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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ourchair" data-source="post: 5356879" data-attributes="member: 85362">As far as I'm concerned, it's not a marketing ploy unless marketing actually went down to R&D and passed down a executive-approved mandate of, "You need to make it more 3e like so it'll appeal to Pathfinder players" or "Bill says he wants it to be more 1e."Granted, what they're doing now with Essentials and the design direction after are in a sense addressing THAT, but that's merely a convenient confluence between the desire to make changes in design philosophy, crunch-fluff development, et al AND the contrivances of a new marketing angle.Another thing: As I've said in other threads, you can't reduce an entire demographic of gamers to one psychetype (I just made a word!) so I'd be hardpressed to say that Essentials is unequivocally designed as more old school because it is aimed at old school players.My take on it is that they've decided to find new ways to build things or write material within the existing rules framework (4E) that would appeal to players who aren't playing. (i.e. completely different ways of building classes, fluff-rich approach to monster presentation, rethinking treasure distribution and item rarities)</blockquote>