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With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base
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<blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 5978570" data-attributes="member: 37579"><p>No one ever said making a new product based on a popular existing product with decades of history and assumptions was ever easy. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Exactly. The rules completely changed but the elements were still there. That's the key.</p><p></p><p> </p><p>True. </p><p>If Lamborghini decided to switch to making affordable family sedans they'd still be Lamborghinis and future generations would associate them affordable family sedans. But it would be a hard sell, remove much of the hard-won brand identity, and alienate much of the current buyers. </p><p></p><p></p><p>It's more than that. D&D is a big game with lots of parts, and many of them have become part of the brands identity. They've become recognisable, even to those outside the traditional audience. </p><p>People don't respond well to change, and its hard to re-brand a product, changing or shifting its identity. Change for change's sake erodes the brand. Occasionally lightening strikes and the new identity takes off, but the commercial landscape is littered with examples where brands had to backtrack and retreat to basics, un-reinventing themselves. Changes from small to big, such as the infamous New Coke incident.</p><p>It's easy to talk about slaughtering sacred cows and changing the game, but it hasn't worked well for WotC. You can't predict what people will latch on to and find comforting and familiar. I don't think anyone at WotC would have expected an auto-hitting <em>magic missile</em> to be that necessary (or it would have functioned more like <em>reaping strike</em>. </p><p></p><p></p><p>And? </p><p>They're still D&D and share the IP. By the "IP makes D&D what it is" argument, they're just as much D&D as any other edition. They have attack rolls and AC and fighters and elves, with wizards casting <em>magic missile</em>. There's nothing in the rules that says you cannot role-play with the Delve games.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jester David, post: 5978570, member: 37579"] No one ever said making a new product based on a popular existing product with decades of history and assumptions was ever easy. Exactly. The rules completely changed but the elements were still there. That's the key. True. If Lamborghini decided to switch to making affordable family sedans they'd still be Lamborghinis and future generations would associate them affordable family sedans. But it would be a hard sell, remove much of the hard-won brand identity, and alienate much of the current buyers. It's more than that. D&D is a big game with lots of parts, and many of them have become part of the brands identity. They've become recognisable, even to those outside the traditional audience. People don't respond well to change, and its hard to re-brand a product, changing or shifting its identity. Change for change's sake erodes the brand. Occasionally lightening strikes and the new identity takes off, but the commercial landscape is littered with examples where brands had to backtrack and retreat to basics, un-reinventing themselves. Changes from small to big, such as the infamous New Coke incident. It's easy to talk about slaughtering sacred cows and changing the game, but it hasn't worked well for WotC. You can't predict what people will latch on to and find comforting and familiar. I don't think anyone at WotC would have expected an auto-hitting [I]magic missile[/I] to be that necessary (or it would have functioned more like [I]reaping strike[/I]. And? They're still D&D and share the IP. By the "IP makes D&D what it is" argument, they're just as much D&D as any other edition. They have attack rolls and AC and fighters and elves, with wizards casting [I]magic missile[/I]. There's nothing in the rules that says you cannot role-play with the Delve games. [/QUOTE]
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With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base
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