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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7667222" data-attributes="member: 996">From 1977 through 1992 (or maybe 94), it did just that.  In '77 the first AD&D book came out, but Original D&D was still being published, and continued being published for years.  Basic D&D was also going at the same time, first as an on-ramp 0D&D, then AD&D, then as the first in a series of a boxed edition of D&D, Basic & Expert (B/X), expanded by the Companion, Masters and finally Immortals sets (BECMI).  BECMI D&D was rolled up into the Rules Cyclopaedia which was published into the 90s, after AD&D 2e had come out.  In addition to that, the Arduin Grimoire was an unauthorized continuation of 0D&D - like Pathfinder, but not legal - that was very popular through the early part of the same period. You're not alone, but the D&D line did continue in parallel with the AD&D line for something like 15 years, without 'killing' either.  TSR still died, later, just not of supporting two versions of D&D. Nope, worked fine at the time.  Staying in the TTRPG business probably isn't smart business, either.  The market is small, graying, and hasn't recovered to it's per-recession levels (and might never do so).  The hope is that the D&D property has more to offer than dominance in that tiny niche. See?  Gave up too early.  If you'd stuck it out, seen everything they came up with for the fighter, then ditched, got to see the cool Sorcerer and see it go bye-bye (one player I could never quite talk into trying the playtest looked at the playtest sorcerer and was like, 'cool, I'll play one next season' - next packet it was gone, he's still playing 4e) you'd be even more confused and upset.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> That's marketing.  PR.  Spin.  It's what you do when you're trying to appeal to a weirdly nerdraging demographic like gamers. 3.5 lent itself to tactical combat quite well, actually, it was mostly a matter of party and enemy composition, though.  You needed a party without any Tier 1s, and a DM willing/able to design larger, more interesting encounters.  Neither was easy, but one campaign I was in managed it fairly consistently.  5e's not that much different.  Use the tactical module, make the monsters a little more interesting rather than a little more numerous (about equal numbers'd be good), and, well, as I'm finding it's best to do with 5e, just wing it from there. Not the goal, the means to the goal.  Publish rules that /require/ rulings, and you get players to buy into the DM's authority to make those rulings - because they can't play without 'em.  That contributes to the unequal DM/player relationship you need.   I should put that in my sig. Nod.  2e seemed beautifully simplified and clear - if you spent years wading through Gygax's original prose - otherwise, yeah, not that accessible.  I've heard that story a lot, people who didn't play 4e for a while because of what they were told about it, then tried it found out nothing they heard was true.  And, it is hard for 5e to take the 'best things' from 4e, because some of the best things about 4e were emergent properties, like class balance or balance in general or clarity, that are a function of, if not the system as a whole, of very large parts of it operating together, or of consistent, disciplined design.  Not something you can just sprinkle on or put in a module, but something you need to build in from the ground up.  There could never have been any intent to put that sort of thing in 5e.   There you go. Could just be bias from the designers when they were asked what they wanted to find out.  The earliest polls had questions like "which of these spells is iconic to D&D," interestingly, the familiar 4e 'spells' that were in that poll, like Thunderwave and Healing Word are in 5e.  They would ask something like how closes something was to the 'classic D&D experience' of that thing.  That's prettymuch asking only for feedback of 'yes, we want classic D&D all over again.'If they wanted valid polling data, they wouldn't have used something so self-selecting (and self-eliminating - as people, like you & Ezekiel, dropped out of the playtest, it inevitably turned into an echo chamber).  More likely, the whole playtest, polls included, was just a way of keeping the game out there and visible for the two years it was out of print. Every introduction of a new edition has, it's D&D.   Then they taper off.   Look at how little investment their making in 5e, though, they have fewer designers working it than Paizo, it doesn't /need/ to sustain that initial popularity to remain viable. Nod, 4e also had errata, even if they did disingenuously label it 'updates.'  They're on record with 5e getting no errata. Belly up shouldn't be a concern.  The small number of developers and slow pace of release indicate the unit has low costs, so 'poor' (ie 1st-place TTRPG) sales won't kill it, D&D could coast along for 10 or 20 years at this pace.  New players also shouldn't be a huge problem.  There's always a trickle of interest, and D&D is the only RPG with mainstream name recognition.  As the current D&D, 5e will get the first crack at new players entering the hobby, some will like it and there's your new players, some will be repelled and not explore the hobby further - all other RPGs fight over the remainder, who find D&D disappointing but look around for other RPGs instead of giving up on the hobby. I can't see that, no.  Even if the D&D IP did finally launch something hugely successful, all that would happen is that the TTRPG would become a footnote in the history of the newly successful movie franchise/MMO/CCG/CRPG/video game/theme park/restaurant chain/whatever-finally-works.Besides, it's former glory was founded on rumors of satanism and teen suicide.WotC already played the bold, risky, visionary card.  It was trumped.5e is solidly D&D.  It can hold the top spot in the TTRPG market, and keep a small team of WotC writers afloat, possibly indefinitely.  Perhaps there will be another opportunity in the future to try to break D&D - and the hobby - out of it's current niche.  But, for now, those of us who have been comfortably in this niche the whole time have what we want, and don't face any foreseeable prospect of it disappearing - nor changing enough to leave us behind.</blockquote>

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