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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5469834" data-attributes="member: 18280">Some thoughts:(1)  The arguing about editions certainly made EN World a less fun, and less interesting, place to come to for a while.  The moderators did a great job of minimizing it - I understand that it was far worse elsewhere - and I have participated in far more "games theory" threads in recent months than "which games do you hate?" threads.(2)  If one is going to say that there is a unifying "D&D Experience" that is independent of system, then one needs an acceptable definition of what that experience is.  Unfortunately, for many people, things like Vancian magic, "fiction-first" over "rules-first" design, and tracking resources, are a large part of what that experience is.  (3)  You should therefore not really expect success from an attempt to define an all-inclusive "D&D Experience" that is not also an all-inclusive "RPG Experience".(4)  Moreover, WotC should be careful about promoting any statement that WotC means some form of shared experience that has nothing to do with the ruleset that they are selling.  In that direction loss of trademark lies......!(5)  If WotC is sincere, however, making pdfs of past editions available is not an unreasonable thing to request.  And, indeed, I cannot understand why WotC hasn't yet taken this simple step toward healing the rift......or, rather, I wouldn't understand if it were not for the fact that there are currently 3pp in-print games which are supported by that material far, far more than the current edition is.IOW, there are a lot of people for whom 4e doesn't feel like Rome, but for whom other non-D&D games do feel like Rome.  How can WotC woo them back?  There are some options:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Convince them that 4e does feel like Rome.  AFAICT, that is what Mike is trying to do here, and it doesn't seem to be working. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Offer a game that is fun, but doesn't claim to be Rome.  But then you lose the drawing power that the brand name has. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Create a new edition of the game that feels more like Rome, to the people who are trying to bring back.  IOW, that has more in common with earlier editions.  The problem here is that you can lose your current fans, for whom your current design feels like Rome.  I would argue that Essentials is an attempt to do exactly this, without losing the current fans. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Have more than one edition in print.  (More than one flavour of Rome, as it were.)  There are reasons why they may not wish to invest in this, but with PoD technology and a plethora of older material archived, I personally think this is a mistake.  It would not be, if and only if, not providing these caused folks to move to your new edition.  But the evidence suggests that this is not the case.....or Pathfinder would be doing far worse than it is. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Open 4e up with an OGL.  Allow other people to come up with versions of 4e that, while they might not help you sell your core books, would at least help to sell support products.  The danger here, of course is that, when 5e does come out, you'll end up with a 3pp version of 4e still in print.  And, of course, some of the 3pp books might be better than your own, appealing to a wider audience.</li> </ul>Just some random thoughts, as they occurred.RC</blockquote>

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