What's stopping WOTC from going back to 3.5?

[ANewPosterAppears]

ANewPosterAppears, whose sockpuppet are you?

New poster + disagrees with you = must be a sock puppet, eh?

The problem is, we are. If Pathfinder were the far and away winner, I'd probably be playing Pathfinder on a weekly basis. If D&D 4 were the far and away winner, I'd probably be playing D&D 4. As it is, I'm playing D&D 3.5. If D&D 4 manages to take most of the D&D market share, my Pathfinder books will lose most of their value, and I'll probably end up playing D&D 4. If Pathfinder manages to take most of the D&D market share, I might be able to find a Pathfinder game with less travel time. So, yeah, there are consequences to me as to what the world plays.

This is assuming it's a zero sum game, an assumption I see often in these edition wars (though typically from only one side). That's a very high assumption to make! Now, let's see, I've played 4e, 3e, Pathfinder, and 2e. I guess I prove your entire assumption wrong since people like me cannot exist for your assumption to work. After all, if people are capable of playing both games, then there's no intrinsic tie to one game going down and the other going up! Whoops!

Fact is, when it comes down to it, the consequences you make up are non-existant. The only consequence of both games doing well is that you can't lord it over other people. You'll forgive me if my heart doesn't break over this.

 

[Hussar]

Bedrock Games - Umm what? The 3.5 Dungeon modules were pretty much as long as most 1e modules. Never minding the AP's. 3 modules per magazine - about 20 pages per module, they're not exactly fanfic.

Besides when you have modules by professional module writers in Dungeon, again, I'm not sure what you're looking at.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Umm what? The 3.5 Dungeon modules were pretty much as long as most 1e modules. Never minding the AP's. 3 modules per magazine - about 20 pages per module, they're not exactly fanfic.

Besides when you have modules by professional module writers in Dungeon, again, I'm not sure what you're looking at.

I wan't just thinking 1e, but 2e as well. By 1990 modules could be anywhere from 30, 60 to 90 pages. Many 1e modules were over 30 pages as well. As an old subscriber of dungeon i remember tgeir adventures clocking in at about 10-15 pages.

Dungeon magazine had modules by pros and by fans. Anyone was free to submit an adventure for publication. There is also a huge difference between adventures released as part of a regular magazine versus a well produced module. Dungeon was great and all, but I really wanted a solid line of modules. To me that is what I like to purchase. Especially the old boxed set modules that came with tons of setting material.

 

[billd91]

New poster + disagrees with you = must be a sock puppet, eh?

No, it's pretty much your user name that makes you look like you might be a sock puppet. It can give the impression you're a spawned monster looking to make trouble. That and immediately jumping into a low-intensity edition war. We've had a number of trolls do that recently. Assuming you're not a sock puppet, that's not exactly your fault, but the history of the board is going to color people's perceptions.

 

[Sutekh]

Im currently running a 4e Gamma World game, playing in a 3.5 homebrew game and a 4e Eberron game. I even get a chance to play in the new Arcanis system occasionaly. I dont really care if 3.5 comes back. Im still using it as it was

 

[prosfilaes]

That and immediately jumping into a low-intensity edition war.

Also, not as a new fanboy, but immediately giving a perspective on a dynamic that could only exist on the Internet, and only places where PF fans and 4e fans meet, so EN World and a few other forums. And he doesn't strike me as a lurker, so he's either a sockpuppet or someone who came over from another forum to carry on the same arguments.

 

[Dausuul]

This is assuming it's a zero sum game, an assumption I see often in these edition wars (though typically from only one side). That's a very high assumption to make! Now, let's see, I've played 4e, 3e, Pathfinder, and 2e. I guess I prove your entire assumption wrong since people like me cannot exist for your assumption to work. After all, if people are capable of playing both games, then there's no intrinsic tie to one game going down and the other going up! Whoops!

In my experience, very very few groups play both 4E and 3E/Pathfinder at the same time. They may try both, but settle on one or the other. It is obviously possible to maintain campaigns of both, but in practice highly unusual.

Also, watch those asymptotes.

 

[Hussar]

I wan't just thinking 1e, but 2e as well. By 1990 modules could be anywhere from 30, 60 to 90 pages. Many 1e modules were over 30 pages as well. As an old subscriber of dungeon i remember tgeir adventures clocking in at about 10-15 pages.

Dungeon magazine had modules by pros and by fans. Anyone was free to submit an adventure for publication. There is also a huge difference between adventures released as part of a regular magazine versus a well produced module. Dungeon was great and all, but I really wanted a solid line of modules. To me that is what I like to purchase. Especially the old boxed set modules that came with tons of setting material.

Boxed set modules? Now we're into 2e. Let's be honest here, 2e isn't exactly known for it's great modules. There's some REALLY hit and miss stuff here, but, there just so much sheer volume, that they managed to make some good stuff more by accident than design.

I just happen to have Dungeon 149 within reach, so, I'll look at that one. 3 modules, as was standard after the Paizo relaunch. One Savage Tide AP module - Enemies of My Enemy, which is 45 pages long written by Wolfgang Baur, War of the Wielded, a generic low level module (and a really fun one too) that weighs in at 14 pages and Twisted Night that is only 12 pages long.

So, on a fairly random sample, I've got a magazine with a major name in gaming and two no-name ones, the longest of which weighs in at about half what a really long module comes out to. Granted, it is one of the twelve in the series as well.

I really have to echo the guys at Dungeon here and wonder why gamers weren't taking more advantage of Dungeon magazine. As a resource, you just can't beat it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In my experience, very very few groups play both 4E and 3E/Pathfinder at the same time.

Just as a frex- we're currently in a 4Ed campaign run by our newest member while the 3.5Ed campaign is on hiatus so the DM can get a break.

...but there are more players in the 3.5Ed game than in the 4Ed game.

 

[Fox Lee]

If 3.5 was still selling at the levels you seem to think it could/should, they would still be selling it. They gave us a new edition because 3.5 wasn't making the kind of money they needed it to. End of story. Restarting a failing line years later isn't likely to give them a different result, either.

This.

I believe I am paraphrasing from Brian Dunning of Skeptoid, but it's really just Occam's Razor at work: "The simplest explanation is probably the correct one, and my explanation has one word: MONEY."