sauromatian wrote:
In the early 80s, OD&D was marketed as being the open-ended version of the game, & continued to appear in catalogs until the late 80s. Similarly, 1st ed AD&D hardbacks continued to be printed for a couple of years after 2nd ed.

You are correct, but I was extrapolating when the "sea change" occured that moved most people to the new edition.  I think 1st Ed PHBs were still be printed into the 90s, correct?  But the bulk of the crowd had switched, the new books weren't attracting any new gamers but mostly (IMO) being used as replacement books for diehards.

For example, we started playing in 1978 with the release of the PHB, and never even saw an OD&D set or rulebook for months, and didn't care about them when we did (we were of course playing "Advanced" D&D!   ).  I suspect that's exactly what happens with the release of each new edition.

Looking back on it it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect a new version of a game every 8-10 years.....I think most of the beef from my generation was that while OD&D, 1st and 2nd edition could co-exist somewhat, 3rd edition was such a radical break (it is essentially a new game with the same names) it polarized the gaming community to an unhealthy extent.  I knew lots of 1st ed guys that bought 2nd ed stuff, and vice versa, but I know very few from my generation that buy 3/3.5 stuff to use, and vice versa.  

I like the look of a lot of the newer stuff, and I buy it to read or get ideas from, and some of the stuff is really good (for example the Nyambe sourcebook to name one example).  Unfortunately every new edition that comes out that is NOT backwards compatible will just further segment the audience.  It will be fun to see what 4th Edition gamers are saying about the 5th edition sometime in 2015 or so...

Mike B.

Badmike wrote:3rd edition was such a radical break (it is essentially a new game with the same names) it polarized the gaming community to an unhealthy extent.  I knew lots of 1st ed guys that bought 2nd ed stuff, and vice versa, but I know very few from my generation that buy 3/3.5 stuff to use, and vice versa.

Now that's a chapter of gaming history which has been very obscure to me. I was participating in a couple of 2 ed. groups when the new edition came out. In one, most of the members were graduating college & so would have been moving on anyway; my data is thus skewed. My RPGA group stated they would try to hang on to 2nd ed. for as long as possible, but I didn't keep up with them either.

The reaction to 3rd ed. I saw was overwhelmingly in the oppposite direction.  All the other gamers I knew [other than the two groups noted above] had either never switched to 2nd ed. [the older ones] or had never played D&D at all [the younger ones]. They all saw 3rd edition as the second coming of Christ in RPG form.

From then on, I might spy extensive 2nd. ed. libraries on the shelves of 3rd ed. players, but never heard any sentiment of nostalgia about it. I wondered about the matter however, & knew that such groups must be out there somewhere.

I guess it all goes to show just how localized & grass roots that game groups are. The opinions of the people who surround you seem like they are the whole world, & others may give no hint of their existence.

sauromatian wrote:From then on, I might spy extensive 2nd. ed. libraries on the shelves of 3rd ed. players, but never heard any sentiment of nostalgia about it. I wondered about the matter however, & knew that such groups must be out there somewhere.

2E, in of itself, doesn't generate a lot of nostalgia.  Many of the people that currently play that edition started off as 1E folk and included the 2E rules much like a form of errata.  The people that started with 2E were generally more willing to jump to 3E.

3E, likewise, probably won't generate much that much nostalgia.  However, as it's expensive as hell, you won't see people dumping their 3E books in short order.

deimos3428 wrote:2E, in of itself, doesn't generate a lot of nostalgia.  Many of the people that currently play that edition started off as 1E folk and included the 2E rules much like a form of errata.  The people that started with 2E were generally more willing to jump to 3E.

3E, likewise, probably won't generate much that much nostalgia.  However, as it's expensive as hell, you won't see people dumping their 3E books in short order.

The best things out of 2nd edition were streamlined core rulebooks with indexes, the Forgotten Realms, and the Core Rules CD.  If none of those caught your fancy you could probably jump to 3rd edition very happily.  We were one of the 1st ed groups that jumped to 2nd edition and viewed it merely as a "streamlined" 1st ed, houseruling it all over the place.  Many of those "oldtimers" that jumped to 3rd ed, on further inspection, probably started with 2nd edition and didn't feel a lot of nostalgia for the earlier editions.

Interestingly, some of the game store guys I mentioned played 2nd ed D&D with us back in the mid 90s, until 3rd edition came out. Never playing 1st ed, they didn't have the gaming roots the rest of us did, and easily switched over.  

I think a lot of the 3/3.5 crowd will stay just where they are.  As Contrarian so aptly put it, WOTC are in the puzzling business of shrinking their customer base while maximizing their money base.  It will be interesting to see just what happens....a lot of naysaying 3rd editioners will surely be sucked into buying the new rulebooks, what happens beyond that will be the true test...if they realize they can continue to play "their" game forever, the segmentation of D&Ders will continue another generation.

Mike B.

It's worth pointing out that 3E* "repolarized" the gaming world when it arrived.  1E* & 2E* have a very cozy co-existence now, but that was not always the case.  It used to be "us vs. them", and we liked it that way.

3E came along and everything changed.  Those flea-bitten no-good newfangled 2E players were suddenly on the side of good.  (Except for those traitorous bastards that migrated to 3E, of course!)  Some 1E players migrated to 2E, but the lines of battle had changed...they were no longer the enemy, so it was a non-event.  I don't think a lot of true "original" 2E players still exist, though.

Do I think that this will happen again?  Maybe.  

4E will repolarize the players, that process has already started.  However, the division will be a lot more complicated and difficult to predict.  Here's how I think it'll play out, with some rough estimates on the percentages that I just made up:

* Some will drop D&D to try alternative games (50%)
*  Some will move to 4E (30%)
* Some will try to "hang on" to 3E, but that's sort of a sinking ship.  There will not be a lot of 3E players in 5-10 years. (10%)
* 3E is a fundamentally different game from 1E, so I think it's unlikely that many players will fall into the 1E/2E crowd.  Some will, but not many. (10%)

So in summary, WotC just made a huge mistake unless they can more than triple their profits from their remaining customers.  I'm betting they can, actually, but it's still sad news from D&D community perspective.  Half would be going to other games.  Less, as I didn't include the percentage that would drop roleplaying altogether in disgust.  (20%?  Maybe more?)

* I'm comparing more than just "core rulebooks" here -- which are pretty similar across editions.

JohnGaunt wrote:Has anybody (including WotC) conducted and published any market research on 4e's impact?  Hasbro must have some serious experience and data at its fingertips; have they shared any of it?

What about the retailers and non-WotC game companies?  Do they plan on doing any research/pools/conferences, or are they going to wing it?

I don't know to get a list of gamers . . . buy some Hasbro/WotC customer list containing addresses and phone numbers?  Post on messageboards/websites?  Survey a generic male aged 12-42?

All good questions.  Hasbro apparently does of research, but they're selective in what they release publically.  For example, they did a lot of market research when the first acquired WOTC, but most of the results they shared publically were about identifying the "heavy use" players.  I don't know if they did any research comparing D&D and non-D&D players.

Likewise, before WOTC released the plastic D&D Miniatures, they did some research and predictions about how the ebay aftermarket would look. They predicted (pretty accurately) what ebay prices would look like when justifying the randomized boxes.

I get the impression most of their research now is telling them that "online" is the way to go.  They are planning to recruit playtesters from the RPGA and WOTC message board members.  (I think reveals a problem with D&D development -- it's only tested on people who already play a lot of D&D; they need to do some tests with 10-year olds who've never touched this stuff before to see if its still self-teachable.  A game that's not self-teachable limits the customer base.)

Somebody really should do a large-scale survey of young males' recreational and gaming habits, but I don't know of anybody who has.  If I wanted to do it online, I would start at websites that skew to the age-range without being gamer-centric.  UnderGroundOnline? Fark? Maxim?

I don't even know if there's a solid figure for the number of hobby gamers out there. Some industry experts (like Ken Hite) try to ballpark it from sales, but game store sales figures are self-reported and fuzzy.  (Nielsen BookScan probably traps some sales data from general book stores, but I've never seen figures.)  Dragon Magazine sales figures might be a rough indicator of the ups-and-downs, and have to be announced annually in the magazine itself.

deimos3428 wrote:It's worth pointing out that 3E* "repolarized" the gaming world when it arrived.  1E* & 2E* have a very cozy co-existence now, but that was not always the case.  It used to be "us vs. them", and we liked it that way.

3E came along and everything changed.  Those flea-bitten no-good newfangled 2E players were suddenly on the side of good.  (Except for those traitorous bastards that migrated to 3E, of course!)  Some 1E players migrated to 2E, but the lines of battle had changed...they were no longer the enemy, so it was a non-event.  I don't think a lot of true "original" 2E players still exist, though.

Do I think that this will happen again?  Maybe.  

I agree somewhat.  However, as shown by my example that started this thread, I doubt the 3E crowd will ever feel much of a kinship or draw to the pre-2000 D&D gaming model.  

However, we can thank 3E for stopping the 1st vs 2nd Ed wars that drove us father apart...little did we know we were all brothers under the skin....it took the massive paradigm shift of 3E to bring us together, wary but accepting of anything not 3E.

Mike B.

Badmike wrote:I know it's blasphemy, but I never felt a lot of kinship to the WOG..sure, we set all our campaigns there, played the modules, etc, but it was just too under developed for my use and for the enjoyment of the groups I played with.

As has been established in the chat, I'm the young'un here. ( ) Since I never played 1e in my youth, I never really had any connection to WOG.  Sure, it still existed in 2e, but let's be honest: it was essentially dying by that point, all but abandoned by TSR for other settings.  So it's never really held the nostalgic appeal to me that it holds to others. (At the same time, I've never been a huge fan of the Medieval Europe-inspired fantasy settings -- see the Dark Sun comment earlier for the type of setting I enjoy -- so whether it would have done anything for me had I gamed in it is still debatable. .)

Badmike wrote:  But the original box, the first few FR supplements (Waterdeep, Moonshae Isles, Empires of Sands, Savage Frontier by Paul Jaquays, Wizards of Thay) were really intriguing.  It's too bad they had to saturate the market and kill the golden goose.

I won't disagree with you on that.  I think some of my bitterness with regards to the Realms in general is a direct result of the over-saturation that I experienced in the early 90s.  Eventually I just got sick of it.  The grumpy beholder on the cover of Waterdeep & The North is still one of my favourite covers though.

Badmike wrote:No matter what the setting, Faiths and Avatars is really quite a massive accomplishment and well worth borrowing from.

I've long since lost my copy of that.  I really need to pick up a new one (and the two companion volumes).  Bestiaries and deity books are always welcome in my collection, even if I don't really care for anything else in a setting.

On a side note: wasn't Al-Qadim technically part of the Realms? Or am I just misremembering things here?

Badmike wrote:
**I know it's blasphemy, but I never felt a lot of kinship to the WOG..sure, we set all our campaigns there, played the modules, etc, but it was just too under developed for my use and for the enjoyment of the groups I played with. **

Not to get off on a tangent, but I agree with you here.   And that's exactly why I like Greyhawk.  It generic and open ended, so you can sketch in all the details yourself and change things around to make it your own.  Plus, it's BIG.  You just can't run out of real estate to play with.