What's stopping WOTC from going back to 3.5?

[Desdichado]

I agree splat sells initially. however I question whether it is sustainable over the long haul. This is just speculation, but I think the reason WOTC keeps releasing new editions or half editions in such a short span is because the splats paint them into a corner eventually. Whereas if they took the approach Paizo seems to be taking I think they would have less of a big burst initially but more steady sales across the span of a single edition. Just speculation, and admittedly it is informed by my preference for non splat material.

I would have speculated the opposite; that good--or at least decent--splatbooks have a longer shelflife than adventures. If nothing else, the fact that adventures were migrated to third party sellers and magazines supports that notion. Ryan Dancey et al at the time were quite vocal in saying that the profit margin and shelf life of adventures was quite small--it was something WotC simply wasn't interested in because a company of their scale couldn't do effectively.

Also, I don't think new editions and half editions have anything to do with splatbooks. Heck, back in the TSR days, there were more releases of new games bearing the D&D logo than during the WotC days. And the 3.5 edition was a bit of an aberration. If you haven't ever read it, you should check out this post on Grognardia, and then read Rick Marshall's comments in particular.

GROGNARDIA: Thank You, Ryan Dancey

 

[Bedrockgames]

A typical splatbook almost certainly outsells a typical adventure, both initially and over the lifespan of the book. You are right that there is a limit to how much splat can reasonably be produced for a given edition; eventually the product line must be rebooted with a new edition, so all the old splats can be re-published. However, if the reboots are successful, the splat business model is far more profitable.

That is, of course, an important "if" right there. Wizards rebooted 2E with spectacular success as 3E, then rebooted 3E with 3.5. The latter was widely criticized as a money grab (and if Monte Cook is to be believed, that's exactly what it was), but most gamers did eventually follow along, and WotC was able to re-create the old splatbooks as shiny new hardcovers.

I agree splats sell more. but I don't think they drive sales of the core material as much as other supplements might. In fact I have to wonder how much of a deterrent they are to new gamers. I can only imagine how confusing it is to see an array of hardcover books and wonder if you have to buy them all to play.

The problem with the reboot model is I think it gets tiring for the consumers. I can only speak for myself. But I was all excited when 3E first came out. When 3.5 I was a touch irked. And when they announced 4E I was pretty much shrugging my shoulders.

It wasn't unreasonable of them to think they could keep it up, and they might well have done if 4E had not been such a radical departure--or if they had done a better job with the GSL. As I recall, most of the 3PPs were standing ready to jump on board with 4E, including Paizo.

I agree that 4E being such a break was the big killer here. But I also think this tactic would eventually not have worked. The idea of having to restock my core D&D books every 3-4 years is something I don't have the energy for. I don't mind buying one edition and building on it over a long period of time, but I am just not interested in constantly buying new editions of D&D.

I'm pretty sure they did. WotC knows how to do basic market research--they aren't just reading posts on the Intarwebz.

I think they know how to do basic market research too, but I really think they over estimated the value of feedback on their boards. I could be wrong, but it seems like everything discussed on their forum made it into 4E design consideration. I have no idea how much market research they actually did in the field (though I heard plenty of stories of them popping into game stores,e tc). However I don't think WOTC is quite at the level of say a major software company or colo corporation. I still think a lot of what the designers were seeing on the net impacted their design choices. To me it it looks like they were paying attention to places like the forge. And that they were actively producing a more "gamist" version of D&D. I could be completely wrong. I can't read their minds, but this has long been my impression.

I think, however, that WotC misinterpreted the feedback they were getting. When I buy a gaming book, I don't want pages and pages of flavor divorced from any mechanics, unless the writers producing that flavor are really damn good, and writers of that caliber are beyond rare in the gaming industry. If you have it in your head that flavor goes in one box and mechanics in another, it's easy to read "Stop giving me pages of disconnected flavor" as "We need less flavor, more crunch," when in fact it means "We need our flavor to be more closely tied to our crunch."

I think there has to be a connection between flavor and crunch for most people. And I think you are right here, lots of people felt their was a disconnect between 4E mechanics and fluff. But I also think people genuinely want flavor that doesn't have anything to do with the mehcanics per se. I want a cool cosmology, I want interesting settings and cool NPCs. Much of that doesn't hinge on flavor. When flavor should intersect with mechanics, absolutely I want them to align properly.

 

[prosfilaes]

I would have speculated the opposite; that good--or at least decent--splatbooks have a longer shelflife than adventures.

I don't see how that's the opposite. Sure, a splatbook sells for a lot longer than any one adventure. But you sell 10 or 12 splatbooks, and the market's full. Paizo sells a new adventure a month, has done so for years, and quite possibly can do so for a number of years to come.

Also, I don't think new editions and half editions have anything to do with splatbooks. Heck, back in the TSR days, there were more releases of new games bearing the D&D logo than during the WotC days. And the 3.5 edition was a bit of an aberration. If you haven't ever read it, you should check out this post on Grognardia, and then read Rick Marshall's comments in particular.

I don't understand what you're trying to point out there. I think it's pretty clear that 3.5 & 4 were done in part to resell a bunch of splatbooks. Rick Marshall, in that thread, says "Their orders were clear. There would be a new edition, with lots and lots of books and supplements, and Wizards would basically sell as much stuff as possible to try to bring up D&D's bottom line."

 

[technoextreme]

But those 30-40 minutes will be incredibly freaking boring, because the outcome is a foregone conclusion and everyone knows it.

That is a symptom of bad encounter design though. That and the encounters that you claim are big showy set pieces tend to eat up way too many resources for you to actually use on a consistent basis.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I would have speculated the opposite; that good--or at least decent--splatbooks have a longer shelflife than adventures. If nothing else, the fact that adventures were migrated to third party sellers and magazines supports that notion. Ryan Dancey et al at the time were quite vocal in saying that the profit margin and shelf life of adventures was quite small--it was something WotC simply wasn't interested in because a company of their scale couldn't do effectively.

I hear you, and I think this is a perfectly reasonable conclusion (in fact I agreed with Dancey when he made this statement---it seemed like a practical observation). But I've begun to suspect this doesn't hold up over time, and I think it under-estimates the ability of official module lines to drive sales of core books I think Paizo's approach supports this take. But I could be wrong. I don't have access to sales data or anything like that.

Also, I don't think new editions and half editions have anything to do with splatbooks. Heck, back in the TSR days, there were more releases of new games bearing the D&D logo than during the WotC days. And the 3.5 edition was a bit of an aberration. If you haven't ever read it, you should check out this post on Grognardia, and then read Rick Marshall's comments in particular.

Sure but the difference was the core game lines continued (arguably having mutliple editions out at once was a bad move on their part). I could buy D&D enyclopedia or the red boxed set, but 2E was still on the shelves and still actively supported.

I have heard many different arguments on 3.5. I tend to side with monte cook on it. And I think it was basically a move to re-release and resell the whole line (which is what they did). I also think it is something of a natural consequences of expanding the game through splat. Where else do you have to go once you cover all the classes and races?

 

[Desdichado]

I don't see how that's the opposite. Sure, a splatbook sells for a lot longer than any one adventure. But you sell 10 or 12 splatbooks, and the market's full. Paizo sells a new adventure a month, has done so for years, and quite possibly can do so for a number of years to come.

That's a good point, but that doesn't mean that WotC could have done so. As I stated earlier, Dancey was sufficiently vocal about the notion that adventures had slim profit margins, so they were better made by lean and mean third party "garage band" publishers.

Plus, are you suggesting that buyers don't get saturated on adventures too? When you've got more than twice what you can ever concievably run in your lifetime, which I have because I inherited a big pile of 3E Dungeon Magazines (that I wouldn't ever have bought on my own) do you not stop buying? I picked up a few of the Paizo ones, just because they were the New Hotness with cool cover art and all, but do I really need an unending stream of adventure path chapters once a month and a few other standalones each month too? I'm "full up" on modules for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the right splat would still catch my eye. And heck, Paizo still produces as much setting splat stuff as they do modules even now.

I don't understand what you're trying to point out there. I think it's pretty clear that 3.5 & 4 were done in part to resell a bunch of splatbooks. Rick Marshall, in that thread, says "Their orders were clear. There would be a new edition, with lots and lots of books and supplements, and Wizards would basically sell as much stuff as possible to try to bring up D&D's bottom line."

Yeah, whoops. I googled and posted the link before I re-read it to make sure I remembered that it supported my argument.

I still think that Marshall fails to address a pretty significant point, though--it took quite a while before 3.5 started charting new territory in the splatbook field. They spent a much longer time reprinting and bulking up splatbooks that were out during the 3e run. Sword & Fist became Complete Warrior, for example. Tome & Blood became Complete Arcane. New monster books; well there were always new monster books. There were three before the edition change--Monster Manual, MM2 and Fiend Folio.

While his story makes a certain amount of sense intuitively, I'm not sure that the product release schedule for the first two or three years of 3.5 necessarily supports it.

 

[Desdichado]

I have heard many different arguments on 3.5. I tend to side with monte cook on it. And I think it was basically a move to re-release and resell the whole line (which is what they did). I also think it is something of a natural consequences of expanding the game through splat. Where else do you have to go once you cover all the classes and races?

The nice thing about the splats was that they were totally optional, though. And, if they're good enough, the customers don't have any problem picking them up. The monster focus books, like Draconomicon, Liber Mortis, Lords of Madness, the Fiendish Codices... all fantastic books. I haven't regretted picking up any of them. I thought the environmental books was a good idea, although the execution was a bit banal.

I guess my point is: sure, you can get "full" on splats, but don't you ever get "full" on modules? Unless it's some super-special gee-whiz caters exactly to my especially esoteric taste, I have no desire to ever purchase anothe rmodule ever again. And heck; most of the ones I do have, I didn't buy. Almost all of my Dungeon Magazine issues were given to me when a friend was moving and didn't want to pack up and haul them with him.

Because he also had no use for more adventures. Heck, he had no idea what to do with the ones he had.

 

[Dausuul]

That is a symptom of bad encounter design though. That and the encounters that you claim are big showy set pieces tend to eat up way too many resources for you to actually use on a consistent basis.

Two things.

Number one, I use the "big showy set piece" battles almost exclusively when running 4E and it works fine. Of course a typical adventuring day has 2-3 of these battles rather than the 4 that was expected in 3E, but since that can be a solid three hours of combat, I don't regard this as a problem.

Number two, please point me at the guidelines for designing a level-1 to level encounter in 4E, using standard monsters, that either a) appears dangerous enough to create tension for experienced players, or b) does not take 30-40 minutes to resolve.

My experience with 4E is that trying to build adventures 3E-style with lots of little fights is a disaster, but building them 4E-style with a few big fights works out very well. So that's what I do. It may be there's some key to making the 3E approach work in 4E that I'm not seeing, but I can attest that the "few big fights" approach is quite viable. I can also attest that if there is a way to make the 3E approach work, Wizards did not grasp it in their early 4E modules, because those modules were a tedious slog--a handful of exciting fights like Irontooth, swamped in a sea of "Oh, look, drakes. Guess we'll beat on them for a while. They're dead now? Huh. Next room then. Oh, look, ooze."

 

[Bedrockgames]

The nice thing about the splats was that they were totally optional, though. And, if they're good enough, the customers don't have any problem picking them up. The monster focus books, like Draconomicon, Liber Mortis, Lords of Madness, the Fiendish Codices... all fantastic books. I haven't regretted picking up any of them. I thought the environmental books was a good idea, although the execution was a bit banal.

Don't get me wrong, I can see that for lots of customers splat books were a great concept. And I don't mean to imply my tastes are somehow superior or that you are having badwrongfun. I agree they were optional, which is why I always argued 3E wasn't a broken game. The prestige classes and feats only weighed things down if you allowed them to. And I should be clear here as well: I am a huge fan of 3E. The OGL era was one of two periods in gaming I remember most fondly (the other was actually the hieght of 2E, with all the ravenloft, darksun, etc). I just felt it would have been an even better time if they had focused on modules instead.

There was also something about these books, I can't quite put my finger on that missed the spot for me. I recall loving the old 2E brown books (especially the complete bard), but the 3E Completes just didn't do it for me. And I would be lying if I said I knew exactly why that is.

I guess my point is: sure, you can get "full" on splats, but don't you ever get "full" on modules? Unless it's some super-special gee-whiz caters exactly to my especially esoteric taste, I have no desire to ever purchase anothe rmodule ever again. And heck; most of the ones I do have, I didn't buy. Almost all of my Dungeon Magazine issues were given to me when a friend was moving and didn't want to pack up and haul them with him.

I don't get full on modules because you take them as you need them, whereas with splats I kind of have to buy them to keep up with my players and group (unless I do a strictly core campaign or something). As a GM modules are a boon, but splat books can become something of a headache. However I acknowledge they aren't the monstrosities people make them out to be if you approach them the right way.

Some people like modules and some don't. I just think there is a bigger market than they assumed and I think modules drive core sales very nicely.

Because he also had no use for more adventures. Heck, he had no idea what to do with the ones he had.

That is a fair criticism. Some people don't like modules. I myself rarely ran them straight through (which is why I prefer module/settings). But I defintely leaned heavily on them for ideas and inspiration. I just like modules as a format. I enjoy reading them.

 

[technoextreme]

I can also attest that if there is a way to make the 3E approach work, Wizards did not grasp it in their early 4E modules, because those modules were a tedious slog--a handful of exciting fights like Irontooth, swamped in a sea of "Oh, look, drakes. Guess we'll beat on them for a while. They're dead now? Huh. Next room then. Oh, look, ooze."

Remember though they fixed the math so that they dropped the defenses on the monsters while upping the attack. Its how you should actually be running encounters because what you are claiming is nothing more than resulting in more rounds doing nothing.