howandwhy99
Adventurer
Better rules, better play with those rules. But they are getting to be darn pricey.
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Why did you stay with an earlier edition?
- Thread starter Gargoyle
- Start date
Gargoyle
Adventurer
Didn't mean to imply that it was. I'm just interested in that aspect of how a new edition affects the hobby as a whole.
Gargoyle
Adventurer
Rules seem to be the predominant reason.
I sort of expected more people to choose the "I already bought a bunch of books" or "I couldn't afford it." but I guess people find a way to afford things they really want. (and I'm a firm believer that D&D is one of the best entertainment values out there, dollars per hour anyway).
Oh, and if I were to go back to an earlier set of rules, I'd go BECMI. What a great, complete, yet simple system. It had everything from dungeon crawls to strongholds, to weapon mastery, and nation building to War Machine and Epic level play that was playable, and even Immortals, though I never got into that. It didn't have the bloat from boatloads of splatbooks, just a little bit of extra mechanics like the Merchant Prince class from the fluff rich Gazeteers. Sure it still had THAC0 and other old school clunkiness, but if my players wanted to, I'd run it in a heartbeat. Oh and it had Bargle. Gotta love to hate Bargle.
I sort of expected more people to choose the "I already bought a bunch of books" or "I couldn't afford it." but I guess people find a way to afford things they really want. (and I'm a firm believer that D&D is one of the best entertainment values out there, dollars per hour anyway).
Oh, and if I were to go back to an earlier set of rules, I'd go BECMI. What a great, complete, yet simple system. It had everything from dungeon crawls to strongholds, to weapon mastery, and nation building to War Machine and Epic level play that was playable, and even Immortals, though I never got into that. It didn't have the bloat from boatloads of splatbooks, just a little bit of extra mechanics like the Merchant Prince class from the fluff rich Gazeteers. Sure it still had THAC0 and other old school clunkiness, but if my players wanted to, I'd run it in a heartbeat. Oh and it had Bargle. Gotta love to hate Bargle.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
The affordability thing has always been a red herring. Entertainment spending is typically around 15 percent of an annual budget for most people, according to the personal finance class I took back in college; it's just how it's divided up. The folks not buying new books are choosing to spend their entertainment dollars elsewhere.
I'm spending my money on the 1E reissue books and (probably) the DCC preorder this spring. In other lives, I'd be buying 4E books or Skyrim or investing it all in comics or seeing movies in theaters rather than at home.
I'm spending my money on the 1E reissue books and (probably) the DCC preorder this spring. In other lives, I'd be buying 4E books or Skyrim or investing it all in comics or seeing movies in theaters rather than at home.
Bedrockgames
I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
90 bucks for a set of core books isn't cheap IMO. I think maybe in my twenties i would have thought nothing of it, but now I have to factor that kind of purchase into our household budget (plus there are other rpgs i want to purchase---i could buy the three core books for a single game or three different games that use a single core). Prior to my twenties 90 bucks was actually hard to come by because I was a student (i imagine many highschool and college gamers view that as a large purchase).
Li Shenron
Legend
I voted "Rules", and secondarily "Money". My vote is based on both the transitions from 3.0 to 3.5 and from 3ed to 4ed. Before 3ed, I really only played occasionally with someone else being the DM, and never owned any book myself.
When 3.5 was announced I was enthusiastic about it and practically sure I was going to convert. I only delayed buying the revised corebooks because I hate errata, so I merely waiting a few months to get the second or third print, but as soon as the 3.5 SRD was available, I immediately started a new campaign using the revised rules. Then in the next 6 months or so of running this campaign I slowly and progressively noticed things that had changed which I didn't like, didn't work better than before, or just felt like candies thrown at players to boost their characters. I started missing the 3.0 version of things even when they were apparently a restriction, and soon the feeling grew with me that 3.0 worked better because it had been designed more organically, instead of a series of patches.
However the investment was also another reason, although I'm not really a big investor, owning only something like ~25 books altogether. But it really bothered me the feeling that WotC was reprinted the same material in a "revised" form, and people were actually asking for it, when in most cases the update was minimal. This, together with the more important fact that anyway the supplements were already running out of ideas, gave me the feeling that very few books after 2004 were worth the money. The only 3.5 book I ever bought was Unearthed Arcana (which in fact is a book of variant rules, it works mostly fine with 3.0 as well), and I didn't even buy the 3.5 corebooks.
With 4ed it was another story because due to family reasons I was not going to have enough time for gaming for a few years ahead, but I still gave it a try. It felt like a nice board/miniature game, but I could (and had) already use the 3.0 rules to setup such game, and I was not interested.
When I have the time again for playing a full RPG, I will need to start small, i.e. low-complexity, because I'll still probably not be able to afford to spend much time preparing it. 3.0 would give me the nice, full RPG experience I am in sync with, but probably will require too much time. 4ed would be kind with time, but doesn't give me nearly the RPG I want, and I'd rather have some evenings of Magic The Gathering than a slow miniature game. So I'm very interested in seeing if 5e can provide me the "groove" of D&D I felt with 3e without taxing me in terms of time investment: I'll probably still buy the 5e corebooks just to read, but if it won't work for me, I know I'll be looking at OD&D at this point.
When 3.5 was announced I was enthusiastic about it and practically sure I was going to convert. I only delayed buying the revised corebooks because I hate errata, so I merely waiting a few months to get the second or third print, but as soon as the 3.5 SRD was available, I immediately started a new campaign using the revised rules. Then in the next 6 months or so of running this campaign I slowly and progressively noticed things that had changed which I didn't like, didn't work better than before, or just felt like candies thrown at players to boost their characters. I started missing the 3.0 version of things even when they were apparently a restriction, and soon the feeling grew with me that 3.0 worked better because it had been designed more organically, instead of a series of patches.
However the investment was also another reason, although I'm not really a big investor, owning only something like ~25 books altogether. But it really bothered me the feeling that WotC was reprinted the same material in a "revised" form, and people were actually asking for it, when in most cases the update was minimal. This, together with the more important fact that anyway the supplements were already running out of ideas, gave me the feeling that very few books after 2004 were worth the money. The only 3.5 book I ever bought was Unearthed Arcana (which in fact is a book of variant rules, it works mostly fine with 3.0 as well), and I didn't even buy the 3.5 corebooks.
With 4ed it was another story because due to family reasons I was not going to have enough time for gaming for a few years ahead, but I still gave it a try. It felt like a nice board/miniature game, but I could (and had) already use the 3.0 rules to setup such game, and I was not interested.
When I have the time again for playing a full RPG, I will need to start small, i.e. low-complexity, because I'll still probably not be able to afford to spend much time preparing it. 3.0 would give me the nice, full RPG experience I am in sync with, but probably will require too much time. 4ed would be kind with time, but doesn't give me nearly the RPG I want, and I'd rather have some evenings of Magic The Gathering than a slow miniature game. So I'm very interested in seeing if 5e can provide me the "groove" of D&D I felt with 3e without taxing me in terms of time investment: I'll probably still buy the 5e corebooks just to read, but if it won't work for me, I know I'll be looking at OD&D at this point.
They are cheap in the long term, but there's still a barrier to entry. The initial cost is quite high compared to renting a movie or buying a board game. I think an affordable boxed/beginner set is a must.
$100-200 for trying a new edition that you don't know if you'll like? A lot, when you can just stay with what you have.
BriarMonkey
First Post
I went with rules and DDI. I did not like 4th edition at all, so I stuck with 3.x. I also didn't like how the whole DDI thing was handled/managed. And if the next edition requires some sort of DDI just to play the game, then I will be skipping the next edition too.
However, in fairness, I did move laterally from 3.x to Pathfinder. But I don't consider that moving to a new edition as much as it was for 4E.
However, in fairness, I did move laterally from 3.x to Pathfinder. But I don't consider that moving to a new edition as much as it was for 4E.
WheresMyD20
First Post
Better rules, or more specifically, better playstyle.
1. I don't like using a grid. Combat is much faster without it and still plenty flavorful.
2. No character engineering. In my experience, "character customization" is just a nice way of saying "min-maxing".
3. The older editions are more exploration-focused than combat-focused.
5e is supposed to address all three of these. I'm open-minded about it, but I'm not holding my breath.
1. I don't like using a grid. Combat is much faster without it and still plenty flavorful.
2. No character engineering. In my experience, "character customization" is just a nice way of saying "min-maxing".
3. The older editions are more exploration-focused than combat-focused.
5e is supposed to address all three of these. I'm open-minded about it, but I'm not holding my breath.
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