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<blockquote data-quote="TwinBahamut" data-source="post: 5961642" data-attributes="member: 32536">I wouldn't call it &quot;purposely exclude&quot; so much as &quot;didn't realize existed&quot;. 4E didn't lose a large chunk of the audience out of deliberate intent, it simply made the mistake in believing that the entire audience had the same priorities. 4E works very, very well for anyone who has the priorities and preferences that it caters to, much better than 3E ever did. 3E was a bad game for those people, and 4E is better for them. On the other hand, there are people who played 3E in a way that 4E's designers probably didn't expect or understand, and they fell outside of 4E's design goals.The truth is that D&amp;D has a very, very highly segregated fanbase. It's rare to find two groups who play the same way, and many of these styles of playing D&amp;D are more or less totally different games that happen to share a few elements of a common ruleset. You can either make a game that will partially please all of them, or you can make a game that fully pleases a group of them and is useless to everyone else. 3E was the former (and was a clunky, poorly designed mess because of it), and 4e was the latter (made many people very happy and is well designed, but has more narrow appeal to the existing fanbase). I wish I could make a comment about which one worked better to appeal to people outside of the pre-existing fanbase, but there is no way I could get that data (I'd bet on 4E, but really can't prove it).I suppose this is the whole root of 5E's potential failures and this discussion, though. The style of play 4E caters to is just a different game than many other styles of D&amp;D (like old-school DM antagonism or improv no-rule no-combat play), and because 4E is more specialized, it will work much better than any other ruleset for that style of play. A 5E that tries to be something for everyone may never be able to create a 4E-styled experience anywhere near as well as 4E was, even if the designers put their heart and soul into making the attempt.I guess this is turning more into an argument for multiple product lines or people just abandoning D&amp;D for other, more specialized games than anything else. Maybe 5E's playtest has just crushed my hopes that a &quot;D&amp;D for everyone&quot; can ever exist...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TwinBahamut, post: 5961642, member: 32536"] I wouldn't call it "purposely exclude" so much as "didn't realize existed". 4E didn't lose a large chunk of the audience out of deliberate intent, it simply made the mistake in believing that the entire audience had the same priorities. 4E works very, very well for anyone who has the priorities and preferences that it caters to, much better than 3E ever did. 3E was a bad game for those people, and 4E is better for them. On the other hand, there are people who played 3E in a way that 4E's designers probably didn't expect or understand, and they fell outside of 4E's design goals. The truth is that D&D has a very, very highly segregated fanbase. It's rare to find two groups who play the same way, and many of these styles of playing D&D are more or less totally different games that happen to share a few elements of a common ruleset. You can either make a game that will partially please all of them, or you can make a game that fully pleases a group of them and is useless to everyone else. 3E was the former (and was a clunky, poorly designed mess because of it), and 4e was the latter (made many people very happy and is well designed, but has more narrow appeal to the existing fanbase). I wish I could make a comment about which one worked better to appeal to people outside of the pre-existing fanbase, but there is no way I could get that data (I'd bet on 4E, but really can't prove it). I suppose this is the whole root of 5E's potential failures and this discussion, though. The style of play 4E caters to is just a different game than many other styles of D&D (like old-school DM antagonism or improv no-rule no-combat play), and because 4E is more specialized, it will work much better than any other ruleset for that style of play. A 5E that tries to be something for everyone may never be able to create a 4E-styled experience anywhere near as well as 4E was, even if the designers put their heart and soul into making the attempt. I guess this is turning more into an argument for multiple product lines or people just abandoning D&D for other, more specialized games than anything else. Maybe 5E's playtest has just crushed my hopes that a "D&D for everyone" can ever exist... [/QUOTE]

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