Late 3.5 consisted of the second run of splatbooks, Eberron setting books, and a bunch of a combination of testing thigns out for 4e and throwing experimental stuff against the wall and hoping it stuck (PH2, Incarnum, Dragon Magic, Tome of Magic, Tome of Battle, Heroes of X books). All of which was very fringe material, but no cheaper to produce then the first run of splatbooks and the core setting books for FR. Pretending those things didn't sell because they were a product of WotC's "B-team" rather than because they were inherently fringe concepts is silly.
The Theory of Tens. A Knee Jerk Hypothesis
- Thread starter Hussar
- Start date
Ahnehnois
First Post
Jester Canuck said:
FWIW, I think you're both kind of right. Late 3.5 tackled a variety of fringe-y concepts (including, oddly enough, a lot of proto-4e). Sales dropped because the products were mixed in quality and small-niche (why they decided to base a new edition off of some of the failed books I'll never understand).
That being said, there was a lot of ground that they could have covered but didn't. We never got a forest environment book or a fey/giant monster book, and it took until Pathfinder for there to be a witch class. Classic fantasy. After the success of the first one, I think Unearthed Arcana II would absolutely have worked. There were still setting elements to explore and still new rules ground to be broken. If they had held out a little longer, they could have rerevised a 3.75 core (or done a more substantial rewrite and releasing a "forth edition of D&D" if you will).
I hesitate to say why all of this is, myself.
One way or another, I think we can all agree that late 3.5 was not a good era for D&D.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
I don't believe for a second that the OGL was a major driving force behind 3e and its success. I think it stood on its own quite well.
However, I think the OGL was a big factor WotC's leadership in the RPG industry. Owning D&D and coming out with a new edition was always going to put it in the front of the pack. But exhibiting actual leadership? That stems from the ballsy move of offering up most of the D&D rules for free for others to use and grow their own product lines. And look at what we got from that (some from WotC itself) - d20 Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars (3 versions), True20, Mutants and Masterminds, adventures galore from Goodman Games and Green Ronin as well as tons of others. And that's without even raising the specter of Pathfinder to savage 4e's market share.
WotC got a lot of accolades in the 1990s for Magic, but a lot of grumbling as well - also because of Magic. You couldn't swing a dead cat at Gen Con in the mid-90s without hitting a Magic player trying to sell you a box of alphas. They were like an invasive species - like freakin' kudzu. You had to step over them in the halls as you made your way to your AD&D game. Prices on out of print items in the dealer room were sky high as everyone hoped to cash in on the collector mentality. Wizards was on a lot of RPGer's sh
lists.And then they white knighted TSR. Really, they were the only ones who could but the fact that they did it was a big deal. They turned around on TSR's restrictive internet policies and put out free materials. They put the products in the development pipeline on the market. I'd say their leadership in the RPG end of the industry was growing by leaps and bounds. And then they released 3e and made it open. WotC's transformation from being the kudzu of gaming to being the leader was stunning, brilliant, even beautiful.
And then they retreated. They didn't give the OGL full support. Rather than being a force for progressive development of the rules and a sharing point for new ideas, they put out the 3.5 materials and sat on it. Then the GSL was the final nail in the coffin of WotC's RPG leadership. As interesting as some of 4e's rules could be, nobody could expand on them. So what's the point in adopting anything like them? Better to keep going your own way.
That's my take on things as a long time observer. WotC's retreat from open gaming licenses has critically damaged its leadership position in RPGs. It's still big, but its influence is shortened. Its impact is contained. Its coattails have been cut.
Jester David
Hero
Well, too bad there's no way we can pull up a list of books by year. Oh wait...
* Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss James Jacobs, Erik Mona June 13, 2006
* Tome of Battle. Richard Baker, Matt Sernett, Frank Brunner. August 2006
* Dragon Magic Owen K.C. Stephens, Rodney Thompson September 12, 2006
* Cityscape Ari Marmell, C.A. Suleiman November 7, 2006
* Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells Robin D. Laws, Robert J. Schwalb December 12, 2006
* Complete Scoundrel: A Player's Guide to Trickery and Ingenuity Mike McArtor and F. Wesley Schneider January 16, 2007
* Dungeonscape: An Essential Guide to Dungeon Adventuring Jason Bulmahn, Rich Burlew February 13, 2007
* Magic Item Compendium Andy Collins, Mike Mearls, Stephen Schubert, Eytan Bernstein, Frank Brunner, John Snead, Owen K. C. Stephens March 13, 2007
* Drow of the Underdark Robert J. Schwalb, Anthony Pryor, Greg A. Vaughan May 8, 2007
* Complete Champion: A Player's Guide to Divine Heroes Ed Stark, Chris Thomasson, Rhiannon Louve, Ari Marmell, Gary Astleford June 5, 2007
* Exemplars of Evil: Deadly Foes to Vex Your Heroes Robert J. Schwalb, Eytan Bernstein, Creighton Broadhurst, Steve Kenson, Kolja Raven Liquette, Allen Rausch September 18, 2007
* Rules Compendium Chris Sims October 2007
* Dungeon Survival Guide Bill Slavicsek, Christopher Perkins October 23, 2007
* Elder Evils Robert J. Schwalb December 18, 2007
Of that list, only Tome of Battle, Dragon Magic, Dungeon Survival Guide, Magic Item Compendium, and Rules Compendium were done by the main staff, and three of those five were compilations.
So 5 of the 14 are (partly) done by staff. But two are half freelancers' work as well. 9 of the 14 (64%) are done by pure freelancers, including most of the non-compiatoon books in 2007.
Written by a freelancer is not equivalent to 'written by some schmuck'.
Owen Stephens and Rodney Tomphson were the lead authors of Star Wars Saga; Rodney joined WotC later.
And we all know who Ari Marnell, Richard Baker, Robin Laws, Robert Schwalb, Rich Burlew, and Steve Kenson are. That they worked for WotC on a freelance basis at that point is somewhat irrelevant.
Jester David
Hero
No it isn't. And you'll notice the number of now Paizo staff in that list in addition to people who became WotC staff.
However, written by a freelancer means they're paying for someone to write the books other than they people they pay regular paycheques to. So they're spending almost twice the amount on staffing. If the staff had not been working on 4e, most of those books would have been written by WotC folk and thus WotC would not have been sending money elsewhere.
*That's* the issue, although many of the books are a little shakier, having been written by the minor leaguers. The point is that it cost them a heck of a lot more money in the gamble that 4e would sell well enough that the lost money would be recouped. It likely worked, but it's not something they can manage every five years, let alone the proposed three.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Every edition of every game sells the most initial core books, then tapers off. That's just a long-standing pattern of the industry. It's probably more pronounced for some games than for others. GURPS does lots of liscenced one-off sourcebooks which might tend to defy that pattern (just speculating), giving it little blips down the line, while Hero exemplifies it to the nth degree with virtually nothing but the core rules ever selling well (something one of the principals said at a convention long ago, may not be true with their latest ed for all I know).
WotC tried to defy that phenomenon with it's 'everything is core' motto. It obviously didn't work as well as it needed to.
But, that pattern really says nothing about the quality of any given ed, it's just the nature of the market. Bad games and great games both 'suffer' from it.
WotC tried to defy that phenomenon with it's 'everything is core' motto. It obviously didn't work as well as it needed to.
But, that pattern really says nothing about the quality of any given ed, it's just the nature of the market. Bad games and great games both 'suffer' from it.
Hussar
Legend
I don't have the energy for it, but, it would be interesting to compare, year by year, what books were done by staff and what were done by freelancer. Because, unlike Jester Canuck, I think that you'll find that the ratio stays pretty stable throughout. But, that's my gut feeling and I'm more than willing to be shown to be wrong here.
[MENTION=44640]bill[/MENTION]91 - That's a really interesting take and one I hadn't actually really thought of. The difference between just being the biggest and being the leader. Although, to be fair, I think there's a signficant portion of gamers out there who have never considered D&D to be the leader, in any incarnation. The D20 explosion meant that a lot of creativity (at least the argument goes) was stifled as everyone tried to shoehorn absolutely everything into D20.
Once that sort of passed, we got a lot of truly innovative products - Dread, lots of Indie stuff, even things like Savage Worlds.
I'm not really disagreeing with you, just, again, pontificating and cogitating.
[MENTION=44640]bill[/MENTION]91 - That's a really interesting take and one I hadn't actually really thought of. The difference between just being the biggest and being the leader. Although, to be fair, I think there's a signficant portion of gamers out there who have never considered D&D to be the leader, in any incarnation. The D20 explosion meant that a lot of creativity (at least the argument goes) was stifled as everyone tried to shoehorn absolutely everything into D20.
Once that sort of passed, we got a lot of truly innovative products - Dread, lots of Indie stuff, even things like Savage Worlds.
I'm not really disagreeing with you, just, again, pontificating and cogitating.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
I wouldn't say stifled at all. Rather, channeled. Sometimes you get your most interesting creative output when given structure to work with and around. Plus, it got a lot of people looking at smaller presses rather than just the bigger companies which probably helped condition the market for Dread.
Crazy Jerome
First Post
How close does that retreat match to Hasbro buying them out? I've read the accounts that says the sale was pretty much required, as the energy and finances to sustain the WotC push was shot, without some kind of backing. So maybe the early push of 3E was something that couldn't be maintained?
Similar Threads
