Thoughts on the edition treadmill

[amerigoV]

That's not "winning." That's called progression.

When, at the end of an RPG session have you ever pumped your fist, looked at the other players around the table, and uttered the words, "I win!"? (Barring of course that you're playing a game that encourages player vs. player competition. It's my understanding and experience that most P&P RPGs do not.)

Every session, like clockwork. Especially when I kill-steal and ninja-loot. Thats when its the best.

But then again, Brian Van Hoose is my idol.

 

[Umbran]

The RPG industry has a dirty secret. You don't need multiple editions of any game. You don't even need one. Once you understand how RPGs work, you don't need any rules to run a successful game.

And once you've learned to walk, you don't "need" someone to build a car, train, or airplane to get from NYC to Los Angeles. Doesn't mean you don't want someone to do it for you. And once you know basic story structure, it isn't like you "need" someone else to write novels for you either - you can just make up your own stories. And once you've heard music, you can just sing to yourself - no need for Elvis or the Beatles...

Overall - that you don't "need" doesn't mean you don't want it, or that it is not a good thing.

And that's leaving out the argument that maybe you aren't very good at making up your own novels, or your own rules (or roleplaying framework), or your own omelets in the restaurant. Not everyone is talented in the same ways. Maybe, to get to what you really want, you do need some help.

All RPG rules are just window dressing.

RPG rules are not window dressing - they are framework upon which you may hang your own dressing. The point of buying the rules is so that you don't have to build the house from the 2x4s on up, so you can worry instead about decorating and actually using the kitchen and basement workshop that much sooner.

 

[jmucchiello]

The RPG industry has a dirty secret. You don't need multiple editions of any game. You don't even need one.

On the other hand I could go to restaurant and cook my own food....yet I'm perfectly happy to pay someone else to make it for me.

RPGs are not needed for roleplay, they like some many things in our lives are a convenience to facility to activity we want to do.

You missed the point. The fact that NO edition is needed means that the so-called treadmill exists for some other reason: probably profit. At some point the one-true edition stops selling. So the publisher MUST revise it and create the new one-true edition or the publisher will perish (or just leave the industry for some more lucrative endeavor).

 

[Zhaleskra]

Do games need new editions or gimmicks every so often to get new players? Definitely yes.

As a consumer, do you have to "edition chase"? Flat no.

 

[prosfilaes]

You missed the point. The fact that NO edition is needed means that the so-called treadmill exists for some other reason: probably profit.

If NO edition is needed, then how could they sell it in the first place? The rules are part of the game, there are more fun and less fun sets of rules, and I find it absurd to think that we can dismiss the concept that companies that put out a new set of rules are doing so to produce a better product out of hand. This happens all the times in electronics; companies discontinue old products and put out new ones, often in the hope of luring people to upgrade. But in most cases, they're genuinely better products, and I expect that whether or not they are indisputably better products, in virtually all cases, the engineers that made them thought they were making a better product than the last generation.

 

[invokethehojo]

The RPG industry has a dirty secret. You don't need multiple editions of any game. You don't even need one. Once you understand how RPGs work, you don't need any rules to run a successful game. All RPG rules are just window dressing. You don't need a million and one supplements about Orcs of the East and Orcs of the West. You don't need a million monster books. You don't need premade adventures. You don't need Fighter Using Long Swords distinct from Fighters Using Short Swords. All you need is a GM who can keep the game moving smoothly. Whether he has a rulebook or is just good with probability doesn't matter.

6 year olds have played Let's Pretend for centuries. Only maturity is needed to avoid "Did not! Did too!" arguments. Rules can help but maturity is far more important than rules.

You don't even need a GM, pants, or probability dude... only try to realize, there is no spoon.

 

[Sunseeker]

Hmm...maybe you are right. But I think this has more to do with the sheer number of supplements and players that D&D has, as opposed to CoC. How many people have played and currently play D&D? The rumor is 25 million and 1+ million, respectively. CoC? Let's say a hundred thousand and ten thousand. The sheer number of D&D players makes the amount of tinkering that much greater.

The amount of supplements, and the continual creation of new material--whether published or house rules--gives D&D a feeling of continual change and development. People are always coming up with new things; in fact, that is part of the game, the culture of D&D that was encouraged from the beginning.

Exactly, not only is massive evolution for CoC unnecessary because of it's limited scope, it's also unnecessary because of it's limited playerbase. You can't expect to have a world-spanning game and not expect people form around the world to find different flaws, even flaws that they all disagree on.

Which is especially important to point out is that even the "4e is flawed" group is broken up in lots of factions as to what exactly is flawed about it.

So, my theory is that if you keep player powers in check by turfing toxic splatbook sludge entirely, or vetting it thoroughly, you can get off the edition treadmill entirely. Easier said than done, because min/maxing is one of the draws of the game, but IMO the best campaigns have this as a side attraction, not the main event.

Stopping production is stopping production. A game designed to give people the ability to make their own games without you is a game that is designed to put itsself out of business if it relies on "adventures" only as a selling point.

There are always going to be more races that weren't thought up, there are always going to be new classes. Otherwise you're going to get a game that is so limited, so boiled down to "the basic 5"(humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, other/fighter, rogue, mage, priest, paladin), that it's going to be so dry and boring nobody will ever want to buy it. Or once they do, there will be nothing more for them to buy.

D&D cannot rely on 'adventures', because D&D has already designed itsself to make them unnecessary. And there will ALWAYS be something, many things, that are thought up after the "core books" that both producers and players will want included in the game.

 

[DaveMage]

I've been thinking about the "edition treadmill", this idea that RPG's, especially D&D, MUST come out with new editions every so often. This plan that D&D must produce a new edition every decade or so (very roughly) or perish.

The more I think of it. . .the more I think that is baloney.

I agree - I think that's incorrect. However, it has been well documented that core rulebooks are the best sellers in an RPG line and when you release new core rulebooks, sales jump.

First, yes, game design does improve and evolve. By the time 3rd Edition D&D game out, our group had house-ruled 2e AD&D beyond recognition to get it to run the campaigns we wanted to run. Fortunately, the vast majority of those house rules had some equivalent or version in 3e, and 3.5 was mostly just an overzealous bug fix for 3.0. But not every change was quite so needed, in the 1e to 2e AD&D switch, lots of popular and useful material was dropped for a variety of (mostly bad) reasons and the game was much worse for it, even if the rules were slightly cleaned up in presentation. The 3.5 to 4e switch is one best touched on lightly, even years later it's a source of Instant Flamewar. From my perspective the 1e/2e AD&D switch to the d20 based 3.x editions was the only one the game seemed to need to stay vital.

It's my understanding that 3.0 incorporated bits and pieces from other RPGs. There's certainly some merit in seeing what others have done with the goal of creating a better RPG experience.

Personally, I see it as about 90% profit motive, 10% evolution, but I'd like to hear other opinions on the issue.

I think it has varied by edition. 1E -> 2E changes were partially influenced by news reports regarding D&D (hey - where'd the demons and devils go?) Some of them were also likely driven by the desire of the then-current TSR management to have Gygax's name removed from the books.

3E was likely (at least partially) motivated by a desire to generate revenue. (Acquiring TSR wasn't cheap after all.) The good news, though, is that Peter Adkison had the vision to not only make a new edition, but he (seemingly) really wanted to make a version he could be proud of.

4E motivations...well....

The bottom line, though is....

As a consumer, do you have to "edition chase"? Flat no.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Life would've been so much better for the hobby if D&D had simply gone bankrupt and died.

Wait, what?

 

[WizarDru]

First, a nitpick: Monopoly has multiple editions, it's true. But it bears keeping in mind that many 'editions' of Monopoly are UNLICENSED. Monopoly was developed in the Public Domain and while there was some controversy, there was a IP court case that eventually determined that while Parker Brothers had the rights to the specific version they were publishing, that much of the material was not copyrightable. Hence, you can published your own '-opoly' game, as long as you don't use the exact elements or name of Monopoly. Which isn't to say that alternate versions of Monopoly haven't been tried.

Now to the OP's argument that these games don't change and D&D doesn't need to change, I guess that depends on what you mean by 'need'. Game companies need to publish or perish. You aren't going to see many RPG companies thriving by NOT releasing new editions.

Quick: name the number of RPG companies that have been in operation for thirty-five years or more. Okay that leaves us with....ummm, Flying Buffalo. Heck, can someone tally a list of RPG companies with only one edition of game that's lasted 10 years? TSR had multiple editions, some parallel. WotC has had multiple editions. Whilte Wolf, Steve Jackson Games, Green Ronin, Chaosium, I.C.E., GDW? Same. How about Paizo, you might ask? Same. The big softbound copy I own of the Pathfinder RPG that I bought at Gencon is labeled BETA. The final hardbound edition clarified and changed rules. This is not meant as any sort of accusation: it's just a point that printing multiple editions is one of the chief ways a publisher stays in business.

And often, when a publisher isn't releasing a new edition, it's because the publisher is printing ANOTHER game. TSR didn't just release D&D: they released Top Secret, Marvel Superheroes, Indiana Jones the RPG, Star Frontiers, Alternity, Boot Hill, Gamma World, Metamorphosis Alpha, Buck Rogers and others. White Wolf has multiple interlocking games. ICE had MERP, Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Cyberspace and HARP. And so on.

Printing supplements has rarely proven to be a winning strategy for any RPG company on the market.

Now, to the argument that new editions are unnecessary, which I think may have been what w&s was generally eluding to: well, YMMV. I can only think of a couple of RPGS that remained in publishing rotation that also managed to NOT release multiple editions for a prolonged period of time and still sold well: GURPS 3rd Edition and Palladium's RIFTS (though I'm not sure that counts, given that many Rifts books were essentially stand-alone games like Robotech, iirc). Neither of these sold (or sells) exceptionally well; both of them are supported in large part by continual supplemental releases of settings and expansions. However, their relative sales isn't the point, the point is that these worldbooks tended to add new rules and settings, effectively being a limited edition of the game. GURPS Japan might introduce the concept of On (honor) as a tracked stat, GURPS Voodoo adds an alternate magic system and so on.

Does that mean that a new set of core rules are required? Not necessarily. But market forces make that decision much more readily than the customer base, who often fails to vote with their dollars...in part because they usually BUY a new edition (even if they decide they don't want it) and also because they often recognize the fragility of the publisher. On top of which, gamers like NEW. They buy NEW. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh coat of paint to sell a new edition.

Most systems have perceived flaws on the part of their player base...the question becomes whether or not another system will address those flaws and if the player base universally agrees on the flaws. For years, GURPS resisted any notion of an update, eventually releasing Compendium I and II as sort of a 3.5 patch onto GURPS. There was widespread belief that the system had numerous flaws and loopholes that could do with shoring up, but a 4th edition took a long time to arrive. Both took nearly 15 years to release new editions.

This begs the question, I suppose, of when a new edition is needed (if ever)? Certainly I'd argue that most systems need at least a second edition to shore up holes that simply don't appear until rigorous large scale play takes place. Many problems don't appear until someone hacks the system and finds loopholes or errors. RPGs aren't like board games...they are too broad to be extensively tested against the imaginations of hundreds of thousands of role-players.

I have no idea how often is too often for a new edition. I do think that there can be a 'too soon' point and certainly there can be 'release fatigue'. But I've not idea where the line actually lies.