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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Beginning of the End" data-source="post: 5323119" data-attributes="member: 55271">A Rule 0 Fallacy? Really?I think this a discussion which might require a separate thread, because it's a very different claim from the one that started the thread and about which people are still arguing.I think there are a lot of separate issues being crammed into this statement:(1) Did 4E need to be such a radical departure from previous editions in order to reboot the supplements? I would argue no. There's a gray area between "slaughtering sacred cows" and "designing a completely new fantasy RPG and putting the D&D trademark on it", but I think 4E leans pretty heavily towards the latter.(2) Does an RPG line need to be periodically "rebooted" in order to succeed? I'm not completely convinced that this is true. Although it probably is true when you just keep piling mechanical content on top of your core content like so many Jenga towers.Take a book like Magic of Incarnum, for example. It was generally well received, but it suffered from the same problem of most such products in D&D: While the sorcerers and wizards are supported by additional content from dozens of supplements, the incarnum-based classes are left with just the one book.But what if the entire D&D product line looked more like Magic of Incarnum and less like Complete Warrior? Where each supplement was a unique concept and you would never ask the question, "How many more fighter feats do I really need?" Successful supplements could be kept in print; less successful supplements could simply fade into the past.D&D has suffered from mechanical concepts which have allowed for "low calorie" supplements (more kits! more feats! more prestige classes! more spells!). And when you're doing that you can, in fact, saturate your market. But if you're providing content which isn't just "more of the same", then saturating your market is like saying that you periodically need to reboot English and replace it with a new language because you've saturated the book market with too much content.</blockquote>

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