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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 6360397" data-attributes="member: 59082">Sounds like an interesting tangent! But I'm wondering if this is along the lines of what I was talking about with regards to perception, and not necessarily true in terms of numbers. Without putting words in your mouth, I'm wondering if one of the reasons you imply is the health of the Paizo community, that it is closely knit, and Paizo seems to have found a good balance in terms of the type and number of products they produce (despite grumblings I've heard recently about bloat, even though PF seems far less bloated five years in than 3.5 was at the end of its cycle...that's an interesting thought, that PF has been around as long as 3.5 was before 4E was published).I think part of the "this is the way" approach had to do with the online tools, that for instance Character Builder couldn't really accommodate house rules all that well. 4E seemed to be the first edition of D&D that the existing products seemed to discourage house ruling. I know this was never explicit, or even implied in any way - but it was more of a "the medium is the message" thing. There's a French phrase, trop de choix tue le choix, which means "too much choice kills the choice." I think this is what happens with bloat, but perhaps especially with 4E's character builder, and perhaps also AEDU. Having a menu of options makes it difficult to improvise away from those options. Having hundreds of feats to choose from makes it hard to choose, except towards the route of optimization.It was a jumbled mess and it lingers on still. To be honest, I've been on both sides of the field. I've never been an intentional edition warrior, but I have argued with people that 4E was "real D&D" if you wanted it to be, and also argued that the mechanics of it made it hard to engage theater of mind and thus it veered a bit too far from "real D&D" for me. I just wish we could not throw the baby out with the bathwater, and am hoping that the 5E DMG incorporates some of 4E's strengths into its modular options.</blockquote>

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