How come no one's publishing the old Corebooks?

[joela]

A lot of D&D 3.x DMs and players bemoaned the fact that Paizo published a backwards-compatible Pathfinder Roleplaying ruleset instead of packaging WotC's SRD similar to what Mongoose and other, smaller press, did in the past.

Thus, I'm a bit surprised no publisher has stepped up to do just. Any thoughts why/why not? As the OOP 3.x Corebooks rise in price on ebay and the like*, it'll get harder to purchase such books for new players for the remaining 3.x campaigns out there.

*And lack of legal pdfs.

 

[Odhanan]

You are still able to find 3.x core books for very reasonable prices, and still will for a long, long time, judging by the current prices of core books for AD&D 1E and 2E.

Now that said, there is a publisher in France that did just that. The "3.5 Bible", which collects all the SRD rules in a single collector volume. It's the premium aspect of the product that attracts its customers, mostly.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I'd LOVE to see a well formatted & indexed SRD to use in lieu of the oop WotC stuff-- most of which, I agree, seems ridiculously overpriced on the 2ndary market!. Even if someone were to publish just a cheap soft-cover with minimal/no art, I'd be happy.

But I don't see it happening. What incentive is there for the publisher? There's still scads of 3.5e stuff out there, both hardcopies and online references. The 3.x "purist" target audience is likely shrinking, since 3.x is competing with the "living" systems of PF and 4e, as well as with the "rediscovered" OSR retro-clone systems. Not to mention that 3.x "purists" are actually split between 3.0e and 3.5e.

3.x is like cars from model year 2001: lots of them are still on the road; they're reliable but many have bad paint jobs; chicks aren't checking them out because they're not the sexy new thing; and it's nowhere near a classic yet. It's just kinda old and outdated.

 

[Jack Simth]

There's a very simple reason why nobody is publishing the WotC 3.5 (or 3.0, or 2nd ed, or 1st ed...) books anymore:

It'd be direct competition with the current franchise (4E), and so it would hurt Wizards if it were printed and licensed. You can get them used... but Wizards can't afford to publish them, or let anyone else publish them, as it would hurt sales of their current product... and that's ignoring the trademark issues, too.

 

[joela]

There's a very simple reason why nobody is publishing the WotC 3.5 (or 3.0, or 2nd ed, or 1st ed...) books anymore:

It'd be direct competition with the current franchise (4E), and so it would hurt Wizards if it were printed and licensed.

Uh, the SRD is OSC. Wizard, from my understanding of the OGL, could not do anything to such copies as long as it contains no WotC IP. That's how Mongoose and other publishers were able to so.

 

[Jack Simth]

Uh, the SRD is OSC. Wizard, from my understanding of the OGL, could not do anything to such copies as long as it contains no WotC IP. That's how Mongoose and other publishers were able to so.

Ah, looks like I misunderstood; there's no new Player's Handbooks, no new Dungeon Master's Guides, no new Monster Manuals.

 

[joela]

The 3.x "purist" target audience is likely shrinking, since 3.x is competing with the "living" systems of PF and 4e, as well as with the "rediscovered" OSR retro-clone systems. Not to mention that 3.x "purists" are actually split between 3.0e and 3.5e.

That's interesting what you said about the OSR retro-clones. Do you really think retro-systems like LL, OSRIC, S&W, etc., are pulling away 3.x gamers?

 

[joela]

Ah, looks like I misunderstood; there's no new Player's Handbooks, no new Dungeon Master's Guides, no new Monster Manuals.

DnD 4th edition is governed by the GSL as opposed to the OGL. No one except Wizard can publish 4th rules in virtually any capacity. A 3PP, for example, writing a 4e module could not put the stats of a monster in said product or even reference it by page number.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

That's interesting what you said about the OSR retro-clones. Do you really think retro-systems like LL, OSRIC, S&W, etc., are pulling away 3.x gamers?

Maybe not pulling them away permanently, but I'd guess they're competing for gamers' time (and money). The overlap might be small, but so are the audiences.

Of course, retro-clones do manage to publish despite being (mostly) OGL projects. So perhaps a low-overhead "d20 SRD Fantasy" reference could make it.

 

[slwoyach]

The problem is the very limited number of new gamers who would need that book. Everyone who would play 3e is probably already playing, and already have a PHB.