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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 9274939" data-attributes="member: 22779">I think you are remembering wrong.There was never really any attempt to claim that the books were backward compatible considering they virtually instantly replaces all the 3e books. Time scales matter a lot too as well.  3.0 was only a bit over two years old by the time 3.5 was announced.  It was really, really quick.  And it was only a year or so after 3.5 was released that virtually every single 3.0 book was replaced.  There was never any attempt at backwards compatibility in the 3e model because the 3e model was based on boom/bust sales.  Your books only really sold for about six months (with a tiny tail after that).  So, you weren't cannibalizing any sales by replacing a book.  In 5e, though, the sales tails are HUGE.  The 5e modules are still selling in massive (for RPG books anyway) numbers.  Hoard of the Dragon Queen has been rereleased TWICE.  A module that has gotten not one, but two rereleases is absolutely unheard of.  So, of course WotC is constantly stating that your books will still work perfectly fine with your new books.  Plus, one needs to remember scales as well.  In 3e, while it was fantastic for the day, meant that you were talking a really small community compared to now.  Plus the relative lack of social media penetration meant that there was far, far less scrutiny going on.  The notion that you would have an audience of hundreds of thousands of fans, all online, all communicating with each other regularly, was still way beyond the horizon in 2002.  To put it in perspective, the total number of Dragon plus Dungeon subscribers in 2002 was just a hair over 51000 (cite:  <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/how-many-people-subscribe-to-d-d-stuff.308250/" target="_blank">https://www.enworld.org/threads/how-many-people-subscribe-to-d-d-stuff.308250/</a> ).  People tend to forget how minuscule the community used to be.</blockquote>

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