D&D General Does D&D (and RPGs in general) Need Edition Resets?

[LordEntrails]

Pay for a book/pdf = you own it
Pay for content on DDB = you are renting it

The difference may not ever actually matter but... it is there.

That's why I own my digital content on Fantasy Grounds. Not only do I own it and control it, SmiteWorks has a license agreement with WotC that the content will always be available to customers who purchased it for redownload from the SW server forever.

if it didn't matter marketing teams wouldn't spend millions trying to convince everyone that it doesn't matter.

Which marketing teams are spending millions on this? Can you please point to a single marketing campaign that is trying to do that?

 

[nevin]

That's why I own my digital content on Fantasy Grounds. Not only do I own it and control it, SmiteWorks has a license agreement with WotC that the content will always be available to customers who purchased it for redownload from the SW server forever.

Which marketing teams are spending millions on this? Can you please point to a single marketing campaign that is trying to do that?

Marketing teams have been fighting the fact that when people pay for something they expect to have something. it's why CD's still exist there are people that won't stream music because they can't own it. Simple psychology you and every person on earth is wired to physically accumulate things to help you survive. Every company that sells digital assets has been fighting this battle for a very long time. It's also why it's hard to get people upset that someone stole a digital asset. To most people it wasn't real, they don't see a problem. Simply touching something increases the likelyhood you'll buy it. this is why we sell boxes with keys in them for software still.

Why Some People Still Love Physical Products

Research finds that social identity is strongly linked with tangible items.

www.psychologytoday.com

There are 1000's of studies and articles out there on this human bias.

 

[Micah Sweet]

After a few iterations of errata, are you going to even know what you're doing differently from the updated rules if you haven't updated yourself? I have serious doubts in many, probably most, cases.

Maybe not, but my rules and their rules will always be around if someone wants to compare. The point is, my game should not be required to follow the latest rules invented by a corporation for who knows what reason, and they certainly shouldn't be changing products I paid for without my consent.

 

[Lanefan]

casters had slots in the TSR system too, didn’t they?

By RAW they did, and each morning your spells had to be pre-memorized for the day for each slot. If you wanted to cast Magic Missile twice you had to fill two slots by memorizing it twice, and so on. Same was true of Clerics in 0e-1e, I think they might have been able to substitute cure spells for pre-memorized spells in 2e but I'm not sure on that.

 

[Lanefan]

Of course not. You play with the rules the DM wants to use, or you have a session 0 discussion about it.

I think the issue is more one of when the rules get updated on the fly during a campaign, e.g. when you start the campaign they're on Rules Version 2.36 but by the time your campaign's over they're up to Version 2.48; and each iteration has made subtle changes to rules that affect your game.

Makes it hard to lock in on using one version when it's changing all the time, even more so if those changes aren't well documented/flagged as they occur.

 

[Thomas Shey]

how did we ever play games before the internet was there to make sure we did it the right way?

Bluntly? Often badly. If you don't think people who knew errata and those who didn't didn't cause problems, I have to wonder if you were actually there.

(And the lack of errata often caused plenty of problems, too).

 

[Lanefan]

Marketing teams have been fighting the fact that when people pay for something they expect to have something.

Or at least to have control of something.

If a digitial purchase is hosted on someone else's server, I still don't have control of it. I'm at the mercy both of that server remaining functional and of my ability to access said server (and-or the internet in general) whenever I want.

If it's downloaded onto my own hard drive that I can access offline then I do have that control; I can access that material whenever I want, I might even be able to edit and-or customize it to my preference, and even if my hard drive dies its data can still - with effort - be extracted.

It's also why it's hard to get people upset that someone stole a digital asset. To most people it wasn't real, they don't see a problem.

Yep. Ideally, anything on the internet - if put there by its copyright holder rather than a malicious third party - would by the act of uploading it be released into the public domain. Capitalism, of course, will never allow this.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Maybe not, but my rules and their rules will always be around if someone wants to compare. The point is, my game should not be required to follow the latest rules invented by a corporation for who knows what reason, and they certainly shouldn't be changing products I paid for without my consent.

I don't disagree with the latter--but I still maintain there's a price for the former when you're playing with anyone but an insular local group.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think the issue is more one of when the rules get updated on the fly during a campaign, e.g. when you start the campaign they're on Rules Version 2.36 but by the time your campaign's over they're up to Version 2.48; and each iteration has made subtle changes to rules that affect your game.

Makes it hard to lock in on using one version when it's changing all the time, even more so if those changes aren't well documented/flagged as they occur.

Really, the biggest issue I'm suggesting is that if you're sticking to an earlier version and playing frequently (or even intermittently) with people who normally play with the most current one, not only are you are liable to be using different rules (and in some areas you may not even realize it--how many GMs are going to know the entire spell list in all its exception based glory enough to notice that a player is using a different version than he is?) but over time there may be more and more of them, creating some serious dissonance, not necessarily deliberately on anyone's part.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think the issue is more one of when the rules get updated on the fly during a campaign, e.g. when you start the campaign they're on Rules Version 2.36 but by the time your campaign's over they're up to Version 2.48; and each iteration has made subtle changes to rules that affect your game.

Makes it hard to lock in on using one version when it's changing all the time, even more so if those changes aren't well documented/flagged as they occur.

Sure, but I think it's best to use the same rules for the whole campaign, unless the group can come to a decision between sessions regarding amendments.