Remathilis said:
How do fans of White Wolf, Star Wars, Shadowrun, Gurps, HERO, and other RPGs handle the announcement of a new edition? Better or worse than the announcement of a new D&D?
Depends on the system
With
Ars Magica, I've been excited about each new edition and have eventually bought every single supplement.
With
WoD, I've bought lots of supplements for the first edition. Too many to be willing to invest a similar amount in a new edition.
With
Earthdawn, I've bought the new edition and would have converted, but the other players didn't seem to be interested, so we sticked with 1st.ed.
With
DSA, I've tested every new edition. All of them have been very different from each other, but they still haven't reached a point of perfection that would me make buy more than the basic set for each.
With
D&D I've skipped about every other edition so far: I wasn't interested in OD&D, but I was instantly a fan of AD&D 1st.ed. Second edition wasn't sufficiently different from first, so I just copied some parts from the new rules I liked and kept going.
I bought the PHB and DMG for 3.0 but never used them in play because 3.5 became available when I started my campaign. I've been using the SRD + MM1 3.5 for my game so far (+ several 3.5 supplements like the Complete series).
I'll probably buy the 4th.ed. PHB out of curiosity, but if I am actually going to use it, I cannot tell yet. First, I'll finish my current campaign.