D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 is the REAL reason everyone is angry

[Gargauth]

I apologize for the tone.

Thank you, no harm done.


I definitely disagree that 3.5 "is the REAL reason everyone is angry".

What I really meant (and what my thread should have been called I suppose) is that there would be far less resistance to 4e if the 3.5 revision hadn't taken place. When WotC decided to reprint the three core books, that strikes people as something akin to another edition. In other words, 3.5 used up some of the excitement (I can't really think of a better word) that would have otherwise made this coming transition a bit more smooth.

There was anger before, during and now after 3.5. It isn't 3.5 that is a specific cause just because you happen to have heightened issues about 3.5, valid though they may be. There has always been, and always will be, a highly vocal percentage of gamers who will choose to be offended by change.

I agree, and this has never been me. I was all in favor of every past revision that has taken place. I even implemented Skills and Powers with a silly grin on my face. But this is different somehow. It just doesn't feel the same. I think alot of this anger points to the success of 3/3.5 as a system. When 3e was announced in 98 or 99, 2nd edition was really starting to show its faults. Most people I gamed with hated it by that point. This just doesn't seem to be the case with 3.5.

My understanding is that 3.5 was always intended regardless of the fact that it was enacted earlier than originally planned.

Right now would have been a good time for 3.5


Rather than fret another moment about what past sins may have been committed, since NOTHING about the inevitability of change is going to change we'd all do better to focus on how we intend to deal with that change more sensibly from this point forward.

Agreed... bah the quotations got all screwed up. The original quotes are in bold for clarification.

 

[RFisher]

Well, think of it this way: how much were you planning on spending on D&D in 2008?

See, that's exactly the problem. I was planning on spending $0.00 on D&D in 2008, because I tend to only buy the core. Now, there putting out new core rules, which is going to cause me to overrun my D&D budget for 2008 by...let's see...add up...divide by zero...∞%!

(^_^)

Unless I'm really misreading DI is NOT going to be necessary to play the game in any way.

That's how I read it too.

But just as some people continue to claim 3.5 requires miniatures, I expect there will now always be people who will claim 4 requires an Insider description.

 

[pemerton]

All good points in an overall sense but do you really believe that in release +2 years, 4E won't be headed in the exact same direction in regards to it's proliferation of options, which will once again fracture its base of gamers, and which will ultimatly reach a breaking point which will trigger 4.5E or a similar ploy to reset and resell?

To some extent you're obviously right, but a new business model might make a difference.

3.5 has been developed on a collectible card game model: publish new options for PCs, make money by selling those options to players. This produces a proliferation of options that varies from group to group, making it hard to bed down a common set of rules.

4E will apparently be sold on a MMORPG model: publish new material to all the subscribers to one's service. This has the potential to preserve a greater degree of unity among the player base while still making money for WoTC. I guess it depends on the relative distribution of options between DI-distributed material (which all subscribers will have) and splat-book material (which will still be unevenly distributed).

 

[king_ghidorah]

After reading the announcements it seems very clear that with 4E and the DI so intimately intertwined with one another that unless you can afford to pay the monthly subscriptionsd and the 1 shot article purchases, that you will only have part of a complete system.

To be able to play D&D 4E, you will require not only the books, but a computer and a paid monthly subscription as well. This is their "vision" for a table top RPG? Sounds like a business model for an MMORPG to me. Oh right ... it is.

I'm not sure how reading and listening to what WotC is planning -- including statements that the DI is completely optional -- could lead to the conclusion that unless you pay for the DI you will have an incomplete system. Certainly this seems no more true than saying that you would have an incomplete copy of version 3.5 without buying every issue of Dragon, picking up every new rules expansion and downloading all supplemental information from the WotC web site. And, of course, it wasn't true.

And since you will be able to play D&D without paying monthly fees, and if you do subscribe to the DI you will still have a playable offline game after ending your subscription, and you will be able to play without a computer (since that's what the playtesters have been doing all along!), then I can't see a reasonable comparison to MMORPG business models.

I will point out that some gaming companies (like necromancer games) have already had bonus material to download and unlock with keys in their products. Some magazines and newspapers have additional paid online content. That seems pretty clearly what is going on, added value for added money -- all of which is optional, premium, and possible of questionable value compared to the original product.

 

[king_ghidorah]

A better analogy would be if Apple released a new OS completely different than OSX and made both versions incompatible with each other.

WITH NO WARNING.

After being asked CONSTANTLY "hey, do you guys have a new OS coming out?"

Of course, Apple has released several OS upgrades over time that made it so that older software did not work correctly or even at all with the new OS... the upgrade to OS8, the upgrade to OS9, and again to OSX, each caused problems with software I had spent more on than I did on D&D. And the upcoming problems weren't always clearly spelled out, or were made to seem less of a problem than they were.

And at various times, that meant that I didn't upgrade until I was ready, even if it meant I didn't get active support from the company. And the world didn't end.

I'm just sayin'.

 

[AllisterH]

While I sympathize with people who have money wrapped up in 3.5, I think people don't realize it isn't that much.

For example, if you're a DM that has spent about $3000 so far, it means you have spent 600 a year for the 5 years until 4E...Which is only $50 a month.

No offense, but in terms of hobby/entertainment, this is WAY better than anything else I know of....

The problem is, you can see where your money has gone and it never goes away. When I go clubbing and to the movies, I easily will spend more than this in a week. At the end of the month though, that money is gone and all I have are memories.

Monopoly is a bad example. Monopoly makes its money based mainly on those different "localized" monopoly versions. Basically, anytime a Simspons or Trek Monopoly comes out, PB gets a slice however, the main problem is, would D&D players pay for a new PHB that only has different pictures?

 

[Maggan]

would D&D players pay for a new PHB that only has different pictures?

Oh, yes, they would.

To a certain extent, for the collectors, that is. Which is totally ok, btw. I don't know how large a segment of the market the collectors are though, and it would be interesting to find out.

/M

 

[Sanguinemetaldawn]

The source of 4E anger: 3.5

I think it is clear that a lot of people are angry about 4E (to put it mildly). There are a lot of arguable reasons for this anger.

Some reasons include:

Taking Dungeon and Dragon from Paizo, and changing it to an online format

Killing Living Greyhawk, and substituting Living FR

But the core reason is different I think: too many editions too quickly. There are two factors here: learning the ruleset and financial investment.

Few people enjoy learning new rules. Many of us started with first or second edition AD&D. essentially, from the late 70's to the late 90's the rules stayed the same. Yes, there were some differences between editions, but they were minor. Silly things like Ranger class abilities, making Thac0 an official standard, rather than unofficial, etc. But the rules were essentially unchanged.

I've heard all the arguments about 1st AD&D, vs Unearthed Arcana, vs 2nd edition, vs "2.5". As someone who played during the entire span, I can say from personal experience that the portrayal of these installments as splintering the rules is spurious and false. In all three groups I games with, the result was the same: the ruleset was based on 1st AD&D, and used elements from Unearthed Arcana and 2nd Edition we liked. Or switch the roles of 1st and second (used 2nd as a base, include stuff from 1st). "2.5" was largely ignored. The point is that the "different" core sets were so similar and compatible that they essentially functioned as one large single edition, with variant or optional rules.


This community was willing the tolerate the massive change from 1st/2nd to 3rd for several reasons. The game hadn't changed significantly in a very long time, but the RPG community had. Things standard in AD&D were feeling stale. The AD&D community was also rather disgrunted for reasons of management, and so on. The change was seen as a good thing.


Then came 3.5.

WAY too soon. Full price this time around. A lot of small changes. With it came new classbooks, etc. Suddenly we have to spend more money on more books to be playing the standard version of the game.

3.5 was like 2nd Ed to 1st AD&D. But in three years instead of 10/11 years. And now we have 4E "Don't bother converting from 3E" D&D. 4E is to 3E what 3E was to 1st Ed.


This is the reason for the anger. It is way to much re-rules learning and re-buy-in, too quickly. Its not 3.5 per se, it is the deeper underlying mentality that it reveals. I have talked to people who aren't planning on getting 4E because they are waiting for 4.5 to come out.

And they aren't joking.

This is a thing unheard of, at least in D&D. People not buying one edition because they are anticipating the edition after that. It has a feeling of bizarreness nearing surreal. I suppose for people who started with 3E, it may be different, but at least for me and some of the people I play with, the relentless pace of constant rule overhauls, and and "game resets/startover" is strange, frustrating, and ultimately, creates anger.

Am I the only one? Or am I right about this?

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

You're not the only one.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=204229

 

[Aus_Snow]

I suppose someone else has already said it, but oh well. . .

Odd numbers are where it's at!


It seems that way, to me, right now (played and ran 1e; playing, have run and will again run 3e; skipped 2e; might well skip 4e). Time will tell, of course. It might be that I'll be posting next year about how my last session of 4e was so totally awesome that words fail me, oh wait.