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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Erastus" data-source="post: 655428" data-attributes="member: 10060">I was a lot more active around here when  3e was taking shape, Eric, so I know that you were 3e's first and most prolific cheerleader.  Grateful for that, actually, as it brought a good gaming system to my attention that I might have otherwise overlooked.  If I read your stuff correctly, one of the biggest features of 3e that you championed was the streamlining and simplification of rules.But I've got to ask... isn't there a point where you overdo streamlining and simplification?  When you start including content that 'holds your hand' as you game, doesn't that sort of diminish it?And from your recent topic here about computer aides and number crunching, it really doesn't sound like you do a lot of plunking a monster from the books as is and using it in a game....I also want to say that I do think it's important to have more accessible games and rules sets for gamers.  It's important that the gaming companies get a bigger market, and new blood is infused into the hobby.  I just don't see any of them doing anything too effective.  All they're doing is selling new content to the same old gamers with the stated goals of making things friendly for new gamers.  It's not working.Looking at a recent poll here, most of us - 40% or so - started gaming from 1980-1984.  The numbers go down from there rather drastically.  Is releasing a new, larger set of hardcover books that sits in the back corner of a mall bookstore the way to bring in new gamers?  As a kid, I remember the boxed sets - a simple, fast game with all you needed to play included in one package - that didn't intimidate newcomers, that didn't look like encyclopedias (a big downfall in an age where people buy a computer game and just install and play), that didn't hide in specialty shops, on the back shelf of the bookstore or by the cash register so that store clerks could eye you like a shoplifting weirdo.  Heck, I remember finding some of this stuff in toy stores.  That's what the industry needs in my opinion, something that doesn't just sit on the bookshelves with all the other books.  Something that can market in other types of stores, move into other merchandising points of sale.  If that's the way most of us started gaming, doesn't it make sense that it would be a good way to get the new guys to start gaming?I like the hardcover books and the more complicated rules systems.  I like having supplements that can add options to the game.  Today, as an adult.  But that's not how I started gaming when I was younger.  It doesn't look like it is the way that a lot of other people are going to start gaming either.  So who are we providing these 'ease of use' features for?  After gaming for (geez!) almost 20 years, they certainly don't benefit me all that much.This business model of trying to make more money by selling more books to the same small group of people by giving them the same product with more simplified rules doesn't make sense to me.  The streamlining and simplification of 3e were good things, it was done where it was needed.  It now looks like it's going to be done everywhere, that any sophistication in the game is going to be sacrificed to the "god of marketing to the same small group of people".Edit:  I seem to have hijacked my own topic with a rant. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" />  Apologies.  We now return to your scheduled program.</blockquote>

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