"New Edition" gaming culture, what do you think of it? Options

[nezumi]

Hmm... I think I might be the only person so far who does NOT think every edition change is about finances.

WotC no question is about making a buck. They put out way more books than any person wants or needs, and updates editions way faster than seems reasonable. However, following Shadowrun for over 10 years, through three companies, I've been very impressed with how it's been handled, and definitely come away feeling like the devs have put out editions only when needed, and for clear reasons.

2nd edition came out because, as fun as it was, 1st edition was VERY broken. There's a reason 2nd/3rd edition players outnumber 1st edition players as heavily as they do, and most 1st edition games are heavily house-ruled.

3rd edition was, in a lot of ways, a series of errata to 2nd edition, but they were significant enough to be worth making into a second book, especially when tied into the metaplot changes. There was a lot of good material there, and it was definitely worth another $30. It's not like they were changes that only came up because no one had copy-edited the book initially, they're things that came up after years of hard play revealed that the high-initiative sammie pawned everyone, that grounding could be seriously abused, and that really, they can only cram so many adventures in 5 years of game time.

FASA and Fan Pro gave all of those editions a real good run too. They prolonged how long they went between editions as long as possible, it would seem. They put out new books every 1-6 months, which is a good pace for most players. I never saw a book come out where I thought 'how useless, they just want my cash'. Every product was well crafted, and I knew it would enhance my game.

4th edition is the most contested because it's the biggest change, but it did still allow the older editions. There are a few new powers, but they're fairly backward compatible, so I don't feel like I'm missing anything by not upgrading. At the same time, 4th edition opens the game up to a whole new demographic that apparently has been ignored. No one can deny 4th edition has gotten a lot of positive reviews by a lot of people who didn't feel comfortable with 3rd. I can't argue with that; while I myself prefer 3rd, it's pretty obvious 4th addressed some basic changes that needed to be made.

As a player, I can be happy playing any edition. I don't feel that any has something that you can't get in another edition. And even though they've discontinued 3rd edition, there are plenty enough good books available already out, and backward compatible books still coming out, I have plenty of stuff to spend my money on.

I'll be the first to admit, I don't think FanPro/Catalyst has a great business plan. If anything, it seems like a great way to get practically no pay for a TON of effort. But they've come out with a series of products that I for one love. I bought all of 3 books from WotC, I don't think I'll buy another. But I look forward to filling in my library more and more of Shadowrun products (as a note, please bring older books back into print!!)

[Adam]

I'll be the first to admit, I don't think FanPro/Catalyst has a great business plan.

Interesting -- I didn't know that we sent our business plan out to random people... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Naysayer]

Interesting -- I didn't know that we sent our business plan out to random people... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Well, this is a Shadowrun board, after all... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[deek]

I will mention, that the SR universe does somewhat require additional books after a core ruleset. Unlike say, DnD, SR has a plot and timeline embedded into the game. Whereas, DnD, you really don't need any published setting to play in (granted, this may be because I've always ran my own or played in games that the DM created his own world).

SR could really get away with creating a set of core rules, tweak them later if needed (but almost never HAVE to redesign the whole mechanic) and focus on publishing books that add depth to different aspects of the game (magic, cyber/bio, matrix, etc) AND move the timeline along through sourcebooks.

I can handle 5-10 years between major version upgrades in my favorite RPG systems...get any more often than that and I start to feel taken advantage of...

[DocTaotsu]

Given my very basic understanding of the dead tree printing industry I think CGL has a very solid business plan. Core rule books sell, everyone in a gaming group is likely to want one for their own (at least the gaming groups I've been in) expansion books are typically the purview of "That guy" who's interested in whatever specialty the book covers (Magic, tech, metaplot, etc). Releasing a supplement (beyond your SR triad of guns, magic, matrix) that everyone wants to buy is pretty rare. Erm... lets see if I can explain this better, and anyone who actually knows what they're talking about is welcome to correct me.

Book Publishing=
-Low profit margin
-Economy of scale
-Substantial capital investment

Therefore:
Generally speaking your best hope of recouping your capital is to print as many books as possible and sell every single book you print. The more books you print, the lower your costs, the higher the profit margin, and the more profit you turn (provided of course, you sell what you print). Grossly simplified of course (I'm not comfortable talking about the interplay between publishers and distributors).

So! You only want to print as many books as you can comfortably move and no more. Your profit comes from moving many many books so you want to pick books that have the largest appeal. Game publishers are already starting in a hole because they sell to a fairly niche market to begin with. So what books appeal to the broadest cross section of their audience? Core rule books. Every group needs at least one core book to play and most players will want one of their own provided they aren't broke. Supplements are a different beast though. Not everyone wants what a supplement has to offer, I for one don't dig dealing with the Matrix so getting Unwired isn't very high on my list. I do however love cyber and bio so I was all over Augmentations. I am a male between the ages of 5 and 80 so my natural fascination with guns meant that buying Arsenal was a must. I'm not a big fan of magic but it's pretty vital to the game so I have Street Magic on pdf. I'm ambivalent about metaplot so I never got the big plot heavy books like Emergence and what not (although I did gently nudge other players to buy them). I love setting books so if SoLA is ever released I'll be over it like white on rice.

What I'm trying to get at is that I have a purchasing profile. There are some supplements I'll buy and some I won't. Each of us has a profile and they're all different. Some people are still pissed off about Matrix 2.0 so they aren't likely to buy Unwired. Some think the metaplot is dumb so they won't be caught near a plot book. Etc etc. In the end the only book that appeals to everyone who wants to play Shadowrun is the core book. Pushing core books is a safe bet for moving large number of units while "Hyz's Guide to Fun At the Shapeshifter Bunraku Parlor" is not.

I'm also not entirely sure what a viable alternative plan would consist of. But than again, I'm just a dirty jarhead corpsman so it's unlikely that I'm qualified to make on (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)


All that said, I would like to see more "beta testing" of products. Throw in 10 bucks (which of course grants you a discount on the finished product) and help CGL bug hunt products, ensuring the first printing doesn't come with 6 sheets of errata. The initial buy in will weed out of great number of the people who just want to whine and demonstrates a certain amount of investment by the players to tend their own garden. Having people pay YOU to proofread and playtest seems like a fairly straightforward deal and by restricting the playtest printings to pdf you'll ensure that most of us will still go out and buy the book when it first comes out. Hell, handle it properly and we'll look forward to doing it.

[Wounded Ronin]

The only house rule 1st edition D&D needed was that chopsticks should do 3d20 damage instead of 1d3 per attack.

[nezumi]

Interesting -- I didn't know that we sent our business plan out to random people... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

To be fair, when you run a business whose primary source of income is selling stuff to the general public, whose publication dates are freely available, and who isn't intentionally hiding how successful those runs are, it isn't too very difficult to get a general gist of what the business plan was last year and, thereby, what you expect it to be this year.

The point is, SR has been very conservative about releasing new editions, and very charitable about not making it such that older players MUST update to the new version which, as a player, is greatly appreciated, even if it hits you guys in the pocketbook.

[Adam]

Sure, but if you're looking at Catalyst's business model as "What they're doing and have done with Shadowrun," you're really only looking at part of the equation, especially with us now publishing CthulhuTech, releasing Eclipse Phase next year, Paparazzi! later this year, the resurgence of BattleTech, novel lines coming up, and more new games coming too ... we're well familiar with the damage that lack of diversity did to previous Shadowrun/BattleTech publishers. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[shadowfire]

I think another thing that we are missing on this point is has to do with the American gaming culture or even just American culture in general. We like to find fault and complain about everything if its not personal perfect for each and everyone of us- everyday, every moment, and through every real life revealing emotion. We seek out the easy path but want the same fulfillments that the hard path would offer; we want the simplistic ease of the rules with the realistic feel to match the world as we and TV know it. i think that is part of the reason that Euro-rpgs don't get new editions as often as American run RPGs.
Plus, as a culture, we gamers (at all of us a course) have a problem of letting go of... well, i don't know what to call it. But many people in this country, for instance, play D&D still- no matter what edition- because it was the first (this is often a unconscious desirer). Where as in places like Germany they say, "hey this sucks", and play the Dark eye instead. I have no idea off hand what the japanese play instead or i would put that up as an example as well.

[DocTaotsu]

As far as I can tell the Japanese don't actually uh... play tabletop RPG's. Which is a little unnerving. I'm sure there are people who play but the term RPG typically means JRPG, like Final Fantasy or what have you. The prospect of sitting around other nerdy folk and rolling dice for fun just doesn't have the same appeal I suppose.

Totally anecdotal but a number of my fellow gaming brethren have stated similar experiences on the mainland.

[shadowfire]

What we call RPGs they call TRPG.

Sword World RPG
Star ocean has a TRPG
Glorious Saga Hero legend.
NIRVANA After Holocaust
Scrapped Princess RPG Fantasy

to name a few. i just don't know which is the big one. Theres just a very small amount of them that are translated outside of japanese from what i understand.

[Rasumichin]

Plus, as a culture, we gamers (at all of us a course) have a problem of letting go of... well, i don't know what to call it. But many people in this country, for instance, play D&D still- no matter what edition- because it was the first (this is often a unconscious desirer). Where as in places like Germany they say, "hey this sucks", and play the Dark eye instead. I have no idea off hand what the japanese play instead or i would put that up as an example as well.

In fact, the popularity of The Dark Eye in Germany has the same reasons.
It might not be as old as D&D, the first edition having come out in 1984.
D&D's German translation came out at about the same time, but had worse distribution, as TDE was originally published by a joint-venture between the biggest German board game manufacturer and a book publisher.
Ironically, Ulrich Kiesow had written TDE mainly because his translation of D&D was turned down originally.
And to this day, it is as synonimous with RPGs here as D&D is in America, for exactly the same traditionalist reasons.
Non-gamers in Germany don't speak of RPGs, they say Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye) when they refer to our hobby, as it completely dominates the market and always has.

D&D has always been the second-most popular RPG here at best.
In fact, it might even have been number three during the 90s, with TDE and SR claiming the first two places.

[DocTaotsu]

Go SR!

Does The Dark Eye have a set metaplot and setting? In my mind that's D&D's weakest element, their stock setting is pretty goddamn lame when held up against virtually any other setting.

I can't help but think of D&D as more of an operating system for gaming rather than a real game (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Rasumichin]

Go SR!

It has suffered a lot due to the edition change and even more so the fact that FanPro collapsed and we haven't had a German publisher until last Tuesday, but i hope it will be recovering now.

Does The Dark Eye have a set metaplot and setting? In my mind that's D&D's weakest element, their stock setting is pretty goddamn lame when held up against virtually any other setting.

TDE is all about setting and metaplot.
It is set mostly on very small, plain-vanilla fantasy continent, Aventuria, that is described in excruciating detail and has a very prominent metaplot, including a bi-monthly magazine that is written in an ingame perspective mostly and a whole bunch of campaigns dealing with events from world-shaking invasions by demigod mages to political intrigue in renaissance city states.
Supplements are full of inuendo to the ingame mythology and history and ingame texts that put great strain on creating a unique, pseudo-medieval, but decidedly non-earthly idiom.
In fact, TDE setting is a science in itself, even more so than with other RPGs.
There's players who will imediately recognize that a star constellation has changed when you show them a map of the TDE nightsky and who can name the ancestors of every nobleman in the game world.
When the current edition's run of setting description sourcebooks is complete, it will contain 13 all-fluff hardcovers with over 200 pages each- for a continent that is smaller than Western Europe.

And that's just one of the 4 continents, although many players despise Myranor (the other previously described continent, an antiquity-meets arcanopunk-furries-setting) with a fervor that makes the most bitter anti-Eberron rethoric look tame.
I haven't taken a closer look at it yet, but it seems interesting, especially as it is much more open than Aventuria.

There's also a campaign for the exploration of Uthuria, the third continent, in the making and a fan project for the 4th continent Riesland, which is deliberately left undescribed.

All in all, great fluff, although it is hard for newcomers to get through the multitudes of setting material and many fans are rabidly opposing anything that does not fit into their view of the setting, accusing slightly innovative characters of being "unaventurian".

Many of the older campaign modules have a strong focus on railroading, pet NSC and sightseeing, too, combined with an almost paranoid fear of powergamers (and broken rules...).
TDE gamer culture has a strong emphasis on GM omnipotence and handwaving in many groups (unless they have also played a lot of SR or D&D).
There's also a strong focus on social interaction instead of combat and...well, a love for details that can lead to groups spending 10 hours sitting in a tavern and having ingame conversations in the Aventurian version of renfair dialect...


The rules system started out as a usual early 80s attempt to make a slightly more realistic D&D, with active parry and damage-absorbing armor instead of AC and a magic system using astral points instead of Vancian memorization (it also had no clerics originally- oh, and all elfs are casters).
In second edition, it acquired an elaborate, albeit clumsy skill system that has in the meantime grown to absurd proportions, with seperate skills for heraldry, pottery, farming- and about 30 different combat skills in the current 4th edition.

It used to be a very simple class system (with elfs and dwarves as the only nonhumans, who where treated as seperate classes in the first three editions), many hardcore gamers in fact looked down upon it as "that newbie RPG", but has now switched to extremely rules-heavy and GURPS-style point buy, with a combination of race, culture and profession as the core of chargen (and several non-human PC races made available, though not nearly as many as D&D).
There's also cultural variants, in some regions for every major city or every existing ork tribe- as i said, rules-heavy.

The current combat system attempts to be hyperrealistic and has included several feat trees now, for two-handed fighting, dual wielding, dual wielding with parry weapons and shields, martial arts and whatnot.
Magic is very rich in fluff for all traditions, especially hermetic mages.
It is also extremely complex (who would have thought?), with several hundred spells that can be modified on the fly and rules for summoning demons that are so detailed they give you modifiers for wearing the wrong kind of shoes (i'm not making this up, seriously!).
Summoning elementals is so complicated that nine out of ten groups wouldn't know how to do it correctly and handwave it (like decking, but worse).
Divine "magic" is a subsystem with completely different (and similarly elaborate) rules and some players will lynch you if you call liturgies magic...

All in all, the full ruleset has about 1500 pages and groups who do not use the much lighter basic rules (who are actually workable and less complex than SR and include a brief introduction to the setting, but are sadly out of print in English) either are the greatest rules lawyers imaginable, use only half of the rules or just handwave everything (and some of the campaign authors used to fall in the latter category, unfortunately).


All in all, i do have a lot of troubles with TDE4, which i gave up playing some years ago, but if i feel nostalgic, i still love to pick up my first edition books.
And the setting...well, it just feels like home.

I'd recommend picking up the TDE4 basic rules (or if you're into old school, the first edition) to give it a try if you find them in a used bookstore or on ebay, but the greatest strenght of the system, the rich setting material, has never been translated, so it would rather be a brief hint at what TDE is about.

Well, so much for German RPGing for tonight.

[DocTaotsu]

God... that sounds like tabletop SCA madness (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

But yeah, it sounds like setting is what a solid long lived RPG is set upon.

Setting or brand recognition (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) D&D keeps chugging besides having some of the most forgettable setting ever devised. Forgotten Realms? Eberron? Greyhawks really the only setting I've ever enjoyed and I really have idea what the specifics are besides it's really easy to die and lycanthropes roam the streets.

That's just me of course.

[shadowfire]

aberron is kool; its to bad it wasted on D&D setting.

Ya, i heard they were printing a english copy of TDE and want one just for all of that juicy goodness that comes with and that it suppose to be a really good system.

[Fuchs]

One session of DSA was enough for me to drop it.

[Rasumichin]

God... that sounds like tabletop SCA madness (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

But yeah, it sounds like setting is what a solid long lived RPG is set upon.

Setting or brand recognition (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) D&D keeps chugging besides having some of the most forgettable setting ever devised. Forgotten Realms? Eberron? Greyhawks really the only setting I've ever enjoyed and I really have idea what the specifics are besides it's really easy to die and lycanthropes roam the streets.

That's just me of course.

Well, i really enjoyed Dark Sun and Planescape.
Actually, they where the reason why i picked up AD&D2 in the first place.
I never played in Greyhawk, Krynn or the Forgotten Realms (although i've read several of the novels set in the latter two as a kid) and must admit that i have no desire to do so.
Eberron sounds moderately interesting, but somehow, the material i have looked at this far didn't quite convince me.

I might check out the Pathfinder setting and probably also Iron Kingdoms, though.
I'm sticking with 3.75e anyway, it looks like what i would have wanted 4e to be.

However, they're relatively low on my list of future RPG acquisitions.
Have to get myself the "new" edition of CP2020 and maybe Cthulhutech first.


@ Fuchs : was it the GM, the skill checks or the combat system?

[deek]

Dark Sun was pretty cool, although I had a DM that ruined the setting for me. Ravenloft started out pretty cool, but a different GM ruined that for me.

Personally, I loved FR. Granted, I logged most of my days playing in AD&D FR Boxed Set. Before I read any of the novels that had a bunch of crazy stuff go on. Honestly, before FR hit 2nd edition, the setting was pretty much what I would want in a fantasy medieval setting...and I still think of it that way.

Never got into Greyhawk (except for running Temple of Elemental Evil) nor Dragonlance (although I had a lot of friends that played that).

And maybe that's part of the newer culture, games have to come packaged with setting/fluff. I prefer creating all that myself...

[Wounded Ronin]

As far as I can tell the Japanese don't actually uh... play tabletop RPG's. Which is a little unnerving. I'm sure there are people who play but the term RPG typically means JRPG, like Final Fantasy or what have you. The prospect of sitting around other nerdy folk and rolling dice for fun just doesn't have the same appeal I suppose.

Totally anecdotal but a number of my fellow gaming brethren have stated similar experiences on the mainland.

I thought that Record of Lodoss War was basically the anime/manga version of some Japanese dude's actual D&D 1st ed campaign.

From wikipedia:

"Record of Lodoss War" began as a new book genre created by Group SNE and entitled replay. Replays are not novels, but transcripts of RPG sessions, to both hold the interest of readers, and convey the events that took place. Record of Lodoss War was the first replay (of Dungeons & Dragons in this case) that has been published in Comptiq magazine since 1986. Ryo Mizuno was the Dungeon Master (DM) at the time the games were played, and recorded the sessions. Replays have proven to be popular, even to those who do not play role-playing games but are fans of fiction (including fantasy fiction). Similar to light novels, many characters and parties in replays have become popular as characters of anime. An example of such a character is the female elf Deedlit in Record of Lodoss War. Her player is science fiction novelist Hiroshi Yamamoto.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_of_lodoss_war

[DocTaotsu]

Like I said, it's anecdotal. We've gamed amongst Japanese national before and we've done a fair amount of asking around in the local population. I also have a friend who taught on the mainland and she relayed that she'd never heard nor seen anyone throwdown on some d20's or otherwise. Everyone we've talked to was more than a little confused by what we were doing (I think the phrase "So... you eventually play this on the PS2/PC eventually right?" came up a few times). Eh... but like I said, it's hardly a scientific process. It just strikes me the pen and paper RPG's are a very very niche market out here.



@deek= I've heard really good things about Pathfinder and I'll probably look it up when my fantasy fix needs fixing (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I enjoy coming up with my own worlds and what not but all that takes time to do properly. I also think that it's easier to sell a story, an idea, than it is to sell a system: "Ork's with assault rifles!" vs. "We roll lots of d6's for task resolution!"

I've never played a by the book D&D game until recently. Even at 10 we thought the gods were kinda boring and the settings... pretty generic. Besides! We wanted airships and minotaur heros and... you get the idea.

[Wesley Street]

Dark Sun was pretty cool, although I had a DM that ruined the setting for me. Ravenloft started out pretty cool, but a different GM ruined that for me.

Dark Sun was probably the most creative and original D&D setting ever devised. The subsequent and more generic settings, a la Ravenloft (Gothic Europe) and Al-Qadim (Persia/Arabia), were endemic of TSR attempting to pump the market for more cash.

I'm sorry you had bad GMs though. I've learned to detach to survive when necessary.

[De Badd Ass]

When I first got into RPGs the general feeling (and that espoused by some of the game store people selling them) was that here was a thing where you could buy it and you'd be using it indefinitly. Unlike, say, a video game where you play it and then it's time to buy the next in the series.

D&D had a second edition out and maybe some others. But usually that was viewed as upgrading from the neonatal garage production quality of the origional rules (i.e. stuff that looked like the white box).

Shadowrun is different than DnD in that Shadowrun has an advancing timeline in the future, while DnD has a static timeline in the past. Shadowrun has to keep advancing, because the original events occur less than five years from now. When Shadowrun came out, cell phones where not popular, Windows was not popular, the Internet was not popular. There have been similar advances in all fields of technology: armor, medicine, vehicles, weapons, etc.

The thing I didn't like about Shadowrun 2nd edition, is that a rule was never explained in ONE book. In order to understand anything, I had to jump back and forth between two, three, or more books. I saw this as a their way of selling more books.

The problems compounded in Shadowrun 3rd edition. They changed basic rules, while delaying the release of advanced rules. All the cool stuff from the earlier editions was lost until MITS, Rigger 3, Cannon Companion - which weren't released in a timely fashion. Plus, there wasn't enough NEW stuff in these books. Magic, especially, didn't advance much, compared to Cyber and the Matrix.

Shadowrun 4 simplifies the game mechanics - tremendously. The tech stuff keeps advancing; magic not so much. I imagine that sooner or later, Magic will penetrate the Matrix; maybe that will be 5th edition. Otherwise, Shadowrun Magic will stagnate and die.

[Wesley Street]

Shadowrun is different than DnD in that Shadowrun has an advancing timeline in the future, while DnD has a static timeline in the past. Shadowrun has to keep advancing, because the original events occur less than five years from now.

If you look at the timeline presented in 1st ed. or on the Sixth World Wiki, a lot of dates have already passed:

1999: The Seretech Decision

* a 3-month truckers' strike causes food riots in New York City.
* when a mob attacks a Seretech truck hauling infectious medical wastes in the mistaken belief that it carries food, Seretech security forces use lethal force to protect it. 20 Seretech employees and 200 rioters are killed.
* the Supreme Court upholds Seretech's actions as responsible for saving thousands of lives, rather than costing hundreds.

2000

* Scientist are suprised to discover a distinct new species of ferret in North America. Dubbed the Century Ferret due to the time of discovery, it is later concluded to be a "Spike Baby", a premature awakening.

2001: The Shiawase Decision

* The Shiawase court decision establishes extraterritoriality for megacorps.
* Aug-Oct: NASA Mars probes photograph pyramids and a skeleton on the surface of Mars. The information is given the highest classification (Top Secret:Veil).

2004: Libya attacks Israel with chemical weapons.

* Nuclear meltdown at Dungeness in Kent (England) creates a localized irradiated zone.

2005: New York City quake

* Israel nukes Libya.
* A major earthquake hits New York City on 12 August, killing 200,000 and causing 200 billion in damage. It will take 40 years to rebuild.
* United Nations moves to Geneva.
* East Coast Stock Exchange moves to Boston.
* Conservative government in the United Kingdom establishes regional parliaments in Scotland and Wales.

2005-6: Korean War

* Japanacorps push the ROK (Republic of Korea, aka. South Korea) into a war with the DPRK (Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea, aka. Communist North Korea).
* Early 2006: DPRK launches nukes at Japan, but they do not reach their targets.
* Late 2006: DPRK is overrun. Japan proclaims Japanese Imperial State.

2007

* Drug cartel leaders Ortega, Ramos, and Ortiz buy a resource development company and name it ORO.

New York City, Libya, Israel, Japan, Korea and the UK are screwed!

[Hatspur]

When I first got into RPGs the general feeling (and that espoused by some of the game store people selling them) was that here was a thing where you could buy it and you'd be using it indefinitly. Unlike, say, a video game where you play it and then it's time to buy the next in the series.

D&D had a second edition out and maybe some others. But usually that was viewed as upgrading from the neonatal garage production quality of the origional rules (i.e. stuff that looked like the white box).

However now in everything from RPGs to Wargames new editions is just part of the business model. While you could of course play old rules indefinitly in maybe an average between the various systems of five years there will be a new edition and your pile of books is going to need replacing.

I'm not sure what to think of that. On one hand in theory the new editions should be "better". And also new editions coming out seems to charge the game community. I believe there was a role playing surge that came along with D&D 3rd edition at least and their promotion blitz. But on the other it kinda sucks having a pile of books nearly invalidated.

I know it's made me rather more finiky since I look at books as temporary investments. I've also found myself evaluating things based on how old the current edition is. Especially crunch type books. I'll almost always get a crunch book released in the first year or two of a new edition, but I become more reluctant as it gets closer to when I now expect a new edition to drop and invalidate them.

I don't think the gamer market works exactly like the businesses want it to. Some of us who spent half a fortune on D20 books were really looking forward to 4th for a completely different reason, many Used Book sellers will look at d20 as dead product and sell it at massively reduced prices. Which is EXACTLY what happened in my town. Old editions of gamiing books go for reduced prices almost the world over, I tried to exlain this to the local gaming store owner and he thought it was a silly idea. But he also lost out on lots of my money when I went down the street to a local bookseller and bought 10 old d20 books for $100.

I look at different systems as different Operating systems for a computer. Shadowrun can do things D20 and GURPS are completely incapable of. GURPS reminds me a lot of Linux, there's usually one gamer in the group who views it as the best damn thing in the world capable of doing almost anything, but it completely lacks flavor and appeal. D20, with a little bit of tweaking is a alot like Windows XP or 2000, lots of fun cinematic hours of gaming. Then there's WoW...I mean D&D 4th, that is obviously geared toward the power gamer who wants his roleplaying game to be much more like a video game where the ONLY encouraged off board character interaction is snarky comments and "lulz." I think D&D 4th and Windows Vista have a lot in common in that I will probably never have a good enough reason to convert to either.

Mind you, I kind of have a unique situation where my entire group agreed that D&D 4th was a waste of time and money especially now that all the old books became cheaper. If you don't like what the businesses are doing to your game, don't let it stand. We are all the masters of our own groups and we can make the choices not to do what Wotc or whoever wants us to do.