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Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 3925135" data-attributes="member: 5948">It's always a balancing act.  Whatever you might say about hardcore fans, they are far and away the most likely to be interested in any reinvention, even if they don't like the details or the implementation.  It's a lot easier to get a fan of campy-BSG to give modern-BSG a go than it is to convince someone who's never heard of it to watch it.  Your hardcore fans are the bedrock of your market segment.  Any reimagination WILL alienate some of them, granted, and the internet being what it is they will likely be loud about it.  What you're always doing is gambling that your reinvention will attract more new fans than it alienates old ones.  And the history is decidedly mixed:BSG reinvention (campy->modern version) - successD&D reinvention (1e/2e -> 3e) - successDragonlance reinvention (Saga, Summer Flame, War of Souls, etc) - failureDark Sun reinvention (revised box) - failure, though I blame that more on the horrendous mess that the Prism Pentad left the setting inGreyhawk reinvention (Wars) - failureBuffy reinvention (movie->series) - success beyond wildest dreamsStar Trek reinvention (anything beyond Next Generation) - failureWorld of Darkness reinvention (post-Gehenna) - arguable failure.  I'm admittedly not sure about the exact numbers, but I get the distinct impression that NWOD isn't a patch on OWOD sales-wise, though WW has Scion and Exalted to take up the slack these days.Looking at this list (which were the obvious examples of reinventions off the top of my head - feel free to point me at more), the thing that jumps out at me is that the successful ones have almost always been marked by a long wait between when the old version petered out and the new one showed up.  Perhaps this is because the hardcore fans have some cooling-off time in which to get the hankering for *something* new even if it might not be exactly what they want, and the new fans don't have to deal with confusion between the old and new versions.  The two in the above list that possibly don't quite fit the pattern are Buffy (though I'd argue the throwaway movie didn't really have much in the way of a rusted-on fanbase so the show could generate its own fans from scratch) and D&D (though I'd again argue that 2e had been pretty effectively comatose, if not quite dead for a long time before 3e came along)I reckon the closest parallel to what we're seeing now with 4e is the oWod->nWod transition.  An established, well-selling and active line getting wound up because of a) legacy artifacts and other deep-seated detritus in the ruleset that affect balance and make the game work in a way it's not intended, and b) the desire to refocus on PCs rather than deal with the limiting factors that are powerful NPCs and other fluff built up over the years.  The impression i've got as to how it NWoD turned out (I haven't played it, personally) is that it's robust, flexible, and functional but is somehow bland, uninspiring, lacking character and charm, and generally giving off a 'tries-too-hard' vibe, and that a high percentage of the hardcore fans have either ignored it or adopted the best bits of the rules modification to their OWoD games.  I could very easily envisage 4e going the same way, especially if one or two of the bigger and better 3rd-party d20 companies (Paizo in particular, who through their stewardship of Dragon and Dungeon have a considerably higher profile among non-internet, non-ENWorld gamers than people like GR or Necromancer) continue supporting the system.And that (longwinded though it might be) is my big worry, about 4e in general and not just the Realms.  4e may very well solve a bunch of annoying problems that have beset earlier editions and be nifty to play, but I think it's a) inevitably going to lose a fair few hardcore fans who will keep happily on with 3.Xe or whatever, and b) I don't think it's looking to be EXCITING enough to attract new gamers to D&D.  The release of 3e got covered in mainstream news.  4e almost certainly won't.  And while it'll be great for WotC's D&D sales figures (blind Freddy could tell you they'll sell more of 'PHB 4e' than they would of 'Scroll of the Fey' or 'Fighting Yet More Drow And Shar-Worshippers In A Shadowdale From Which Elminster Is Mysteriously Absent (Again)' or 'Complete Oozewrangler' or whatever other niche 3.5e concept they scraped up to fill up the product schedule) and that means D&D is likely to justify its existence to Hasbro for a little longer, I can't really see any appeal here that's going to attract the new gamers in that will be needed to offset that percentage of old-school types who will drop off.</blockquote>

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