If WotC Released D&D 3.75 Tomorrow....

[Henry]

It's not solely support of 3E and the OGL that's the reasons that Paizo has the success it has -- it's their stellar customer service and responsiveness. Mainly, I think the reason for this is that many of the people responsible for this level of service back at WotC, are currently employed by Paizo (or own it). Much as I think highly of certain key people at WotC (Mike Mearls for example), I just don't KNOW much about the identities and dedication of many of the people at WotC -- the track record prior to now has been pretty spotty, and I wouldn't trust WotC at this point to give me something that Paizo is already delivering, and delivering very, very well.

I'd rather they go forward than backward, because I don't want to see them spanked at their own game if they were to attempt something like that, I'd rather they give me something I haven't seen yet.

 

[dagger]

After having played 4e for a year and a half I am more likely to by a 3.75 PHB than anything 4e right now.

 

[Vascant]

Not sure that would be enough to even get me to take a look but who knows.. Electronic support would be their downfall because they are way behind the curve on that one and there is no one stop shopping for software, the best char gen is not the best npc gen.

I can't even imagine how they would market it, "Going back is the new forward"? Plus it wouldn't be a silver bullet, for some they just burnt a bridge. for others they moved on to Pathfinder, some are just happy with 3.5e.

 

[Desdichado]

I can't even imagine how they would market it, "Going back is the new forward"?

Paizo did all the real work, now Wotc will lead from behind?

 

[Deset Gled]

I basically consider the Rules Compendium, Bo9S, psionics, etc to be D+D 3.75. And unfortunately, the stealth errata and new rules that complicated things without solving any problems really turned me off.

If there was D+D 3.75, the driving force (rules wise) would be to re-concentrate the system; reset the power creep, recompile the errata, recentralize the rules. Unfortunately, that's a really hard premise to market.

 

[Umbran]

Would there be enough interest? The fracturing that WotC wanted to prevent with 3e has already happened, we will ignore the stretching of resources.

There's still an SRD and a ton of 3.5 books still out there. There's Pathfinder out there.

In order to be successful, a WotC product would need to be significantly differentiated from those two in some manner. I think that any rules-based differentiation sufficient enough to really look different wouldn't be a 3.75. It's be more a 4-alpha, or something.

There are other differentiations: sales model, support products, and the like - but then you don't even need to do 3.75. You can give that support to 3.5, without rules changes at all.

 

[Dausuul]

Looking at the thread that covers RPG sales via Amazon I noticed that 3.5 is still selling well, not all that far behind either 4e or Pathfinder.

So, a mental exercise:

If WotC were to announce a revised version of the D&D 3.X architecture would you be interested?

No. Also, no. On the other hand, after careful consideration: Hell no.

If I liked the 3.X architecture, I'd still be running it. In point of fact, I decided a couple of years ago that 3.X is the one edition of D&D I never intend to run again for anything more than a session or two. I'd go back to AD&D first.

 

[howandwhy99]

Would there be enough interest? The fracturing that WotC wanted to prevent with 3e has already happened, we will ignore the stretching of resources.

The Auld Grump, I will call him... MiniMonte.... Hmm....

Yeah, by market sales alone I think we can affirm that the 3.75 books and other salable products would sell and make a profit even for a company the size of Wizards.

But I don't think they will do this. What does supporting prior editions do to the current customer base? This was determined a bad strategy after 2E was halted. If a single product has a smaller audience, like from multiple in print campaign settings, supporting the further fracturing of a potential customer base only lowers the return on all products put out by a company.

I think they want every product in every way usable and relevant to every other one that came before. Which makes me think they might want to publish something on how to use the multiple 4E campaign settings as one at some point. Maybe they already having some online?

 

[Ranes]

I would certainly consider buying a 3.75. But it wouldn't be a done deal. The main reason why I didn't buy into 4e was because I didn't think - and still don't believe - that 3.x is so broken that I need to spend a shed load of money on top of what I've already spent, in order to fix a few niggles, at the expense of allowing in more niggles.

If I saw some 3.75 core books, I'd seriously consider what they might bring to the game. But a good 3.75 would have to, in my opinion, give me a chapter or two on how to convert my library of 3.0 and 3.5 material in order to keep it usable. In other words, I would not see the point of or value in a 3.75 that required me to buy a new MotP, D&DG, etc, ad nauseam. No one has ever presented an argument that has convinced me of the need to spend hundreds of pounds on another edition.

 

[kitsune9]

If WotC released 3.75, I would buy the core rulebooks; however, I doubt seriously I would play it as I have Pathfinder as my game of choice. If it has any interesting mechanics that I could use, I would incorporate it of course into my home game.