You know what would end all of the arguing and fighting?

[Advilaar]

Outside the online forum world, though, there is no arguement. Only what you can play and what you canot based on where you live and who you know.

There is a gaming store quite a ways away from me. If I was a new player hoping to get in, I have to play by thier rules. They play 3e. No amout of argueing is goig to get them to switch that.

In another place, they offer 4e encouters. That group probably will not be interested in 2e.

Now, I could, if I wished, recruit and start up my own. But, unless you are already in a circle of gamers or set up shop at a convention that only rolls through once a year, it's a job to recruit. Even then, you will get many people who will turn thier nose up at this or that edition. Of course some would not care as long as they actually got to use thier dice.

It is not so much an arguement as much as folks being comfortable with this or that and not wanting to step away. Or if something is not broken and they already are gaming, not fixing it.

But really, does it matter? I used to be an system hater. But, over the years, I found out that as long as the folks you game with do not suck or the DM does not suck you can have a great time regardless of system or genre as long as said system has established basic rules that are sort of followed by and can be learned.

Plus, it beats not playing at all. It also makes you a better gamer or DM if you dabble in multiple systems or even other genres. You may even make your own if you have support. But, with making your own it helps if you call it something established so you can recruit better.

 

[Umbran]

What would really end all of the arguing and fighting is a collective realization that fighting over how we pretend to be elves is lame.

It wouldn't cost Wizards hardly anything to make their back catalogue available on pdf. It's already written, and most of it was already available on drive thru before they pulled it.

And, in fact, they announced in the keynote speech that they intend to make the back catalog available in electronic format (they didn't say ".pdf", specifically). Not all at once (the catalog is big, and much of the previous electronic offering of it was not done well - it costs considerably more than "hardly anything"), but it is their intent.

So, is that enough folks? Or are you expecting new content for every single edition as well.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Its been a downhill walk ever since WOTC was bought by Hasbro. As long as they are owned by a "megacorp", they will never be able to regain the status they once had, or do what they really need and want to do for the game. Paizo has become the wonderkid successor to pre Hasbro Wizards. You can bitch about the rules all you want, but they are firing on all cylinders. Smart business people in charge of their own destiny doing what they love to do and racking up a sizeable fiercely loyal fanbase.

This. Hasbro upper management and practices is a luxury liner company making all of their ships use the same anchers and sails, even though D&D is a yacht. It's a testament to the staying power of D&D that it stays afloat, let alone gets anywhere.

 

[triqui]

Wizards will have 5 editions of D&D soon. Why don't they just support them all? The biggest slap to the face for consumers is investing in all of these books then they switch to a new edition.

Because they WANT you to invest in those books again. Their wages and salaries come from that. It's a business, not a non-profit organization.

 

[Scribble]

They don't do it for any number of very good reasons. For instance: the prohibitive cost in both man-hours and publishing it would take to provide all editions of the game with a level of support that is even close to what we are accustomed to.

I've seen this said a number of times... But never with any kind of source. Is this internet business knowledge, or based on some numbers they've provided?

I don't understand why we see people put this idea out there time after time after time. Do you really think that a department as small as WotC's D&D team has the resources for something like this?

They already support D&D, several Board games, a minis game, and a number of card games- so WoTC can obviously support more then just the current edition of D&D.

There is a market for the older editions. (OSR anyone?) so there is potential revenue already for support of older editions.

Do they need to support them with as much of a schedule as they do the current edition? Probably not... Partially due to the fact that there isn't as much support needed.

If "It's too hard!" was a legitimate excuse, we'd never get anything done in the world.

 

[Umbran]

There is a market for the older editions. (OSR anyone?) so there is potential revenue already for support of older editions.

That's not sufficient.

Say WotC has $X. They have a choice of things to spend it upon. It is not enough that one project has "potential revenue" - it must have as much or more potential revenue than other things they could do with the same money.

For example, they may have a choice between support for older editions, or doing additional marketing on the upcoming edition. Which is likely to net them more? That is a guessing game for us. Don't assume that "there is a market" means that it is a good economic move for them.

 

[TwoSix]

If only there was a precedent for a game company to put out multiple lines of product with similar but not quite compatible rules, that was popular enough that people still might want to buy it on the 20th anniversary of release.

If only.

 

[Scylla]

Wizards' position is nothing like that of a car company or video game company. In the automobile industry, you must support multiple models (a 2-door truck, a 4-door truck, an economy 4-door, a luxury 4-door, a minivan, etc.) in order to gain any significant market share, and you must have market share because you need massive economies of scale to survive. Every new model you produce, up to a point, gets you (or ensures that you keep) more market share, because people want all different kinds of cars.

And people don't want all kinds of RPGs?

I grow weary of this analogy stomping. There is no perfect analogy, admittedly. But the fact remains: companies support multiple products in every field under the sun. (If Apple behaved like that, they'd never have developed the iPad because they'd be too busy supporting their iMac or OS—and for the love of Pete, don't tell me the computer business is a different business model, etc.) I cannot accept that Wizards, the largest RPG company with the deepest pockets and biggest staff, couldn't support two editions simultaneously.

We can argue about whether it's wise for them to do so, or whether it's the best investment of their cash, or even the degree of creative support they could provide, but to say it's impossible because they don't have the staff or resources is, IMHO, ridiculous.

It is not possible to create an RPG system which is backwards-compatible with every edition that came before it. It cannot be done.

Call of Cthulhu comes pretty darn close.

 

[billd91]

Call of Cthulhu comes pretty darn close.

From the sounds of things, the next edition of CoC will be a bit of a departure. We'll see if the storm hits.

 

[Scribble]

That's not sufficient.

Say WotC has $X. They have a choice of things to spend it upon. It is not enough that one project has "potential revenue" - it must have as much or more potential revenue than other things they could do with the same money.

For example, they may have a choice between support for older editions, or doing additional marketing on the upcoming edition. Which is likely to net them more? That is a guessing game for us. Don't assume that "there is a market" means that it is a good economic move for them.

I'm not assuming anything.

I'm not saying it IS a good market, just that there IS a market, and potential revenue, so assuming that it's a bad financial move, or stating it would be too costly without anything to back that up is just as invalid.