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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 3308481" data-attributes="member: 3586">Be happy to... soon. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The plan for 3e (see Dancey) was that the PHB would be the main seller, and Wizards would only produce the minimum number of support books. Other companies would do the rest of the support (primarily adventures). Every so often, the core books would be updated with the best developments over the last few years (primarily driven by third party companiese). The publishing schedule was a lot less aggressive than 3.5e's was last year.However, it seems that flaws in that approach were discovered by 2002. I have a theory that you can't employ a R&D department if they don't publish things constantly. The team to do the core book update can't be kept around just to do that job every few years, and the release schedule was too small to keep D&D's R&D around. What made things worse was that one of the primary support areas for D&D - adventures - were found to be just as unprofitable for 3rd party publishers, and they had less incentive.Adventures are good for Wizards to produce because they help sales of the PHB. Even if you don't make as much money from the adventure, you do increase PHB sales. A 3rd party publisher doesn't have the PHB...So, Wizards needed a much more aggressive plan for publishing. They also saw that accessories, such as Minis, Battlemats, Dice, etc. could also do well. They were helped by the advent of MageKnight, which opened up the world of the CMG, and eventually D&D Miniatures.(As an aside, D&D Miniatures is one of Wizards' greatest creations. Chainmail, which wasn't helped by a confused set of goals and an occasionally hostile management team, was ultimately trying to compete with Warhammer and the established metal miniatures lines like Reaper. D&D Miniatures was competing with MageKnight, and did almost everything better: better balance, better rarity, and, importantly, a second use in being minis for the most popular RPG!)I consider 3.5e to have come at the right time: D&D was about to change its production plan. By having it come then, only a few Wizards books were made obsolete. The revisions to the rules gave a better platform for the supplements than 3e provided.Definitely. See FR.Cheers!</blockquote>

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