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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6361445" data-attributes="member: 42582">To make it clear what I think:* I think it is too early to confidently predict that 5e will enjoy enduring commercial success of the sort that [MENTION=59082]Mercurius[/MENTION] has described upthread (ie a steady stream of supplements sold to a large base).* Furthermore, I think that Mearls has as much as said that that is not their goal for D&D.* I think that explaining 4e's commercial problems by reference to "it was a radical departure from D&D" is post-hoc. It is simply a reiteration of the fact that 4e experienced commercial difficulties. It doesn't tell us anything about what was or was not appealing about 4e.To give a concrete example of the 3rd point: edition warriors often complain about healing surges and extended rests; but those features of 4e carry on into 5e (though without the integration of surges into the broader framework of the combat and magic mechanics). Hence we can infer that healing surges and extended rests were not too radical a departure from D&D.The only real way to work out what aspects of 4e were widely unpopular is to examine 5e closely to see what bits of 4e do or do not carry through. And even then, I'm not confident about numbers. For instance, if playtesting shows that 70% of people don't care about X, 10% really want it and 20% really hate it, then WotC has an incentive to expunge it from the game even though it wasn't really unpopular at all.Furthermore, and this relates to Scott Rouse's post linked above, we don't know all the circumstances around Essentials. It was obvious at the time, and I was not the only person saying it, that Essentials was a publishing fiasco from the point of view of existing 4e production - because it is a combination of supplements, feat errata and monster errata masquerading as a reboot. It also baffles me that anyone thought it would help new players, given how needlessly wordy it is (though 5e continues this trend - maybe I just don't know what new players are looking for). Was Essentials a last gasp to try and reach unrealistic sale? In which case, it's failure to do then left the existing 4e market in a pretty disastrous shape largely independently of how that market might otherwise have been travelling.Finally, I continue to hold that if the absence of edition warring is a mark of success, then the market is too small to make a "golden era" possible - because in a golden era, no one cares what a handful of hardcore fans are saying one way or the other, and their voices are irrelevant to overall market performance.</blockquote>

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