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<blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 5846419" data-attributes="member: 463">Frankly, I think their mistake is that they keep publishing new games under the old Dungeons &amp; Dragons trade mark. This makes sense with computer games, because computer tech advances.&nbsp; It does not make sense with tabletop games - Hasbro don't publish &quot;Monopoly 5e&quot; with all the rules different.&nbsp; RPGs are a lot more like monopoly IMO - they work best as evergreen products with full backwards compatibility:Call of CthuluTraveller (except New Era to some extent, and that failed).RunequestDungeons &amp; Dragons, 0e through 2e AD&amp;D.3e D&amp;D maintained a degree of backwards compatibility, though not enough IMO.&nbsp; 4e did not do this at all; in 2008 it almost aggressively rejected the previous 34 years of play.&nbsp; I like 4e a lot, it does quite a few things in un-D&amp;D ways that I personally like better than the D&amp;D way (magic, for instance).&nbsp; The game, however, clearly does not 'remain the same', and that IMO was a mistake for the larger market.&nbsp; If they want an evergreen product, they need to maintain continuity with the past. If they want a new product, brand it accordingly.&nbsp; And promote it in Dragon magazine, which should be a general RPG magazine again, not the sad thing it has become.&nbsp; Dragon isn't there to make money in itself, it's advertising - it's there to promote your product, promote the hobby, and grow the market.&nbsp; It needs to be (a) cheap and (b) on store shelves of games shops and larger newsagents.&nbsp; Heck, give it a computer games section again, sell it to the computer gamer crossover crowd.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="S'mon, post: 5846419, member: 463"] Frankly, I think their mistake is that they keep publishing new games under the old [I]Dungeons & Dragons[/I] trade mark. This makes sense with computer games, because computer tech advances. It does not make sense with tabletop games - Hasbro don't publish "Monopoly 5e" with all the rules different. RPGs are a lot more like monopoly IMO - they work best as evergreen products with full backwards compatibility: Call of Cthulu Traveller (except New Era to some extent, and that failed). Runequest Dungeons & Dragons, 0e through 2e AD&D. 3e D&D maintained a degree of backwards compatibility, though not enough IMO. 4e did not do this at all; in 2008 it almost aggressively rejected the previous 34 years of play. I like 4e a lot, it does quite a few things in un-D&D ways that I personally like better than the D&D way (magic, for instance). The game, however, clearly does not 'remain the same', and that IMO was a mistake for the larger market. If they want an evergreen product, they need to maintain continuity with the past. If they want a new product, brand it accordingly. And promote it in Dragon magazine, which should be a general RPG magazine again, not the sad thing it has become. Dragon isn't there to make money in itself, it's advertising - it's there to promote your product, promote the hobby, and grow the market. It needs to be (a) cheap and (b) on store shelves of games shops and larger newsagents. Heck, give it a computer games section again, sell it to the computer gamer crossover crowd. [/QUOTE]

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