D&D 5E Light release schedule: More harm than good?

[Zardnaar]

Well, that would be interesting, given that he hadn't been working for WotC for two years by the time 3.5 was released.

Got a link to it?

Just tried google fu but the link is long dead.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Just tried google fu but the link is long dead.

Not surprising. If Monte Cook did say it, he probably removed it prior to going back to work for WotC to avoid trouble. Or it was removed simply because of the age.

Got a link to someone quoting it or talking about it in enough detail to get a general gist of what was said? This site probably had a topic on it back then.

 

[Zardnaar]

Not surprising. If Monte Cook did say it, he probably removed it prior to going back to work for WotC to avoid trouble. Or it was removed simply because of the age.

Got a link to someone quoting it or talking about it in enough detail to get a general gist of what was said? This site probably had a topic on it back then.

It did I just googled Monte Cook on 3.5. Others have also said it apparently but 3.5 was always panned but was brought forward apparently.

 

[Hussar]

They brought out 3.5 two years early because the bottom fell out of 3e sales and they needed something to get things going again.

 

[delericho]

Got a link to someone quoting it or talking about it in enough detail to get a general gist of what was said? This site probably had a topic on it back then.

Here's the ENWorld thread. I don't know if anyone quotes the whole thing, but at least some parts are there.

 

[delericho]

The OGL I was referring to and the d20 license are the same thing. WotC had a habit of sometimes calling it the OGL. So, the confusion in terms is in part because WotC themselves never kept the terms entirely straight.

The d20 license was revised to add a "community standards" clause in order to try to block publication of the "Book of Erotic Fantasy". That book was then published anyway, under the OGL.

The d20 license was later cancelled, shortly before the release of 4e.

The OGL, on the other hand, couldn't be cancelled (though I bet WotC wished otherwise), and although it could be revised this was a moot point as it explicitly allowed any version to be used anyway.

The need for a half-edition

Planned from the outset, although this was brought forward by two years due to sales that didn't meet Hasbro's expectations.

The rise of the OSR and its resultant loss of customers

The rise of the OSR came later. Although Castles & Crusades was released shortly after 3.0e was released, the OSR didn't gain any real traction until the release of OSRIC (the first true retroclone), which was in 2006 - at the height of 3.5e.

The collapse of the 3pp market

This is almost a direct consequence of the shift to 3.5e - suddenly game stores were stuck with a whole lot of obselete stock they couldn't shift, while several publishers were stuck with product they'd paid to make and now couldn't sell. That caused everyone involved to become much more gun shy, and cleared out a lot of the smaller third parties.

And so the field for printed products was abandoned by almost all the smaller players, while the larger ones took the opportunity to diversify away from D&D support and towards their own games anyway.

 

[Neonchameleon]

If you just got into RPG with 3e and PF its probably quite perplexing when WoTC doesn't appear to want to push out endless books of stuff.

Don't forget that 3.0 was a massive slowdown from the 2e release cycle.

 

[painted_klown]

Intersting discussion here in regards to the OGL license. I do beleive that there was probably a lot of "meh" material released and that it was (more than likely) difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff with so much stuff being available.

I am hoping that if/when an OGL is released for 5E, there is some sort of safeguard built in to avoid this happening again. I like to collect, and collecting 5E books will be something that I persue, but if we end up with a boat load of terrible material, I will be hesitant to throw down my money.

One poster had an excellent suggestion in regards to 3rd party material, and that is to have an approval process of some sort, prior to allowing publication with the 5E logo. Buy a product that hasn't been "officially approved" and you take your chances. IMO, something like that would allow the market to have the ability to flourish with 3rd party products, while keeping the level of poorly designed products off the shelf. Non-approved garbage won't sell very well, and thus retailers won't have it on their shelves. It reduces confusion for new players, and reduces the chances of buying a product that seasoned players won't enjoy.

 

[Wicht]

Given they had to replace the core rules with a new set, I fail to see how one can justify not calling that a failure.

One might simply think that the changes from 3.0 to 3.5 were fairly minor things (excepting perhaps the rebuilding of the two classes). No core mechanics were really changed in the upgrade, simply application of the mechanics. Besides which, the changing of a few mechanics does not of itself a failure make.

And I think this is the heart of the disagreement. 3e was wildly successful, in almost every meaningful way: commercially, culturally, popularity, and even mechanically. That is, the d20 mechanics which were first released under the OGL were sound enough to be able to be altered, tweaked, homeruled, and even retrofitted for completely different genres, all with a decent amount of success (cf. True20, d20 Call of Cthulhu, d20 Modern, Arcana Evolved, Deadlands d20, Silver Age Sentinels d20, Mutants and Masterminds, World of Darkness d20, Pathfinder, Pure Steam, DragonStar, DragonMech et. al.). Some who prefer other mechanics actually find the success of the d20 engine rather frustrating because it was and is so wildly successful in popularity. The only problem with 3e was how the success was handled by the creators of 3e and the OGL (cf. above reference to golden goose). You might not like the mechanics, but I really have a hard time empathizing with the viewpoint that they were in any significant way a failure.

To try and use another illustration, you sound as if you are arguing that the team who won three straight championships in a row was a failure because they switched out a player or two before going on to win three more championships and the owners thereafter decided to sell the team and buy another one.

Edit: There is also this; by your standards there has never been a successful RPG in the history of the industry, which strikes me as a rather ludicrous proposition.

 

[Parmandur]

Don't forget that 3.0 was a massive slowdown from the 2e release cycle.

The 2E led to bankruptcy; how many books was Wizards releasing for 2S in the lead up to 3E after the purchase? Honest question, I wasn't there..