WotC WotC can, and probably should support multiple editions of D&D.

[Parmandur]

where did they make that claim? All I see it ‘1e had more sales’

Yeah, that is all I read into thwt discussion, too, before we all just got into a silly rabbithole.

 

[Hussar]

where did they make that claim? All I see it ‘1e had more sales’

And?

Even if he’s right and adnd had more sales, there’s still no evidence that providing an alternative DnD from WotC would have a large enough audience to be worth it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But the magic classes and spell rules for D&D are in the corebook. If something is not in the corebook, at the very least some influential member of the design team doesn't consider it needed to play the game.

I'd think you, of all people, would know the expectations of designers/producers and the end user can diverge considerably.

Now I love supplements. I very often buy and use them. But you don't need them to play the game as the original designers (or at least the original publishers) intended, pretty much by definition.

Has that mattered to you in all cases? If not, why do you expect it would apply to everyone else who may well have even more specific expectations?

 

[Micah Sweet]

After the publication stopped, the game would slowly die. Without books on the shelves, you don't get new players. Maybe you have a stable group that has been playing together for 20 years but in my experience people drop out because they have another kid, they move or I do, some other life event happens.

A handful of groups would hang on, but the hobby would slowly die or at best be on life support. In any case, it's all hypothetical. I just disagree that WotC needs to publish a ton of material especially when there's vastly more material from 3PP and DmsGuild and other sources than anyone could ever use.

I don't think WotC needs to publish more material. I don't really like WotC's current efforts (mostly), so them making more of it doesn't really do anything for me. I was responding to the run of TSR D&D, and the mountain of material they produced. The difference, obviously,is that they generally made stuff I liked and the current holders of the IP generally don't. For 5e, 3pp has all I need.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'd think you, of all people, would know the expectations of designers/producers and the end user can diverge considerably.



Has that mattered to you in all cases? If not, why do you expect it would apply to everyone else who may well have even more specific expectations?

No, it doesn't matter to me. But I am also not scared away from a game because it has too many supplements, which was the original point of this tangent.

 

[Thomas Shey]

No, it doesn't matter to me. But I am also not scared away from a game because it has too many supplements, which was the original point of this tangent.

But that's the point; feeling you might need those supplements to get the full experience is a counterincentive if you don't want to buy a bunch more books. Its a round-about way its assessing the cost of the system to usefully get into.

 

[mamba]

And?

Even if he’s right and adnd had more sales, there’s still no evidence that providing an alternative DnD from WotC would have a large enough audience to be worth it.

sure, the two are unrelated

 

[Scott Christian]

They do. They just utilize third parties to do the work.

 

[Lanefan]

The magazine material was more like DMsGuild fan releases, not TSR designer work.

Given how much magazine material went on to become part of the game (most of Unearthed Arcana, for example, first appeared in Dragon), I'm not sure this claim holds water.

For Dungeon magazine, you have more of a point; but then the early-era printed modules weren't all written by TSR staff either.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, and you buy those things if you want them. It doesn't have anything to do with buying the corebook, which is all you need to play the game.

Well, unless they go the 4e route by a) making everything core and b) splitting the game across several iterations of the same books e.g. DMG I,II etc.