LordEntrails
Hero
You should start a thread on what the final evolution of 3.x could/would be. I'm curious how much more could be added or what it would be. And how that would compare to PF1.
D&D General Does D&D (and RPGs in general) Need Edition Resets?
- Thread starter Remathilis
- Start date
mamba
Legend
Maybe, but then 90% use it wrong. I could see ‘most popular’ (5e) or ‘most supplements published’ (even if their sales are not that great, probably 1e/2e) as justification for a golden age claim, but it needs something more objective than ‘I like it’.
You are welcome to prefer whichever edition and wish for WotC to return to it, just don’t pretend it is more than your opinion
mamba
Legend
I’dike to see any metric to justify it, whether I agree with it or not, but so far I am not aware of one
maybe this works, not sure whether 5e doesn't have 3e beat by now however, I feel like the 3pp market is in better shape now than then and it already has outlived 3e if you do not add Paizo, not to speak of number of players (instead of just number of years), where 5e easily wins
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Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
It was what I learned D&D woth, and the 3E era is right in that hardwired nostalgia adolescent era for me.
But it wasn't rhe "Golden Age" for D&D as a game.
I tend to agree, but I think 5e was a large improvement on 4e - and walked back much of it.
But that’s for you and me. I still DM 3.5e, because I like it best and think of it as the final iteration of AD&D.
For the for-profit IP owner (currently Hasbro, but I hope that changes), they have to recognize 5e is by far the most popular version the game has ever had. So, they can’t go home again. 5e is the basis for the future.
Clint_L
Legend
I think there is still some confusion as to the point of the 2024 version, and it's because the business model is different from what we've seen from D&D in the past.
The point of 2024 is not to get everyone to replace all their books. That used to be how editions worked, but WotC have been very clear that they now see a need to change that business model. This makes sense; the old way of doing things sacrificed long term stability for short term profits, and originally developed in response to A) a legal dispute, where TSR wanted to claim that AD&D was a fundamentally different game from OD&D, and B) TSR's peculiar publishing deal with Random House that incentivized them to print more books than they could sell, so they had to keep printing new things in order to get advances in order to keep their financial house of cards standing a bit longer.
The problems created by this method of publishing editions are pretty obvious just by looking through this thread: you cannibalize your own fan base, which is why we still have folks playing various old editions, or splintering off into competing systems rather than replace all their D&D stuff. And you make it hard to settle on a core brand identity. Plus, you know, bankruptcy.
So when folks argue, as some have in this thread, that the kind of incremental changes being offered for 2024 don't seem worth it for them to replace all their books...that's mission accomplished as far as WotC is concerned, as long as they can keep you from walking away from the game entirely. A feature, not a flaw. They are offering some new stuff, especially cosmetics, to incentivize veterans to eventually want the new stuff, but they want to make it easy for us to do it over time, so we don't have to make a big decision about whether to switch over or not. The point is to stream veteran and new players together, and to remove barriers that divide the fan base. In their dream world, they eventually get to a place where the vast majority of players don't really worry about what edition they are playing; they are just playing D&D.
Preferably through DnDBeyond, so they can better control the brand identity while keeping more of the profits in house, while still supporting enough 3PP that it becomes harder to challenge them as monopolistic (basically, they are starting to kind of pit 3PP against each other).
Edit: side point, but notice how the first 3PP to get invited to have a stake in DDB are the ones with some of the biggest voices on the internet. That's not accidental. Critical Role or the Dungeon Dudes can't really criticize WotC's control of the brand when they are now effectively part of it.
The point of 2024 is not to get everyone to replace all their books. That used to be how editions worked, but WotC have been very clear that they now see a need to change that business model. This makes sense; the old way of doing things sacrificed long term stability for short term profits, and originally developed in response to A) a legal dispute, where TSR wanted to claim that AD&D was a fundamentally different game from OD&D, and B) TSR's peculiar publishing deal with Random House that incentivized them to print more books than they could sell, so they had to keep printing new things in order to get advances in order to keep their financial house of cards standing a bit longer.
The problems created by this method of publishing editions are pretty obvious just by looking through this thread: you cannibalize your own fan base, which is why we still have folks playing various old editions, or splintering off into competing systems rather than replace all their D&D stuff. And you make it hard to settle on a core brand identity. Plus, you know, bankruptcy.
So when folks argue, as some have in this thread, that the kind of incremental changes being offered for 2024 don't seem worth it for them to replace all their books...that's mission accomplished as far as WotC is concerned, as long as they can keep you from walking away from the game entirely. A feature, not a flaw. They are offering some new stuff, especially cosmetics, to incentivize veterans to eventually want the new stuff, but they want to make it easy for us to do it over time, so we don't have to make a big decision about whether to switch over or not. The point is to stream veteran and new players together, and to remove barriers that divide the fan base. In their dream world, they eventually get to a place where the vast majority of players don't really worry about what edition they are playing; they are just playing D&D.
Preferably through DnDBeyond, so they can better control the brand identity while keeping more of the profits in house, while still supporting enough 3PP that it becomes harder to challenge them as monopolistic (basically, they are starting to kind of pit 3PP against each other).
Edit: side point, but notice how the first 3PP to get invited to have a stake in DDB are the ones with some of the biggest voices on the internet. That's not accidental. Critical Role or the Dungeon Dudes can't really criticize WotC's control of the brand when they are now effectively part of it.
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Cergorach
The Laughing One
I was actually wondering something in a similar vain, when does an RPG need a new edition and when is it a mechanism to sell you the same thing over and over again.
A bit of context: I've been playing RPGs since ~1987, started with the Dutch version of The Dark Eye (Oog des Meesters), moved to the Dutch version of the basic Red Box of D&D and then to the English version of D&D (because the Dutch version didn't publish the Blue Box in Dutch (neither did they release much in Dutch for the Dark Eye at the time). Then AD&D 2E close to the start of that edition, played that almost for 10 years as a player and DM, it was rife with issues and we started playing 'Eric Noah's 3rd Edition' before WotC even released the PHB 3.0, we found it far better then 2E, more intuitive. 3.5 showed up and we bought into that. 3.0/3.5 had it's own set of issues that were very obvious with high level play. 4E showed up, I bought it all, found it technically better then 3.5E, but was lacking something and we never played it. 5E showed up, felt like 3E and we bought in again, I just the PHB this time and only recently bought the PHB/DMG/MM giftset for myself. Played many other games in the years in between, from Shadowrun, to Vampire, Mage, etc.
I have very little knowledge of AD&D1E, so I can't really say much about that transition, but the differences between Basic D&D and AD&D2E were drastic, it felt a bit like moving from Heroquest to Basic D&D, more options, more everything. But after 10 years of AD&D2E we had had our fill of it and 3E felt like a welcome change. Not only were the rules an upgrade, most of the 3E books themselves were also a big upgrade, glossy, full color, often hardcover. In the beginning of 3.0 many of the 'side' books and adventures were still in B&W, but that also changed a lot with 3.5E. After just 8 years of 3E we got 4E, almost unrecognizable from any previous edition imho, it forced everyone to buy the books again, but it just didn't sell that well. Pathfinder was born and WotC went back to it's D&D success with 5E just 6 years later. We're now almost 10 years into the 5E era and honestly, I have no desire for another edition and I expect, neither does my group.
That said: There are some very significant differences.
#1 We are older, a lot older and also in a very different period in our lives. Back when we were all excited for 3E I was 22, now I'm 27. Our gaming group was still living in the same area, so playing wasn't as hard as it is now when we've all scattered, some having families and general life outside of gaming. So We played a LOT more 2E and 3E then we've played 5E. Maybe that means that we've just not been exposed thouroghly enough to 5E to want change...
#2 Distribution and quality were different back in the day. Especially OOP 2E products were getting very expensive pre 3E, Back then a $250 Maztica boxed set was considered ludicrous. I had gotten most of the 2E stuff already at more reasonable prices, but not everyone was as lucky. The Internet existed, but far, far from as accessible and user friendly as it is now. There was a decent pirate scene for OOP RPGs, but that wasn't always that great on you massive CRT screen and saf PC. No iPads yet and Android didn't exist yet, we had PDAs with tiny screens but they were horrible with PDFs. We even got official OCRed 2E versions in PDF somewhere before 3E released, for a reasonable fee ($3/product). That disappeared again with the 3E release. When I look at the 3E era of book quality, on average that improved drastically. My PHB3E had better production values then my PHB2E, although my PHB2E had a greater nostalgic value. But when you're already at 300+ full color, glossy pages hardcover, you can't upgrade much. At this point PHB4E/5E are not leaps and bounds, they are at best, slight improvements in art/layout.
#3 The way we play. Getting together might still be the preffered way to play, but compared to 20 years ago, playing online has never been easier, or more neccessary (when looking at the pandemic period). Now, don't get me wrong, we had tools for D&D, even 20 years ago on computers. But I've been playing recently with Foundry VTT and the difference and relative ease of use is just staggering, not that strange when that's been evolving for those two decades (and almost everything in computer land moves quickly).
Now, I'm left wondering is it my age and place in life that has me left not wanting/needing a new edition? Or is it something else? Has D&D evolved to a far more 'mature' state with 5E? Previous editions had similar fans that rather stayed with the old edition, but in the past those were very small niche groups, but OSR (like) games/products have over the years become way more prevailant/mainstream.
Why does it feel like (another) cash grab? 4E eventually felt like an absolute cash grab with the same book names showing up for a different game, especially the setting shennanigans books felt like "Now all the previous books you own for this setting are obsolete!". 5E, while desirable way more then 4E, was another cash grab, mostly of getting the cash back into the WotC pockets instead of going into the Paizo pockets due to Pathfinder.
Why would I find a new edition a problem when 5E is still providing entertainment and very few issues? Maybe I don't really have an issue per se, but I'm seeing some issues on the road. While I don't really buy much WotC product or services anymore, I do rely on third parties for some products and services. Specifically for VTTs (Foundry in my case) and while my VTT of choice is very open, I do see a tendency of people and developers to move to the latest and greatest. This might give me issues down the road with compatibilty of VTT modules. Other 3rd parties only concentrate on the latest version of a poplular RPG (being the D&D5E or PF2E), loosing that product pool is more painful.
Both D&D5E and PF2E are moving to that weird 'next' version of their RPG without really calling it a new edition, but enough changes are there to make it 'problematic' enough for VTTs, especially when trying to support edition specific rules/subsystem. I'm wondering if this is going to have issues when VTTs move to the 'next' version of the RPG and how that is going to impact 'old' content. Don't get me wrong, there are a TON of old versions and RPGs on Foundry VTT, but those are often very limited and rely on the benevolance of it's developer (who often does this for free) to be maintained and often doesn't work with many other modules (because those developers don't want to support 100s of RPGs)... Sure, you could build something yourself (and I'm looking into that), but when that moves from doing it for fun, to something "This needs to work or it'll ruin the next gamingsession!" it sounds more like work...
Clint_L
Legend
Great post! To your last point, I think the 2024 version of 5e, as well as existing 5e will work pretty seamlessly with WotC's own new VTT, given what we're hearing from recent previews. And I think WotC will be just fine if it isn't quite so easy to get things to work with Foundry or other competitors, once their own VTT is up and running...
Cergorach
The Laughing One
Please don't take this the wrong way, but in how far are you now repeating WotCs marketing department? In other words is this what we know or what they say? I tend to look at actions rather then words, unless I know I can depend on someones Word. In the case of big companies, you can't really trust their Word, because what one says isn't said by someone who can promise anything (including if they even have their own job next Christmas).
The OGL shenanigans earlier in the year hint (to me) that there's more going on at WotC/Hasbro, even though the quickly backpedaled and made all kinds of promises. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I'm not as confident as you that everything stays compatible, especially not in the long term, I see very little motivation on WotC to keep players happy when they can make more money. And it's not just the D&D side, just look at the sh!tstorm they produced on the Magic side of their business.
Note: The OP mentioned being able to play with old Magic cards, you can play with old D&D editions. The problem is that everyone mainstream tends to play the recent 'edition' (in the case of Magic: 'format') and your old Magic cards and D&D books are then pretty useless. Magic goes even further then that, every three months an older 'expansion' goes obsolete. I play some Magic Arena so now and then, I can't play in most active/played formats with my old Magic Arena cards, I still have them, but can only use them in a very small subset of formats and those are not exactly 'productive' (as in generating income for new cards or generating wins for the battlepass). I see WotC trying to get a similar model for D&D where they can keep 'selling' you new stuff every three months for the next couple of decades...
D&D/WotC has a bad, bad reputation when it comes to automation, long term support, computer programs, games, etc. The response by Larian regarding the recent layofs and a whole host of cancelled D&D computer games doesn't fill me with confidence either. If WotC has it's own VTT, great for the people who want to buy into that eco system. I do not. There are already good ways to connect DnDBeyond to Foundry VTT through third party modules that import the stuff you have/'own' in DnDBeyond, including character sheets. And even if WotC puts a stop to that, there are other sources that don't depend on the DnDBeyond integration for non-SRD 5E content...
I honestly don't care if WotC is 'fine', WotC/Hasbro is a huge multinational that I don't much care for. I don't hate it, I don't love it, I just couldn't care less. No, what I'm talking about is more the effect WotC decisions have on the players directly or via third parties. And moving to another business model is worisome at best... A subscription model vs. a buy model, that can be great, but it depends on the pricing, what you get, how you get it and the dependibility of the party offering that subscription. I'm not a fan of DnDbeyond, nor do I have much fate in WotC as a serviceprovider, especially not long term.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
I disagree. The more a person is getting what they want, the more it is a "Golden Age".
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