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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zardnaar" data-source="post: 6928495" data-attributes="member: 6716779">No idea but UA was the only splatbook 1E had at least in terms of splat in the modern sense that being PC options.  DM options like MM and adventures are not really splat as such as they do not bloat the edition or increase its complexity. Quite a bit of UA and WSG/DSG made it into the 2E book and increased the complexity but they were more game options than PC options with things like the proficiency system. Te splatbook churn in the modern sense started in 1989 with 2E and the Complete Fighters Handbook and later on things like Tome of Magic.2E was also turning out material faster than 3E and 4E (I think Paizo managed to beat this rate) but a lot mof it was setting splat and thats when things started to go wrong for TSR. Darksun fans might not buy Planescape material and a setting adventure would sell less than a generic adventure which they started figuring out around 1994 and they made The Night Below which is one of the very few good 2E adventures and it is also one of the best D&D adventures of all time.  WotC messed up 3E, and it was not really 3E fault as such had it been handled better it would have been your decade+ long D&D (see Paizo doing a better job).  4E was a big over reaction to the problems of 3E, was rushed out the door and they listened to the wrong people when they designed it (Tweet and Heinsoo made the minis game and the people who were in charge of organised platy wanted a simpler/minis type game).  In 7 years WotC also made 3 versions of the Star Wars RPG. The people in charge of WotC after the TSR takeover and around the launch of 3E were mostly gone by 2001/2002 though. That was a big problem as later events showed. Most of the people who pushed for 4E were also fired. Mearls and Crawford were there but they were not the ones who pushed for it (Tweet, Heinsoo, Slaviksec). 5E is more your classic D&D game hearkening back to the TSR era with modern mechanics and overhauled spells and classes. You can have a more powerful class than say AD&D but you can't break it as easy with magic items (back under DMs control) and feats are optional (once again under DMs control). They basically fixed the worst offenders from 3E without throwing out the stuff D&D gamers liked about the game in the 1st place. 4E tried to fix D&D mechanically, 5E did not bother but identified the things that broke 3E and 4E and toned down the complexity. Both had to many options that lead to to powerful PCs.</blockquote>

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