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Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals
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<blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7759005" data-attributes="member: 37579"><p>Kinda...</p><p>Here's the thing. It's very much an apples to oranges situation. </p><p></p><p>There was a <em>tonne</em> of 3PP in the 3e glut, which ran from 2001 to 2003 for the d20 bust. It was a huge surge of material, but it only lasted for 2 to 2 1/2 years. And a lot of that was likely in the initial year or so while there wasn't a lot of official stuff and people didn't realise they should be checking quality. Meanwhile, the economy was high and Magic was doing *very* well, so game stores were flush with cashing and buying whatever d20 products they could. But, very quickly, people realised there was a lot of terrible books out there and stopped buying. </p><p>So there was a lot of d20 products, but not as many actually being purchased by fans. That's why so many stores went under in 2003-4.</p><p></p><p>There were also the side games. At the time every small publisher would quickly use a variant of the d20 system for their product. But most of those weren't true "3PP", as they weren't expansions. They were just separate games that used a variation of the rules. </p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, RPGNow only launched in 2001. And it was unknown for much of the d20 boom. And DriveThruRPG didn't launch until 2004, after the d20 bust. The option for digital products and PDFs wasn't really as much of an option. People had to physically publish or not at all. </p><p></p><p></p><p>So when you compare the state of 3PP now to the state of 3PP then, you're not only looking at longer period of time, but also PDF options that didn't exist prior. And that's before you consider the rise of e-commerce and more people shopping on Amazon or buying directly from the publisher. </p><p></p><p>To say nothing of Kickstarter. When you check in Kickstarter, there's over 200-250 5e D&D book projects, </p><p><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?term=5e&category_id=12&sort=magic&seed=2562739&page=1" target="_blank">https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?term=5e&category_id=12&sort=magic&seed=2562739&page=1</a></p><p>And that's before you go onto DriveThruRPG or DMsGuild. </p><p></p><p>I'd argue there's almost <em>more</em> 3rd Party Products out there than during the d20 boom. They're just less visible as they're not in stores. And, I would argue, the high selling 3PP are probably moving a <em>lot </em>more copies than the early 3e ones. </p><p></p><p>The big difference is largely the side games. There are fewer small games opting to use the d20 rules. Most opt to just go with a more rules lite system that better fits the desired tone of the game. That's a big difference. But those were never really compatible.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jester David, post: 7759005, member: 37579"] Kinda... Here's the thing. It's very much an apples to oranges situation. There was a [I]tonne[/I] of 3PP in the 3e glut, which ran from 2001 to 2003 for the d20 bust. It was a huge surge of material, but it only lasted for 2 to 2 1/2 years. And a lot of that was likely in the initial year or so while there wasn't a lot of official stuff and people didn't realise they should be checking quality. Meanwhile, the economy was high and Magic was doing *very* well, so game stores were flush with cashing and buying whatever d20 products they could. But, very quickly, people realised there was a lot of terrible books out there and stopped buying. So there was a lot of d20 products, but not as many actually being purchased by fans. That's why so many stores went under in 2003-4. There were also the side games. At the time every small publisher would quickly use a variant of the d20 system for their product. But most of those weren't true "3PP", as they weren't expansions. They were just separate games that used a variation of the rules. Meanwhile, RPGNow only launched in 2001. And it was unknown for much of the d20 boom. And DriveThruRPG didn't launch until 2004, after the d20 bust. The option for digital products and PDFs wasn't really as much of an option. People had to physically publish or not at all. So when you compare the state of 3PP now to the state of 3PP then, you're not only looking at longer period of time, but also PDF options that didn't exist prior. And that's before you consider the rise of e-commerce and more people shopping on Amazon or buying directly from the publisher. To say nothing of Kickstarter. When you check in Kickstarter, there's over 200-250 5e D&D book projects, [url]https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?term=5e&category_id=12&sort=magic&seed=2562739&page=1[/url] And that's before you go onto DriveThruRPG or DMsGuild. I'd argue there's almost [I]more[/I] 3rd Party Products out there than during the d20 boom. They're just less visible as they're not in stores. And, I would argue, the high selling 3PP are probably moving a [I]lot [/I]more copies than the early 3e ones. The big difference is largely the side games. There are fewer small games opting to use the d20 rules. Most opt to just go with a more rules lite system that better fits the desired tone of the game. That's a big difference. But those were never really compatible. [/QUOTE]
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