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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clavis" data-source="post: 3897134" data-attributes="member: 31898">Just to make myself clear. My complaint is that the new Dryad is stupid, and an unnecessary (from my point of view) change. I then proposed a possible reason why some game elements, such as the Dryad, might be changed - to create Intellectual Property that will be the sole possession of WOTC. In a corperate environment, it's not out of the question for the legal and promotional departments to have input into the development of any new product. That isn't a "weird conspiracy"; it's just business. Hasbro's investors aren't in the stock market to care about our game, or the future of our hobby; they just want a return on their investment. That means that the employees of Hasbo subsidiaries like WOTC need to show that they are engaged in activities that will create revenue for the parent company, and thus the shareholders. Redesigning the entire D&D game will create revenue because even people who already own previous editions of the game will purchase the new books. Completely changing game elements, even those that did not need to be changed, creates a justification (to the consumers) for a new edition of the game. Changing game elements that were based on other people's IP so that they are the unquestioned IP of WOTC can create potential future revenue streams (through licensing and the like), and thus makes good business sense.There's nothing nefarious or weird about the process, it's how business works. Like it or not, our hobby is someone else's business, and they are going to make decisions about our hobby based on their business needs. That's just the awful truth about how the sausage is made. Almost everything made by corporations (and that means almost everything we use in life) comes about through a torturous process that involves countless company meetings, and includes input from parts of the company that might not seem at first to have any relevance to the product being created.</blockquote>

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