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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hatmatter" data-source="post: 8221645" data-attributes="member: 75077">Great perspectives, UngeheuerLich. I like the way you emphasize innovation, which is hallmark to any great creative success. Let, me, however, respectfully provide an alternate model, given that the analogies we use help us shape the narrative of the thing to which we apply those analogies.Cell phones are technological, so that is quite different from rules systems. For the first 40 years of role-playing games, we have certainly seen new editions with significant rules changes occur for almost all role-playing games that survive. That has been the model. However, I am not convinced it must be the model going forward.We could use instead, as imperfect as it is, the model of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Before the MCU, most super heroes had a limited shelf life on the silver screen...after a few years, a decade, or whatever, they would be rebooted. In the case of this analogy, that is the old model of continuously revising RPG rules with new editions. However, due to its great success and the creative direction of Kevin Feige, the MCU has been able to push forward with storylines and to bring to a close the arc of some of its characters. If those characters come back, it is because there could be a narrative reason to bring them back, it does not look like they are on the road to endlessly rebooting characters (within the MCU of course...they will still be rebooting X-Men and Fantastic Four to bring them into the MCU)...at least for the next decade or two...there are simply too many stories to tell. They have parleyed their financial success into a way to expand what can be done with super hero films (and now, TV). In doing so, they have made decisions that would be hard to imagine given the old model of thinking (not making Iron Man 4, for example), but serve the expanding narrative (and deal with escalating actor's fees!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ).What if Wizards eschewed the convention of the past 40 years in changing rules and, instead, doubled-down on its success by pressing forward and taking D&D into a realm it has never been because such innovation has been stymied by rules revision? What if Wizards created new RPG games, even? In the first DMG, Gygax provided conversion tables for Boot Hill and Gama World characters. What if Wizards created new genre games using D&D game as a chasis in order to try to leverage the success of D&D into the success of RPGs in other genres. I know there are hundreds of other RPGs out there, but Wizards is uniquely positioned to gain traction where other game companies are not, especially by connecting said games to D&D, which Gygax was doing in just a few pages back in 1979.And that is but one example. We could see years, decades even, of greater (more complex, more meaningful, more interconnected) campaign narratives, campaign settings, rules expansions (20+ level, large army combat, combat in different genres, exploration of game-with-games...why can't we get a fully developed Dragonchess game, etc.), and other great areas to explore. These are only my weak ideas...I am sure other people here could think of other far, superior ones.There is a way to publish new editions of games (updating the art, including errata, making some minor changes) without overhauling the rules. The former would allow the game to continue to expand to places it has never been. We have been down the road of the latter and it requires that the company devote all of its resources to redoing what has been done, redone, and redone again before (e.g. 6 versions of the PHB and DMG, a campaign setting book or box for Forgotten Realms for each edition, etc.).Merely a thought. Keep rolling!</blockquote>

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