Recent content by Parmandur

For some context, here are some historical numbers from this: https://www.enworld.org/wiki/top_rpgs/ Worth noting thst FFG Warhammer & Star Wars plus their generic Genysis system were frequently high up...and the Cosmere RPG is from a lot of he same designers, with a lot of rules influences...

Nope, these are purely FLGS numbers, so it does not include the Kickstarter, Barnes & Noble, nor Amazon sales. However, these are based on surveys of ICV2 member retailers, not hard numbers, but historically we have taken these fairly seriously (such as in 2013 when Pathfinder ranked number one...

Still, that is fairly minimal. A DL compilation updating the classic modules still makes sense as a product, especially with what WotC has shown they are willing to do with edits and updates in Infinite Staircase.

They were not, DL1-14 came out well before there were Amy player rules to support it beyond the core books. My main cause for suspicion about Dark Sun right now is that if it is Dark Sun, which I think it really is most likely...all the books this year are kind of same, except for some theme.

Dragonlance, as a Setting, has some distinct flavor and is not as aggressively kitchen sink. DL as a classic module series? Pretty well useable as generic, the DMG even suggests using those modules in Grehhawk in the Campaign chapter.

If it isn't Dragonlance, I could see easy explanations (Lord Soth will be in Ravenloft, the game producers were really just looking for content, Champions is vague as all get out, the Weis and Hickman stuff is much more of a long term thing, etc). But if it is Dragonlance, then they aren't...

In terms of matching what WotC is producing, actually a pretty good indicator historically. Not much interest in the game for me, but it keeps making WotC money, and the makers are plugged in. The thing is how hard they are going in on Dragonlance, just as WotC is publicly courting Weis &...

Yeah, all just tealeaves at this point...but I doubt the Idle Champions people would go hard into something without some minimal attempt to coordinate with WotC.

Opposite causality: putting Dragonlance material so heavily into their weirdly popular idle game suggests they are using that as the tie in to something else.

Right and it works because D&D is a pretty forgiving system that can take a lot.

It is metat xtual, because I have heard Jordan talk about his goals and themes.

To be fair, that seems to be what they were doing before with the numbers

That level of market research is definitely one of D&D structural advantages.

To be even more blunt, I would recommend Robert O. Paxton's "The Anatomy of Fascism" as an informative and explanatory read.

Well, no, the vibe check is if people don't like an option...they won't publish it. It prevents stuff like Incarnum from seeing print, not fiddley details on design.