D&D General Kobold Press Going Down a Dark Road

[Alzrius]

Never said I did. Dont want such a book. I'm saying there was enough errata generated for 4e to fill a literal book.

Fun fact: I downloaded the printer-friendly versions (except for the very last one, which would only load the original HMTL version for some reason) of all one hundred fifteen articles of Gary Sarli's "Jedi Counseling" series from WotC's website – where he answered questions and issued errata for Star Wars d20, Star Wars d20 Revised, Star Wars Saga Edition, and the Star Wars Miniatures game – and combined them into a single PDF.

The entire file is 443 pages in length.

EDIT: Whoops, looks like Gary Sarli only took over the column as of the fifty-first installment; prior to that it was handled by JD Wiker. My mistake!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Would they even keep the pre-errata copies? I would imagine the old data files are just deleted, but I guess they could be archived. I still don't know that it would be "nice" if they offered them for sale. Seems more like a hassle if I want to by a 4e book and have to figure our which errata version I want to get.

You put a tag in the description, or the title, indicating that's the latest version. Its not that hard.

 

[Weiley31]

Still too early to tell really, for me personally. I will say this though: I will be keeping an eye on both Project Black Flag AND C7D20.

Heck, I may use both depending on how they end up turning out.

 

[Parmandur]

Neither does WotC, apparently. And can we please lay off the obsession with math as the most (or perhaps only) important part of the game?

Dungeons & Dragons is a mathematical construct with a veneer of flavor. 2014 and 2024 are using the same framework, and the options are interoperable. Other than those mathematical compatibilities, there isn't anything else to even be compatible or not.

 

[Parmandur]

ok... @Parmandur what?

Heck if I know: Michas hasn't made it clear what backwards compatibility even could be other than math.

 

[Parmandur]

It certainly was for me in the TSR days, and many other people I knew. 3.0 forward became the age of "new is always better".

4E ahiwa otherwise. You get the causality backwards: it isn't that people are only interested in thr newest thong WotC puts out, it is that WotC has gotten very good at putting out what people want.

 

[dave2008]

You put a tag in the description, or the title, indicating that's the latest version. Its not that hard.

I didn't say it would be hard, I said it would be a hassle. To be clear I was talking about from the consumer perspective, not WotC's perspective. Figuring out which tag I want to buy and then finding that tag out or 10 or so otherwise identical books seems like a hassle to me.

 

[Bolares]

I get why to many erratas are bad, that was a bad thing that happened in 4e… but why are we saying that errata existing at all is bad? Why a pre-errata version would be inherently better? I think I missed that part of the discourse.

 

[Micah Sweet]

4E ahiwa otherwise. You get the causality backwards: it isn't that people are only interested in thr newest thong WotC puts out, it is that WotC has gotten very good at putting out what people want.

WotC has certainly gotten very good at putting out what  you want. Lucky you.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I get why to many erratas are bad, that was a bad thing that happened in 4e… but why are we saying that errata existing at all is bad? Why a pre-errata version would be inherently better? I think I missed that part of the discourse.

I feel errata is needlessly confusing in a relatively expensive product people might not want to re-buy. I know I don't want someone trying to trump me by showing me a web page on their phone, or a ' shudder' Tweet from Chris Perkins.

 

[Parmandur]

WotC has certainly gotten very good at putting out what  you want. Lucky you.

It's true, happy for me.

 

[Parmandur]

I feel errata is needlessly confusing in a relatively expensive product people might not want to re-buy. I know I don't want someone trying to trump me by showing me a web page on their phone, or a ' shudder' Tweet from Chris Perkins.

No, that's the same ipini9n that Perkins and Crawford have about Errata: thstwhy there are only 5 pages of it after 20 years, and of you look at it, it pretty much all clarifications of what was already implied in the text.

 

[mamba]

WotC has certainly gotten very good at putting out what  you want. Lucky you.

the sales suggest that they are far from alone

 

[BrokenTwin]

Would they even keep the pre-errata copies? I would imagine the old data files are just deleted, but I guess they could be archived. I still don't know that it would be "nice" if they offered them for sale. Seems more like a hassle if I want to by a 4e book and have to figure our which errata version I want to get.

I mean, I have plenty of purchases from DriveThruRPG that contain each version of that book, so if you want to use a pre-whatever errata book it's available. It's not like PDFs take up a lot of space.
Keeping physical stock of old versions would be nonsense, but with today's storage capabilities keeping old PDF versions available costs almost nothing.

 

[MNblockhead]

Well, yeah. Welcome to being old. I don’t expect the new hotness to cater to me. I’ve long come to terms with the fact I’m no longer the prime target demographic for…well, anything anymore.

Even when I was young, the new hotness didn't cater to me. I guess it did a good job preparing me for old age and being out of touch.

But complaining that they are making changes to attract young people at the expense of us old folk would be like me screaming about the lack of hair metal on my MTV…

For what other reason is there to watch MTV these days?

 

[MNblockhead]

. Duplicate post.

 

[MNblockhead]

I expect the majority of existing players to move on to 6e next year, mostly because that's what people do. When that happens, there will be far fewer 2014 5e players available.

But thanks for reinforcing my concern that the game I love has moved on from me, and that's apparently a good thing I should embrace.

More like an unfortunate reality you should accept. I find I'm in a similar boat, except that it is more me moving on from D&D. I'm kinda reliving what I went through in the late 80s when I was looking for something other than D&D. Regardless of whether the group leaves you or you leave the group, the breakup can be tough. I guess I'm fortunate in that I haven't had an issue finding players to agree on other games. I see no point in disparaging OneDnD or its players, regardless of whether I end up playing it or not.

 

[teitan]

He's not claiming it, thst is a direct quote from their Black Flag design blog. It's very hostile and weird.

I think it's poorly worded and banking on 5e players doing what 3.5 players did when 4e came out and bought out most of the 3.5 stock of core books that could be found in most places making costs go way up on those books for a long time in secondary markets. I know I sold mine for $80 a piece about 6 months after 4e came out. With WOTC playing the shell game with 4e and having shown signs of the shell game with the OGL for a few weeks, KP probably drafted this and it was exactly what everyone was thinking and that 1D&D was going to be like 4e. 1D&D hasn't exactly been greeted enthusiastically either.

 

[dave2008]

I mean, I have plenty of purchases from DriveThruRPG that contain each version of that book, so if you want to use a pre-whatever errata book it's available. It's not like PDFs take up a lot of space.
Keeping physical stock of old versions would be nonsense, but with today's storage capabilities keeping old PDF versions available costs almost nothing.

I realize it can be done, but why would you do it is the bigger question. It seems to me this is a really odd thing to be discussing.

 

[dave2008]

You shouldn't have to convert anything if its still the same edition.

I don't really want to wade into this discussion with you again as we are not going to agree or convince each other. However, I think this is not an useful standard. Each edition of the game has produced material during that edition that would require some "conversion" to use. If you go by this definition, then we are way past 5th edition.

Personally, I agree with someone else on these forums who pointed out that using the term "edition" is just the wrong way to look at it. We should look at it as different games. Therefore, I think their analysis was more accurate:

1e -2e: Different editions of the same game
3e: New game
3e-3.5: Different editions of the same game
4e: New game
4e-Essentials (4.5e): different editions of the same game
5e: New game
5e-1D&D (5.5e): different editions of the same game