A road not taken: What if there had been no 4E

[Alzrius]

I know the OP wanted to discuss what WotC would do, but imagine how the third-party community would look if 4E had never materialized.

Paizo would quite likely still be wowing us with monthly issues of Dragon and Dungeon, and there'd be no talk of Pathfinder (probably). Necromancer Games would have put out a few more huge, high-quality products, likely boxed sets. Guys like Aeryn Rudel, Craig Cochrane, and Roger Carbol, who (semi-)regularly put out spectacular 3.5 material, would still be doing so.

The third-party field for 3.5 would be much richer than it is now were there no 4E.

 

[JohnRTroy]

That chart is really interesting.

I've been really curious about the rise of hardcovers and the fall of softcover books.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to produce softcover books, or have printing costs fallen?

Is there a greater margin on hardcover? Is it an excuse to jack up the prices a few dollars and get more profit?

(This interests me because there's so many hardcover comic book trades as well).

 

[malraux]

Wizards had aggressively supported 3e, even to the point of a "mid-edition course correction" with 3.5e.

In some ways, I suspect the real problem was that 3.5 came way too soon. While it was a reworking of the system, it didn't necessarily address all the fundamental problems.

 

[Vigilance]

That chart is really interesting.

I've been really curious about the rise of hardcovers and the fall of softcover books.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to produce softcover books, or have printing costs fallen?

Is there a greater margin on hardcover? Is it an excuse to jack up the prices a few dollars and get more profit?

(This interests me because there's so many hardcover comic book trades as well).

I think what happened is that early 3rd party books didn't look that different from Wizards. Softcovers, black&white interiors, standard paper.

So then Wizards upped the ante, going hardcover, color interiors, glossy paper and really put themselves at a level few 3PP's could match.

Hardcovers do also have a better margin but I think the issue was more the market leader deciding to LOOK like the market leader.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I remember a while back, prior to the 4e release, Scott Rouse asked folks here on Enworld about what sort of flavor heavy books they might want WotC to come out with. There was a very long list of them, with a Fey book, Fiendish Codex III, a Giant book, and others. None of those ever materialized, so I'm not sure why it was asked about, but the ideas from that thread could serve as a pretty good list of books for WotC to have done had they not gone the 4e route.

Plus, people had been begging for more regional supplement books for FR for several years.

A 3.x Dark Sun. A formal 3.x Planescape book. A new setting entirely, etc.

Fey have become a generally stronger theme in 4E. The Feywild, Eladrin, Fey Pact Warlock... Fiendish Codes might have kinda gone into the DDI articles regarding the Demons. Giants we haven't seen much of yet (except the announced Against the Giants title or how it is called). Settings in general we get little thanks to the 3-book policy - but there is the DDI series on Airspur, a new FR location.

I don't know what could have worked. The "experimental" books like Tome of Magic, Book of Nine Swords and so on already got too "niche", and the system was becoming unwieldly.

I think the only logical thing in absence of a 4E that was to happen was downsizing the RPG department considerably and reducing the output. But down-sizing might be cool and dandy if you promise that it will make you the same money for less expenses, but not so great if it just makes less money for less expenses.

 

[Echohawk]

Here's another version of that graph, this time separating out the setting-specific products from the generic D&D line. I took "has a setting logo on it" as the measure of whether or not something was setting specific, if that wasn't otherwise clear.

 

[drothgery]

Here's another version of that graph, this time separating out the setting-specific products from the generic D&D line. I took "has a setting logo on it" as the measure of whether or not something was setting specific, if that wasn't otherwise clear.

... though that leads to some stuff like Races of Eberron and Monsters of Faerun being counted as generic.

 

[AllisterH]

Thanks Echohawk.

This is what I don't understand. Clearly many people believe that WOTC has been selling too many products every month, especially now in 4e, but looking at past history, WOTC is nowhere close to TSR.

(Hell, the 2009 output from Echohawk's fabulous graph looks about dead even as the 1983 output of TSR and that's midpoint of 1st edition ).

Is it REALLY considered that much product given a release schedule of about 1 book a month (and that includes campaign specfic material like FR and Eberron)

re: Setting specific.

Um, why would Races of Eberron and Monsters of Faerun be considered generic? Didn't they have the campaign logos on them?

EDIT: Hardcover vs Softcover

I think Vigilance is on to something. When 3.0 first came out, Sword and Fist was a softcover but by the time of 3.5, Complete Warrior, WOTC realized they needed to look like an official product, namely hardcover.

 

[doctorhook]

Extremely close to a hundred, actually. Exactly one hundred and one WotC hardcovers span 3.X D&D:
[sblock]
1. Player's Handbook
2. Monster Manual
3. Psionics Handbook
4. Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
5. Manual of the Planes
6. Oriental Adventures
7. Deities and Demigods
8. Faiths and Pantheons
9. Epic Level Handbook
10. Monster Manual II
11. Book of Vile Darkness
12. Savage Species
13. Arms and Equipment Guide
14. Races of Faerûn
15. Fiend Folio
16. Unapproachable East
17. Ghostwalk
18. Dungeon Master's Guide v.3.5
19. Monster Manual v.3.5
20. Player's Handbook v.3.5
21. Dragonlance Campaign Setting
22. Miniatures Handbook
23. Book of Exalted Deeds
24. Underdark
25. Draconomicon: The Book of Dragons
26. Complete Warrior
27. Unearthed Arcana
28. Player's Guide to Faerûn
29. Expanded Psionics Handbook
30. Complete Divine
31. Eberron Campaign Setting
32. Planar Handbook
33. Serpent Kingdoms
34. Races of Stone
35. Frostburn: Mastering the Perils of Ice and Snow
36. Monster Manual III
37. Libris Mortis: The Book of Undead
38. Shining South
39. Complete Arcane
40. Sharn: City of Towers
41. Races of Destiny
42. Complete Adventurer
43. Lost Empires of Faerûn
44. Races of the Wild
45. Sandstorm: Mastering the Perils of Fire and Sand
46. Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations
47. Races of Eberron
48. Champions of Ruin
49. Heroes of Battle
50. City of Splendors: Waterdeep
51. Dungeon Master's Guide II
52. Five Nations
53. Weapons of Legacy
54. Explorer's Handbook
55. Stormwrack: Mastering the Perils of Wind and Wave
56. Magic of Incarnum
57. Heroes of Horror
58. Magic of Eberron
59. Champions of Valor
60. Spell Compendium
61. Player's Guide to Eberron
62. Races of the Dragon
63. Power of Faerûn
64. Tome of Magic
65. Complete Psionic
66. Player's Handbook II
67. Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss
68. Mysteries of the Moonsea
69. Secrets of Xen'drik
70. Monster Manual IV
71. Dragons of Faerûn
72. Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords
73. Dragon Magic
74. Faiths of Eberron
75. Complete Mage
76. Expedition to Castle Ravenloft
77. Cityscape: An Essential Guide to Urban Adventuring
78. Dragonmarked
79. Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells
80. Complete Scoundrel
81. Dungeonscape
82. Secrets of Sarlona
83. Magic Item Compendium
84. Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave
85. Expedition to the Demonweb Pits
86. Complete Champion
87. Drow of the Underdark
88. Forge of War
89. Expedition to Undermountain
90. Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land
91. Monster Manual V
92. Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk
93. Exemplars of Evil: Deadly Foes to Vex Your Heroes
94. Grand History of the Realms
95. Dragons of Eberron
96. Rules Compendium
97. Dungeon Survival Guide
98. Anauroch: The Empire of the Shade
99. Elder Evils
100. City of Stormreach
101. An Adventurer's Guide to Eberron
[/sblock]

I'm not sure I would have included #97 and #101; neither one was a "rules" product. Instead, they were both more like thin, expensive retrospectives -- but AFAIK, neither one introduced anything actually useful to the game. Alternatively, if both of these books are counted, then so should the "30 Years of D&D" hardcover coffee-table book.

Also, IIRC, there were also Deluxe leatherbound copies of the core books available.

Otherwise, awesome list!

 

[scruffygrognard]

They could have built a modular version of 3.75.

The core books would have represented a streamlined, cleaned-up and "fixed" version of 3.5 that addressed the big issues that people had with 3.5 (multiclassing casters being subpar, too much math slows down the game, too much DM-prep time is needed... especially at high levels, DR and stacking effect headaches, unbalanced PrCs, reliance on ability boosting items, etc). Something along the lines of D&D Saga Edition would have been a great place to start.

After that was released, Wizards could have focused on producing quality campaign settings (that don't require a reboot of the world) and adventures... as well as print and pdf versions of Dragon and Dungeon magazine (pdf versions would be complimentary for print subscribers).

The game, settings and adventures, in turn, could be further supported by a DDI that incorporated pdf downloads and bona fide software (rather than vaporware) applications for character/world/monster/adventure generation.