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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rogue Agent" data-source="post: 6001483" data-attributes="member: 6673496">This isn't true. The Traveller fanbase, for example, is badly fractured and if you go to the places where Traveller players hang out you can hear some pretty hot conversations about it. It's just that there aren't enough Traveller players to form a critical mass in most places.Historically speaking, there are two ways to have a successful new edition to an RPG:First, don't change much and maintain virtually complete compatibility. (This is the method Call of Cthulhu has historically used.)Second, only release a new edition when there is clear, deep, and widespread dissatisfaction with the current edition (which is then addressed in the new edition). <a href="http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/10693/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-5th-edition" target="_blank">No reboot edition of an RPG has ever succeeded unless there is clear,  deep, and widespread dissatisfaction in the existing customer base.</a> (AD&D 1E and D&D 3E both achieved this at the time of their release.)You understand that this takes money, right? In order for these kinds of advertising campaigns to work, you have to be able to afford pervasive advertising in the long-term.Outside of Wizards and Paizo, I don't think there's an RPG company that could afford that kind of risky expenditure. (And I'm not even sure that WotC and Paizo qualify.)I don't know if it's their responsibility, but it's certainly the only way I can think of for them to find a path forward: There is no realistic method for them to recover a significant percentage of 3.5/PF gamers without simultaneously losing a large chunk of 4E gamers. So the only way they can recover from the disastrous business decisions of the last 5-10 years is to replenish their player base with brand new players.Justin Alexander made the case in "<a href="http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1223/roleplaying-games/opening-your-game-table%22" target="_blank">Opening Your Gaming Table</a>" that a major part of the problem is that the default method of roleplaying is no longer memetically viral: It requires too large a commitment from new players.And in his series on <a href="http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/15126/roleplaying-games/game-structures" target="_blank">game structures</a> he discusses how the industry's movement away from clear game structures have made it more difficult for new players to pick up and play the games.I'd start there.</blockquote>

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