D&D 4E No more reprints of the 4E core books?

[jasonbostwick]

The level of unfaithfulness to the customer this move would demonstrate is staggering.

Unfaithfulness to the customer? As in, their current/past customers?
If you're a customer and are purchasing 4E books, it is almost a given that you already have the 3 core rule books.
I don't see how not being able to re-buy a book that you already have is somehow unfaithful. If anything, WotC have been entirely faithful to their previous customers by providing errata for free online rather than only releasing it through reprinted books.

Your books are still compatible with the game and no-one is going to take them from you - this only impacts future new players who might want to go back and find the older classes without using the DDI.

 

[FireLance]

The level of unfaithfulness to the customer this move would demonstrate is staggering.

"Unfaithfulness"?

Even if this turns out to be true, who exactly has WotC been unfaithful to, and how?

If you have already bought the PH, DMG and MM, and you are reasonably satisfied with your purchase, you have received full value for the money you have given to WotC.

If you have not yet bought the PH, DMG and MM (or want to buy more of them for some reason), you may be unhappy that your chances of doing so in future may be reduced, but I fail to see how that is in any way due to bad faith on the part of WotC.

If you are worried about ongoing support for 4E as a system, it does not appear that the 4E system is going away. In any case, the 4E system is more than the PH, DMG and MM.

I sometimes think that gamers generally expect more from gaming companies than most ordinary people do from regular businesses. And I really wonder why.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Didn't WotC mention that the Essentials would stay in print? I always assumed they highlighted this because it is different from most books. I am not sure about the first Core books, though. I think the problem with those is that they have received way too much errata to easily incorporate it in later printings - it will break the existing layout. Keeping them around sounds problematic to me. You basically get stuff that everyone knows is obsolete and has received errata.

Maybe this means there will be a revised Core book at some point. Or maybe it ust means every new player will use the Essentials as "core" book. There is still DDI for people that are interested in the original builds (and the Warlord).

 

[Orius]

Interesting.

I haven't played 4e at all, so I have no idea what, if anything this means. That Magic site could have gotten things wrong, it's possible that WotC could release a new set of Core Books with all the errata cleaned up.

But maybe it means that they're dropping the AD&D model and switching to a Basic model instead. After all, Essentials is being sold as a new version of the old Red Box, and there's this Rules Compendium coming out. This model might actually be better for the player base than the three hardback model AD&D and 3/4e have been following for the last 23 years. Publishing costs are going up, the core books are what, $35 each now? That's a lot to get into the game, and the only reason it's being done is because it was done that way ever since 1e, but the books were cheaper back then. If instead they're switching to a model where you start with a Basic set, and move up to a compiled set of rules in one book, that a lot easier for new players. Then you can add stuff on afterwards in a more modular fashion with splats. As long as the model doesn't go to this extreme, it doesn't look too bad to me. I mean after all, the old Basic RC managed to compile all the important rules into a single volume effectively, and it seems to be remembered quite fondly (I do regret not being able to pick up a copy when it was still on the market).

This talk of extensive errata bothers me more though. It could mean one of two things. First, it could mean there were loads and loads of typos in the original books, which isn't very impressive. Or, and I think this is more likely, it means WotC is changing the rules along the way as they publish stuff. The latter bothers me more because it's something that complicates the gaming experience and not for the better. I generally prefer to DM, so I need to have a better grasp on the rules, which is made more difficult by constant changes, whether all at once like the 3.5 shift or a more gradual accumulation of errata. I tend to be concerned that it means more potential loopholes for rules lawyers, and all of us DMs out there just love rules lawyers, don't we?

I know this isn't new either, WotC has been doing this through most of the 3e days too. One of the reasons I eventually stopped the whole CCG thing (well besides the cost), was the tendancy of games to constantly errata cards left and right. Because of errata, cards never did what the game text said they did because they were poorly worded, or the designers didn't like the cheap tactics players were using with certain cards and nerfed them (sometimes they were connected). It made it too hard to keep track of what you were supposed to do when you had to constantly refer to huge errata tracts. With D&D it was easier to ignore, just run the game as the book says and damn the errata, at least when playing face-to-face. Now it's harder to do that with the online tools, since that has all the errata built in. So if I were to DM, I have to keep track of all of that crap, or have a big argument with the players because the Character Builder and core books no longer match. Booo, hiss! And the players would be in the right to some degree too, although I could just Rule 0 everything. But that takes up back to the old days where every DM had his own unique set of rules, and the game's ostensibly been trying to avoid that for a while now.

 

[Terramotus]

Unfaithfulness to the customer? As in, their current/past customers?
If you're a customer and are purchasing 4E books, it is almost a given that you already have the 3 core rule books.
I don't see how not being able to re-buy a book that you already have is somehow unfaithful. If anything, WotC have been entirely faithful to their previous customers by providing errata for free online rather than only releasing it through reprinted books.

Your books are still compatible with the game and no-one is going to take them from you - this only impacts future new players who might want to go back and find the older classes without using the DDI.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I still have the books, and the WotC gestapo won't come take them from me. The fact of the matter is that they promised there would not be a 4.5. If the Big Three are going away for any reason except to be re-released as revised editions, then we've either got 4.5 or a new edition, regardless of what the marketing folks want to call it. 2 years. That's all we got off of 4E. If this is true, that is.

I love 4E. Every game that my group plays that's NOT 4E makes us want to go back to it. Every book that comes out we anxiously await. We can hardly contain ourselves waiting for the Dark Sun 4E books. I have no desire to play the watered down version of it that Essentials appears to be. I'm no WotC hater. I've spent more thousands of dollars than I care to think about on 2E, 3.xE, and 4E. I've been well-pleased with most of the changes that the line has gone through over the years and have gladly spent money on most every book in the lines from 3.xE to 4E. This isn't about being "forced" to buy new books. This is about support.

If you are worried about ongoing support for 4E as a system, it does not appear that the 4E system is going away. In any case, the 4E system is more than the PH, DMG and MM.

True, I don't need more books. But it has to do with the expectations that Wizards has set. All versions of D&D prior to this have lasted several years, with numerous supplements that followed. When I buy the PHB, it's with the understanding that it's a gateway to the products that were going to follow.

1E got 12 years. 2E got 11 years. 3E got 3 years, and then 3.5 got another 5. The implication of the claim that there would be no 4.5 is that there would be several years of this edition. Did anyone but the most cynical seriously consider 2 years ago that we'd be talking about the Big Three no longer being published now?

I sometimes think that gamers generally expect more from gaming companies than most ordinary people do from regular businesses. And I really wonder why.

If WotC had come out and said that 4E would be a 2 year product line to explore the ruleset before moving on to other things we wouldn't be having this conversation. Those who bought in would know what they were getting into. That is, apparently, not what we have here.

I expect tremendous quality from brands that I support this fanatically. I go to my favorite restaurant all the time because of the food quality and the service. I buy every UFC pay-per-view event because they put out a quality show time after time, and are pretty darn honest with the public about their dealings. I buy my favorite authors' new books sight unseen because of the quality of the writing. I expect consistency and honesty from these brands, and I don't think I'm alone in this. When massive changes come along I expect to be informed, and not have to guess and deal with corporate doublespeak.

If WotC wants me to expect from them only what I expect from "regular" businesses, then in return they'll receive the same brand loyalty I have for those "regular" businesses, which is, essentially, none.

EDIT: If all of this proves to be false, and the Essentials line really does coexist as a starter set, then all will be right as rain. But honestly, the marketing for Essentials has been abysmal. In their hopes that Essentials would be purchased by current players, lapsed players, and new players alike, they've given very little information as to what Essentials IS, and what it MEANS to 4E as a whole, and have laid the groundwork for this whole mess of speculation.

 

[TerraDave]

without reading the whole thread

I am surprised this is even "news". They have repeatedly said this is the way of the future. Given their much publicized plans, there is no reason to keep those books in print.

I guess this does confirm my theory of ...zuchini... denial.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Until now as i understand it, essentials will be the same edition. Just a little bit more freedom of design. Nothing at all indicates, that the fighter and warlord class that recently were updated by martial power 2 will fade into nonexistance...

Until now we don´t know what are the future plans of the core 1 books (which had so many errors that i didn´t buy them at all).

Having those in print without updates would be dumb. Really really dumb. This would even more indicate for newer players who want to update to core from essenials, that those lines are not interchangeable, because so much was changed within the first few months of publication.

Having none updated books also looks like the company is dying, because outdated books are in print.

Revising PHB 1 etc would be my favourite solution to be honest. I would totally buy it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think the problem here is really that people expect a decades old business model to continue unchanged into the future. The problem is, this IS the future. 4e is not 3e or 2e or 1e or BECMI or any version of any other game that has come before. It's a 21st Century RPG and the world has changed since 1979 when TSR created the 3 book model with AD&D.

Welcome the new century. Games will continually evolve. Each book is going to come out, get constantly updated, and retired in favor of a new set of books. The new books will be compatible with the old books and all the old content will continue to exist in digital form for as long as people care to use it, all with constant updates as needed. Meanwhile every so often a new book will drop with whatever the latest new stuff is and whatever the current relevant version of core rules is at that point in time.

I honestly don't think there will be new editions. There will just be exactly what D&D is now, a constantly advancing incrementally improved game that continues to use the same basic core system with modest tweaks. Some day 10 years from now maybe it really will be pretty much nonsensical to use the PHB1 classes anymore and I'd expect at some point the PHB1 will stop getting errata and be declared obsolete. Until then you get to use all the stuff that came out with that book.

Nothing about any of this is 'dishonest' or 'money grubbing' on WotC's part. It is just a modern approach to supporting an RPG product. Essentials will take the place of the 3 core books as the printed version of the core rules. You don't HAVE to buy it, you can keep using the 3 core books for years to come, as long as you don't mind attending to the errata or ignoring it. At any given point whatever books any given player is using will work fine as long as everyone can agree on what you do when different books have different versions of stuff (basically you just use the most recent errata and you are all fine).

With DDI out there to provide everyone with a place to get the most up-to-date version of all the different game elements and CB that can let you make a character that follows those rules it should work pretty darn well. If there is older stuff, like say the PHB1 warlord, that lots of people like and isn't in a currently published book then they'll probably recycle it into a new book, probably including whatever tweaks and additions have been made since then.

The only part of this that I think we really haven't seen yet is some sort of deprecation mechanism that allows the devs to tell everyone "hey, this class/race/feat/item is really not useful anymore so we're going to flag it as something we no longer support officially." We're just starting to see the back side of the cycle for the first 3 core books.

Of course all of this stuff is new territory and we are bound to see various experiments as they figure out how to do all this stuff. There are bound to be some mistakes and shortcomings too. Nothing is perfect. Remember, the old AD&D style business model wasn't perfect either. If something was messed up in 1e AD&D you were just stuck with it for 12 years or you made up some house rule to fix it.

 

[igniz13]

I've never heard of Mana Nation until they received this "tip". Not entirely sure why Mana Nation was "tipped" about this and not say... someone significant, is beyond me.

Stopping the print of the PHB and other books makes no sense. Especially if 2011 is supposed to carry on as normal.

What's more likely is that an updated PHB will be printed out that comes with the DMG and MM.

 

[Zaran]

I've never heard of Mana Nation until they received this "tip". Not entirely sure why Mana Nation was "tipped" about this and not say... someone significant, is beyond me.

Stopping the print of the PHB and other books makes no sense. Especially if 2011 is supposed to carry on as normal.

What's more likely is that an updated PHB will be printed out that comes with the DMG and MM.

It's been said that Essentials will only be 10 products but that doesn't mean they will not use the model used for those products to reprint the 4e books (or book really. I would think the PHB would be the only book that needs to be kept in the loop.)

I really don't like this rumor. Maybe someone from WotC will pop up and tell us what's going on.