Are you a 3.5e grognard? Post here!

[Felix]

I don't want to change to 4e.

What I don't look forward to is the split in the forums; 3.5 is a fine game, but no longer will its proponents have anything new and shiny to get excited about. Sure, all my stuff still works, but when 4e folks come along saying, "Hey, look at this!" I'll have nothing to add except everything that has already been published.

I think that when I say I feel sad that 3rd Edition is dying, I mean that soon it will no longer be growing; and if a living thing is no longer growing, it is dying. D&D may live on through further editions as parents live in their children, but that does not make the parents' passing any less grieving.

I love the 3e rules set; I love that it resuscitated a hobby of mine dormant for 8 years; I love this community that grew itself around 3e as a rosebush does a trellis; I love 3e the way I loved my high-school camaro, and I hate to think that with the advent of a system which will be as shiny and new as my 325i, I will run 3e as often as I drive my long-gone car.

I can't help but think that the old girl had some beautiful miles left in her, undiscovered.

 

[Drowbane]

Hrm. I did have a TPK last weekend. That's it, it's a sign!

Dood, last wednesday my cat had her first litter... this new litter is the (drum roll)


...fourth generation!!

 

[SHARK]

Yep, that's me. I loved 3E, but it had a few bugs and I was happy to see the move to 3.5 ... collecting a giant thread of 3.5 updates here at EN World.

But I don't think 3.5 needs any significant tweaks, and certainly not enough to make a whole different edition. So while I'll monitor progress, and I might by a 3.75, I'm not interested in this point in 4E. I ma yjust fade out of the D&D scene at 4E's release to come back, say, for 5E.

Greetings!

Well said, Olgar!

I guess we are caught in a precarious position. To my mind, there are two salient considerations:

(1) Business: Yes, yes, I'm familiar with the whole marketing thing, profit drive, and the need to generate new sales and so on. I get that. Releasing 4E certainly fulfills those criteria.

(2) Creatively:

However, while 3.5E can use some minor rules tweaks and so on, there are some major problems with changing to a new edition. Creatively, *AS A CUSTOMER*--I haven't nearly exhausted all of the creative fun and potential out of oh, at least a DOZEN books and supplements I have for 3.5E. Not even close.

*I* have a creative "bottom line" if you will. From MMIII, to the Environment books, to PHII, DMGII, and probably two dozen other books, I have not even come close to getting the full use out of them. Why change to 4E?

To do so, would mean that I have essentially *wasted* the last $500-$1,000 dollars I have spent on books over the last two years.

That, my friend, doesn't leave me feeling very enthusiastic or perky about spending yet even MORE money on an edition that I may not be able to use with all the stuff I already have, and have invested in.

This is starting to remind me of Games Workshop. A long time ago, I used to be a "Epic Space Marine" gamer, and I spent probably $5,000 dollars in building armies for this game. Then, less than four years after I got into the hobby--

Games Workshop killed the game, and came out with a whole new system, with new miniatures, new rules--all non-compatible with the older edition; and, of course...while the figures were very similar, same names and so on--they were all five to ten dollars MORE for the same blister pack that six months previously had gone for. I was so furious, I didn't switch. I never bought another game or figure or miniature pack or indeed...ANYTHING from Games Workshop, again. That was...hmmm...10 or 12 years ago.

I have never looked back. I saw how the edition of "Space Marines" that I joined was less than five years old, and it was the 2nd Edition. They already had a 1st edition. I wasn't going to be sucked into another one. I think they have changed editions every four to five years, with all of their games.

I'm just not into doing that.

So, I'm taking a pretty dim view of this whole 4E thing. Oh, yeah, the need to change and keep up, blah, blah, blah.

Keep up, with what exactly?

Bring in "New Players"?--like they have been so terribly and brilliantly successful doing that so far?????

I mean, if you can't get your program up and going somewhere between 3.0 and 3.5, what makes me think they can get their act together with 4E when it comes to "broadening the market" and "Generating new players" and so on?

WOTC failed to "Digitalize" properly with 3.0 and E-Tools. They had an golden opportunity to revolutionize things there, and really build a whole new foundation for D&D, but they effed it up. They could have recouped it with 3.5E, but they STILL DIDN'T.

So, I don't have a lot of faith that they are going to catch this mythical unicorn of ever-growing business, ever-growing player bases, and an ongoing, huge, escalating profit margin now. You just know they want a piece of the golden goose that is WOW. Or at least the executives cracking the whip certainly do. Somehow, they want to change editions to get all that going, and to hell with the fact that 3.5E already has a solid, robust, successful system that has a huge product outlay and in no real way has become exhausted or really even all that problematic. The problems that 3.5E has are actually quite few, and relatively easy to address. 3.5E is not broken!

Ah, well, my friend. Some thoughts.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Li Shenron]

I've been obsolete since 2003 (well, 2004 really since for a while we indeed played 3.5) and it has never felt bad

When everyone else is busy following all the latest products in an edition beyond the one you're playing, and worrying about new rules to learn, balance discussions, and of course money being spent, your group is actually quite relieved from those worries and can only do one thing: PLAY.

Welcome to the world of dead rulesets... Dead commercially, but alive and kickin' at the gaming table!

 

[six_v2]

Oh, I can understand why some people will still be playing 3.5E:

But seriously, as the saying goes they're not going to come take your books away. If you really like 3.5E that much, as long as you've got your books/SRD/whatever, you can keep playin' till the cows come home.

Actually I heard that the goons they cloned in 1999 for the 3e release are finally getting deployed , and have been training for three years for the night of a thousand book burnings. the four part plan is
1) get to your stash of 'obsolete product'
2) take your stash of 'obsolete product'
3) burn your stash of 'obsolete product' in a official WotC book burning receptacle© (34.99usd at your FLGS as of April 2008)

its a fool proof plan and I am terrified of it.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

4E, I switched to 7E months ago. You guys have got to stop living in the past.

P.S. 4E may be all about the 4dventure, but 7E is all about getting back to the chicks in chainmail bikinis.

Olaf the Stout

 

[JDragon]

Well I posted my rant on this stuff in one of the other threads so all I'll say here, is count me in for now (as a 3.5 grognard) unless they blow my socks off with 4e. And make it cheap.

JD

 

[Maggan]

I am considering adopting 4e for some "Core Only" gaming.

That is my take on it as well. I just started a 3.5 campaign, and that will roll on and on and on until my players tire or we run out of material (which will happen in about 2000 years or so considering the amount of books on my shelves).

/M

 

[MadMaxim]

I'll be a D&D 3.5 grognard as well! It's my first edition of D&D and I already get to be a grognard. Frightening...

 

[green slime]

Fantastic SHARK. You summarized my feelings very well.

And on the topic at hand: I was only just getting over being a 3.0 grognard, and they pull this!