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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 2731848" data-attributes="member: 151">Of course, some of us look at Incarnum and see something completely different than a Star Wars rip-off and useful, at that.  I threw a dozen 20th level Incarnates at my players last week, for example, and it worked very well.  They were elves who had been corrupted by Far Realms parasites, giving them bizarre powers...but Incarnum provided an enjoyable combat and campaign option.  YMMV and obviously does.Well, I won't disagree that third-party publishers do much more diverse things than WotC...that's demonstrably false.  But I'm still not seeing why WotC should be doing that...I was under the impression that was one of the core advantages of the OGL in the first place.Well, unless those PDFs were more than $20 each, at least, you're not really taking money away from WotC regardless...which indicates that adapting their current strategy to be more diverse wouldn't garner them that much more business, but would risk alienating their existing customer base.  I purchased about 5 or 6 PDFs this year, but most were only about $5...impulse buys, mostly.  The most expensive thing I bought was a $9.95 PDF.  All told, the PDFs equaled maybe the same investiture as one WotC book.  My investment in other games, like M&M, is not as strong...but only because there wasn't more product to purchase.  Not because the market is weak...but because there are only so many products necessary to purchase or that I desire in that space.I'm not trying to say that WotC is the most innovative publisher around...clearly nothing they've done this year is as innovative as Mutants and Masterminds second edition or Northern Crown.  But I have a hard time correlating that with the fall of the industry.  The core argument sounds like, to me, "WotC should do more diverse and experimental things, because that spurs new ideas and creativity from third-party publishers and competition, which in turn grows the industry and keeps it healthy".  As I understood it, the OGL was essentially enlightened self-interest; it shifted the burden for a lot of material OFF of WotC, while at the same time empowering other parties to both bolster WotC's core sales, enhance their brand, provide support for more niche interests and make a few bucks for those third party publishers.  From what I can tell, it's done exactly what it was supposed to do.  That it is no longer the gravy train it once was doesn't signal to me that the industry has fallen on hard times...just that growth is not permananetly sustainable, and a natural correction of the market has taken place.You suggest that the market has a problem in the form of the cyclical nature of RPG releases.  I agree that it's the prevailing model...but what could replace it, really?  There really are some people who buy the core game and nothing more.  How do you get off of that cycle and remain profitable?  I certainly prefer WotC's 'add more options' approach to White Wolf's "sure you bought the core book, but it'll be a year before you have all the clan books and information" strategy.  Is there another way?</blockquote>

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