Will there ever be new editions of the major systems?

[Morrus]

Everybody speaking how they like is one thing and I am not denying anybody that, but the owner of a thing gets to name what the thing is called? Do they not?

The owner gets to decide what they call it. That’s all. They can hope that everybody else goes along with it. Usually they do. Sometimes they don’t. Human language isn’t a top-down for phenomenon. Hell, even entire countries don’t get to decide what other countries call them, let alone the mere makers of consumer products.

But that’s all a distraction. As I said earlier, the question of “is it a new edition?” isn’t a branding issue, it’s a definitional issue. The definition of the word “edition” isn’t decided by anybody—language is whatever is in common use. Thus my Ford tricycle example above.

 

[Voadam]

and what specifically is wrong with WoTC's branding?

Consistency and coherence with traditional D&D edition naming. TSR 2e was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition. This was not the second edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which had already had (in order) Dungeons and Dragon (OD&D), Basic Dungeons and Dragons (Holmes Basic), Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1e), B/X Dungeons and Dragons (Moldvay/Cook Basic), and BECMI Dungeons and Dragons (Mentzer Basic).

WotC from the start with their new 3e broke from what 2e D&D meant (second edition of AD&D but backwards compatible with 1e AD&D). 3e, 4e, and 5e are not editions of AD&D that are backwards compatible with earlier D&D editions but are different versions of D&D in general. 3.5 could be considered a 3e second edition, 4e essentials could be considered a second edition of 4e, 5e 24 could be considered a second edition of 5e, all in the way that 2e is a second edition of 1e AD&D.

2e AD&D was designed to be backwards compatible with 1e, it changed initiative and class and race specifics and monster magic resistance and xp and psionics, and reissued corebooks to do so. This is just like all the half editions of the WotC era.

TSR was also inconsistent in its edition stuff, BECMI Basic could have been a Basic B/X 2e, and RC a Basic B/X 3e in the way AD&D 2e was a second edition of AD&D. Holmes was sort of a halfway between OD&D and 1e, but the various following basics were designed to be a compatible line of a different D&D from AD&D and OD&D (in part to try and avoid Arneson royalties from OD&D). But the Basics were not labelled as different editions from each other.

It is a minor thing but you now have under WotC Original D&D/0e/zero edition, 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e, 5e, plus the whole weirdness of how the various Basic D&Ds fit in as they are not in the edition line of D&D the way TSR 1e and 2e D&D are.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It is not just money it is ownership. Why would the owner not be entitled to call a thing whatever they want? Why do you get a say? Ok, occasionally a brand owner looses control of a brand , somewhat, "kleenex", "xerox" and the like but it is very rare and what specifically is wrong with WoTC's branding?

As @Morrus said above, ownership does not give you the right to make everyone agree with your idiosyncratic definitions and interpretations, but using money to control the narrative unfortunately (IMO) often does.

Also per Morrus's suggestion I'm not going to go into why I disagree with WotC's definition of "edition" (you all know why), but I will stand against the idea that they have a right to push their agenda onto the wider hobby by virtue of $$ and the influence it brings.

 

[Thomas Shey]

As @Morrus said above, ownership does not give you the right to make everyone agree with your idiosyncratic definitions and interpretations, but using money to control the narrative unfortunately (IMO) often does.

Also per Morrus's suggestion I'm not going to go into why I disagree with WotC's definition of "edition" (you all know why), but I will stand against the idea that they have a right to push their agenda onto the wider hobby by virtue of $$ and the influence it brings.

Do you have some evidence, at least outside the D&D-adjacent sphere, that anyone else cares what they call an edition? I can't say the two most recent games I bought that were second editions called themselves anything but that; even Talislanta, which didn't continue the numeric progression didn't claim they weren't a new editions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do you have some evidence, at least outside the D&D-adjacent sphere, that anyone else cares what they call an edition? I can't say the two most recent games I bought that were second editions called themselves anything but that; even Talislanta, which didn't continue the numeric progression didn't claim they weren't a new editions.

What last two games were those? I've seen plenty of modern games that use "edition" in the same way 1e to 2e did (mostly compatible but with some changes) but not like 3e to 4e and 4e to 5e did (different games).

 

[Thomas Shey]

What last two games were those? I've seen plenty of modern games that use "edition" in the same way 1e to 2e did (mostly compatible but with some changes) but not like 3e to 4e and 4e to 5e did (different games).

I have to point out that hard-line distinction doesn't apply to how people described them even 40 years ago, though, so I don't think you can specifically point at WOTC there. As noted, most BRP games have been fairly compatible with prior versions, but if they made significant changes they still called them new editions.

The truth is a new edition as compared to something like a revised printing is always a judgment call. If anything, I tend to look dubiously at games that don't call their new versions new editions. I think Pathfinder was a little coy about this with Remastered.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The biggest was that they nuked their main product lines. Their Big Three (Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage) always had a vibe going of imminent ending, and they eventually published a set of three books (plus IIRC one for all the other lines) where that actually happened. This was then followed by the New World of Darkness which, while it certainly had some things going for it, never had the same appeal as the original WoD.

This was a bizarre self-own, caused -- IMO -- but White Wolf leaning into an audience that bought the books to read and were excited about the metaplot, rather than the people who actually used them to play.

So you give the readers an end point to stop reading the oWoD books by ending all of the lines. (Yes, there was always a strong fin de siècle element to the oWoD, but as we see in the real world, you can just keep nudging the apocalypse off into the future indefinitely, if you do it right.) And the readers got to the end of the oWoD and decided this was an opportunity to spend their dollars on something else going forward.

The remaining gamers who had gotten pretty vocal about the quality of the books going way downhill were being asked to finance the whole operation starting over again. Some of the lines, like VtR, were definitely better, while others, like Mage: The Awakening, had a harder time articulating what was cooler and more exciting about the new lines, which didn't exactly send the oWoD players rushing to switch over to nWoD.

And, of course, this is all around the same time that WotC was coincidentally pushing a return to a less-dusty, modernized 3E D&D, which almost certainly bled off at least a certain amount of oWoD gamer dollars.

They were also producing a huge number of product lines, with varying levels of relation to one another as well as various levels of using the same rules. You had the World of Darkness with its original Big Five (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, and Changeling), followed by assorted other product lines (Hunter, Mummy, Demon, Kindred of the East, probably something I'm forgetting), some of which required another core book. You also had the three games in the Trinity Continuum: AeonTrinity, Aberrant, and Adventure!. There was Exalted, which tried to challenge D&D for the fantasy space (I remember they were doing a promotion where you could send them your PHB and they'd send you the Exalted core book). I'm guessing they were learning some of the same lessons as TSR did about splitting the customer base too many ways.

They also had a hard time deciding whether these other lines were connected to the oWoD, which could in theory draw in some customers (especially the readers, who loved the hints of lore connections between Exalted and the oWoD), but which also likely made the customers who already felt overwhelmed by the amount of content roll their eyes and decide they didn't want to pick up another 20 books so that their White Wolf games would be "complete."

And eventually, the owners sold out to CCCP (the Icelandic company making Eve Online), who were flush with cash but pretty soon had to contract, and the RPG side were the ones suffering for it.

And, of course, in the 21st century, the ownership and management made a lot of bizarre and very public mistakes with the line, which kept lots of people away, making the lines less profitable for the ownership and making FLGSes less likely to shell out their money for books that could just gather dust on store shelves or, at worst, get the owners into some uncomfortable questions about what they were selling in their stores.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I have to point out that hard-line distinction doesn't apply to how people described them even 40 years ago, though, so I don't think you can specifically point at WOTC there. As noted, most BRP games have been fairly compatible with prior versions, but if they made significant changes they still called them new editions.

The truth is a new edition as compared to something like a revised printing is always a judgment call. If anything, I tend to look dubiously at games that don't call their new versions new editions. I think Pathfinder was a little coy about this with Remastered.

My point is that sometimes enough changes are made that calling the result a "new edition" is IMO a poor definition of what you've actually done, which is make a new game with similar terminology and the same name. If you don't go that far with your changes (like 3.5 or 5.5), and in particular if backwards compatibility is a design goal (not really the case in 3e, 4e or 5e), calling the result a new edition is appropriate. Lots of games use this metric and call their new release a new edition. Examples include Star Trek Adventures, the various Cyberpunk iterations, Shadowrun, L5R until AEG sold the IP (except WotC's d20 version), 13th Age, Mutants & Masterminds, etc.

 

[Parmandur]

An anecdotal number of your friends didn't like DH. Sucks for them but Darrington has done reprints of the DH books. Demand is there.

I'm not surprised DH KSs did less than D&D KSs of the same product. It's expected. Doesn't mean DH is not doing well.

Only time will tell. Let's see in a year from now what happened.

The Kickstarters are not quite here or there in terms of reception: the game is getting sold in retail quite directly.

 

[GMMichael]

In the 50 year history of the hobby, Daggerheart's positioning is really something rather new and different. Interesting to see where they go with it.

You must be seeing something I'm not. Are you suggesting the game is innovative, or that few games have a built-in online following at the get-go?