10 years was too long.

[MerricB]

One of the ongoing themes I see in discussions about a new edition of D&D is that there was 10 years between previous editions of the game and that was great.

However, I don't believe it was great. I think that it was a big mistake on TSR's part to let that long elapse between editions.

2E was substantially overdue - many of the core 1e rules descriptions needed an overhaul, and from the "patches" of Unearthed Arcana onwards, the rules were spread over more and more books.

With regard to 2e to a (conceptual) 3e that continued on the AD&D tradition, it was almost needed after one year! The supplements to 2nd edition were dramatically adding onto a base that hadn't been designed to handle them, and were inconsistent with each other.

What made the wait from 2e to 3e worse was the great strides that had been taken in game mechanics over the period.

I don't think 10 years is a good amount of time to wait between new editions.

However, there is another side to this: I don't think edition changes as vast as 2E to 3E are a good thing. I think it was necessary in that case, but I also believe that having more frequent editions reduces the necessity, because the game is adapting all the time.

Cheers!

 

[Crothian]

I was having fun with first edition and seciond edition well into their 9th and 10th years, so I wasn never looking for a new version.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I have mentioned more than once when the subject has come up that many games seem to have a 2-4 year revision cycle. Call of Cthulhu and Ars Magica come to mind in particular.

A major revision every 10 years maybe - for example CoC has had no major revisions since their 5th edition, however evry edition of Ars Magica has been a major overhaul.

I ahve no problems with a four year cycle for D&D, though I am sure that there would be much booing and hissing from the crowd.

The Auld Grump

 

[IronWolf]

I am one of the ones who doesn't mind ten years between revisions. I just don't see all that much broken in 3.5 that warrants a major release every two to four years. Of course I enjoyed my 1e and 2e days too!

 

[Wraith Form]

I have mentioned more than once when the subject has come up that many games seem to have a 2-4 year revision cycle. Call of Cthulhu and Ars Magica come to mind in particular.

A major revision every 10 years maybe - for example CoC has had no major revisions since their 5th edition, however evry edition of Ars Magica has been a major overhaul.

I ahve no problems with a four year cycle for D&D, though I am sure that there would be much booing and hissing from the crowd.

Since CoC is dear to my heart, I'll comment that Chaosium usually produces their one, single, lone, CoC core rulebook within a reasonable price range....spending an additional $25 - $30 every three or four years (for that one book) isn't a big deal. When you have three core rulebooks, each costing $30 or more (partially because they're hardcover)....well, yeah, let's wait a few more years before WotC decides to squeeze out a new revision. Either that, or make it a softcover and drop the price by $10 - $15 per book. If that was the case, I'd be less reluctant to buy.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Since CoC is dear to my heart, I'll comment that Chaosium usually produces their one, single, lone, CoC core rulebook within a reasonable price range...

That would be fine if there were actually changes in CoC between editions. As it is, there's basically nothing new. No new artwork, text etc etc. Maybe, just maybe, their editor went through it again, but that's about the extent of it.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Since CoC is dear to my heart, I'll comment that Chaosium usually produces their one, single, lone, CoC core rulebook within a reasonable price range....spending an additional $25 - $30 every three or four years (for that one book) isn't a big deal. When you have three core rulebooks, each costing $30 or more (partially because they're hardcover)....well, yeah, let's wait a few more years before WotC decides to squeeze out a new revision. Either that, or make it a softcover and drop the price by $10 - $15 per book. If that was the case, I'd be less reluctant to buy.

Agreed. The price thing really is a big barrier to a new edition(ignoring the fact that I love the 3e/3.5e rules), and I would hate to see D&D reduced own to just one book.

 

[Wraith Form]

Oh, I'm not saying that I dislike the hardcover format; I just note that other publishers (Fantasy Flight & Sword & Sorcery come to mind) release hardcovers for $20 - $25.

I do also like the 3.x ruleset, too, yes indeedy.

I'm not saying I'd like to see D&D compressed into a single rule book, either. (Although I do think the PHB could be one single book and the DMG & MM compressed into a second, albeit large, second book. Ideally, the DM should be the only gamer who uses the MM--unless I have my concepts of meta-gaming totally off. What about familiars, you say? OK, a small section in the PHB for them; it'd take up, what, two or three pages?)

I was just using the CoC book as an example, since it was brought up by The Grump, of a book that gets revised & released every two to four years and yet people like me still buy it. Devotedly. Passionately. Obsessively. As if it were calling to me from a dream.....

I absolutely do NOT dispute, Saeviomagy, that there is no noticeable difference in the contents of the CoC book for the past 7 or 8 years now; they've just made it prettier or shuffled a few things around.

 

[Aristotle]

I don't think you can break it down to a number of years. You prepare a new edition when the old edition is no longer functional (or, to be realistic, profitable). I think we have a nice while to wait for a new edition of D&D as a new campaign setting and several seemingly successful sourcebook lines look to be keeping the current edition profitable for now.

I personally prefer long periods between major revisions. It gives me time to collect and enjoy the settings and sourcebooks for the game. Small, minor, updates frustrate me horribly. I refuse to have to put loose papers or handwritten notes in my books to 'update' them to the newest ruleset because Skill A got rolled into Skill B or the duration on broken spell #1 is shorter now.

A revision means I will no longer use (or buy) products from the previous revision, and I don't buy everything as soon as it comes out. WotC lost a couple hundred of my dollars with the change to 3.5 as I crossed a whole list of 3.0 books off my "to buy" list when it was announced. I don't care how compatible they might be...

 

[Umbran]

What made the wait from 2e to 3e worse was the great strides that had been taken in game mechanics over the period.

Yes, great strides were made over the period - over the whole period, not just the early part of it. And those strides were not made cohesively, or by one person, or that anyone was doing good concerted gathering of data from the gaming public. Steps were made hither and yon over teh course of a decade, and it took a great deal of time to learn which of the steps were good ones, and which were not.

So, I'm not really sure that they would have been ready to make a decent 3E much sooner than they did. Nothing would have been served by putting a new edition out sooner if that edition stank like a pile of rotting hyena livers.