D&D 3E/3.5 Will 4e last longer than 3e?

[Mistwell]

They shouldn't. But at the same time there are other business models that could allow them to stick with one edition longer than a few years at a time. Ultimately its up to the consumer to decide whether they want to fork over a bunch more cash to keep the company's profits up, or if they're going to realize that there's nothing wrong with the perfectly playable game they already have and get off the merry-go-round.

Well sure. Much like people can decide their tube-based TV is perfectly good and not buy a color flat screen, or their DVD player is perfectly good and not buy a Blu-Ray or HDDVD player. Or their Xbox is perfectly good and not buy an X-box 360. Or their 8 year old car is perfectly good, and not buy a newer one. Or anything in our society.

Usually though, the truth is that people want to keep up with the evolution of products. Newer is not always better, but often it is. Experience does tend to refine things and improve them. A betamax is a perfectly good machine, but that doesn't mean the advances since then, from VCR to DVD to HD, were not improvements. An Atari 2600 is a perfectly good video game machine, but that doesn't mean the Wii or PS3 are not an improvement.

And D&D 3.5 is a perfectly good game, but that doesn't mean 4.0 won't be an improvement over it. It's not necessarily a merry-go-round to want to move with the evolution of products, any more so than anything else in our economy.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Well sure. Much like people can decide their tube-based TV is perfectly good and not buy a color flat screen, or their DVD player is perfectly good and not buy a Blu-Ray or HDDVD player. Or their Xbox is perfectly good and not buy an X-box 360. Or their 8 year old car is perfectly good, and not buy a newer one. Or anything in our society.

Usually though, the truth is that people want to keep up with the evolution of products. Newer is not always better, but often it is. Experience does tend to refine things and improve them. A betamax is a perfectly good machine, but that doesn't mean the advances since then, from VCR to DVD to HD, were not improvements. An Atari 2600 is a perfectly good video game machine, but that doesn't mean the Wii or PS3 are not an improvement.

And D&D 3.5 is a perfectly good game, but that doesn't mean 4.0 won't be an improvement over it. It's not necessarily a merry-go-round to want to move with the evolution of products, any more so than anything else in our economy.

Yes, but unlike the examples cited, we're talking about a "game" that at it's core is the childhood game "Let's Pretend" with rules, not some piece of technology that actually visibly improves from one generation to the next. I've played 1E games with the right group that were far more enjoyable than any 3E game I've ever played.

You can rewrite the rules dozens of times, tweaking this or streamlining that, but that doesn't change the fact that the success or failure of every game depends more on each individual set of players than it does on the refinements of the rules. There is no 16-bit version of D&D (unless you're talking about one of the early video games) and the desire to keep up is fueled primarily by only two things: marketing and organized play. If you don't game at conventions and you avoid marketing whenever possible, and if your group has perfectly enjoyable games with the existing rules, why mess it up by going with what is being touted as the latest and greatrest?

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Unless you're one of those people who buy the core rules only and stick with them, you're sacrificing a lot more than the $30 for the PHB that you bought five years ago. In my case I probably have at least $3K wrapped up in books that will soon be obsolete.

So why did you invest $3K in D&D books? Because you actually used these books, because you thought you might use them sometime, or because you just wanted to have them?

If you actually used them, it boils down to you spending $20 to $50 per month on your hobby. You have to decide whether it's worth it. If not, you should change your spending habits regardless of edition changes.

If you just wanted to have them, you are just like me, buying much more stuff than one can actually use. I lived through different phases: first I thought 'cool, they will hopefully make high-level play easier to manage.' The second phase was 'Damn, I'll probably never use this whole shelf of books!' The third - and current - phase is 'I'm looking forward to 4e, hopefully I will be able to constrain may buying habits.'

If you hoped to make use of all this stuff sometime, your hope does not have to die. You can keep playing 3.5, or gradually changing to 4e, or just buy the 4e core books and consider wether to make the step with this knowledge.

If you are like me, and I think a lot of people out there fit this description, you are somewhere between the second and the third tier. In these cases, you should be actually grateful for WotC not maintaining 3.5e any longer, because the more books they publish for 3.5, the greater you and my pains would be. :\

Even if one started playing with 3rd edition, the name of the game implied that there were older editions before that. And this simple fact guaranteed from day one that edition 3 or 3.5 would not be the last one.

Not sure whether I own 3K worth of movies on DVD, but at least they can be watched whenever I want without having to worry that the flat screen HD TV set will suddenly refuse to show them.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. What with new copy protection schemes requiring a new connection between new DVD player and new TV set, which sadly does not allow old DVDs to be shown?

---
Huldvoll

Baron von Bomberg

 

[Darrin Drader]

S
I wouldn't be too sure about that. What with new copy protection schemes requiring a new connection between new DVD player and new TV set, which sadly does not allow old DVDs to be shown?

OK, this is the first I've heard about this one. Is this technology already in place? Is this something you just made up? If this is real, who's using it? My DVD player is less than a year old and my HD TV is about three months old, and I have no problems playing a DVD on it.

At any rate, I think that any move that would make previously purchased DVDs unplayable would face severe consumer backlash and legal challenges.

 

[an_idol_mind]

Show me another RPG (worth playing) that's only on its 3rd revision in three decades.

Technically, D&D has gone through a lot more than three revisions. There's oD&D, 1st edition, 2nd edition, 3rd edition, 3.5, and now 4th edition. Running parallel to that is the Holmes basic set, the Moldvay/Cook basic and expert set, BECMI, and the Rules Cyclopedia/Wrath of the Immortals combo (which is essentially BECMI but with a few changes in it). So if we're counting by revisions and not official editions, then 4th edition would actually be anywhere from 6th to 10th edition.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Technically, D&D has gone through a lot more than three revisions. There's oD&D, 1st edition, 2nd edition, 3rd edition, 3.5, and now 4th edition. Running parallel to that is the Holmes basic set, the Moldvay/Cook basic and expert set, BECMI, and the Rules Cyclopedia/Wrath of the Immortals combo (which is essentially BECMI but with a few changes in it). So if we're counting by revisions and not official editions, then 4th edition would actually be anywhere from 6th to 10th edition.

IMO, every time a new book is released that 1) explains the basics system (not an expansion of an existing system, but the full basics of combat) and 2) explains CharGen from the beginning (not an alternate system, but how to make a basic character) is a brand new edition. So yes, according to me 3.5 is a new edition. D&D is a system, not a setting. The fluff between 3.0 and 3.5 are compatable but the systems are not 100% compatable.

So using this definition, how many editions of D&D have there been?

EDIT: Realization: So according to my own definition, D&D and AD&D are two different editions. Yea... I'm ok with that.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Usually though, the truth is that people want to keep up with the evolution of products.

This might be true for technology, but I just don't agree that it applies to games. I've made the point before about sports, card games, and classic board games -- from the really old (Chess, checkers, backgammon) to the relatively new (Scrabble, Monopoly, etc.). Games don't have to keep changing the rules to be viable. Major league sports may undergo some minor tinkering with rules, but pickup games change very little.

D&D for me is going to become much more like one of these hobbies. Something where I can be content to play a game more or less the way I've always played it. There will always be new worlds to explore, new adventures to have, and new characters to create. The 4E forum will still be of interest for several reasons, but I do know that I'm not switching to 4E, 5E, 6E, or any future edition. I have a system that's good enough, and the ability to be content is a truly wondrous thing.

 

[BeauNiddle]

OK, this is the first I've heard about this one. Is this technology already in place? Is this something you just made up? If this is real, who's using it? My DVD player is less than a year old and my HD TV is about three months old, and I have no problems playing a DVD on it.

At any rate, I think that any move that would make previously purchased DVDs unplayable would face severe consumer backlash and legal challenges.

This would appear to be a misunderstanding of new technolody.

Theoretically if you use HDMI to connect your dvd player to the television AND the source is hi-def AND the signal fails a handshake (i.e. one side doesn't support the encryption) THEN there is a POSSIBILITY that the source will drop the quality from 720+ to 480

It's not an automatic thing and has to be supported on that specific disc. There is also rumours that if you use component to connect a hi-def DVD player and the encryption flag is set then the quality will 'degrade' to 480p levels.

All new hi-def players (HD-DVD & BluRay) have to support this technology by standard. NO discs currently have the flag set since they know it'll be suicide to the first people to use it.

Just look into DRM (Digital Rights Management) if you want more info

Here ends the thread hijack

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

It'll last as long as Hasbro sees good numbers, then a new edition will appear.

 

[Tharkun]

Just look into DRM (Digital Rights Management) if you want more info

http://www.eff.org/issues/drm

That would be a good place to start.

Major entertainment companies are using "digital rights management," or DRM (aka content or copy protection), to lock up your digital media. These DRM technologies do nothing to stop copyright pirates, but instead end up interfering with fans' lawful use of music, movies, and other copyrighted works. DRM can prevent you from making back ups of your DVDs and music downloaded from online stores, recording your favorite TV programs, using the portable media player of your choice, remixing clips of movies into your own home movies, and much more.