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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 2635172" data-attributes="member: 22779">And, that's perfectly fine, for you.  However, I would point to WOTC's sales and wonder if you represent the majority or minority of gamers.  I know that there are people who want to take novel approaches.  The fact that these alternative games sell is proof of that.  I also have a pretty good idea that there are a large number of gamers out there who are fairly content with playing DnD and aren't terribly interested (for whatever reason) in other games.  A company which only caters to the alternative games crowd is catering to a fairly small group IMHO.  The number of people who want to play DND outweighs by a fairly large amount the number of people who want ot play Iron Heroes for example.  It doesn't matter how good your product is, if you don't have a market to sell to.  I think Charles Ryan and Mike Mearls have made a very good point.  The d20 publishers have been cranking out a large number of alternative games of late - the sheer number of licensed products shows that.  That certainly caters to those who are looking for something new.  I'm just not sure how much sense it makes to cater to a much smaller group than to try to sell to a larger market.  If it works, great!  But, really, how many variant d20 systems do we need?  The troubles the d20 publishers are apparently having are not entirely WOTC's fault.  Publishing books for a very small audience guarantees that you don't sell a lot of books.  IMHO, those who are looking for variant games are a much smaller audience than those who wish to continue playing DnD.  Granted, it's quite possible that I'm wrong.This thread did get me thinking about something.  Charles Ryan's comment about quality of product.  I certainly don't want to argue the merits of his comment, but, a thought occurs.  I'm playing in the World's Largest Dungeon and really loving it.  But, I did have to plunk down a hundred bucks for this book.  What did that get me?  It got me a couple of forums on the AEG site that never see an AEG representative.  It got me a massive thread at En World with some AEG reps popping in from time to time with ideas.  That's about it.  No official errata - only a fan made one.  No official supplements - again only fan made ones.If I cranked out a hundred bucks for a WOTC product, what kind of support  could I expect?  I'm thinking considerably more than what I got from AEG.  Errata at the very least.  Web supplements quite probably.  An art gallery quite likely.  Look at the recent Undermountain support and I think you'll see what I mean.So, is it unfair to say that WOTC produces the best products?  I don't know.  I do know that WOTC certainly supports their products to a very great degree.  When we talk about this or that book, I don't think that the after support can be ignored.  If book X is the greatest thing since sliced bread but gets absolutely no added support, does that make it better, in the end, than a book which is perhaps not as good, but is fully errata'd, has a ready made adventure or two, has a couple of extra goodies added and will likely see official (or at least company supported unofficial) support for the next few years?</blockquote>

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