Quote from: SpikeRight, this leads to part of my confusion: If the changes were so small, why all the hubbub among third party people who... certainly in many cases, were often presenting far more 'setting' than 'system'. Setting isn't really affected by rules, and if you are presenting rules... they why are you worried if the rules you started from are different now? You still are selling YOUR rules.

See? The existance of 3.5 isn't the confusion so much, its the stuff tossed off in threads like this where people bitch about how WotC shot their dog and stole their bible.

Also, to expand:

There are a variety of relatively minor changes acrosss the board between 3.0 and 3.5, as well as clarifications. It starts pretty much at the beginning, with some changes to classes. Some of them pretty significant too.

D&D is a very detailed engine. As such, all those changes have ripple effects one after the other. The game also rewards players for making good use of its parts. That's what Monte Cook refers to as "Rules Mastery". When you take these two things into consideration, the changes between 3.0 and 3.5 can be perceived as major for certain players.

Quote from: James McMurrayI could see a problem in sales dropping though. I'm sure most products designed for 3.0 stopped being bought shortly after 3.5 came out. Not necessarily because they weren't compliant, but because there was the possibility they might be, and besides look at all these shiny new 3.5 books.

Lesson: Fear sits at the driver's wheel of the masses.

That's why I ride in a giant chainsaw weilding robot to work.

Quote from: blakkieAh. In that context it makes the manager's actions at that store that was having a sale a lot more understandable.  Because he wasn't blowing out the WotC product itself.  Anything that was linked to 3.5 close enough in the customer's eyes but not WotC would become stale-dated much quicker.

exactly.

All the WotC stuff is still on the shelf and according to the store owner "WotC products out sell third-party 20-1 or more depending on the book". So besides the fact that he thinks 4ed will be announced soon, third-party stuf just does not sell for him, like it did in the begining.

Quote from: jrientsCould you please try again to tell me what facts I don't like?

I'm saying that calling someone "an idiot" who is engaging in "enemy action" is awfully bad form, when they're speculating about the TIMING of something that they know will SURELY come.

QuoteAnd seriously, this "I've got a family to feed" stuff is getting old, unless someone is forcing you to make your living this way.

Let me be perfectly clear here, when I point out that this is my full time job, I am NOT looking for sympathy or anything like that.

I am simply pointing out that it's natural that *I* talk about things in the industry like 4e, the RPGNow merger, etc because I am not a dispassionate observer.

I'm not someone who watches a sport on TV, I'm someone who plays that sport.

All I'm doing is pointing out all the reasons other than an insidious PR campaign behind people in the industry talking about 4e.

Quote from: James McMurrayOne of the huge parts of the hubbub was that the changes were so small. Lots of them were hard to keep track of, and you might play your 3.5 game for months before realizing you were still using a 3.0 rule.

Well, the changes were small, which is why some publishers with products in the pipeline went ahead and just released them.

But it turned out distributors and fans didn't WANT anything for the "old rules" of 3.0 anymore, no matter how small those changes were.

Thus the realization among publishers that they needed to take a long hard look at their product line, with an eye toward an even larger shift in the rules (in other words 4e).

Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckAll I'm doing is pointing out all the reasons other than an insidious PR campaign behind people in the industry talking about 4e.

And all I'm saying is that there are a lot of reasons to talk about 4e, one of which could be spin doctoring to push a few people towards some other product.

Also, I never called anyone an idiot.

Quote from: Consonant DudeOh, and I forget the ultimate rule in this: you better be too early than too late. Too careful than careless.

So even if we assumed that companies like Green Ronin are anticipating the next D&D too early, you better fucking believe that this is much preferable to not anticipating it at all, not preparing for it and getting it up the butt.

It's like when I go hiking. Yeah, I tend to bring a little too much stuff for my personnal safety and yeah, some people have teased me about it. On the other hand, I have never had any trouble I couldn't handle, in any situation (and I've been in extreme unexpected temperatures and all kind of sudden crap). I've also bailed a few fellow hikers from trouble.

Better to always be on the safe side, IMO.

In a lot of things, if you're too early too many times, then you actually end up losing.

Ever read "the boy who cried wolf"?  It appears Mr. Pramas never did.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jrientsI'm getting the impression that you're counting me as one of those people who pitches a fit when a new edition comes out.  While me and 3.x have had a colorful history, the record will show that I pretty much jump on the bandwagon with every new iteration of D&D.  Hell, if Mearls or one of the handful of other designers I like gets the job I'd look forward to a 4E with glee.

Personally, I hope that they end up going with Mike Mearls and Jonathan Tweet.  Hey, dare to dream and all that...

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditPersonally, I hope that they end up going with Mike Mearls and Jonathan Tweet.  Hey, dare to dream and all that...

RPGPundit

I have a sneaking suspicion that Mearls will be involved.

In fact, his hiring has spurred me to think 4e is closer, since he would be one of the first calls *I* would make were I in charge of the process.

Chuck

Quote from: RPGPunditIn a lot of things, if you're too early too many times, then you actually end up losing.

Ever read "the boy who cried wolf"?  It appears Mr. Pramas never did.

Your stubborness is unbelievable, and I don't even mean it in a bad way. But I do think in this case, you're overreacting.

I don't think him speculating about the release of 4e is akin to crying wolf. I'd do the same thing if I were him. That being said, perhaps there were strong quotes I didn't read. All I have seen, from memory, is that some guys like Pramas and Cook have been thinking D&D 4th will eventually come.

They're probably also wondering if 4e will still be open. Which again makes sense, considering this open license was far too generous.

Quote from: Consonant DudeThey're probably also wondering if 4e will still be open. Which again makes sense, considering this open license was far too generous.

I strongly disagree that the license has been too generous. We're in a VERY good time for gaming. As someone who has been in hobby for about 25 years, this is one of the best times for gaming I have ever lived through.

There are more games being produced and certainly WAY MORE D&D books being produced, a lot of which are very, very good.

Who benefits from a healthy hobby full of satisfied gamers?

Anyone? Bueller?

That's right, WOTC does.

Now to address this nonsense of publishers seeking to hurt WOTC, let's just look at the idiocy being peddled here.

We've seen designers called "idiots", accused of "enemy action" and now finally, "crying wolf".

My what a... colorful assortment of analogies we have going on here.

What haven't we seen? Oh yeah, quotes from any of these dastardly folks.

Let's look at a recent Chris Pramas summation of his company activity, shall we?

QuoteGreen Ronin still supports d20 but it's not all that we do. Our most active d20 line is Bleeding Edge, which specializes in short adventures. The first two, Mansion of Shadows and Beyond the Towers, are in stores now and the third and fourth (Dirge of the Damned and A Dreadful Dawn) are at print now and will be released in January and February respectively.


We just released the Deck of Many Things, a d20 accessory.


We are re-launching our Freeport setting in 2007 and that will have d20 support as well (most notably the d20 Freeport Companion). Crisis in Freeport, a d20 adventure that resolves the succession crisis, came out over the summer.


We also have current and active lines for two stand-alone games that use the OGL, Mutants & Masterminds and True20 Adventure Roleplaying.

And we are the design house for the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying line for Black Industries, which is part of Games Workshop's publishing wing (BL Publishing).

Lastly, Black Company was a d20 campaign setting we published, based on Glen Cook's classic series. We also did a d20 adaptation of Thieves' World and a Thieves' World Gift Set with all four original books plus a brand new adventure set in the classic era is coming out in January.

So let's take a look here... two OGL games (True 20 and M&M), one non-d20 game (Warhammer) and then Bleeding Edge adventures, Freeport, Black Company and Thieves World...

Huh... four VERY successful product lines aimed right at the heart of the core D&D audience and fully compliant with the latest edition of the game to boot.

What happens to these product lines when 4e is announced?

That's right... they go straight to clearance and entire lines possibly rethought.

In other words, any "enemy action" Pramas might be taken would hurt HIM more than it would hurt WOTC.

What a load of utter nonsense this whole idea is.

Chuck

Ooo here's some sharp enemy action straight from the front lines right here. Take a page from the Red Book and keep them in your sights!

QuoteGod, 4th edition D&D hasn't even been announced yet and I'm already sick of it. These days it seems like a day can hardly go by without another freakout thread on whether or not WotC is going to publish D&D 4E. Well, here's a newsflash for everyone: of course they are. That's the RPG business model in the print arena. You sell one edition and all the expansions you can for it until sales of new supplements drop to an unsustainable level. Then you do a new edition and reset the clock all over again. So it's not a question of if WotC is going to release 4E, but when it's going to happen.

The timing, I think, will tell us a lot about how D&D sales have been the last couple of years. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't expect to see 4E until 2008. I think the 3.5 launch was bungled enough that they wouldn't want to do 4E sooner than that unless they had to. So, if we see an announcement this August about a 2007 release date for the new edition I think that will speak volumes as the current health of the game.

The more pertinent issue for everyone else is whether the 4E rules will be put into the System Reference document and whether the d20 STL will continue. This is something I have no insight into. I could really see it going either way. With Charles Ryan laid off, the last person in a position of authority who was really behind the OGL is gone from there. On the other hand, stepping away from the OGL would cause them to take a PR hit and they may not want that affecting the 4E launch. Of course, gamers have a long history of making a big stink out of things and then going to buy this week's object d'outrage anyway, a fact the sales guys over there are surely aware of.

From WotC's point of view, I could see why they would not want to go through another d20 boom and bust with 4E. The thing is that the print market is hardly cluttered right now. There are maybe half a dozen companies that still regularly put out d20 material and even those releases are getting fewer and farther between. A middle path WotC might take is to just doing a licensing deal with the remaining good companies. That'd give some quality 3rd party support without cutting out the legs of the entire d20 industry. It would hit the PDF market pretty hard though.

The cold hard truth of the matter may be that what WotC does with the 4E and the OGL doesn't even matter anymore. D20 sales have been declining steadily since the release of 3.5. Companies have come up with their own variants that are not reliant on the D&D core books anymore and many of these are selling a lot better than d20 stuff these days. What happens with 4E will not affect the health of Mutants & Masterminds or True20, for example. Those are stand-alone games with their own player bases. Ditto for games like Spycraft and Arcana Unearthed.

Realistically though the soonest anything will be announced is GenCon Indy in August. Until then folks should relax and play some games. There are certainly plenty enough to go around.
__________________
Chris Pramas

So what he says here is, if 4e is announced this year it says something about how WOTC perceives the health of the hobby.

He doesn't predict it's coming at all. He just says if it DOES, that means the market's not so good from WOTC's perspective and that the announcement will be at GenCon if it does come.

What he does predict seems to be 2008 at the earliest, which would be at the early edge of the 8-10 year cycle that has ALWAYS seperated editions of D&D.

So... it looks like this whole thread is, yet again, a cartload of paranoiac horseshit unless someone has a real quote to show differently.

Pramas didn't predict 4e this year.

Mearls didn't accuse anyone of enemy action.

Looks like I've discovered who the real idiots are after all.

Edit: Link for the quote

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=258956&page=11

Chuck, you're trying to use logic against someone who has the delusion that he personally convinced GR to do True20 but was snubbed of any recognition.  The reality is more likely that GR was secretly scrambling due to the disappearance of their distributor so wasn't in product announcement mode.

Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckI strongly disagree that the license has been too generous. We're in a VERY good time for gaming. As someone who has been in hobby for about 25 years, this is one of the best times for gaming I have ever lived through.

There are more games being produced and certainly WAY MORE D&D books being produced, a lot of which are very, very good.

Who benefits from a healthy hobby full of satisfied gamers?

Anyone? Bueller?

That's right, WOTC does.

I don't know. I too have been in this hobby for over 25 years and I don't see clear signs that this is one of the best time ever. There's some good and some bad. Plus from numerous reports speaking to hobby shops, seeing some close and reading various interviews with industry types: I see a time of change.

I think sale numbers would be needed to determine if this hobby is in good health, progressing, regressing, etc...

The license is just crazy to me. It's very clear to me from the first two years of 3e that the OGL part was completely unnecessary. D20 alone would have been way more than enough. It seems also that WotC have realized that they do indeed need to publish settings and adventures. With stuff like the big setting contest (and subsequently all the Eberron products that came out of it) and more recently, several huge adventures such as Ravenloft. This makes me question Dancey's rationalization for the license even more.

I'll be curious to see if WotC will continue opening 4e. It's difficult to reverse the damage now.

The biggest point of contention for me was to open the engine forever. They could have limited this to 10 years and it would have been more than enough, IMO.