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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6585325" data-attributes="member: 996">The edition war seemed objectively real to me.  Likewise, there weren't many h4ters lambasting 4e for not being different enough from the status quo.  So, I think it's pretty fair to conclude that the edition war was evidence of meaningful resistance to change.  The industry had stayed small ever since the initial fad died away, so there's a clear correlation between that status quo and the lack of growth.  Not conclusive proof by any stretch of the imagination, but not just subjective, either.  Like I mentioned in passing, the most vitriolic discussions these days do seem to be the ones about the business side.  So, yeah, not too heavy, if that's OK.   Suffice to say that the 4e direction failed to turn around the industry in the 2 years it was tried, and, similarly, the 5e direction - fundamentally the classic D&D direction - failed to sustain the success of the initial 80s fad.  Achieving some meaningful fraction of the fad's peak, though, seems like a fair thing to hope for from 5e and the OSR phenomenon, in general.  Growth beyond that would require bringing in hordes of new players, which D&D has consistently failed to do for the last 30 years.  Clearly, something significant would have to change - and probably stay changed for a while - and, to loop back around, there's been demonstrable resistance to change.</blockquote>