Do you buy new versions of TTRPG games when you haven't had time to play the older version sitting on your shelf?

Bae'zel said:

Which is fair, but it still sucks for those of us who BELIEVED in the original product, and trusted the designers and publisher for designing and playtesting their product. If there are so many issues found out in the few years out in the wild, it would be nice if they gave out an "Errata" document or something like a "conversion kit" for us. Sure, entice newcomers and collectors with lots of shiny Kickstarter extras... but throw us a bone eh?

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A lot of games do provide conversion documents. That said, sometimes you find that some system or approach fundamentally doesn't work in long term use.

Also I'll be really blunt: the number of companies that can afford to do a proper blindtesting run before publication of a first edition is very, very small. Its a much bigger production number to do than people think.

Stormonu said:

[...] I think I've got around 5 editions of Star Wars. I still use WEG Star Wars as my go-to version, but I'll convert a lot of the newer stuff back into WEG. Similiar situation with D&D. 5E is my primary version, but I've made a Frankenstein of it by pulling in what I feel is the best of all the prior versions. [...]

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The different Star Wars games are made by different designers and companies usually building on their own games in other genres - I'd say these are not different editions, they are completely different games that share only the setting.

Starfox said:

The different Star Wars games are made by different designers and companies usually building on their own games in other genres - I'd say these are not different editions, they are completely different games that share only the setting.

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Well, there is WEG Star Wars 1st, 2nd and 2nd Revised and Expanded in there, as well as two versions of Wizard's Star Wars (though I was counting each publisher only once).

EDIT: Actually, I forgot one for Wizards - they did one based on 3.0, one on 3.5 and then SAGA edition.

Jd Smith1 said:

A sales axiom that has been true throughout the ages.

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The interesting thing is that I’m pretty resilient and adverse when it comes to overconsumption in general, but choose not to be for rpgs and electric basses. It’s not a part of my behaviour that I like.

HaroldTheHobbit said:

The interesting thing is that I’m pretty resilient and adverse when it comes to overconsumption in general, but choose not to be for rpgs and electric basses. It’s not a part of my behaviour that I like.

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Yeah, we don't like that about you, either.

Everyone has their financial Achilles heel; if you are lucky, its only one or two. And I suspect Electric Basses retain some value over time, while TTRPG products have the investment potential of fresh milk.

I have done so, if the things I've read about the new edition make it seem like it's going to be a better experience than the previous edition.
Most of the time, though, I don't. Furthermore, it is at that time I usually sell the previous edition to Noble Knight, because if I've had it sitting around and NOT played it long enough for a new edition to come out, then I'm probably not going to play it ever.

Ruin Explorer said:

< always has been jpeg >

I mean but seriously, it's nothing new, it's nothing we've recently accepted. It's something that's been inherent to the RPG industry for 30 or 40 years at a dead minimum.

Like, let's look at some big boys in the 1990s:

Shadowrun:

1989 - Original
1992 - 2nd edition
1998 - 3rd edition

Vampire: The Masquerade:

1991 - Original
1992 - 2nd edition (!!! and it as a massive upgrade too!)
1998 - Revised

Cyberpunk

1988 - 2013
1990 - 2020

And the decision not to make another edition (it seemed very obvious from Mike's comments at the time that he was increasingly bored with Cyberpunk and the way people played it, and annoyed people loved it so much more than his other work), and to instead make Cybergeneration in 1993 was part of why Cyberpunk died off for a while, and V3.0 in 2005 kept it dead until it rose, phoenix-like in the run up to Cyberpunk 2077.

Sometimes it's a bit longer - more like 7 or 8 years. Sometimes there's a break in publishing and it goes over 10. But a single game lasting more than 10 in a single edition? That's very rare. Even 5E didn't really make it - 2024 is as much a "new edition" as most editions of CoC, for example (even if far less than 3E or 4E).

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GURPS, one the top 5 selling games of the 90s:

Man to Man 85
1e 86
3e 88
4e 2004

So admittedly short in its first few years, but substantial changes, then 16 and over 20 years for the last two.

corwyn77 said:

GURPS, one the top 5 selling games of the 90s:

Man to Man 85
1e 86
3e 88
4e 2004

So admittedly short in its first few years, but substantial changes, then 16 and over 20 years for the last two.

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Part of that is because SJG has stopped viewing it as its primary product line quite some time ago.

corwyn77 said:

GURPS, one the top 5 selling games of the 90s:

Man to Man 85
1e 86
3e 88
4e 2004

So admittedly short in its first few years, but substantial changes, then 16 and over 20 years for the last two.

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I don't think that disproves my point though at all - in fact that's what I said - the only time RPGs typically go more than 10 years without a revision there's usually some kind of significant reason - as @Thomas Shey says, in this case it was that SJG stopped seeing GURPS as particularly important in the grand scheme of things.

Probably because I don't play as much as other, harder‑core fans, but new editions never bothered me. I just don't play enough to feel a need to buy a new edition. My problem in the past was buying so many adventures, settings, and rule expansion books that I don't have the time to use what I bought when I new edition comes out. So I can just keep playing what I have and like.

When I got back into gaming with 5e I spend a lot of money with WotC, TTRPGs, Kickstarter, and Patreon, but just stopped after a 2‑3 years. My last campaign lasted 5 years. I had five years of play without having to buy anything new for 5e. After that campaign, I switched to Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 4e. So, I spent a lot of money buying everything for that game, which was not an insubstantial cost. But I don't complain about the fact that there a multiple companies publishing multiple games.

I feel the same way about new editions. I don't need to buy them if I'm happy with what I have.

The rational reasons I've seen for people being upset about new editions are:

1. They can't find people to play with if they are not interested running the current edition (financially, this is a DM, not a player problem‑‑players generally don't have to buy anything but dice to play)

2. They are very involved in organized play groups, which only run the current edition

3. They play so much that they run out of published adventure material, don't want to create their own, and if they want to play new published adventures it is too hard to run the new adventures with the old rules.

For those in the 3rd group, If you are playing that much and buying that many new adventures, I don't think cost of new rule books is the real issue. I think this should only be a problem if you don't like the new rules. Even then, it seems like it would be more of an issue for less popular systems. For games like D&D and Pathfinder there is just so much published material I don't see how you'd run out of adventures to run.