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

[Thagdal]

I'm getting better at not buying what I will probably never play.
I have multple versions of games I was very nostalgic for, so a few versions of gamma world, paranoia, tunnels and trolls, and 'fan genres' that I have multiple systems for now e.g. Star wars, Doctor who.

I'm attempting to resist the new tunnel and trolls, and new Role master system. I wont bother with D&D 5.5 though I have a copy of every other version.

I do read through and use bits from systems but I've reached saturation now.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It bothers me that apparently the accepted life cycle of game editions is less than 5 years.

< 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).

 

[Jd Smith1]

I'm getting better at not buying what I will probably never play.

This is the path to wisdom.

 

[Koloth]

To answer the original question, not normally. I normally won't buy a new version until a group I play with starts using the new version.

 

[Bae'zel]

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.

I stand corrected.

I still don’t like it, though.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I stand corrected.

I still don’t like it, though.

Yeah I can dig it. Personally though I've seen so many rapid new editions which made really good changes that I'm okay with it. I'd much rather have a new edition in 2-3 years that genuinely targets and improves issues with a game, than a new edition in say 10 years which just exists for the sake of being a new edition.

 

[Bae'zel]

Yeah I can dig it. Personally though I've seen so many rapid new editions which made really good changes that I'm okay with it. I'd much rather have a new edition in 2-3 years that genuinely targets and improves issues with a game, than a new edition in say 10 years which just exists for the sake of being a new edition.

Key example: Wrath & Glory.

When it first came out, I was excited about a more "action-oriented" dice pool RPG for the 40K setting. But it was a mess and it was ugly. The reviews were very critical and negative. The artwork kind of ugly. So I avoided it.

A handful of year later it gets remade by a different company and it's glorious (to me). So I invested in it and was glad of it.

But I'm personally pissed about Alien. I wish they'd have released a smaller update book for the original game rather than scrap literally everything and start over. Was the original REALLY that bad? Enough to merit a complete remake? I thought it was well received and reviewed?

But I get it. This is pretty subjective, and I'm in the minority here. This is not just a gaming hobby, but a collector one. I'm guilty of that. I have several RPG books that I'll probably never ever play, but I wanted them anyway.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah I can dig it. Personally though I've seen so many rapid new editions which made really good changes that I'm okay with it. I'd much rather have a new edition in 2-3 years that genuinely targets and improves issues with a game, than a new edition in say 10 years which just exists for the sake of being a new edition.

I'd go as far as to suggest in many cases a new edition three years down simply shows the creators are paying attention; in practice they've gotten much more of what effectively adds up to playtesting in the wild (and some of it blindtesting at that) at that point than they probably could have prior to publication.

 

[Bae'zel]

I'd go as far as to suggest in many cases a new edition three years down simply shows the creators are paying attention; in practice they've gotten much more of what effectively adds up to playtesting in the wild (and some of it blindtesting at that) at that point than they probably could have prior to publication.

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?

 

[Jd Smith1]

... but throw us a bone eh?

Not a lot of profit in bones, sadly.

RPGs are a tricky product; not many hobbies exit where a percentage, possibly more than half, of the participants will buy the product.

I do competitive tactical shooting as my primary hobby, and have for decades, and the buy-in never ends; I've many firearms, and more than a few have accessories mounted on them that cost more than the firearm itself, often by a multiple of three or four. Not to mention ammunition, targets, and other consumables; it literally never ends.

Many hobbies are the same: there's a never-ending expenditure.

But TTRPGs? Of my current six players, only one has purchased a gaming product in the last few years. I personally spend very little money on TTRPGs in a year beyond my Roll20 Pro account and tokens.

So publishers have to find a way to milk a very small herd; new editions and endless splatbooks are the method they have chosen. I believe that in the long run this approach will fail them, but time will tell.

I personally seldom welcome news of a new rules edition.