out.



That is 45-60 minutes if you start pushing boundaries of what is considered a sane encounter.  I'm also fairly sure that is the major problem with Keep on the Shadowfell.


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## Dausuul (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> I agree splat sells initially. however I question whether it is sustainable over the long haul. This is just speculation, but I think the reason WOTC keeps releasing new editions or half editions in such a short span is because the splats paint them into a corner eventually. Whereas if they took the approach Paizo seems to be taking I think they would have less of a big burst initially but more steady sales across the span of a single edition. Just speculation, and admittedly it is informed by my preference for non splat material.




A typical splatbook almost certainly outsells a typical adventure, both initially and over the lifespan of the book. You are right that there is a limit to how much splat can reasonably be produced for a given edition; eventually the product line must be rebooted with a new edition, so all the old splats can be re-published. However, if the reboots are successful, the splat business model is far more profitable.

That is, of course, an important "if" right there. Wizards rebooted 2E with spectacular success as 3E, then rebooted 3E with 3.5. The latter was widely criticized as a money grab (and if Monte Cook is to be believed, that's exactly what it was), but most gamers did eventually follow along, and WotC was able to re-create the old splatbooks as shiny new hardcovers.

It wasn't unreasonable of them to think they could keep it up, and they might well have done if 4E had not been such a radical departure--or if they had done a better job with the GSL. As I recall, most of the 3PPs were standing ready to jump on board with 4E, including Paizo. But when WotC was unforgivably late with the GSL, and then the first version included a bunch of clauses that no sane publisher would agree to, the 3PPs couldn't hang around waiting forever. Paizo was already developing Pathfinder as a way to get a little money from the 3E holdouts, but it was the GSL fiasco that drove them to make it their flagship product. And then, when there were a lot more 3E holdouts than anyone anticipated, Paizo was right there with the alternative.



Bedrockgames said:


> And I think this was because the loudest gamers were the ones saying they wanted more crunch, less fluff and a perfectly balanced game. I don't think they reflected the feelings of the majority of gamers though.




I'm pretty sure they did. WotC knows how to do basic market research--they aren't just reading posts on the Intarwebz.

I think, however, that WotC misinterpreted the feedback they were getting. When I buy a gaming book, I don't want pages and pages of flavor divorced from any mechanics, unless the writers producing that flavor are _really damn good_, and writers of that caliber are beyond rare in the gaming industry. If you have it in your head that flavor goes in one box and mechanics in another, it's easy to read "Stop giving me pages of disconnected flavor" as "We need less flavor, more crunch," when in fact it means "We need our flavor to be more closely tied to our crunch."


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> I find that a confusing analogy in the context of your statement.




That was a typo. I meant to say D&D is not like building a magic deck. 




> I think you're being too binary. I don't consider myself all about finding more powerful options for characters--I played a catfolk favored soul, for one example. I like cool and interesting material with flavor that inspires me. But what I don't find cool and interesting is when my character is constantly outshadowed by the other characters, when my character isn't useful in the party. I've felt that way before, and take great care to look up what's considered optimal and make a conscious choice to take suboptimal options, instead of creating a character to find out that what was cool and interesting in design is boring and powerless in play.




Sure, I think there are shades of gray here and I think you represent a viewpoint that is somewhat widespread.


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## Dausuul (Sep 27, 2011)

technoextreme said:


> That is 45-60 minutes if you start pushing boundaries of what is considered a sane encounter.  I'm also fairly sure that is the major problem with Keep on the Shadowfell.




What do you mean by "what is considered a sane encounter?" Sure, if I give my PCs a fight at level-1 to level (rather than level+2 to level+3), it may take 30-40 minutes instead of 45-60. But those 30-40 minutes will be _incredibly freaking boring_, because the outcome is a foregone conclusion and everyone knows it.

A minor fight whose purpose is to expend PC resources should take no more than 10-15 minutes.


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## Desdichado (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> I agree splat sells initially. however I question whether it is sustainable over the long haul. This is just speculation, but I think the reason WOTC keeps releasing new editions or half editions in such a short span is because the splats paint them into a corner eventually. Whereas if they took the approach Paizo seems to be taking I think they would have less of a big burst initially but more steady sales across the span of a single edition. Just speculation, and admittedly it is informed by my preference for non splat material.



I would have speculated the opposite; that good--or at least decent--splatbooks have a longer shelflife than adventures.  If nothing else, the fact that adventures were migrated to third party sellers and magazines supports that notion.  Ryan Dancey et al at the time were quite vocal in saying that the profit margin and shelf life of adventures was quite small--it was something WotC simply wasn't interested in because a company of their scale couldn't do effectively.

Also, I don't think new editions and half editions have anything to do with splatbooks.  Heck, back in the TSR days, there were more releases of new games bearing the D&D logo than during the WotC days.  And the 3.5 edition was a bit of an aberration.  If you haven't ever read it, you should check out this post on Grognardia, and then read Rick Marshall's comments in particular.

GROGNARDIA: Thank You, Ryan Dancey


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Dausuul said:


> A typical splatbook almost certainly outsells a typical adventure, both initially and over the lifespan of the book. You are right that there is a limit to how much splat can reasonably be produced for a given edition; eventually the product line must be rebooted with a new edition, so all the old splats can be re-published. However, if the reboots are successful, the splat business model is far more profitable.
> 
> That is, of course, an important "if" right there. Wizards rebooted 2E with spectacular success as 3E, then rebooted 3E with 3.5. The latter was widely criticized as a money grab (and if Monte Cook is to be believed, that's exactly what it was), but most gamers did eventually follow along, and WotC was able to re-create the old splatbooks as shiny new hardcovers.




I agree splats sell more. but I don't think they drive sales of the core material as much as other supplements might. In fact I have to wonder how much of a deterrent they are to new gamers. I can only imagine how confusing it is to see an array of hardcover books and wonder if you have to buy them all to play. 

The problem with the reboot model is I think it gets tiring for the consumers. I can only speak for myself. But I was all excited when 3E first came out. When 3.5 I was a touch irked. And when they announced 4E I was pretty much shrugging my shoulders. 



> It wasn't unreasonable of them to think they could keep it up, and they might well have done if 4E had not been such a radical departure--or if they had done a better job with the GSL. As I recall, most of the 3PPs were standing ready to jump on board with 4E, including Paizo.




I agree that 4E being such a break was the big killer here. But I also think this tactic would eventually not have worked. The idea of having to restock my core D&D books every 3-4 years is something I don't have the energy for. I don't mind buying one edition and building on it over a long period of time, but I am just not interested in constantly buying new editions of D&D. 



> I'm pretty sure they did. WotC knows how to do basic market research--they aren't just reading posts on the Intarwebz.




I think they know how to do basic market research too, but I really think they over estimated the value of feedback on their boards. I could be wrong, but it seems like everything discussed on their forum made it into 4E design consideration. I have no idea how much market research they actually did in the field (though I heard plenty of stories of them popping into game stores,e tc). However I don't think WOTC is quite at the level of say a major software company or colo corporation. I still think a lot of what the designers were seeing on the net impacted their design choices. To me it it looks like they were paying attention to places like the forge. And that they were actively producing a more "gamist" version of D&D. I could be completely wrong. I can't read their minds, but this has long been my impression. 



> I think, however, that WotC misinterpreted the feedback they were getting. When I buy a gaming book, I don't want pages and pages of flavor divorced from any mechanics, unless the writers producing that flavor are _really damn good_, and writers of that caliber are beyond rare in the gaming industry. If you have it in your head that flavor goes in one box and mechanics in another, it's easy to read "Stop giving me pages of disconnected flavor" as "We need less flavor, more crunch," when in fact it means "We need our flavor to be more closely tied to our crunch."




I think there has to be a connection between flavor and crunch for most people. And I think you are right here, lots of people felt their was a disconnect between 4E mechanics and fluff. But I also think people genuinely want flavor that doesn't have anything to do with the mehcanics per se. I want a cool cosmology, I want interesting settings and cool NPCs. Much of that doesn't hinge on flavor. When flavor should intersect with mechanics, absolutely I want them to align properly.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 27, 2011)

Hobo said:


> I would have speculated the opposite; that good--or at least decent--splatbooks have a longer shelflife than adventures.




I don't see how that's the opposite. Sure, a splatbook sells for a lot longer than any one adventure. But you sell 10 or 12 splatbooks, and the market's full. Paizo sells a new adventure a month, has done so for years, and quite possibly can do so for a number of years to come.



> Also, I don't think new editions and half editions have anything to do with splatbooks.  Heck, back in the TSR days, there were more releases of new games bearing the D&D logo than during the WotC days.  And the 3.5 edition was a bit of an aberration.  If you haven't ever read it, you should check out this post on Grognardia, and then read Rick Marshall's comments in particular.




I don't understand what you're trying to point out there. I think it's pretty clear that 3.5 & 4 were done in part to resell a bunch of splatbooks. Rick Marshall, in that thread, says "Their orders were clear. There would be a new edition, with lots and  lots of books and supplements, and Wizards would basically sell as much  stuff as possible to try to bring up D&D's bottom line."


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## technoextreme (Sep 27, 2011)

Dausuul said:


> But those 30-40 minutes will be _incredibly freaking boring_, because the outcome is a foregone conclusion and everyone knows it.



That is a symptom of bad encounter design though.  That and the encounters that you claim are big showy set pieces tend to eat up way too many resources for you to actually use on a consistent basis.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Hobo said:


> I would have speculated the opposite; that good--or at least decent--splatbooks have a longer shelflife than adventures. If nothing else, the fact that adventures were migrated to third party sellers and magazines supports that notion. Ryan Dancey et al at the time were quite vocal in saying that the profit margin and shelf life of adventures was quite small--it was something WotC simply wasn't interested in because a company of their scale couldn't do effectively.




I hear you, and I think this is a perfectly reasonable conclusion (in fact I agreed with Dancey when he made this statement---it seemed like a practical observation). But I've begun to suspect this doesn't hold up over time, and I think it under-estimates the ability of official module lines to drive sales of core books I think Paizo's approach supports this take. But I could be wrong. I don't have access to sales data or anything like that. 



> Also, I don't think new editions and half editions have anything to do with splatbooks. Heck, back in the TSR days, there were more releases of new games bearing the D&D logo than during the WotC days. And the 3.5 edition was a bit of an aberration. If you haven't ever read it, you should check out this post on Grognardia, and then read Rick Marshall's comments in particular.




Sure but the difference was the core game lines continued (arguably having mutliple editions out at once was a bad move on their part). I could buy D&D enyclopedia or the red boxed set, but 2E was still on the shelves and still actively supported. 

I have heard many different arguments on 3.5. I tend to side with monte cook on it. And I think it was basically a move to re-release and resell the whole line (which is what they did). I also think it is something of a natural consequences of expanding the game through splat. Where else do you have to go once you cover all the classes and races?


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## Desdichado (Sep 27, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> I don't see how that's the opposite. Sure, a splatbook sells for a lot longer than any one adventure. But you sell 10 or 12 splatbooks, and the market's full. Paizo sells a new adventure a month, has done so for years, and quite possibly can do so for a number of years to come.



That's a good point, but that doesn't mean that WotC could have done so.  As I stated earlier, Dancey was sufficiently vocal about the notion that adventures had slim profit margins, so they were better made by lean and mean third party "garage band" publishers.

Plus, are you suggesting that buyers don't get saturated on adventures too?  When you've got more than twice what you can ever concievably run in your lifetime, which I have because I inherited a big pile of 3E Dungeon Magazines (that I wouldn't ever have bought on my own) do you not stop buying?  I picked up a few of the Paizo ones, just because they were the New Hotness with cool cover art and all, but do I really need an unending stream of adventure path chapters once a month and a few other standalones each month too?  I'm "full up" on modules for the foreseeable future.  Meanwhile, the right splat would still catch my eye.  And heck, Paizo still produces as much setting splat stuff as they do modules even now.  


			
				prosfilaes said:
			
		

> I don't understand what you're trying to point out there. I think it's pretty clear that 3.5 & 4 were done in part to resell a bunch of splatbooks. Rick Marshall, in that thread, says "Their orders were clear. There would be a new edition, with lots and  lots of books and supplements, and Wizards would basically sell as much  stuff as possible to try to bring up D&D's bottom line."



Yeah, whoops.  I googled and posted the link before I re-read it to make sure I remembered that it supported my argument.

I still think that Marshall fails to address a pretty significant point, though--it took quite a while before 3.5 started charting new territory in the splatbook field.  They spent a much longer time reprinting and bulking up splatbooks that were out during the 3e run.  Sword & Fist became Complete Warrior, for example.  Tome & Blood became Complete Arcane.  New monster books; well there were always new monster books.  There were three before the edition change--Monster Manual, MM2 and Fiend Folio.

While his story makes a certain amount of sense intuitively, I'm not sure that the product release schedule for the first two or three years of 3.5 necessarily supports it.


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## Desdichado (Sep 27, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> I have heard many different arguments on 3.5. I tend to side with monte cook on it. And I think it was basically a move to re-release and resell the whole line (which is what they did). I also think it is something of a natural consequences of expanding the game through splat. Where else do you have to go once you cover all the classes and races?



The nice thing about the splats was that they were totally optional, though.  _And_, if they're good enough, the customers don't have any problem picking them up.  The monster focus books, like Draconomicon, Liber Mortis, Lords of Madness, the Fiendish Codices... all fantastic books.  I haven't regretted picking up any of them.  I thought the environmental books was a good idea, although the execution was a bit banal.  

I guess my point is: sure, you can get "full" on splats, but don't you ever get "full" on modules?  Unless it's some super-special gee-whiz caters exactly to my especially esoteric taste, I have no desire to ever purchase anothe rmodule ever again.  And heck; most of the ones I do have, I didn't buy.  Almost all of my Dungeon Magazine issues were given to me when a friend was moving and didn't want to pack up and haul them with him.

Because he also had no use for more adventures.  Heck, he had no idea what to do with the ones he had.


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## Dausuul (Sep 27, 2011)

technoextreme said:


> That is a symptom of bad encounter design though.  That and the encounters that you claim are big showy set pieces tend to eat up way too many resources for you to actually use on a consistent basis.




Two things.

Number one, I use the "big showy set piece" battles almost exclusively when running 4E and it works fine. Of course a typical adventuring day has 2-3 of these battles rather than the 4 that was expected in 3E, but since that can be a solid three hours of combat, I don't regard this as a problem.

Number two, please point me at the guidelines for designing a level-1 to level encounter in 4E, using standard monsters, that either a) appears dangerous enough to create tension for experienced players, or b) does not take 30-40 minutes to resolve.

 My experience with 4E is that trying to build adventures 3E-style with lots of little fights is a disaster, but building them 4E-style with a few big fights works out very well. So that's what I do. It may be there's some key to making the 3E approach work in 4E that I'm not seeing, but I can attest that the "few big fights" approach is quite viable. I can also attest that if there _is_ a way to make the 3E approach work, Wizards did not grasp it in their early 4E modules, because those modules were a tedious slog--a handful of exciting fights like Irontooth, swamped in a sea of "Oh, look, drakes. Guess we'll beat on them for a while. They're dead now? Huh. Next room then. Oh, look, ooze."


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2011)

Hobo said:


> The nice thing about the splats was that they were totally optional, though. _And_, if they're good enough, the customers don't have any problem picking them up. The monster focus books, like Draconomicon, Liber Mortis, Lords of Madness, the Fiendish Codices... all fantastic books. I haven't regretted picking up any of them. I thought the environmental books was a good idea, although the execution was a bit banal.




Don't get me wrong, I can see that for lots of customers splat books were a great concept. And I don't mean to imply my tastes are somehow superior or that you are having badwrongfun. I agree they were optional, which is why I always argued 3E wasn't a broken game. The prestige classes and feats only weighed things down if you allowed them to. And I should be clear here as well: I am a huge fan of 3E. The OGL era was one of two periods in gaming I remember most fondly (the other was actually the hieght of 2E, with all the ravenloft, darksun, etc). I just felt it would have been an even better time if they had focused on modules instead. 

There was also something about these books, I can't quite put my finger on that missed the spot for me. I recall loving the old 2E brown books (especially the complete bard), but the 3E Completes just didn't do it for me. And I would be lying if I said I knew exactly why that is. 



> I guess my point is: sure, you can get "full" on splats, but don't you ever get "full" on modules? Unless it's some super-special gee-whiz caters exactly to my especially esoteric taste, I have no desire to ever purchase anothe rmodule ever again. And heck; most of the ones I do have, I didn't buy. Almost all of my Dungeon Magazine issues were given to me when a friend was moving and didn't want to pack up and haul them with him.




I don't get full on modules because you take them as you need them, whereas with splats I kind of have to buy them to keep up with my players and group (unless I do a strictly core campaign or something). As a GM modules are a boon, but splat books can become something of a headache. However I acknowledge they aren't the monstrosities people make them out to be if you approach them the right way. 

Some people like modules and some don't. I just think there is a bigger market than they assumed and I think modules drive core sales very nicely. 



> Because he also had no use for more adventures. Heck, he had no idea what to do with the ones he had.




That is a fair criticism. Some people don't like modules. I myself rarely ran them straight through (which is why I prefer module/settings). But I defintely leaned heavily on them for ideas and inspiration. I just like modules as a format. I enjoy reading them.


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## technoextreme (Sep 27, 2011)

Dausuul said:


> I can also attest that if there _is_ a way to make the 3E approach  work, Wizards did not grasp it in their early 4E modules, because those  modules were a tedious slog--a handful of exciting fights like  Irontooth, swamped in a sea of "Oh, look, drakes. Guess we'll beat on  them for a while. They're dead now? Huh. Next room then. Oh, look,  ooze."



Remember though they fixed the math so that they dropped the defenses on the monsters while upping the attack.  Its how you should actually be running encounters because what you are claiming is nothing more than resulting in more rounds doing nothing.


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## Hussar (Sep 28, 2011)

Just as a point about 3.5 splats.

What power creep?  I see people are accepting power creep as a fact of life, but, I have to ask, what power creep?

Every splat caster was weaker than core casters.  The splats generally lowered casters down and raised up non-casters, which is something most people agreed needed to be done.  

I love it when people say, "Core Only" because I can make the most powerful, most wahoo characters then.  

Splats didn't increase power creep, they actually put a pretty strong limit on it.  Take a campaign, replace Clerics with Favored Souls, Wizards with Warlocks and Truenamers, and boot Druids to the curb and you have a MUCH lower power game.  

You want power creep, look at 2e with splats.  Yikes!  3.5 splats, by and large, did very little to increase the power of characters and generally went out of their way to balance existing material.


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## billd91 (Sep 28, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Just as a point about 3.5 splats.
> 
> What power creep?  I see people are accepting power creep as a fact of life, but, I have to ask, what power creep?
> 
> ...




I would agree that a couple of the splat books boosted fighting classes a nice bit. But several feats like Divine Metamagic and the large number of combat-oriented spells added to the cleric and druid spell lists says the splats most definitely did increase caster power.


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## Dausuul (Sep 28, 2011)

billd91 said:


> I would agree that a couple of the splat books boosted fighting classes a nice bit. But several feats like Divine Metamagic and the large number of combat-oriented spells added to the cleric and druid spell lists says the splats most definitely did increase caster power.




Don't forget the Initiate of the Seven Veils and the Incantatrix. *shudder*

That said, Hussar is generally right; the truly overpowered stuff is in the Player's Handbook. Splatbooks enhanced the PHB uber-classes rather than superseding them, and the enhancements were just icing on a broken, broken cake. If you banned all PHB classes and allowed only stuff out of splats*, game balance would improve dramatically.

[size=-2]*Except the archivist. Dear God. Do not allow the archivist.[/size]


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## Desdichado (Sep 28, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Just as a point about 3.5 splats.
> 
> What power creep?  I see people are accepting power creep as a fact of life, but, I have to ask, what power creep?
> 
> ...



100% agree.

Up until Player's Handbook 2, at least.  After that, you're on your own.  PHB2 classes seem to have been broken in the few times we've used them, as have most of the classes that came out in books after them.

But yeah; the Complete series were all classes that got the shaft.  I like them for other reasons, but I often feel inclined as a GM to give them a little extra benefit just so that they can keep up.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 28, 2011)

Splat book power creep came from the class dipping. It wasnt that the new classes were more powerful on their own they just added some unexpected builds to the game.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 28, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> Splat book power creep came from the class dipping. It wasnt that the new classes were more powerful on their own they just added some unexpected builds to the game.




? Wizard, cleric and druid, the big three in power, don't class dip. Druids don't even usually take prestige classes.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 28, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> ? Wizard, cleric and druid, the big three in power, don't class dip. Druids don't even usually take prestige classes.




I am not denying those are powerful but they became more so with feats from the splat books and i've seen monstrous builds in game from class dipping in splats. If you are going tor magic, sure going all druid makes sense. However i always found standard spellcasters easy to challenge and balance out, the uber builds are what always threw a wrench in my games.


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## Vegepygmy (Sep 28, 2011)

Hussar said:


> What power creep? I see people are accepting power creep as a fact of life, but, I have to ask, what power creep?
> 
> Every splat caster was weaker than core casters.



Radiant Servant of Pelor.

That's just one that disproves your claim. There are others.


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## JamesonCourage (Sep 28, 2011)

Stuff like DDM / Persist Spell and Spell Conpendium (orb spells) were huge additions to core casters. Splat is not limited to just new classes.

Edit: Forgot to mention the new monsters or creatures that could be polymorphed into, etc. Tons of stuff out there gave more power to core classes, and quite dramatically at that.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 28, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> ? Wizard, cleric and druid, the big three in power, don't class dip. Druids don't even usually take prestige classes.




Seems like an overgeneralization to me.  How many levels in a class counts as a "dip?"


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## prosfilaes (Sep 28, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Seems like an overgeneralization to me.  How many levels in a class counts as a "dip?"




From reading the optimization boards, clerics and wizards shouldn't take any other class except for prestige classes with full casting. The main place I've seen dipping is in trying to build a reasonably powerful monk. I'd really like to see these examples of where dipping is making an overpowered character.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Sep 28, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> ? Wizard, cleric and druid, the big three in power, don't class dip.



They certainly stack unbalanced prestige classes and feats that were never tested together.


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## TheAuldGrump (Sep 28, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Just as a point about 3.5 splats.
> 
> What power creep?  I see people are accepting power creep as a fact of life, but, I have to ask, what power creep?
> 
> ...



 Oh ye gods and fishes, the later 2e splats were horrible that way. *Shudder*

I will also admit that the feats I considered unbalanced, as a DM, were also some of my favorite feats, as a DM. Specifically the Reserve feats, so unbalancing, but so _convenient._

As for power creep, prestige classes, and casters... most of that I saw was for sorcerer, which did not give up much taking a prestige class. Pathfinder _did_ give them a power nudge, but the class has so much more flavor now. I actually see sorcerers in my game now, which just didn't happen with 3.5.

All else being equal though, I doubt that WotC will try to pick the 3.X engine up again, and, really, I don't think that they need to - 4e is doing well enough, even if it is not something that I would want to play. If the 4e players are having fun, and the 3.X/P players are having fun, then why fix what ain't broke?

The Auld Grump


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 28, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> From reading the optimization boards, clerics and wizards shouldn't take any other class except for prestige classes with full casting. The main place I've seen dipping is in trying to build a reasonably powerful monk. I'd really like to see these examples of where dipping is making an overpowered character.




I don't really care about CharOp board builds- I build PCs to be 3 dimensional, fun and interesting, not pure combat masters.  As you may now guess, I have many multiclassed full casters.  Only a subset of those are multiclassed into full casting PrCls- most are multiclassed with non-casting classes.

I'm not saying you can't roleplay CharOp PCs in such a fashion.  Optimization is not inherently in conflict with roleplay.  However, by following the advice you find there exclusively, you limit your ability to play a world's worth of interesting PCs.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 28, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I don't really care about CharOp board builds- I build PCs to be 3 dimensional, fun and interesting, not pure combat masters.  As you may now guess, I have many multiclassed full casters.  Only a subset of those are multiclassed into full casting PrCls- most are multiclassed with non-casting classes.




I was responding to "Splat book power creep came from the class dipping."


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 28, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> I was responding to "Splat book power creep came from the class dipping."




Ah- missed that!  Sorry!


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## Desdichado (Sep 28, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> I am not denying those are powerful but they became more so with feats from the splat books and i've seen monstrous builds in game from class dipping in splats. If you are going tor magic, sure going all druid makes sense. However i always found standard spellcasters easy to challenge and balance out, the uber builds are what always threw a wrench in my games.



Yeah, well... bad players will tend to do that.

Curiously, we only have one charop type guy in our group... and frankly, it's like a golf handicap for him.  Sure, he always seems to make builds that are almost comically broken, yet he's always the player who gets his characters killed the most.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 28, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> From reading the optimization boards, clerics and wizards shouldn't take any other class except for prestige classes with full casting. The main place I've seen dipping is in trying to build a reasonably powerful monk. I'd really like to see these examples of where dipping is making an overpowered character.




I was thinking of characters like the machine gun assassin.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 28, 2011)

Hobo said:


> Yeah, well... bad players will tend to do that.
> 
> Curiously, we only have one charop type guy in our group... and frankly, it's like a golf handicap for him. Sure, he always seems to make builds that are almost comically broken, yet he's always the player who gets his characters killed the most.




Yes this is very player dependent. Many will avoid taking advantage of broken rules and the GM can simply prohibit them. But I still found the game became quite cluttered for my tastes after all the splats.

On a side note, I once ran a campaign for a group of optimizers, and while it isn't my personal style, I had a great time. I was also forced to optimize NPCs and monsters just to keep things challenging. Learned a good deal about the system doing that. Normally I am not into that kind of play, but I can see its appeal.


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## Desdichado (Sep 28, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> Yes this is very player dependent. Many will avoid taking advantage of broken rules and the GM can simply prohibit them. But I still found the game became quite cluttered for my tastes after all the splats.



I always say it's better to have an option you don't want than it is to want an option you don't have.  :shrug:

After years of playing, we're all a little tired of the "standard" races and class combos, frankly.  We're looking to do something new.

On top of that, I'm always frustrated by the inherent magical nature of all the classes.  Of the 11 core clases in the PHB, only four don't have some kind of spell-casting progression, and the monk is still chock-full of supernatural special abilities.  Only_ three_ of eleven core classes are non-magical?!  

Anyway, if offends my sense of world-building, verisimilitude, and the kind of swashbuckling sword and sorcery fantasy that I like.  I'm very glad to have more options, especially the ones in Complete Warrior and Complete Adventurer, and the alternate classes in books like The d20 Freeport Companion, for instance.

I also like psionics as an alternative to magic.

Basically, I just don't really like D&D magic, I think.  So splatbooks to me are pretty crucial to give me alternatives.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 28, 2011)

Hobo said:


> I always say it's better to have an option you don't want than it is to want an option you don't have.  :shrug:



I don't know... I like safety railings. Because I really never want to fall deep down and end up as a big splash on the ground. It's really an option I don't even want to have avaialble.

Actually, I think you're wrong. An option that I don't want is never better than not having that option. Because I don't want it. At best, I am guaranteed to never take it. But that is exactly the same in effect as the option not being there, so my situation with the option avaialble hasn't improved. At worst, I can accidentally take that option. And then - *splash*


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 28, 2011)

> Actually, I think you're wrong. An option that I don't want is never better than not having that option. Because I don't want it.




I have to disagree strongly here: having options is almost always superior to not having them.  Why?  Because the game is not solely about _your_ preferences.


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## Dausuul (Sep 28, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I have to disagree strongly here: having options is almost always superior to not having them.  Why?  Because the game is not solely about _your_ preferences.




There is a cost to having options, because analysis is not free. Or, to put it another way: I don't want to have to sift through fifty pages of poor-to-mediocre options in order to find the handful of good ones.

More good options, organized in a way that makes them easy to find, is usually better. Having more bad options is not only not better, it is worse.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 28, 2011)

1) hence my qualifier "almost"

2) what you see as bad may not be seen as bad by all or even a majority.  Ditto your view of "good."


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## Greg K (Sep 29, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> There was also something about these books, I can't quite put my finger on that missed the spot for me. I recall loving the old 2E brown books (especially the complete bard), but the 3E Completes just didn't do it for me. And I would be lying if I said I knew exactly why that is.




I had responded to this earlier,. However, my post was, apparently, eaten when the site had problems earlier today.

I too prefer 3e (provided I stay away from most WOTC supplements including the race and class splats) and, also, prefer the 2e Complete Handbooks to WOTC's Complete Books

I like the 2e focus on a specific class.  They covered a lot of archetypes from cultures and media.  As a DM, it helped provide PCs and NPCs meaningful background and cultural differences (e.g., armor and weapon proficiencies) for settings with multiple cultures and/or social levels.  It also provided ideas for more themed settings.

Another benefit was that 2e was about customizing the clases at first level to meet a cultural or background concept.  While 3e had the tools to do this better (tailoring clases, the DMG variant spell lists and swapping class abilities), there were few examples to help out the DM until Unearthed Arcana. The result was that, in 3e, many DMs were either too afraid to tweak classes or too lazy and the unwillingness to tweak classes meant players had to jump through hoops via multiclassing and/or prestige classes to meet a concept that should be viable at level one.

Finally, the more indepth look into a single class of the 2e books meant that there were more options in the book for that class. The benefits were that 
a) You most likely didn't have to wait for a concept to be covered for your class (e.g., 3e sorcereor heritage feats scattered among 3e books)
b) You had less books to refer to or carry to access material for your class.
c) For myself, I was likely to find enough worthwhile content in the 2e books to warrant buying the books even if there were some lousy content (e.g., the Greenwood Ranger and Bladesinger kits). In contrast, with 3e class supplements, I was likely to find only a few pages of worthwhile and passed on them all


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## GregoryOatmeal (Sep 30, 2011)

I'm going to back down from my hypothesis. For all the folks who were demanding data but couldn't produce it, here it is. I'm curious if anyone else has any raw numbers.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?...laying-D-amp-D
Dungeons & Dragons Editions: Where Do You Stand?


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## JRRNeiklot (Oct 1, 2011)

That's like going into Yankee Stadium and taking a poll on everyone's favorite baseball team.


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## gamerprinter (Oct 1, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> I'm going to back down from my hypothesis. For all the folks who were demanding data but couldn't produce it, here it is. I'm curious if anyone else has any raw numbers.
> 
> http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?...laying-D-amp-D
> Dungeons & Dragons Editions: Where Do You Stand?




Sorry, polls taken on ENWorld, don't count as raw data - its anecdotal to this forum for the date the poll was taken, but really has no viability since it only includes votes from here... it doesn't count as 'evidence'.


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## prosfilaes (Oct 1, 2011)

gamerprinter said:


> Sorry, polls taken on ENWorld, don't count as raw data - its anecdotal to this forum for the date the poll was taken, but really has no viability since it only includes votes from here... it doesn't count as 'evidence'.




Many papers on the psychology of "humans" are based on a dozen grad students at Princeton. Not that they aren't often proven incomplete, but they're still a starting point.

No, we don't have great quality data. But I'm amazed at the steadfast willingness of people to throw out anything that looks like data, especially when they're discussing on a thread like this. Are most groups playing D&D 3.5 and are they willing to buy more 3.5 material the instant it comes back on the market? It's not right to claim the answers to those questions is no on the basis of no data or a gut feeling.


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## Ron (Oct 1, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> Many papers on the psychology of "humans" are based on a dozen grad students at Princeton. Not that they aren't often proven incomplete, but they're still a starting point.
> 
> No, we don't have great quality data. But I'm amazed at the steadfast willingness of people to throw out anything that looks like data, especially when they're discussing on a thread like this. Are most groups playing D&D 3.5 and are they willing to buy more 3.5 material the instant it comes back on the market? It's not right to claim the answers to those questions is no on the basis of no data or a gut feeling.




Sampling is always the most critical step in any statistical inference. The behaviour studies I think you are citing are experimental and thus very different from pooling to access taste. As others already pointed out, a pool within ENWorld is very biased and thus not representative of the market as a whole.


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## JamesonCourage (Oct 1, 2011)

You know what'd be interesting? A poll that said, "go ask your group about this question. Then come back and vote on it." It'd let us sample people who don't come to sites like this one.

The problem, of course, is the logistics of the poll. If you say, "what's your preferred edition?" and give options, then one vote from the poster who returns won't be enough without a ton of poll options ("3 say 4e, 3 say 3.X/Pathfinder, and 2 say AD&D" probably shouldn't be a poll option, because it's so specific). I think the poll would have to be informal, where people would come in and post the numbers, and the OP would update it to reflect every post. This, of course, would be a lot of manual work, so still not optimal.

Interesting nonetheless. As always, play what you like


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## GregoryOatmeal (Oct 1, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> You know what'd be interesting? A poll that said, "go ask your group about this question. Then come back and vote on it." It'd let us sample people who don't come to sites like this one.



That would be interesting.

I'm sticking with that poll until something better comes along. The thing is that and the Amazon numbers are the strongest pieces of data I've seen...besides an overwhelming rejection of 4E in my hometown. So until something better comes along that's the only useful metric I've seen.


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## gamerprinter (Oct 1, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> Many papers on the psychology of "humans" are based on a dozen grad students at Princeton. Not that they aren't often proven incomplete, but they're still a starting point.
> 
> No, we don't have great quality data. But I'm amazed at the steadfast willingness of people to throw out anything that looks like data, especially when they're discussing on a thread like this. Are most groups playing D&D 3.5 and are they willing to buy more 3.5 material the instant it comes back on the market? It's not right to claim the answers to those questions is no on the basis of no data or a gut feeling.




College papers are hardly based on large numbers of data collection points. They aren't the average of raw data - they are completely different animals.

Starting points are fine, and I'm not disagreeing that a forum poll is some level of data collection. The OP is suggesting that the forum poll is the data he's using -- that's a starting point only, not fully acceptable as data. I'm just pointing out that this is a poor claim for evidentiary data.


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## Plane Sailing (Oct 2, 2011)

gamerprinter said:


> Sorry, polls taken on ENWorld, don't count as raw data - its anecdotal to this forum for the date the poll was taken, but really has no viability since it only includes votes from here... it doesn't count as 'evidence'.




Er, you spotted that the poll wasn't on ENworld, right?

And I must disagree with you to some extent anyway - you are denying that it is raw data of any kind, and call it anecdotal. It would be anecdotal if someone said "I heard that 8 out of 10 cat owners preferred 4e".

The situation we have here is the data from 500+ visitors to rpg.net who saw the poll and considered that it was worth voting on. There may sometimes be a consideration of the phrasing of questions too.

While you obviously cannot extrapolate directly from that to the population as a whole, it certainly is data from a particular subset of people and can be useful as long as the person making use of the data takes that into consideration.

Cheers


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## Hussar (Oct 2, 2011)

Heh, funnily enough, in that EN World poll, I voted 3e.


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## Pentius (Oct 2, 2011)

Funnily enough, I prefer 4e and own a cat.


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## Desdichado (Oct 2, 2011)

gamerprinter said:


> College papers are hardly based on large numbers of data collection points. They aren't the average of raw data - they are completely different animals.
> 
> Starting points are fine, and I'm not disagreeing that a forum poll is some level of data collection. The OP is suggesting that the forum poll is the data he's using -- that's a starting point only, not fully acceptable as data. I'm just pointing out that this is a poor claim for evidentiary data.



It suffers from both endogeneity problems and sample selection problems.  And you could make a case that the wording on the questions was also problematic.

That said, it's not like this discussion of the buying habits of RPG customers is likely to be submitted to the Quarterly Journal of Economics anytime soon.  While it's wrong to suggest that a poll on ENWorld or RPG.net proves anything, it's certainly an interesting thing to talk about.  The cry to decry polls comes a little too quickly around here.


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## Hussar (Oct 3, 2011)

Just to point out something here too.  Pretty much every time that particular poll comes around, and it comes around every few months or so, the results are generally pretty close.  About 50%+-10 for 4e, with 3e and Pathfinder taking most of the rest and about 10% for retro-clones etc.

If nothing else, it's pretty consistent and has been for a few years.


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## SSquirrel (Oct 3, 2011)

GregoryOatmeal said:


> That would be interesting.
> 
> I'm sticking with that poll until something better comes along. The thing is that and the Amazon numbers are the strongest pieces of data I've seen...besides an overwhelming rejection of 4E in my hometown. So until something better comes along that's the only useful metric I've seen.




Earlier in this thread I showed you why counting Amazon sales as data is a and idea.  Yes you had the PF Core book at #1 that day, but 4E held well over half the top 20 slots.  Here is the list today.  Note th PF Core book is at 15 and we have more non-4E or PF products in the top 20.  4E has exactly 1/2 the top 20.  PF has 1/4 of it.

1 4E Red Box
2 4E Madness at Gardmore Abbey
3 PF Ultimate Combat
4 PF Ultimate Magic
5 4E Heroes of the Fallen Lands
6 4E Dungeon Master Tiles - The Dungeon
7 PF Adv Player's Guide
8 4E Rules Compendium
9 Unrelated Novel
10 4E Neverwinter Setting
11 4E PHB
12 4E Monster Vault
13 Unrelated Halo Encyclopedia
14 Unrelated novel
15 PF Core Rulebook
16 PF Bestiary
17 4E DM Kit
18 Shadowrun 20th Anniv Edition
19 4E Dungeon Tiles - The Wilderness
20 World of Darkness Corebook

If you tried to score these by doing a reverse point system (#1 gets 20 points, #20 gets 1 point and everything in between) then 4E has 119 and PF has 62.


Amazon is not a trustworthy data source.  Remember, this is the same company who has yet to actually provide any sales figures for the Kindle other than in early 2010 when they updated it from "lots" to "millions" heh.


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## prosfilaes (Oct 3, 2011)

SSquirrel said:


> Earlier in this thread I showed you why counting Amazon sales as data is a and idea.  Yes you had the PF Core book at #1 that day, but 4E held well over half the top 20 slots..




Those two statements don't go together. How many slots 4E holds is completely irrelevant to its quality as data.



> Amazon is not a trustworthy data source.




Aspersions at data they choose not to release do not matter as to the quality of the data they do release. It's not the detail we want, but it's one of the best data sources we have.


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## SSquirrel (Oct 3, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> Those two statements don't go together. How many slots 4E holds is completely irrelevant to its quality as data.




It IS irrelevant when it can be shown that it changes significantly from week to week and that declaring PF the victor when they had a definite minority of the books on the list is statistically incorrect.





prosfilaes said:


> Aspersions at data they choose not to release do not matter as to the quality of the data they do release. It's not the detail we want, but it's one of the best data sources we have.




The quality of the data released here is nil.  We don't know how many copies we are discussing here.  For all we know, they sold 20 copies of book #1 and 19 copies of book #2.  The rankings don't have enough information to tell us degree.


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## Hussar (Oct 3, 2011)

About the only thing Amazon might be able to tell you would be trends.  If a given book remains at a particular spot for a long time, we can at least infer that it's doing repeat business.


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## Fox Lee (Oct 4, 2011)

Dausuul said:


> I think the lesson here is that what gamers really want are _flavorful mechanics._ Splitting them out into separate sections is a mistake; the two should be integrated, so that you take in the flavor at the same time you're learning the mechanic.



I tend to disagree with that; or, at least, I really appreciate that in 4e, there is almost never any ambiguity between what is "fluff" and what isn't. Nothing aggravated me in 3/3.5e like prestige classes/feats/whatever with pre-requisites which had no connection to mechanics (culture, organisation, race in many cases*, and even the odd case of gender).

Alignment was always the worst offender. Yes, okay, maybe you _designed_ that class to represent a berserking half-orc warrior, but it's perfectly for my concept for a mild-mannered poet possessed by a demonic spirit that occasionally seizes control. Sure, he isn't chaotic, and he's an elf not a half-orc, but were those requirements _ever_ designed to control power levels, or were they just put there because that was your concept? Granted, many GMs would agree, and allow a houserule, but in examples like those not everbody agrees on where the line between crunch and fluff lies. That, in my opinion, is when fluff is getting in the way of creativity, not stimulating it.

Anyway - including quality fluff with the mechanics is _excellent_, and I'd never say that books should be pure crunch (even power names are flavour elements, after all). But I do think they should be always distinguished from each other, so that individual groups/players can fluff the mechanics differently if they choose. I think 4e does an excellent job of this; the mechanics have solid falvour attached, but they are clearly delineated and nobody needs to argue over whether or not "Str vs. AC" is a thematic restriction.

(*Race was sometimes a genuine mechanical concern, yes, but more often it was just a flavour concern.)


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## Maxboy (Oct 4, 2011)

I find it funny that any poll or data point, that does not fit into a persons narrative of how well their "edition" is doing, is patently false, and can't be trusted.


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## Fox Lee (Oct 4, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> Aspersions at data they choose not to release do not matter as to the quality of the data they do release. It's not the detail we want, but it's one of the best data sources we have.




How about this then: isn't Amazon sales data based on _what is available_ as well as what people buy? There are no new books for 3.5, and Pathfinder is also sold directly through Paizo, so people who want either of those things have reasons to avoid Amazon anyway. Plus, it's horribly skewed towards NorthAm consumers - I can barely find anything Amazon (or their third-party sellers) will ship to my country any more, let alone something that it would be _worthwhile_ paying them to ship, especially if it's a big heavy RPG book. So I'm just one example of a group whose buying habits that are a mystery to Amazon.

It's not totally useless, but it _is_ profoundly biased, which puts it in basically the same camp as the two previously-cited polls. Interesting, and provocative of further thought perhaps, but certainly not real statistical evidence.

Still a _little better_ than "everybody at my gaming club" though


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## Hussar (Oct 4, 2011)

Maxboy said:


> I find it funny that any poll or data point, that does not fit into a persons narrative of how well their "edition" is doing, is patently false, and can't be trusted.




I don't think that's the case though.  Or, at least it shouldn't be.  However, what is often the case is people putting a LOT more weight on numbers that don't really hold up to scrutiny.  "Paizo is kicking 4e's butt!  Look at the ICV2 numbers!"  or "Paizo spends more money on its organized play efforts than WOTC does!"  

The numbers are very vague.  About all you can tell from the numbers is trends up or down.  But trying to make any absolute conclusions is about as accurate as chicken entrails.


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## prosfilaes (Oct 4, 2011)

Fox Lee said:


> How about this then: isn't Amazon sales data based on _what is available_ as well as what people buy?




Strictly speaking, no. If it's not available, people aren't buying it. But yes, this tells us about relative sales, not who's playing what, so it gives us little information about 3.5. Though we can look at the prices of used books, and see that people aren't dumping 3.5 books like they're dumping 3.0 and earlier versions. 



> Pathfinder is also sold directly through Paizo, so people who want either of those things have reasons to avoid Amazon anyway.




Amazon is still cheaper for Pathfinder then Paizo. And D&D 4 has DDI to keep people away from Amazon.



> Plus, it's horribly skewed towards NorthAm consumers




That, however, I find less important. We can look at Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de and Amazon.jp for non-North American consumers (and Amazon.ca for more North American consumers.) In any case, the US is 2/3rds the world's English native speakers, and the largest English speaking country in the world, so for the English speaking market just Amazon.com should give us information.


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## gamerprinter (Oct 4, 2011)

Hussar said:


> I don't think that's the case though. Or, at least it shouldn't be. However, what is often the case is people putting a LOT more weight on numbers that don't really hold up to scrutiny. "Paizo is kicking 4e's butt! Look at the ICV2 numbers!" or "Paizo spends more money on its organized play efforts than WOTC does!"
> 
> The numbers are very vague. About all you can tell from the numbers is trends up or down. But trying to make any absolute conclusions is about as accurate as chicken entrails.




Yet, detractors to ICv2 reports, or Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo stating that at certain given months, other non-public reports like from Bookscan suggest that Paizo IS doing better in a given quarter than the competition, seem to think that in the absence of verifiable data, that the only conclusion is that this is false information, and nobody can beat D&D, so the ICv2 report cannot be true.

I don't mean to suggest this is your point of view, but many pro-4e'ers seem to suggest that this is the case.


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## Pentius (Oct 5, 2011)

Maxboy said:


> I find it funny that any poll or data point, that does not fit into a persons narrative of how well their "edition" is doing, is patently false, and can't be trusted.




I find this pretty funny as well.  I also find it funny how when the poll or data point does fit a person's view, it is automatically undeniable rock solid Science.

I think science gets beat up more on messageboards than a pro-boxer's punching bag.


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## Fox Lee (Oct 12, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> Strictly speaking, no. If it's not available, people aren't buying it. But yes, this tells us about relative sales, not who's playing what, so it gives us little information about 3.5. Though we can look at the prices of used books, and see that people aren't dumping 3.5 books like they're dumping 3.0 and earlier versions.



Okay, but that only tells us that people aren't dumping their 3.5 books - not whether or not they want to buy more. Which would be WotC's concern if they were to pick up 3.5 again. It's not enough that people still play 3.5 - they must be willing to spend more on it, despite their existing collections, than they are on 4e. Many gamers may think that this is the case, but WoTC clearly does not, and since they have the actual sales figures I'm willing to bet they are a better judge of that than any of us.



> Amazon is still cheaper for Pathfinder then Paizo. And D&D 4 has DDI to keep people away from Amazon.



D&DI is a supplement to the gamebooks, not a replacement, and is rather hard to use in the same way (especially to share at the table). For that matter, until the uni upgraded their wireless network this very semester, my group couldn't use D&DI at the table at all. It's a similar thing, but it's really not the same.



> That, however, I find less important. We can look at Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de and Amazon.jp for non-North American consumers (and Amazon.ca for more North American consumers.) In any case, the US is 2/3rds the world's English native speakers, and the largest English speaking country in the world, so for the English speaking market just Amazon.com should give us information.



It _is[/i[] inherently biased, though. Especially since it is only one retailer from amongst many, regardless of whether or not it is the most popular. I'm not saying it's useless, just that claiming it as concrete "proof" of a trend would be wrong (unless that trend related specifically to buyers of a given nationally or subset of nationalities, who chose Amazon as their shopping site)._


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