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What's stopping WOTC from going back to 3.5?

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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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.
 

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.
 



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.

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 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.
 

...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.
 

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.
 

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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