No. I think WotC involvement in D&D was the biggest curse for the game. They are responsible for the 2 worst editions D&D has seen in its history.
They mistreat the legacy because they dont care about. For them its only about making money fast and without much effort.
Look at the wonderfully made products of other game major companies (like FFG or Paizo) and compare them to the bland products of the "industry leader" and then you will see the what "care" really means.
Hum. Paizo certainly didn't "Care" enough about the legacy of D&D to fix the crippling flaws in 3.X. They didn't even bother to do something simple and critically important like fix the saving throw ratios, much less repair the crippling of the warrior types and the overpowering of spellcasters. They did nothing to fix the fact that half the classes in the game become useless before 10th level. And of course they couldn't do anything about the overcomplicated, optimization-based building of characters that resembles nothing so much as making a Magic deck. Oh, but they had nice art, and they formatted their products SO well (meanwhile, we are happy to report that even though there was a little trouble with an iceberg, we've revarnished the decks of the Titanic!). If that's caring, I'd prefer if they cared a little less, in favor of fixing the broken aspects of 3.X.
I suppose if you consider dropping in a few minor house rules and putting nice artwork in to be caring, I suppose Paizo cared. Personally though, if one considers WOTC to be moneygrubbing for putting a lot of work in a product, what does it say about people who simply grabbed an open source product, made a few minor changes, and charged money for it?
That's right.
I've said this before, and I always get disagreement from all angles......
But I'm still right.....
The portion of society that will ever be table top role players is more or less fixed. Most people will NEVER do it. At least not as money spending on-going parts of the market. Even most people who play WOW will never be table top gamers. And people who play WOW is still a clear, distant overall minority.
Well yeah. the glory days are long past. However, that's no excuse for catering to grognards at the excuse of drawing new players in. And that's definitely no excuse for creating systems that actively repel new gamers, like 3.X and derivatives.
It says a lot that I personally introduced several people to both 3.X and 4E. In each case they bounced hard against the deliberate "gotchas!" of 3.X, and at the same time found 4E very easy and fun to master. In short, 3.X is the sort of game that appeals to people who like to build killer Magic decks, while 4E appeals more to the people who would pick up and play "Settlers of Cataan".
Growing the fan base is possible. But you have to be realistic about your prospective market. I think WotC's reach on this one greatly exceeded their grasp.
Possibly, though as I've said, I've had a lot of success introducing people to 4E that hated 3.X. If WOTC's reach exceeded their grasp with 4E, it's still worth looking at how we can bring in a general gaming population, instead of catering to particular system fanatics.
I still say that 3E was a vastly bigger tent. And the success of 3E and the "golden age" as described by people in the market are evidence of it. A lot of people who love 4E were quite happy with 3E. But, that was before 4E came in focused like a laser on their personal sweet spot. That genie is not going back in the bottle. There is a segment of gamers who will never go back to a game that I will go to. And I don't say that as a critical comment toward either side.
I think you misspelled "AD&D" as "3E" there. I was around for the REAL golden age, and it had no numbers in the title. And IIRC, the figures bear this out- the number of gamers for 3.X never came anywhere close to the level of AD&D at it's height.
And one major advantage of AD&D was that it was easy to teach, and every class could be fun from the beginning through the end. It didn't have nonsense like "rewarding system mastery", or the realization that "Hey, this character you've played through 8th level? he's completely useless. Back in those days, we didn't have "optimization", we had "munchkins", and it was a curse, but a badge of pride that you figured out how to win the game. That to me is one of the big reasons it was so successful.
Of course this is based on vague recollections of half-remembered survey and sales quotes, combined with fond memories of when every school had it's D&D club, and weekend D&D clubs were within bicycling distance. Actual numbers would be appreciated.
