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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5339918" data-attributes="member: 59082">True. I go into this a bit in <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/294954-whats-ahead-d-d-what-approach-will-wizards-coast-take.html#post5339910" target="_blank">this thread</a>, where I discuss what I see as a transition into D&D Insider being the core rules, with hard-copy books being more of temporal manifestations of an ongoing, developing virtual rules conglomeration. It may even be that DDI gradually transforms into what could be called "5E"; first, however, I think we will see 4E Revised core rulebooks, yet again, they will merely be physical versions of what is already available through DDI.This might even follow one possibility for books in general - that they will eventually be mainly print-on-demand, luxury items, with the main way people read being through ebook readers like Kindle. This isn't going to stop books from being published, but we will see more books move to POD, especially non-bestsellers. This would correlate with what happened with CDs and MP3s (CD buyers are mainly 30+; very few of the high school kids I work with own any CDs).Well, I agree in that WotC could never please everyone, and many fans are forever "lost." This was the case even before 4E came out, but it seems that a larger segment than ever before split off with 4E. It would be interesting to find out what percentage of D&D players play different versions; my guess is that less than 5% play pre-3E versions, maybe 10-20% 3.x/Pathfinder, and about 75-80% play 4E. Still, if you're WotC and you know that 15-25% of the D&D fan-base is playing a version of the game that you are not supporting--and thus they aren't buying--you want to find a way to reduce that number somewhat. But it has to be coupled with pleasing existing 4E players and drawing new people in, and I would say it is the least important factor of the three.But is it possible to attract old, current, and new alike? Yes, I think so. WotC did it with 3E so I don't see why they couldn't do it with 5E. But I again, I agree that their main focus should be pleasing existing players and bringing in new players, but I don't think they should or need to completely ignore the "lost," especially if it is as large a segment of the fan-base as I think it may be (25% is probably too high, but even 10-15% is significant).Again, I think the key is modularity. Build a simpler, cleaner core game and make everything else modular and optional. They could even do this to some degree with D&D Insider and 4E, although it would take a bit more work without it built-in from the ground floor. The simple, core game is there, but it is fused to all sorts of required complexities (like the cumbersome power structure, which is a good idea but I don't think WotC implemented it quite right).</blockquote>

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