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<blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 6056515" data-attributes="member: 6688937">I doubt that its that petty/conspiratorial. My suspicion, mostly driven by D&amp;D's edition cycle since WotC purchased it, is that D&amp;D/TTRPGs is really (even now) not that good of a business fit for a branch of a major company like Hasbro. I don't think it has anything to do with any particular edition, just that the purchasing market is so small and easily saturated. Once you've sold the core books, you have to start producing ever more specialized product, and you get into the unprofitable weeds pretty quickly.*4e tried to fix this a little bit (I think) with the way they handled it. For whatever reason, it didn't take. WotC has corporate memory now that the fix for slow D&amp;D sales is to make a new edition, so that's what they did. I don't feel that the lifetimes of 3e, 3.5, 4e, and 4Essentials are so significantly different that any conspiracy theories are necessary to explain 5e on the schedule it is set for. (The Great Splintering, caused by the edition war, may have hastened 5e's coming a little bit. Only from lost sales though, IMO.)&nbsp; Its a little early to be predicting too much about 5e and its failings yet. 2e lasted quite a while. Whether that was because it was a hot mess, in spite of it, or for other factors entirely, I dunno. I just don't think there's enough data to support much conjecture in that regard, especially given the very different climates in which 2e and the modern versions were produced and played. Now that sounds like an interesting thread. I suspect that whether a person finds it true or not will depend greatly on what aspects of 2e that person found so attractive. (Also, I suppose, on what aspects of 4e count as &quot;better-designed&quot;.) *I think Paizo has built a steady following of its adventure paths, which supports its profit model more than selling core books. For whatever reason, WotC has never managed to pull off a similar trick. Note also, that they are a &quot;smaller shop&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ratskinner, post: 6056515, member: 6688937"] I doubt that its that petty/conspiratorial. My suspicion, mostly driven by D&D's edition cycle since WotC purchased it, is that D&D/TTRPGs is really (even now) not that good of a business fit for a branch of a major company like Hasbro. I don't think it has anything to do with any particular edition, just that the purchasing market is so small and easily saturated. Once you've sold the core books, you have to start producing ever more specialized product, and you get into the unprofitable weeds pretty quickly.* 4e tried to fix this a little bit (I think) with the way they handled it. For whatever reason, it didn't take. WotC has corporate memory now that the fix for slow D&D sales is to make a new edition, so that's what they did. I don't feel that the lifetimes of 3e, 3.5, 4e, and 4Essentials are so significantly different that any conspiracy theories are necessary to explain 5e on the schedule it is set for. (The Great Splintering, caused by the edition war, may have hastened 5e's coming a little bit. Only from lost sales though, IMO.) Its a little early to be predicting too much about 5e and its failings yet. 2e lasted quite a while. Whether that was because it was a hot mess, in spite of it, or for other factors entirely, I dunno. I just don't think there's enough data to support much conjecture in that regard, especially given the very different climates in which 2e and the modern versions were produced and played. Now that sounds like an interesting thread. I suspect that whether a person finds it true or not will depend greatly on what aspects of 2e that person found so attractive. (Also, I suppose, on what aspects of 4e count as "better-designed".) *I think Paizo has built a steady following of its adventure paths, which supports its profit model more than selling core books. For whatever reason, WotC has never managed to pull off a similar trick. Note also, that they are a "smaller shop". [/QUOTE]

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