Sort of related to the "Should D&D be public domain" topic...

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For the record, Monopoly had some pretty major changes to the board, game cards and rules more than once in the last decade. (The Speed Die is an especially dramatic change, but the underlying math has been cleaned up with the other changes.)

 

[El Mahdi]

Sorry if i made the second poster upset.

I wasn't upset...just astounded and flabbergasted.

I did not think it ironic to want a unified edition with rules that were already made, which is exactly what OGL tried to do.

The OGL did not try to make a unified edition, at least not like 5E is attempting to. It did not attempt to make a system that would appeal to all D&D gamers based on the peculiarities of each edition. It made a completely new edition that addressed what was percieved as the shortcomings of all previous editions. Don't get me wrong, 3E is my favorite, but it's not a "unifying" system, nor is it one that had universal appeal among D&D fans.

You're right though, you weren't being ironic. I'd instead say that wishing ones favorite edition would get adopted by the whole of D&D fandom as the "one" edition is simply wishful thinking with no practical chance of occuring. It's impossible to make a unified edition out of any one individual edition. The only way a unified edition can work is if it has aspects of or harkens to all editions, or can do so through the use of modules with a simple and "universally D&D" base system.

Also it may sound like "YAY lets make 3.x the evergreen edition". This is not necessarily what I was trying to go for. I AM happy that 3.x is recieving a lot of support because I do play that, and to me it is the eternal system, it's how I currently am recruiting new players. But understand if 4th edition would have kept on going and doing their thing I would probably be a 4th edition player full time now.

I don't understand. What exactly is your definition here of an "evergreen" edition? If you consider 3.x an evergreen edition for you, how is it that 4E and other D&D editions don't qualify as evergreen? There's support for every edition of D&D on the internet. And each edition has a level of support comensurate with the number of people who still play it. Which since they are all essentially fan supported now, makes sense. And why not continue playing 4E if that's your game? It's no more ended than 3.x is ended. This doesn't make any sense...?

 

[Evenglare]

as far as support i mean large company support... can you link me to where companies are going to keep supporting 4th edition?

 

[El Mahdi]

as far as support i mean large company support... can you link me to where companies are going to keep supporting 4th edition?

I can't because there isn't any...yet. And as of right now, WotC has not stopped supporting 4E. Also, WotC has stated that DDI support will continue for 4E...though not necessarily indefinitely.

But again, where's the "large company support" for 3.x? (...and Pathfinder is not 3.x) If you count 3pp's that are still making 3.x pdf's/books, I still don't see any "large company support" there. And there's quite a bit of 4E 3pp support out there also (though I don't think there's any hard data on exactly how much or whether it's more than 3.x support). Also, earlier editions are getting support, especially through retro clones and such, and even to the point of new published adventures for them. So as I said before, support for past editions exists for all past editions...although at a level commensurate with their fan base.

So again, since there doesn't seem to be any difference between support for past editions (including 3.x) other than scale, what exactly is your definition for an "evergreen" edition? And why does only 3.x meet your definition?

 

[Umbran]

The only people who have the information to make or not-make statements like "most of us play 3.5E", are those working for the bigger game companies...in other words Paizo and WotC...and they ain't talking!

I submit that even they cannot say. They can probably tell us how many copies of their respective games sold during various periods. But that doesn't tell us whether those books are being used or sitting on a bookshelf. The number of people actually playing each game is simply not available without some very careful (and expensive) market research.

 

[1Mac]

...every single person I have ever met in real life, and the majority of the people that I talk to on the internet play 3.x or pathfinder / some sort of ogl . That includes but is not limited to OSRIC, castles and crusades, 3.x , pathfinder, 13th age, and a NUMBER of other games that i cant be forced to name off the top of my head.

As they say on Mythbusters, there's your problem! Even if you could demonstrate that most RPGers are playing OGL games, that doesn't mean we already have a unified, "evergreen" system. The differences between core 3e and OSRIC, or FantasyCraft, or Iron Heroes, or True20, are at least as marked as those between 3e and 4e, and the division between them is every bit as fractious. The OGL doesn't unify these systems as much as you imagine.

 

[Yora]

Nice idea and many people did great things with the d20 SRD.

But I don't like the basic d20 System.

It's structured basic rules that allow to make things up on the spot using the Hit Dice basics is a great advantage. In other games I never have any clue how to make opponents and what to expect when throwing opponents at the PC. While CRs are hit and miss, there is a basic structure that makes things comparable.
But the problem with the d20 system is the HD/Level system. You can get new things only if you get up in level which increases your HD and makes all your numbers go up at the same time. And so monster numbers also grow to keep up which results in low-level characters only being able to engage low-level monsters and high-level characters only having fun engaging high-level monsters. Which is also the problem that plagues 95% of all MMOs, that makes it so you can only play with your friends if you and all your friends have characters with the same level, which makes it uninteresting to people who don't play always at the same times as a group.

To get over that, you need to make some drastic changes, and it happened to be WotC who really made these changes with 5th Edition. All the other d20 system I know about have the same flaw. If you want to special abilities, you need to be high level and fight high level monsters. And then things get so complex they take forever.

 

[El Mahdi]

I submit that even they cannot say. They can probably tell us how many copies of their respective games sold during various periods. But that doesn't tell us whether those books are being used or sitting on a bookshelf. The number of people actually playing each game is simply not available without some very careful (and expensive) market research.

I Agree. For the sake of the discussion, I was going to at least give WotC and Paizo the benefit of the doubt, but you're probably right. I would also think that not only would it be expensive research, but likely it would be prohibitively expensive, in that I'm really not sure what the marketing value of such exacting research would be (other than to satisfy curiosity and provide fuel for internet edition wars...) In the end, game companies shouldn't really care about how many people "play" their game, all they are concerned with is how many of their game products they can "sell". When it comes to gamers, buying and playing are not always linked. It sounds like that kind of research would be a fools errand...a lot of time and money spent for something that has no real practical application.

 

[Umbran]

I would also think that not only would it be expensive research, but likely it would be prohibitively expensive in that I'm really not sure what the marketing value of such exacting research would be

That would explain why nobody's done it yet - there's insufficient return on the investment. Until some genius thinks of a way to use that information to substantially expand the market, I expect that data would remain academic.

 

[Evenglare]

As they say on Mythbusters, there's your problem! Even if you could demonstrate that most RPGers are playing OGL games, that doesn't mean we already have a unified, "evergreen" system. The differences between core 3e and OSRIC, or FantasyCraft, or Iron Heroes, or True20, are at least as marked as those between 3e and 4e, and the division between them is every bit as fractious. The OGL doesn't unify these systems as much as you imagine.

Right, im aware we dont have one, For me personally my ever green system is 3.x which I do use with pathfinder, /shrug. I wasnt aware people dont consider pathfinder 3.x anymore, but i use all my material with them. I'm not saying that 3.x is the evergreen system. That is completely detached from my wish. I'm simply saying I wish we had something like monopoly. I WISH they would go back to 3.x, because making ANOTHER version of D&D is exactly what my xkcd is point out.

There are 14 standards

People- " Hey ! Lets make a universal standard so we dont have to use all these other ones!"

A year later - There are 15 standards.

I guess im not making my self clear enough. I'm sorry that no one can understand what I am trying to get through. It is my drawback, I apologize. I shouldn't have even brought up 3.x. I'm just tired of new systems that are half realized. They started doing some really cool stuff with 4th edition in the past couple of books. (heroes of elemental chaos, and feywild).