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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Marandahir" data-source="post: 9407708" data-attributes="member: 6803643">No, that would be tyranny of the majority, and something social democracies try to balance with protections for minorities. But this isn't a government, it's a game system, and one that is trying to sell as many copies and convert as many prospective buyers as possible into enfranchised players who buy book after book and invest in D&D Beyond and the Virtual Tabletop. This is literally the game's mandate system their purchase by Hasbro. This is why we're back on the Virtual Tools train that was the center-point of why 4e was created in the first place.The alternative is the TSR era - where they didn't know how to manage the business and nearly killed the game. I'm not saying that 2E is bad by any means - just that the business model was not sustainable, and D&D as a game and an idea is reliant on a company managing the game and spreading its play as much as possible.As a counter-example, I'd put forward Nintendo's conservative approach to studio acquisitions even when they're booming with sales due to the Switch. They want long term growth, not short term yield. So there are cases to be made that WotC may be trying to grow too quickly and losing their core audience. That was sort of the diagnosis of 4E (where they may have misdiagnosed where the growth potential was, seeing the presented format as of interest to video gamers, but not actually bringing in far more players than they already had like 5E has). WotC isn't perfect, and makes bad decisions like the OGL debacle of months ago. Maybe the game would be healthier in a non-capitalist framework where it lives by "circulating the tapes" – but that's at its very core not going to reach as many players.I think D&D as the biggest T&T RPG has an obligation to try to be as big hat as possible because it's a sort of "gateway drug" into the hobby. And that obligation to the hobby luckily aligns with WotC's business mandate of trying to gain and retain new players. Smaller more niche games can instead focus their narrative and world styles into more tightly woven systems because they don't have to appeal to as many people as D&D does. That means they can afford to specialize and appeal to smaller groups. I'd also note that while I find WotC's business models of MtG very scummy, I can't argue with the success: they're able to fund absolutely fantastic art and worldbuilding on the backs of the randomized booster packs and whale-targeting collector's editions. So more sales CAN allow for greater creativity.</blockquote>

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