Dislike 4E? You can write off 5E

[M.L. Martin]

I appreciate this response, a couple of points

1. Saying 3E's lifespan was 8 years is deceptive. 3.5 was a new edition of the game, not a minor once over to update the rules. It came out in 2003 and lasted until 2008.

3.5, IMO, is neither fish nor fowl. I believe that it was intended as a cleanup, but at some point wound up running away with the designers and thus became more than a cleanup but less than a new edition. (Back when I talked to him in 2007, Mearls wondered why it was seen as such a big break by the fan community. I hypothesized that some of it was the change to monster rules, which went from minor in-play tweaks to making the vast majority of monsters technically illegal.)
It should be remembered that it was originally marketed as "3rd Revised"--and the Revised moniker is fairly standard in the industry from something intended as a cleanup that doesn't fundamentally change the game, as I understand it. Cf. WEG's Star Wars, WW's Vampire:tM, Werewolf:tA and Mage:tAsc (Barastrondo, you were there; am I understanding it correctly?) and the HERO System 5th Edition/Revised. The terminology "3.5" came from us, the fans, and was adopted by WotC.

2. We do have another WotC RPG to judge edition releases by: Star Wars. Like DnD, Star Wars has a maximum gap of 5 years between editions.

• 2000: Star Wars d20
• 2002: Star Wars Revised Core Rule Book
• 2007: Star Wars Saga Edition

Bad example, IMO. That's a licensed product subject to external pressures. I believe the 2002 revision was mandated by Lucasfilm to tie into Attack of the Clones; if not, it was almost certainly driven by marketing pressure. The fact that the license meant they had to essentially put the RPG in carbon-freezing to launch the miniatures line also made a difference; by the time SWSE came out, it had been three years since the last RPG supplement, and in that time, another movie and numerous other sources had been added to the SW canon.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Huh? non sequitur?

Total non sequitur. I was around an about during the 2-3 change (it's how I found this site) and while memory is a fickle mistress, I don't recall their still being such a backdraft 20 months into 3E's life cycle.

Noted.
Your election to not use 3.0 with 3.5 or 3.5 with PF is perfectly valid.
However, in no way does that make them at incompatible. I'm already using 3.5 with PF regularly.

Oh absolutely. Heck, I've been collecting old adventure modules from 1E days to run at some point. 1E-3E play well together. I'd consider letting someone play a 3.5 Psion in Pathfinder (or any other class not updated to Pathfinder). If someone wanted to play a 3.0 edition bard in Pathfinder, I'd probably say no

I think 1E to 2E has a lot in common with 3E to 3.5.

(and now that I think back, I did use the OA Samurai class in a 3.5 game)

 

[renau1g]

Now problem here, I've written off WotC - so they could put out 25e, and it don't matter I'm through with that company.

GP

Certainly a very constructive post

5e will likely come out, if DDI doesn't sustain itself, as another poster mentioned. Maybe a better OGL or GSL for the new edition can help the industry as a whole, grabbing some of the great things about 3e, but utilizing some of the interesting parts of 4e (for me powers, nice as a fighter to do something other than, I hit it with my sword, ohh... forgot iterative attacks, I hit it 3 times this round)

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Well said!

I've been told point blank from Greg Leeds, WotC's president, that they're not even going to start thinking about 5e for years. They're invested in the current rule set. As sexy as scurrilous rumor is, this may be a little extreme.

We were told the same thing about 4e up until the day they announced it.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Bad example, IMO. That's a licensed product subject to external pressures. I believe the 2002 revision was mandated by Lucasfilm to tie into Attack of the Clones; if not, it was almost certainly driven by marketing pressure. The fact that the license meant they had to essentially put the RPG in carbon-freezing to launch the miniatures line also made a difference; by the time SWSE came out, it had been three years since the last RPG supplement, and in that time, another movie and numerous other sources had been added to the SW canon.

Perhaps, but it's the only other multiple edition RPG that WotC has produced to my knowledge. It is eerily similar to the 3E-4E pattern too. The original edition is released (3E and SWRPG), 2-3 years later a revised version is released (3.5 and SW Revised Core Rulebook), 5 years after the revision a new edition is released (4E and SWSE).

Also, the revised book was a major revision (more so then 3-3.5 imo).

 

[Dausuul]

We were told the same thing about 4e up until the day they announced it.

Source please. I've often heard this said but never seen it substantiated. So far, the only thing I've heard that somewhat resembles this claim is the above statement about "it's a long way off," which is NOT the same thing, and was said six months before the announcement and a year and a half before the actual release.

 

[Piratecat]

We were told the same thing about 4e up until the day they announced it.

Well no, I don't believe that's true - see upthread for Chris Perkins' quote - but it's a fair point, since you have no idea whether my BS meter is well calibrated or not. I'll state that I'm comfortable that I was not being lied to or misled. You're welcome to draw whatever conclusion from that that you wish.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Source please. I've often heard this said but never seen it substantiated. So far, the only thing I've heard that somewhat resembles this claim is the above statement about "it's a long way off," which is NOT the same thing, and was said six months before the announcement and a year and a half before the actual release.

I can't point you at a source, I'm going from memory. Every time someone asked about a 4th edition, someone from WOTC always either blew off the question, or flat lied to us. Not that I believe 5e is on the horizon, but I wouldn't trust a WOTC employee if he told me the sun rose in the east.

 

[ggroy]

In principle, there could be a secret "cabal" within WotC which has already been designing 5E. Such a "cabal" could have signed watertight non-disclosure agreements, where not even the non-cabal "rank and file" D&D designers at WotC know about it.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Well no, I don't believe that's true - see upthread for Chris Perkins' quote - but it's a fair point, since you have no idea whether my BS meter is well calibrated or not. I'll state that I'm comfortable that I was not being lied to or misled. You're welcome to draw whatever conclusion from that that you wish.

I well remember that quote. Laughing about the question implies they are no where near a 4th edition, when the truth was it was damn near at the printer.