One thing from 1E to 3E was that while there were minor tweaks from each edition to another, by and large you could grab an old module or supplement and use it. With Wizards making 4E incompatible with 3E and earlier editions, this is no longer the case. In conjuction with the OGL this opens up the possibility of 3E continuing on its own feet, exclusive of Wizards.
Is there enough of a fan base to support such a move? Perhaps, but I think the thing that would hurt such a move is that there is no clear leader in doing so.
Pathfinder is releasing a 3E version, but so are others.
So, for the sake of discussion…
Is 3E still an economically viable system?
Should there be a 3.9E to consolidate the fans of 3E?
… by and large you could grab an old module or supplement and use it. With Wizards making 4E incompatible with 3E and earlier editions, this is no longer the case.
I have to disagree with this. Modules are generally fluff and could actually be completely devoid of mechanics and still be viable. I will say that is it hard to do with traps and monsters but it was pretty hard to do with monsters from 2e to 3e. I don’t think the mechanical difference between 3e and 4e is very much different when 2e to 3e was, it is more the philosophy behind 4e that makes it so much more different then previous editions.
Now to answer you questions.... yes.
There are plenty of 3e based products out there are brand spanking new (pathfinder for example). I fully expect 3e to continue for a while; a lot of people are just too darn invested in it (financially, emotionally, and in hourly).
I think there is a market for 3E products because not only are there differences between 3E and 4E, but there is a huge philosophical shift from 3E to 4E. It would be as if 2E never existed and the game went straight from 1E to 3E: the philosophy is quite different.
If it was just an issue of mechanics, 3E players would shift to 4E as 4E became richer in resources and 3E gamemasters could shift from short term to long term effects. But while 3E was basically a continuation of the 2E philosophy of maximizing PC flexibility while retaining game balance, 4E is by design a lot more rigid and abstract, and has numerous philosophical differences that have been described in previous threads: (3E is Capitalism and 4E is Socialism, 3E is MacGiver and 4E is A-Team, 3E is IBM/Microsoft Windows and 4E is Apple, etc).
Actually, the MacGiver/A-Team reference was coined by Jim Goings in another thread. We had a whole thread discussing the differences between 3rd and 4th Edition, and it goes a lot deeper than having 20 vs 30 levels or having feats vs powers, etc.
We haven’t yet figured out what kind of car 4th Edition is. It reminds me of my Pontiac G6, which replaced the Grand Am, but I’m not really thrilled with it. It has a lot of nice features and drives on the road just fine, but it is not well suited for off-road driving. But I think someone could come up with a better car-description of 4E.
Is 3E still an economically viable system?
Should there be a 3.9E to consolidate the fans of 3E?
Yes.
Yes.
I agree that it was a huge jump in philosophy. I also completely understand the lack of support for older modules. It goes beyond selection of gods changing and lack of the blood war. Entire settings have changed to the point of no longer having a place to fit said modules. I’m not an enemy of change in general, in fact I loved 3.0 when it came out as I felt it fixed a lot of problems with 2e. But I am against the changes that 4e has brought both mechanically and to fluff.
That being said, I do not think that 4e will be as successful as 3.x. I do believe that 3.x will continue to have a strong following and that there will be plenty of supliments that will be released for it. There will also be a nice selection of modules as well. Pathfinder will drive the way for this content and the existing content for 3.x makes me quite content.
I definitely think 3rd edition edition is still a viable system. Despite my enjoyment of 4th edition, I haven’t stopped playing 3rd edition either (I have a campaign going in both). And I think that, moving forward, Pathfinder could very well be that product that ties those staying with 3rd edition. I could see it becoming the standard base on which third party publishers build 3rd edition games.
That being said, I do not think that 4e will be as successful as 3.x. I do believe that 3.x will continue to have a strong following and that there will be plenty of supliments that will be released for it. There will also be a nice selection of modules as well. Pathfinder will drive the way for this content and the existing content for 3.x makes me quite content.
While I agree that 4E won’t be as successful as 3E, I think it is for other reasons than the idea that 4E is different. I think it’s mostly because the landscape of gaming has shifted fundamentally in the 8 years since 3E came out. Everquest came out about a year before 3E and revolutionized online gaming. While UO was the first, EQ moved MMOs to the wider audience and WoW has taken that baton and run faster and farther than anyone could have imagined.
I think we will find that in the next generation (kids born in the 1990s and more recently), tabletop gaming will become obsolete. I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I truly believe that PnP games will become like VHS. They will still exist, and you can still purchase them, but the vast majority of consumers will have abandoned it.
I hope Pathfinder succeeds. I like it, but I’m having a hard time seeing why people who hate 4E seem to like Pathfinder so much. Personally, I find some of the changes to be inane and others that I just don’t like at all. I have about the same reaction to those changes that I do to some of the 4E ones too. That’s not to say I don’t like the system in general, but I think I’d actually prefer just to continue with 3.5 rather than buy 3.75 material. So, while I hope that Pathfinder really captures a market, I don’t see it as being nearly as successful as 4E, and that puts it way behind 3E on the success level.
I think we will find that in the next generation (kids born in the 1990s and more recently), tabletop gaming will become obsolete. I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I truly believe that PnP games will become like VHS. They will still exist, and you can still purchase them, but the vast majority of consumers will have abandoned it.
I think there is more hope for that generation than you give credit to. I happen to have a younger brother Luke who was born in 1990 and is even more of D&D player than I am. While my older brother and I had played lots of D&D, we had stopped playing PnP games by the time he would have been old enough. His first real experience actually came from kids his own age. He started his playing under a GM who bought books because he liked the D&D video games and wanted to experience “the real thing”. And they still get together and play regularly. So don’t count PnP games out just yet.
I, too, don’t really see what Cameron’s saying. Excuse me in case the example is innapropriate here, but to me that feels like saying porn made sex obsolete. It’s just not the same thing.
I myself was born in 1990, and I just recently got into this because I didn’t really know what it was long before now. I have been reading the FR books since I was a kid and enjoying them, but now that I found the actual game and have gotten involved, I am loving it. So don’t count us “youngsters” out quite yet. Sure there will always be more WoW and other video game players like that, but D&D will stay popular for a long time I think. Especially with new technologies and other advancements, it has become easier to play and keep up with your games with stuff like online boards and character sheets and new ways to share and make stuff for D&D. I’m not too worried about it
Actually I think that, rather than “kill” RPG, technology will just give us a new way to play it. Which is not MMORPG, to be sure, that’s a quite different bird. Well, until it evolves to the point that it’s as open-ended as regular RPG (and allows for DM control, adventures, stuff like that), but that sounds like the distant future to me. Maybe when I’m old…
I, too, don’t really see what Cameron’s saying. Excuse me in case the example is innapropriate here, but to me that feels like saying porn made sex obsolete. It’s just not the same thing.
Don’t want to drag the metaphor out too far, but that’s comparing apples and oranges. A better comparison is internet availability versus print magazines. They still exist. They still make money, but not nearly as much as internet.
Btw, in case anyone is wondering - obsolete does not necessarily mean that something isn’t made any more. There are multiple definitions, the most common one which means “of a kind or style no longer current.” PnP will continue to live just as CDs still exist even in the age of MP3s. Just as books will even with e-book readers. But it will become less and less important.
I’ll cite myself and many people I know as examples - play-by-post gaming has for all intents and purposes replaced F2F for me.
PnP isn’t dead and may very well never die, which is why I was deliberately careful with my words, but I wanted to point out an element that hasn’t been discussed with regards to 3E and its popularity. Simply put, it didn’t have a whole lot of competition except from within the PnP gaming world, and with the juggernaut of WotC there wasn’t really even much of that. But a whole new medium of gaming came out which is changing the face of gaming. Something as unrelated to RPG as XBox360 and its headset has taken something a group of ubergeeks did (networking through microphone and headphones to play Counterstrike) and moved it mainstream. Networking no longer requires face to face contact. More evidence - this board itself.
Again, I don’t think PnP will die, but comparisons between 3E, 4E, and Pathfinder are about as viable as comparisons between Hank Aaron and Sammy Sosa. Too much has changed, environments, capabilities, performance enhancers, etc to really honestly compare items with any hope of accuracy. That’s one reason why 4E was so adamant about trying to move into the digital age with Virtual Tabletop and character visualizer. The production sucks, sure, but the vision is right on.
Cam, I know what your saying and even agree. I just disagree on the time frame. Until gaming can be as versatile as PnP I don’t see it as making PnP obsolete. Unless you consider it obsolete already, that is.
Also, I think that Pathfinder will have more longevity than 4e will. It may or may not make as much money (something I don’t care about from a consumer standpoint) but I do think it will likely be more successful in the long run. This is only personal perspective, of course and only time will tell. Either way as I see Pathfinder as being an extension of 3.x I don’t think saying that it is way behind the success level of 3.x is a valid statement. I rather think of it as extending the success of 3.x over 4e. But perhaps thats just a matter of perspective.
I think it is easy to see why people who dislike 4e like Pathfinder. For one, most people who dislike 4e like 3.x and Pathfinder is just an extension of that.
Also, back on point here - a bunch of my friends all went to GenCon and have had the opportunity to review a lot of the Forgotten Realms material. We are currently playing in a FR campaign and our entire group hates the changes that 4e is bringing to that setting. There have never been changes so large and negetive to a setting because of a version change. They dislike the changes to the point of ignoring the 4e altogether. Personally I lothe to see how this will affect the novels. I do hope that other settings don’t also follow the way of the post apoc FR, but I don’t really care because we plan on ignoring any such changes.
