Wizards of the Coast to reprint D&D 3.5

[prosfilaes]

Books that make revisions to the text rather than just correcting errors in spelling would have to have a completely new ISBN.

Who's going to make them? Seriously, you say "would have to", but Aerie back in the late 1980s-early 1990s, published a number of books under the ISBN 1559029838: Black Beauty, Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities, Wuthering Heights, etc. This was exceptional; they were selling mixed boxes to Wal-Mart, so they didn't have to worry about individual ISBNs.

To take another, more minor example: all the errata at GURPS Basic Set: Characters, Second Printing Errata has been fixed in the most recent printing of GURPS Basic Set: Characters. But they're still using the ISBN, despite adding sentences and changing whole paragraphs. GURPS Cyberpunk is another examples; on top of the errata, the first printings came with the image all the way to the edge of the cover, and later printings switched to having a black border around the edge with GURPS and Steve Jackson Games outside the illustrated area.

The point remains: if a company wants to reuse an ISBN, the only issue is they won't be able to distinguish older and newer books under the same ISBN. If the only difference is a new cover and some errata, WotC may not care, Amazon won't, and the FLGS certainly won't.

 

[Rabulias]

As much as I would love to see this happen, I believe it is far more likely that the German retailer misunderstood the announcement about the AD&D core book reprints.

 

[mudbunny]

For what it's worth, I poked WOtC, and Trevor hadn't heard of this before.

 

[KJSEvans]

If Wizards ever decided to compete with Paizo for the 3.5 crowd, they could always do the unpublished - or third partied - settings for 3.5.

Official, full color Ravenloft, Mysteria, Birthright, Planescape, etc., with 3.5 rules. Maybe even Greyhawk (which had some treatment in the 3rd edition days). I'm a settings junkie -- I know I'd buy it, and I have zero intention of ever playing 3.5 again.

 

[Nellisir]

If this is true (I'm skeptical), it suggests something to me along the lines of WotC's designer/development stable is getting thin, and more budget cuts may be underway/in the pipeline.

Interesting if true.

 

[Loonook]

Who's going to make them? Seriously, you say "would have to", but Aerie back in the late 1980s-early 1990s, published a number of books under the ISBN 1559029838: Black Beauty, Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities, Wuthering Heights, etc. This was exceptional; they were selling mixed boxes to Wal-Mart, so they didn't have to worry about individual ISBNs.

To take another, more minor example: all the errata at GURPS Basic Set: Characters, Second Printing Errata has been fixed in the most recent printing of GURPS Basic Set: Characters. But they're still using the ISBN, despite adding sentences and changing whole paragraphs. GURPS Cyberpunk is another examples; on top of the errata, the first printings came with the image all the way to the edge of the cover, and later printings switched to having a black border around the edge with GURPS and Steve Jackson Games outside the illustrated area.

The point remains: if a company wants to reuse an ISBN, the only issue is they won't be able to distinguish older and newer books under the same ISBN. If the only difference is a new cover and some errata, WotC may not care, Amazon won't, and the FLGS certainly won't.

These are came about previous to ISO designations of 10 digits without the check-digit summaries from companies who are not following the ISO practice. Per Hasbro/Wizards and its practices in the use of ISO 2108 as seen in the previous listing I believe that Hasbro will follow this.

Hasbro seems to follow ISO protocol. SJG, as a small press, may have used dupe numbers in ignorance of the practice (which is strange as it has been around for almost 40 years). Aerie... Well, Aerie is one of the least trustworthy practitioners of anything in publishing and shouldn't be used for anything to do with anything, much less ISBN assignment arguments.

 

[prosfilaes]

Hasbro seems to follow ISO protocol. SJG, as a small press, may have used dupe numbers in ignorance of the practice (which is strange as it has been around for almost 40 years).

Why would they want to follow it? It's a bad idea. Steve Jackson Games wants to print GURPS Cyberpunk (1st Edition) and have it run smoothly through the system. They don't want anybody to hear that GURPS Cyberpunk is out of print because ISBN XYZ is out of print because they changed a couple sentences in errata during a reprint.

 

[Daztur]

As far as what the first adventure path was, it depends on your definition of adventure path. The DL modules are based on a set story line, while the giant and drow ones are based on locations with very little to nothing in the way of a set story line, that makes the DL modules a lot more like modern adventure paths than the Giant and Drow ones, at least for me.

 

[Loonook]

Why would they want to follow it? It's a bad idea. Steve Jackson Games wants to print GURPS Cyberpunk (1st Edition) and have it run smoothly through the system. They don't want anybody to hear that GURPS Cyberpunk is out of print because ISBN XYZ is out of print because they changed a couple sentences in errata during a reprint.

Which is weird when the book is out of print and they don't seem to mind. Again, pointed out that WOTC has a record of turning these reprints into a new 13-digit ISBN, they update their own, and SJG and Cyberpunk is the example? I mean, just my pure laziness prevents too much.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Scylla]

I don't find this news all that surprising, and I actually think it makes good business sense.

There is a big difference between actively supporting an older edition and simply reprinting the core rulebooks (updated or no). WotC's approach of "it's 4e or nothing" didn't deter the many 1e, 3e, and PF players, and merely reprinting a few older rulebooks shouldn't scare interested folks away from 5e.

Indeed, there's money to be made from the 3e players and completists who'd like to have an updated book on their shelf (storing & using separate errata is a pain). If a person has decided they have no interest in checking out 5e and want to stick to an older edition, why not sell something to them they might buy? I don't even play 3e anymore but I'd be tempted to pick up a copy of each core book, and that's another $90 in WotC's pockets.

At this point the wise thing for WotC to do, IMHO, would be to fully support the new edition, while both purposely not denigrating* those sticking with earlier editions and tossing them the occasional reprint.

*At times the feeling I personally got from WotC's initial 4e marketing was "You're pretty stupid if you stick with the inferior edition you're playing [3e] and don't try this," and I don't think that was the best approach to adopt.