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

[JeffB]

What if there had been no 4E

IDK what WOTC would have done, but I'd still be avoiding 3.x like the plague

I supect it would have crashed and burned-just like every other edition of D&D past it's prime and product bloated (selling "prime", not value as a game "prime")

 

[JohnRTroy]

JohnRTroy, I believe there is a wider margin with hardcovers, but also greater production cost, thus more risk. This is why first-time novelists often don't get published in hardcover, at least in genre fiction.

Well, yes, I know it would obviously bring up the cost, but is the markup between a Hard vs. Soft cover just covering the cost, or is there more profit per item that can be exploited. (Remember, when CDs came out supposedly the prices were marked up a lot higher than the cost of manufacturing difference).

I didn't see a lot of demand for hardcover sourcebooks when softcover worked fine. I would think gamers would be astute enough to not think a hardcover is a core supplement solely because of its hardcover status.

As far as the largeness of TSR's product releases--I think many of us were focused on our own favorites we didn't take time to see the whole. Keep in mind that they had so many competing products I think gamers had to give up "all D&D" and pick and choose their favorites.

 

[Vigilance]

Well, yes, I know it would obviously bring up the cost, but is the markup between a Hard vs. Soft cover just covering the cost, or is there more profit per item that can be exploited. (Remember, when CDs came out supposedly the prices were marked up a lot higher than the cost of manufacturing difference).

I didn't see a lot of demand for hardcover sourcebooks when softcover worked fine. I would think gamers would be astute enough to not think a hardcover is a core supplement solely because of its hardcover status.

The margin on hardcovers is way better.

And whether there was demand for hardcovers in the abstract, they were definitely preferred by consumers.

This is why the industry drifted that way.

WOTC wasn't the only company to drift toward hardcovers, with color interiors, with glossy paper.

Green Ronin and Mongoose also went in that direction.

 

[Vigilance]

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.

Right, but that doesn't mean WOTC didn't aggressively support 3e. In fact I'd say they came as close as possible to over-supporting the game without crossing the line.

Using 90's TSR as the bar for what constitutes "over support" is a dangerous thing. That was the death spiral, when they were trying to survive by spamming the market with product.

It's what killed the company.

 

[AllisterH]

Right, but that doesn't mean WOTC didn't aggressively support 3e. In fact I'd say they came as close as possible to over-supporting the game without crossing the line.

Using 90's TSR as the bar for what constitutes "over support" is a dangerous thing. That was the death spiral, when they were trying to survive by spamming the market with product.

It's what killed the company.

Yeah but WOTC isn't even close to that number at all.

Look at Echohawk's handy table that shows the breakdown of RPG products vs total products and the high point in the DnD cycle under WOTC was 2006.

Factoring out 1997 (that's an odd year, I thought TSR went bankrupt in 1999?!?!) and 1988 (run up to 2nd edition) you have to go all the way to pre 1983 for TSR to produce less.

So even compared to the bulk of the 80s in the glory days of TSR (when people consider the company healthy in 1e), WOTC is still producing less than TSR did.

 

[Minicol]

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.

.

Yes, but the average WOTC product is much lenghtier and costly than the average TSR one.

 

[Minicol]

Yeah but WOTC isn't even close to that number at all.

Look at Echohawk's handy table that shows the breakdown of RPG products vs total products and the high point in the DnD cycle under WOTC was 2006.

Factoring out 1997 (that's an odd year, I thought TSR went bankrupt in 1999?!?!) and 1988 (run up to 2nd edition) you have to go all the way to pre 1983 for TSR to produce less.

So even compared to the bulk of the 80s in the glory days of TSR (when people consider the company healthy in 1e), WOTC is still producing less than TSR did.

Yes too, but a lot of what TSR did was settings and adventures, as opposed to rulebooks. And the cost was often low, as in a 9$ module rather than a 30 $ player book

Of course, it did not turn out too well in the end, as we all know ...

 

[kinem]

3e became bloated with too many supplements, the quality of many of the books was poor, and serious problems with the core rules such as broken spells and power imbalances were not being addressed. It was also growing stale.

I really wanted a 4th edition that fixed all that. I was so looking forward to 4e.

Unfortunately, WotC came out with a '4e' that went in the opposite direction to what I wanted in just about every way. Spells all cause damage? Minions? Healing surges? Marking? Monsters don't advance as characters? I want no part of it.

Pathfinder is the closest thing right now to a 'real 4e' as far as I'm concerned. Not a full solution, but it fixes some problems. And Paizo is serious about putting out quality products, unlike WotC which only cares about profits.

The thing that WotC could do to win my affection now would be to close up shop and gift all of their IP to Paizo.

 

[Invisible Stalker]

I skipped 3.5 entirely as I was fed up with the system by then. 3E drove me back to playing 1E again. If 4E hadn't come out, WOTC would be out a few hundred dollars in book purchases. I wouldn't have got minis so Auggie would be out some money. The big loser of playing time is Mutants and Masterminds as our group would probably have played more superhero games. I guess with the Old School Counter Reformation going on, I'd be a zealot in that movement.

I was very worried about 4E. I figured it would just amp up the nonsense from 3E. 12 attributes, 100 classes and races, ten hour character creations, a week to build an encounter, hit points redone to be "realistic" and a spell list longer than War & Peace.I was very pleasantly surprised.

 

[Dannager]

3e became bloated with too many supplements, the quality of many of the books was poor, and serious problems with the core rules such as broken spells and power imbalances were not being addressed. It was also growing stale.

I really wanted a 4th edition that fixed all that. I was so looking forward to 4e.

Unfortunately, WotC came out with a '4e' that went in the opposite direction to what I wanted in just about every way. Spells all cause damage? Minions? Healing surges? Marking? Monsters don't advance as characters? I want no part of it.

Pathfinder is the closest thing right now to a 'real 4e' as far as I'm concerned. Not a full solution, but it fixes some problems. And Paizo is serious about putting out quality products, unlike WotC which only cares about profits.

The thing that WotC could do to win my affection now would be to close up shop and gift all of their IP to Paizo.

Wow.

Just...wow.