bmfrosty
Explorer
This has been a post that for me has been a long time coming. I think WotC can and should support multiple editions of D&D.
They've been in this mode since they bought the product from TSR where they're only supporting one edition at a time, and frankly, it creates great amount of disruption for them and alienates fans every time they stop supporting a product that their fans like.
I think they should keep a maintenance version of 3e and for that version they should be publishing alternate stats for their new 5e adventures. Maybe even publish two versions of each new adventure for the hardback. One for 5e/onednd rules and another for their new 3.x maintenance version.
The other thing that I think they could support and probably should support would be a couple of Classic D&D versions meant to support running in OSR style. This would take the form of two different things. The first would be a version of Old School Essentials Advanced. They should pay Gavin Norman for this. The only change that I would make would be to the to-hit tables and saving throw tables to smooth them out (that's another rant that involves Target 20 and the very early decision by Gygax to extend from 9 levels to ~14 (the math supports 14, but could be 13 or 15, but the wizard in OD&D has a spell table to 16, but is functionally unlimited - I should really not get started)).
Optional changes would include d20 style ability checks (I don't means skill, more about setting a DR, having the player roll a d20 and add bonuses and meet the DR) and saving throws (5 arbitrary numbers is bad), optional ways to deal with death (more nuanced than just dead), maybe that funky cleric spell table, and anything else that tends to get house-ruled anyway.
Support for this would mostly be refreshed versions of old adventures (rewritten for clarity and brevity and packaged in bundles to support hardcovers) and what's seen in the sizable OSR community already.
They've been in this mode since they bought the product from TSR where they're only supporting one edition at a time, and frankly, it creates great amount of disruption for them and alienates fans every time they stop supporting a product that their fans like.
I think they should keep a maintenance version of 3e and for that version they should be publishing alternate stats for their new 5e adventures. Maybe even publish two versions of each new adventure for the hardback. One for 5e/onednd rules and another for their new 3.x maintenance version.
The other thing that I think they could support and probably should support would be a couple of Classic D&D versions meant to support running in OSR style. This would take the form of two different things. The first would be a version of Old School Essentials Advanced. They should pay Gavin Norman for this. The only change that I would make would be to the to-hit tables and saving throw tables to smooth them out (that's another rant that involves Target 20 and the very early decision by Gygax to extend from 9 levels to ~14 (the math supports 14, but could be 13 or 15, but the wizard in OD&D has a spell table to 16, but is functionally unlimited - I should really not get started)).
Optional changes would include d20 style ability checks (I don't means skill, more about setting a DR, having the player roll a d20 and add bonuses and meet the DR) and saving throws (5 arbitrary numbers is bad), optional ways to deal with death (more nuanced than just dead), maybe that funky cleric spell table, and anything else that tends to get house-ruled anyway.
Support for this would mostly be refreshed versions of old adventures (rewritten for clarity and brevity and packaged in bundles to support hardcovers) and what's seen in the sizable OSR community already.
