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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 6366122" data-attributes="member: 59082">Tony, I'm not only focusing on the last six years - I think that is your "4E defense mode hackles" getting up. But I do think that where the larger challenge has always been how to get new players coming in, over the last six years a new problem has arose: how to get old players back. Whether you like it or not, 4E did distance a lot of folks, and a major part of the 5E strategy was to get at least some of them back.Again, they are two separate issues - see above. I'm reading between the lines here and it is my sense that you are basically saying, "4E was the best chance D&D had to reach a larger market but the grognards and traditionalists ruined it." <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" /> I don't disagree about the attitudes, but think you are making a false equation there and don't think the two are mutually exclusive. The traditional qualities of D&D don't inherently make it unapproachable to new players. Maybe some of the really weird gygaxisms do, but since 2E came out they tend to be rather buried. But when I skim through the 5E PHB, which has a more traditional vibe than 4E, I don't see a lot that is overly weird or unapproachable to new players.Nice, glad to hear it!Yeah, I think you're right about lower level of investment. If anything, this might be the main source of nerdrage (or grograge) - people saying they love 5E but wish WotC was investing more into it.Yeah, I think this is basically right. It also speaks a bit to the dumbing down of our culture, especially with regards to imagination. We're a quick-fix culture and like everything fed to us. D&D requires actual work.This, I think, is a bit of an oversimplification. I think it is less about what is more or less enjoyable, and more about what is easier to get into. I've said before that the difference between a video game and an RPG is similar to the difference between a movie and a book. People don't watch movies over reading books because movies are more enjoyable, but because they're easier - they're quick and require little from you, other than just sitting there. A book requires a kind of focus, attention, and patience. It also requires one's imagination to fire.I agree, yeah, this is a big one.This seems relatively minor.I agree and would add campaign settings--in all shapes and sizes, from whole worlds to sandboxes to locations. This is also why I'm a bit concerned with Mearls saying that no Forgotten Realms book is in the works, not because I'm particularly attached to the Realms but because I'm worried that they won't produce setting material at all, or only minimally. I think setting material, like Dragon magazine actually, is a bit of a loss leader - not that you can't make a setting book profitable, but that sales figures don't really adequately reflect its benefits to the game as a whole. See Golarion, for instance. I have no idea if the setting books make Paizo money, but I do think they strengthen Pathfinder as a whole - they give it a home. So this should be a question WotC is asking: How to create venues for people to play D&D casually, but without taking away anything from the game itself? I hear you and agree to some extent, as long as the virtual stuff doesn't take away from the imaginative experience, because then you're in danger of losing sight of what makes RPGs unique. In other words, use virtual stuff as augmentation and supplementation but not as a replacement.You're missing the most important difference between the two: One employs the imagination while the other doesn't. And that  makes all the difference in the world.Nice post - and, with the part I snipped, a better response to Rygar than mine, I think.OK, I think you emphasize an important point and perhaps why we shouldn't hope for more than a solid, sustainable level for the hobby. And perhaps that is what Mearls & Co are doing, no more or less.Yes, understood. I think you have two general player groups, "serious-to-diehard" people who are lifers, buy tons of books, and many of whom participate on forums, and then the "casual players" who might buy one or two books, but generally just show up to roll dice. Of course it is more of a spectrum, but I'm guessing that for everyone one serious-to-diehard player there are quite a few casual players.In the above formulation, of those thousands of newcomers per year, how many become serious/diehard players? It seems that the hobby and industry thrives depending upon that (which is also why WotC focused so much on pleasing the long-term fans with 5E, I think).And perhaps this is all we can hope for.</blockquote>

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