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'm still trying to get the boss to let me invest in the 4E.

"You got a pile of books in the garage you never use."

"Hon, those are all outdated second edition."

"Well you never use them. What makes you think that you will use the new ones."

"...."

I'm... I dunno. Everytime a game system comes out there are all kinds of bugs and problems with it and the community picks it apart pointing out all the geehaw that's busted and retarded. A couple years later the game designers congeal all those concerns into a spiffy new edition and release it to three basic groups of gamers:
1. The Old Version Was Best, Stop Raping My Childhood!
2. Oh Thank God, They Finally Fixed X So I Can Stop House Ruling It
3. Newbies

They typically take this time to advance or expand the basic world plot which is of the most concern for the first 2 groups (usually the first).

Some games do this well (I happen to like 4th ed SR, although I wouldn't be opposed to playing 3rd at some point). And others... not to my tastes.

4th Ed D&D has zero interest to me because:
A. There wasn't really a "metaplot" to speak of and we've homebrewed settings and plot from the beginning.
B. The basic game mechanics don't appeal to me.

A lot that has to do with the fact that I just don't like D&D in general anymore. The game system is restrictive and arcane, the setting materials... generally pretty lame. I maintain a 3.5 ed library out of nostalgia and backwards compatibility.


Now as to the whole "Game Industry Model". Game designers have to release new editions, I just don't see this being a very profitable industry for them if they don't. The whole promotion thing is vital towards getting new players involved and maintaining their market share (After all, all those old players don't necessarily transition towards the new gear). They only make money as long as they sell books and the fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter if those books ever get used or not. I'm not really sure what the alternative would be... released supplements? Supplements are typically aimed at their existing audience and of that only those that are interested in whatever that supplement is about. I don't really care about hacking so I haven't bought Unwired, I have a pretty decent interest in setting material so I'd definitely pick up Shadows of South America (if that ever gets released).

I wrote a whole micro economic example of why game companies need to keep releasing new versions but it was boring and probably a little off. In my mind it boils down to this:
RPG making has a lot in common with the book publishing industry. High overhead costs, high initial costs, and rather low profit margins. That's why things like lulu and eBooks are such an important part of the future of RPG publishing, they cut out those costs and let designers focus on enhancing current products rather than re-inventing the wheel every 3 years just so they can justify their continued existence. Under the current dead-tree model publishers rely upon new editions for revenue because:
1. The old player base repurchases their "new" product to stay current.
2. New players see something shiny and new on the racks and pick it up to try it out.

A new release has built in advertising, even if WotC hadn't dumped big money into promoting 4th ed, the buzz in the RPG community would have generated lots of free advertising dollars for them. A much bigger buzz than if they'd released a supplement or "rules expansion".


Okay, that kinda rambled but let see if I can sum this up.

New editions are the life blood of the industry (by industry I'm mostly taking about WotC). There are things in the works that might change that but for now they obey the dead-tree publishing laws that stipulate that selling less than <Large number> means you get almost zero profits given your massive initial outlay. Imagine if book publishing companies only published a handful of books, and never updated their catalog. Unless they're publishing the bible they'd be pretty screwed in short order. I'd imagine game publishers find themselves in the same fix, they need new editions to keep the revenues flowing so they don't have to get real jobs.

A smart gamer should recognize this and realize that nothing (save for convention play, another tricky tool of the oppressive gaming industry *cough cough eye roll*) is forcing them to buy new editions. If you're happy with what you have, to hell with the new stuff. Sure the guys who made that great game 10 years ago are trying to make a buck and keep making games but hey! The old ways still work! New editions are a necessary financial "evil" (aside from the fact the settings and mechanics might need updating)

Or something.

One other thing, I think the reason we see a new edition game culture is because we have game designers who are trying to do this for a living. I respect that, I wish I had the balls to jump in feet first to do something I love but is kinda obscure. They gotta get fed, and they gotta make at least as much money as they would working at a legit job.

I get the impression that most game designers are not exactly driving Lamborghini's and living in the Hollywood hills. So I certainly cut them more slack than your average internet nerd.

SR, at least, while updated for 4th ed is still basically the same game it was when 1st ed came out. The street shaman I created for my first game could easily be recreated today and still be just as bad-ass now as he was then. Sure, new tricks and details have been added, some game mechanics tweaked, the setting advanced a few years, and of course the SOTA marches on. But the essentials of the game remain the same.

Not so for D+D. 4th ed seems to be a radical change from what was to something I don't even hardly recognize. Maybe I'm just getting to be a crotchety old kook, but I don't like it at all. I don't even like Neverwinter Nights 2. I think the design choices in that game are pretty similar to what they did with the pen and paper version, according to what I've read.

I don't think there's much left to say about it, since Doctatsuo seems to have covered most of the bases. I'm willing to shell out some new money once in a while to get the new rules, as long as I think it's worthwhile. None of this V3.5 crap.

Some of the games get better on new versions while others get worse what I've seen. Some games what I think went to worse might be from just my point of view, but at least one went totally busted on the last version. That game what I'm talking about is Cyberpunk. That was the first game I ever GMed and I still like the system and world a lot. When the new V3 came out, I bought it right away as I thought it was same, but better. How wrong was I... The book is just a total piece of ...carp. Amount of typos, the barbie-doll pictures and everything in the book sucks. Nowadays when a player needs to be punished or is asking a question they could find out themselves, it's enough to say "look from the book" and point to the V3

I have only browsed a bit on SR3 books (tho the supplements I've read bit more) so I can't comment is SR4 better or worse.

On a general level it appears that the rules are usually more refined in the new versions vs. the old and original ones. Sometimes they manage to get the same feel for the game but with new and improved rules while sometimes the whole feel of the game changes. The new feel might be for some better than the old one while to others the change of feel causes the "they ruined it!" reaction. And then there are games where the rules stay exactly the same but the game is changed totally but the name is still same

As far as ShadowRun is concerned I'd have to say that fourth edition is what got me back into gaming. It'd been about four and a half years or so since I'd picked up my mechanical pencil and filled in some stats. I played Second and Third editions back when I was a young young man (not that I'm all that old now) but a little while before the Year of the Comet I had gone on and forgotten the wonders of rolling the dice. I wasn't reintroduced to SR until I was searching Amazon for a D&D 3.5 set for a comrade of mine that I found out that the world of ShadowRun had advanced along with RL. At the time I was deployed and was looking for a little distraction so I picked up the core book and gave it a look over. I was surprised at how much had changed, in the mechanics department, but it was all for the better. I never could get the handle of matrix runs back with third edition and tended to just fudge over it while GMing, not that the players I gamed with minded... they were the run and gun type anyways. But with the streamlined rules it was a whole lot easier to introduce a few more people to the world and start up a game. The various incarnations of games might get a little redundant... lord knows now that I'm back into it I wish that knee high stack of second and third edition source material was more than just useful for setting and history reference, but that shiny new book did get me to come back to the roots and have a damn good time at it.
Now as with D&D... never was really much of a fan... I liked the FASA settings alot and it seemed that if I wanted to play a game not set in the near future I'd just pick up my copy of Earthdawn and beat down some Cadavermen and Gobberogs. I guess I was just I lazy GM and liked not having to take up a week just to devise a setting. Long and short I don't even think i'll look at the fourth of D&D... just personal preference I guess.

I always felt that you shouldn't fix it if there was nothing wrong with it (Which is why i will not be changing to 4th edition Shadowrun). Now this could not be said for D&D. I didn't care for 2nd edition, 3rd edition fixed the problems that 2nd had but just came with its own baggage, and 4th is trash. If anything 2nd was the best- but i have to say that they improved 2nd with hackmaster from everything i have seen and heard. But even with that in mind its not my type of game anyway.
I have only been playing for the last 10 years since high school. And my first exposure, unlike most people, was not D&D but palladium fantasy. Palladium has its own problems. i don't believe they need a new edition to fix these problems, just to print a revised edition that has the fixed problems within and rules for things that the game does not have as of now... The other problems would be rifts, but thats a whole other can of worms (too unbalanced).
have never played any of the earthdawn editions so i couldn't say whether or not the new edition was needed. But i have to say that i have noticed that every time there is a new edition to a game it seems like they are trying to make so that the players have to put less thought to the game. Is not thinking part of role playing? I always enjoyed role playing more when i had to stretched my brain a bit further than normal. which is one of the reasons shadowrun is one of my favorite games. i think this would be my main problem with new editions.

Generally I think that the motivation is largely financial or because a new company takes ownership and wants to make its own stamp. Sometimes it's legitimately because it's felt that a reorganization/upgrade is really warranted.

The real shame is that a lot of the material from old editions is suddenly perceived as worth less just because it's old. So, for example, FanPro editions of "Street Magic" were being sold off at half price by Studio 2 at Origins because Catalyst had another set printed with minor corrections and their label. That's even the same edition! What was the perceived value-difference there?

I'm torn, because part of me harkens back to the days of 2nd edition, pre-internet. I had no idea there was "errata" or any other kind of errors in a published book. We bought them, played them and had a lot of fun...

Having just gotten back into running and playing DnD and SR (I took a hiatus from about 1999 - 2005), I'm disappointed by how quickly every mistake is pointed out and the amount of errata that has to be put out. I mean, part of me thinks there were just as many errors "back in the day", its just they didn't filter down so quickly... I mean, nowadays, I can see errata pop up every couple weeks and things change a whole heck of a lot...even in game systems that seem very stable...

My DnD 4.0 book has about 8 pages of errata wedged in it, and I've only had them for a couple months... My SR4 campaign, I had to tote around about 20 pages of houserules/interpretations to make parts of it balanced and playable...

Are there really that many more mistakes these days?

No, but I think there's a demand for "official" answers now. Back in the day, you'd look at a rule and, if it didn't work for you, you'd come up with an alternative and move on. Today entitled Internet rage demands FAQs and errata.

I can believe that there are more mistakes now a days than there was before. For one, a lot of people do tend to allow the computer to check for mistakes for them. The only problem with that is that it will not point out mistakes like "the" instead of "them" and will have the irritating habit of not recognizing other words.

Plus, like it was said before- its more about money now a days. Today it is generally assumed that Wotc will put out a 4.5 book because of mistakes- the sad part of that is that many people will pay for it. In other industries, if something was not built right the first time- the buyers are given the chance to exchange for the the new "fixed" version. I don't see Wotc doing this.. I wouldn't fit into their marketing plans (one of the many reasons i do not buy their crap).

I think thats because in the old days we expected the rules to be quirky and not make any sense.

Wow... we are like >this< close to whining about how we gamed (and it was awesome) before it was mainstream.

I agree with the camp that says people demand an official answer while acknowledging that publishers have stepped up the release tempo. Quicker turn around on books is what most consumers scream for but it does mean more errors may be introduced.

I also think it's very easy to fantasize that "back in the day" it wasn't about the money. It's always been about the money, otherwise gaming would still be about a bunch of creepy guys with a photocopier (whereas now "indie" gaming is about a bunch of creepy people, lulu, or pdf releases). I think we as gamers, tend not to have an appreciation for what a monstrous undertaking getting a dead tree book costs, both in time and in money. At the end of the day the only reason D&D got past it's first edition was because a bunch of guys thought, "Holy crap, people actually care about this shit. We can make... A LIVING doing this." which is about the greatest thing any hobbyist can hope for.

I also agree with Tete, back in the day when we were rolling around with 2nd ed D&D and GURPS we kinda expected rule to be... arcane, and that we'd be spending sometime debating what they "really" meant. I've had more than one gamer reveal that he enjoyed debating the rules almost as much as he enjoyed playing (I'm not one of those gamers and it shows in how play hard and fast with rules).

The only bad thing i can say about edition changes is that besides them, there's very few change in the "mainstream" RPG sector.

In fact, i recently read that the best-selling RPG in this decade that wasn't a new edition of a previously existing game was Eden Studio's BtVS RPG.
That's kinda saddening.
Not because i dislike the BtVS RPG, it's really a great game, but because it shows how little success games outside of the niches carved out in the 80s and 90s tend to have.

There's nothing wrong with improving a tried-and-true system (i really appreciate the Pathfinder RPG, for that matter) or trying a new twist on an established design, as in SR4, but i'd love to see genuinely new products that shake up the market, add new ideas to our hobby and bring in new players from outside an established gamer scene.

Yeah, i know, there's all the indie stuff around and some of it works nicely, but somehow, those games tend to end up being played by a small subsection of people who already are into gaming, while new players still find their way into the hobby by picking up a copy of the current D&D or SR edition at their FLGS and not by downloading the rules for The Pool.

I think that's just the nature of the beast. RPG's are something of an acquired taste and save for D&D they get very little real advertisement outside of gaming mags and what not. The only way a newbie is going to be exposed to RPG's are by running into a shiny copy of whatever mainstream game makes it way into their local Borders or what not.

Or by their crazy friend who promises them beer and food to come throw some dice with the group.

Either way, RPG aren't exactly getting out there and carving out huge numbers of players

Good points...part of me says, why not just go digital. Release PDFs as needed. Obviously, the first release would be buggy and there would probably be a lot of versions in the first couple of months, but then the core rules settle in and the product is pretty stable. Akin to alpha and beta stages in software.

Then, as someone pointed out, there needs to be a book on the shelf to appease to the non-hardcore gamer. That is the point where you actually do a printed run. Now granted, it may be 6-12 months before it was actually released, but you know what? Who cares? The hardcore gamers are going to have earlier looks and the mainstream wouldn't even be wary that there were PDFs early on.

Maybe you charge a fee to get the PDFs and updates until the print version is released. I bet a ton of us would buy into that to get playing on a new version, give feedback and help make the system better.

The devs would get a much larger base to playtest and get all that errata knocked out early...

I don't know, I honestly don't think print sales would go down that much had there been PDF beta copies floating around for several months before. I mean, most of us are going to by the "official" book when it comes out...

deek, you may want to research what Paizo has been doing and is doing with Pathfinder, regarding the alpha/beta cycle of a game.

I'm just talking in general and using software release cycles as a model (as those are what I am most familiar with). Couple that with my love of linux and open-source software, the model seems to server some purposes quite well. Also, from what was posted elsewhere on this site (I think in the "Rant" thread), someone mentioned a life cycle from WotC.

My point being, they are all somewhat similar and have a proven track record. You plan a product then develop it. Then pilot it to a small group (alpha stage). Get the feedback and so forth. Then you can open it to a larger pilot group (beta stage) for more thorough testing. Now in the linux world, you start seeing RC (release candidates) which really are open to anyone that wants to download a copy and kick the wheels...

Now during all these stages, you have yet to print a single copy. PDF would be a good distribution model, as its quick and easy to update and set out on a server. I realize, in a perfect world, you have plenty of time to test, receive feedback, rinse and recycle...but we all have deadlines and if CGL is anything like our business model, well, that release date is a pretty big gorilla. And we are expected to go out with "something", even if flawed, else the release was a failure. Granted, our model allows for 4 releases a year, so our userbase knows that version 4 is only going to last a few months before version 5 comes out...

I'll take a look at what Paizo has been doing, but I wouldn't think I'll find too many surprises to their model. I mean, no matter what you call it, no matter what the product, this kind of life cycle is used...plan, develop, test, release, maintain...its just a matter of how much time you want to spend on each phase.

And as probably anyone will tell you, the maintenance phase is the most underrated one, yet most products spend the majority of their time in that phase...

Paizo took a well-known base product (D&D3.5), put up a modified PDF alpha version for free, including open discussion on their forums, then published a beta version recently (in print and as a free PDF) and will, after an open playtest that lasts one more year, print a "D&D 3.75" rulebook taking into account all the suggestions of the people who participated in the whole process.

The end result will probably be the most bug-fixed D&D ever.

I'd love to see that for SR4.5.

My views on this hsould surprise no one but I think all too often it is used to revive coffers of the publishers rather than improve the game. forexample D&D and SR i don't think needed work overs. Earlier versions going from 1st to 2nd eds were needed to fix some problems with game play, but the only real change between SR 2 and 3 was a reworking of decking and since I didn't see 3rd ed as 'broken' the 4th ed seemed to be just an excuse to get people to shell out all over again for the core rule books like they did in earlier editions.

This has been done so often by gaming companies that I'm now suspicous of any new ed, is it needed or is it as money grab? all to often the answerris 'money grab.'

I mean some people really like 4th ed, good for them, but unlike the rigging rules for 2nd ed, no one was saying 3rd ed was broken, so why the need for a change? There is none, except to get gamers to buy all the core books, AGAIN!

the later ed's of D&D seem pretty much the same. no real need except the desire to trick people out of cash.

I represent the opposite view of that. To me sr3 rules were irrevocably broken and I had stopped playing. sr4 rules brought me back to the game and made me excited about it again. In fact, my buddy who had played since first edition with me had a long discussion with me about the rigger rules specifically the week before we tried sr4. Those rules along made me try sr4, the rest, including the matrix rules, really won me over.

I know there are a number of people who love the sr3 rules. God love 'em. If that's what you love, play it. sr4 doesn't invalidate those rules. It does give another option for playing the genre though.

Business Model.

Geek culture, and Gaming especially is a culture you have to buy your way into. Everyone needs to own a copy of the players handbook - per wizards of the coast in D&D 3 and 4. It's not just a suggestion to help things run smoothly, it's an implicit requirement: if you want you game- you have to buy our shit.

Ultimately, Catalyst is a business, and they want to make money. Hopefully they care about the game, and any changes they have made are in the spirit of improvement - but from a strictly financial sense, it's a great idea to completey rework the mechanic. Now those old books are all but unusable unless you want to take the time and effort to guess and work out conversions. Time to buy some new stuff.


I don't mean to sound like a hater, but I'm just pointing out what struck me

I really don't see how a new mechanic in a new edition completely invalidates a prior edition. I can choose to play whatever edition I want.

While I do believe that new editions are more a business decision to make more money than anything else, I do believe that many inside the company believe that each edition is an improvement and/or something they can put their name on and make it their own. No one goes to work in a creative company to just carry on what the status quo is...they want to create something new and bring it out to the masses...

And on a slightly smaller note, sometimes a new edition is put out to just say "hey, i'm new, try me. And I'm different than what you remembered me being a decade ago." We need that as well. I know that for me, when I was getting back into SR, 4th edition just came out and given the option to try and pick up a library of 3rd edition books or get one 4th edition book, the choice was simple...get the new one and play.

Ditto to that.

I don't view new editions of RPGs as an attempt by publishers to fleece players of their hard-earned cash. For better or worse I do genuinely believe publishers are trying to put out a better game. What I do take offense to, however, is a lack of support for conversion tables on behalf of publishers. And they're all guilty of it. While I love 4th ed. I think it would have been better received if FanPro or Catalyst had published an official conversions guide for vehicles, critters, and weapons. I know the game mechanics are different but bringing over monsters and gear from older editions could have been devised with a relatively simple formula. And I think Arsenal, etc. would still have sold the same numbers it had.

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!!)

Interesting -- I didn't know that we sent our business plan out to random people...

Well, this is a Shadowrun board, after all...

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...

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


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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.



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.

God... that sounds like tabletop SCA madness

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

Setting or brand recognition 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.

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.

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

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?

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...

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:



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

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

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.

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.

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.

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


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

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.