Pathinder Beta up, PDF is free.

[Lord Dynel]

moriarty777 wrote:
OSRIC wasn't needed back then... TSR gave us 2nd Edition but kept the rules continuity alive (or in other words, compatible).

M

True, but how do you explain the multitude of people who love 1e and hate anything else?
I don't know if those gamers would have accepted a generic ruleset but I wonder if there would have been any impact on the gaming community - how would support for OSRIC been then as oppsoed to now. I think OSRIC would have been huge back in the day.

But I guess this deserves it's own thread.

[moriarty777]

Lord Dynel wrote:
True, but how do you explain the multitude of people who love 1e and hate anything else?
I don't know if those gamers would have accepted a generic ruleset but I wonder if there would have been any impact on the gaming community - how would support for OSRIC been then as oppsoed to now. I think OSRIC would have been huge back in the day.

But I guess this deserves it's own thread.

Hehehe... the quick answer is shortsightedness!
Seriously -- the love for the 1st edition ruleset over the 2nd edition one will vary from person to person. For some, it was the blatant re-focus on themes in order to present the game in a more 'acceptable' light. There were rules changes as well and classes got the axe from 1st to 2nd. For others it was optional rules or material introduced in 1st edition (in various books) that became core material in 2nd edition. For some it's all of the above.

However, if you had the 1st edition ruleset, and a 2nd edition module caught your eye, it was extremely easy to pick that up and just run it for 1st edition. Probably easier that it is to pick up an AD&D module and run it for C&C. With the core rules being essentially the same in many respects, material written with a second edition intent could be easily used with first edition and vice versa. In other words, it was still supported albeit in a off-handed manner.

I suppose the same sort of thing can be said of fans of 3.0 and 3.5 when looking at 4th edition and pathfinder. Some will stick with 3.x for the same reasons 1st edition fans stuck with that edition. In other cases, it's simply a case of money.

In the case of something like OSRIC (and C&C for that matter), the best time for it to come out was at the beginning of 3rd Edition at the time that older fans of AD&D were considering the jump to 3rd Edition (especially if they knew 3.5 was coming out soon thereafter).

I think the gaming landscape might have been a bit different if that had happened. The release of Pathfinder came at an ideal time but it still suffers from being in between a legion of 3.x fans and a new game using the D&D brand.

M
_________________
"You face Death itself in the form of... 1d4 Tarrasques!"

Partner to Brave Halfling Publishing
http://www.arcanacreations.com

[Lord Dynel]

moriarty777 wrote:
Hehehe... the quick answer is shortsightedness!
Seriously -- the love for the 1st edition ruleset over the 2nd edition one will vary from person to person. For some, it was the blatant re-focus on themes in order to present the game in a more 'acceptable' light. There were rules changes as well and classes got the axe from 1st to 2nd. For others it was optional rules or material introduced in 1st edition (in various books) that became core material in 2nd edition. For some it's all of the above.

However, if you had the 1st edition ruleset, and a 2nd edition module caught your eye, it was extremely easy to pick that up and just run it for 1st edition. Probably easier that it is to pick up an AD&D module and run it for C&C. With the core rules being essentially the same in many respects, material written with a second edition intent could be easily used with first edition and vice versa. In other words, it was still supported albeit in a off-handed manner.

I suppose the same sort of thing can be said of fans of 3.0 and 3.5 when looking at 4th edition and pathfinder. Some will stick with 3.x for the same reasons 1st edition fans stuck with that edition. In other cases, it's simply a case of money.

In the case of something like OSRIC (and C&C for that matter), the best time for it to come out was at the beginning of 3rd Edition at the time that older fans of AD&D were considering the jump to 3rd Edition (especially if they knew 3.5 was coming out soon thereafter).

I think the gaming landscape might have been a bit different if that had happened. The release of Pathfinder came at an ideal time but it still suffers from being in between a legion of 3.x fans and a new game using the D&D brand.

M

Heh...it may be shortsightedness, but you and I both know that there are plenty of people out there that are like that, that prefer 1e over 2e or other editions whatever the reason.
Pathfinder will be, I think, an example of how things "might have been" had a company released a set of simulacrum rules in earlier times. I disagree that the best time for OSRIC to come out was when it did - it lost its audience long time ago. Had it come out at the end of 1e or, hell, at the end of 2e (I agree, 1e and 2e were pretty interchangable, so we could easily move OSRIC's release to the end of 2e in this discussion), it would have a much bigger following than it does now. And I think Pathfinder is the best example of that - there is a large amount of support for it because I feel it struck when the iron was hot. I feel, and of course I may be mistaken, that if Pathfinder came along 10 years from now, most of the gamers Pathfinder would have grabbed would have embraced 3e by then, or skipped 4e and went to 5e.

Maybe part of the support for Pathfinder (as an option versus 4e) can be attributed to the times - people aren't on "islands" these days as they were back in the day. There is active support for other games and people the next city away that may share the same idead of not going to the next big edition - information one might not have known 20 years ago.

I don't know. I definitely see your point, Mort. And yiou may very well be correct with the idea of OSRIC's release. I guess only time will tell.

[moriarty777]

Lord Dynel wrote:
Pathfinder will be, I think, an example of how things "might have been" had a company released a set of simulacrum rules in earlier times. I disagree that the best time for OSRIC to come out was when it did - it lost its audience long time ago. Had it come out at the end of 1e or, hell, at the end of 2e (I agree, 1e and 2e were pretty interchangable, so we could easily move OSRIC's release to the end of 2e in this discussion), it would have a much bigger following than it does now. And I think Pathfinder is the best example of that - there is a large amount of support for it because I feel it struck when the iron was hot. I feel, and of course I may be mistaken, that if Pathfinder came along 10 years from now, most of the gamers Pathfinder would have grabbed would have embraced 3e by then, or skipped 4e and went to 5e.

Maybe part of the support for Pathfinder (as an option versus 4e) can be attributed to the times - people aren't on "islands" these days as they were back in the day. There is active support for other games and people the next city away that may share the same idead of not going to the next big edition - information one might not have known 20 years ago.

I don't know. I definitely see your point, Mort. And yiou may very well be correct with the idea of OSRIC's release. I guess only time will tell.

I might have not been clear in my statement, but I feel that the best time for OSRIC and C&C to have come out would have been between towards the middle to the end of 2000. 3rd Edition made its debut at that time and WOTC was trying hard to get older AD&D gamers to adopt the new edition. One way the did this was offer the core books initially at $20 each. If the alternative was available to gamers THEN, it would certainly made a difference. It would have also been REALLY interesting what WOTC would have done to try and counter this (legal or otherwise).

I found out about OSRIC sometime during 2006 but I don't think it had been around for very much longer than that. I know the decision to do it was partially motivated by the creation of C&C. In any case, these were released after 3.5 had already hit the market I believe.

It is hard to say the kind of impact these games will have in the long run compared to a hypothetical 'what-if' scenario.

We bring you back to the thread already in progress...

M
_________________
"You face Death itself in the form of... 1d4 Tarrasques!"

Partner to Brave Halfling Publishing
http://www.arcanacreations.com

[DangerDwarf]

moriarty777 wrote:
We bring you back to the thread already in progress...

M

Yeah, but this was more interesting than talk of a d20 clone.

[Lord Dynel]

moriarty777 wrote:
If the alternative was available to gamers THEN, it would certainly made a difference. It would have also been REALLY interesting what WOTC would have done to try and counter this (legal or otherwise).

This is what I was getting at in my posts. While I disagree when the "best" time to release would have been (though a 200 release would probably have been just as good as a late 90s release), I do agree it would have been interesting to see what would have transpired with the makers of OSRIC and WotC. I like the simulacrum games, but they are niche in the time and place they are in now. Again, I do like them. I think they could have been so much more if released earlier.

Eh, I'm happy with C&C, so it's all good.

DangerDwarf wrote:
Yeah, but this was more interesting than talk of a d20 clone.

Opinions vary.