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<blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 6347513" data-attributes="member: 15999">I find it hard to express just how strongly I disagree with this idea.&nbsp; I said a lot of my arguments against this mindset when 4e came out.WotC used to act as if the *business* needed edition churn to be profitable.&nbsp; Splatbook power creep leading to system collapse and reboot.&nbsp; The *hobby* needs no such thing.&nbsp; Chess, cribbage, gin, softball, bowling, golf, and hundreds of other games and sports are very successful with rulesets that are basically unchanged over at least decades, if not centuries.&nbsp; A hobby suffers from having the ruleset periodically reinvented, as that splinters the base.&nbsp;&nbsp; Games and hobbies are more like music or art than like technology.&nbsp; New is no guarantee or even likelihood of being better, any more than 1978 music was better than 1968 music.Slower rule churn will help the hobby, by allowing the game to be more casual.&nbsp; So 2014 gamers can pick up the dice in 2020 without being turned off by the need to buy a dozen splatbooks to be competitive, or a new PHB to learn a radically different ruleset.&nbsp; That's a huge factor behind OSR, the 1980s gamers picking it up without a huge time investment to learn a new system.&nbsp; I don't think the hobby needs more splintering.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Brother MacLaren, post: 6347513, member: 15999"] I find it hard to express just how strongly I disagree with this idea. I said a lot of my arguments against this mindset when 4e came out. WotC used to act as if the *business* needed edition churn to be profitable. Splatbook power creep leading to system collapse and reboot. The *hobby* needs no such thing. Chess, cribbage, gin, softball, bowling, golf, and hundreds of other games and sports are very successful with rulesets that are basically unchanged over at least decades, if not centuries. A hobby suffers from having the ruleset periodically reinvented, as that splinters the base. Games and hobbies are more like music or art than like technology. New is no guarantee or even likelihood of being better, any more than 1978 music was better than 1968 music. Slower rule churn will help the hobby, by allowing the game to be more casual. So 2014 gamers can pick up the dice in 2020 without being turned off by the need to buy a dozen splatbooks to be competitive, or a new PHB to learn a radically different ruleset. That's a huge factor behind OSR, the 1980s gamers picking it up without a huge time investment to learn a new system. I don't think the hobby needs more splintering. [/QUOTE]

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