I'm done with 3.5

[Cedric]

It's really more of an economic model than anything else. If the publisher just relies on sales of their core gaming product, they might as well just close up shop now.

It's important to continue publishing material. And, as fans, we have proven that we're receptive to well conceived, well written supplements.

 

[boolean]

I would like to publicly announce that I'm tired of basic D&D, and from now on will be using rock-paper-scissors for conflict resolution in my games.

RPS is an obviously flawed system. 'Paper beats Rock' is too much for my suspension of disbelief.

 

[Hussar]

Like I said, can anybody really claim that Mentzer's Basic Set & the 1e PHB were not two of the most successful RPG products? Whether it seems to make business sense or not, you can't argue with success. & sure, the company was mismanaged, but that didn't have anything to do with those two products. Rather, they were what allowed TSR to stay in business in spite of the mismanagement.

While those two products were fantastically popular, that didn't stop TSR from nearly going bankrupt by 84. Granted there were other issues at stake, but, I would much prefer stable growth to fad boom and bust cycles.

Splitting the fan base is a bad idea. 2e showed that. There will never be another D&D fad, no matter how good the writing or brilliant the ideas. We're far past the point of being able to cash in on a bunch of people who buy a Basic Box, play it once and never look at it again.

While D&D may be complicated, there is no single system out there that gives the amount of support to game masters that D&D does. You can run games for years without doing a single minute of prep work - just get a Dungeon subscription (or pick up back issues I suppose now). That, probably more than anything, is the single biggest strength of the game.

Sure, you can do hundreds, even thousands of hours of prep work. But, you certainly don't have to.

 

[jdrakeh]

While D&D may be complicated, there is no single system out there that gives the amount of support to game masters that D&D does.

Actually, I think that this is horribly untrue. IMHO, the only real support that the current edition of D&D gives Game Masters comes in the form of the DMG and pre-published adventures (many of which aren't actually licensed D&D products). Outside of those two resources, I do a lot of work as the GM when I prepare my own adventures and/or campaigns (easily on par with that which systems like HERO or GURPS require).

The current system places a huge burden on the GM time-wise, although this may not be readily apparent if you aren't working a nine to five job (I do and it is). The lack of a simplified NPC generation process, the emphasis on balanced encounters without actual 'ground up' math to support it, and the ever-growing collection of exception-based rules and resulting subsystems all make prepping for a D&D game a labor-intensive experience for me.

All of that said, I retain my D&D books because it's the one system that I am guaranteed to find players for. I personally would prefer to run GURPS, JAGS, or even HERO as the amount of work that I must put into these systems is comparable to that which D&D 3.5 requires, though all of these cover multiple genres 'out of the box' while D&D only covers. . . well. . . D&D. The payoff for my hard work often seems diminished in that regard.

My time consuming day job has very much played a role in my deciding to invest in substantially lighter, less demanding, game systems (e.g., BFRPG) on one front and true multi-genre rule sets (e.g., JAGS) on the other. At worst, both approaches can give me the same kind of actual play experience that D&D 3.5 provides with far less work. At best, both approaches open up doors that D&D doesn't.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

For me, the neatest edition of D&D is 3.0, plus the 3.0 supplements.
Add in certain material from 2nd edition and from 3.5, and you've got the best system.
That's just an opinion.

Edena_of_Neith

 

[Hussar]

Actually, I think that this is horribly untrue. IMHO, the only real support that the current edition of D&D gives Game Masters comes in the form of the DMG and pre-published adventures (many of which aren't actually licensed D&D products). Outside of those two resources, I do a lot of work as the GM when I prepare my own adventures and/or campaigns (easily on par with that which systems like HERO or GURPS require).

The current system places a huge burden on the GM time-wise, although this may not be readily apparent if you aren't working a nine to five job (I do and it is). The lack of a simplified NPC generation process, the emphasis on balanced encounters without actual 'ground up' math to support it, and the ever-growing collection of exception-based rules and resulting subsystems all make prepping for a D&D game a labor-intensive experience for me.

All of that said, I retain my D&D books because it's the one system that I am guaranteed to find players for. I personally would prefer to run GURPS, JAGS, or even HERO as the amount of work that I must put into these systems is comparable to that which D&D 3.5 requires, though all of these cover multiple genres 'out of the box' while D&D only covers. . . well. . . D&D. The payoff for my hard work often seems diminished in that regard.

My time consuming day job has very much played a role in my deciding to invest in substantially lighter, less demanding, game systems (e.g., BFRPG) on one front and true multi-genre rule sets (e.g., JAGS) on the other. At worst, both approaches can give me the same kind of actual play experience that D&D 3.5 provides with far less work. At best, both approaches open up doors that D&D doesn't.

Note the exception there - prepublished adventures. There are hundreds, if not thousands of licensed D&D adventures. Paizo publish(ed) 36 of them a year. Just for 3.5, never mind any other version, you've got a few hundred prepublished adventures. Widen the net a bit and you've easily got half a thousand modules out there.

Need NPC's? NPC Wiki serves you up nice. Need a monster? There's at least 4000 monsters for 3.5 edition published. Need a map? WOTC site has a couple of hundred maps for free.

There is not a single game out there that gives as much support for the DM as D&D.

Are other games easier to do the work yourself? Probably. However, that wasn't my point. The work is done for you. All you have to do is run it. I know that when I ran my World's Largest Dungeon game, I went six months without doing a minute's prep work. Took me about ten hours or so to get to that point - mostly it was entering stuff into the computer for cut and paste later. If it was in .pdf format, I would have had pretty much zero to do.

Show me a game that I can run fully prepped for six months without doing any work. Nothing winged. Every encounter fully statted beforehand, vetted, map complete.

I know that my STAP campaign will hit runs like that too. Once I get things set up, it'll pretty much run itself.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

This has been my experience as well. 3.5 has never been my primary system, and i entered with cries of "argh! prep going kill thou!" cropping up all around me.
Now, i have an Open Office document with 74 pages of Stat Blocks. Pulled from the internet. Grouped and indexed. I have spellgen and other tools to streamline my work. I have the list of NPC stat blocks some good sould on these boards. My main villain is already statted - based on an example PrC write up. Took me 5 Minutes to change details.
Now, if you design everything yourself, i can see it being too much. But, i don´t have time for this. If have to think about the story.

 

[MerricB]

If there's one thing D&D doesn't do so well is human vs. human adventures - although it does publish stat blocks for such (in DMG2, Prestige class lists, etc.)

However, otherwise there is a large amount of material all ready for the DM to use.

Cheers!

 

[Presto2112]

That's what I intend to do in fact. I have no desire to get rid of my 3.5 books. I just want a different experience. That's all.

So, in effect, you're not really "done". You're taking a long-term hiatus.

 

[RFisher]

Splitting the fan base is a bad idea. 2e showed that.

Right. Because when TSR killed the classic D&D line & focused only on AD&D2e things got better. ()

"Splitting the fan base" is a misnomer in this case. This is not like the too many settings issue. There were three kinds of customers:

• D&D customers with no interest in AD&D
• AD&D customers with no interest in D&D
• People who mixed & matched

Which forms a nice little Venn diagram to demonstrate how this expands your customer base.

& most people I've seen suggest a return to a Advanced/non-Advanced split advocate a higher level of compatibility between the two than there was then.

Wizards is turning away customers because they essentially only provide AD&D. (Or even AAD&D.)

That wouldn't bother me so much if they were any other RPG publisher, because almost all those customers would find their way to another company. But many (if not most) of the new-to-RPGs crowd is going to first encounter D&D & are much less likely to seek or find an alternative if it completely turns them off.

(I'm also not convinced that it was the number of settings that hurt 2e so much as the number of products. I also not convinced that the number of products couldn't have worked fine if better managed. The things that really killed TSR were simply mismanagement & not listening to their customers.)

Show me a game that I can run fully prepped for six months without doing any work. Nothing winged. Every encounter fully statted beforehand, vetted, map complete.

I wonder how many DMs really manage this, though. When I've tried to run campaigns that way before, I've never been happy with the results. I can't think of a single campaign I've played in (with any system) in which the DM did that.

I don't doubt you when you say it has worked for you, but I wonder how common it is.

(Not to mention that I haven't seen that many modules for which I would claim every encounter was fully vetted. (^_^))