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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gargoyle" data-source="post: 5610102" data-attributes="member: 529">All the discussion about 5E and Mike Mearl's articles, and speculation about WotC downsizing and business strategy, got me thinking about a video I watched the other day with an <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html" target="_blank">author talking about Howard Moskowitz's detailed study on spaghetti sauces</a>It's a long rambling video, so to summarize, Moskowitz determined something about food that we almost take for granted today, but at the time was fairly new knowledge for the industry:  People like different flavors of spaghetti sauce.  There isn't one "best" flavor.  There are several best flavors.  Some like it spicy.  Some like it with a lot of meat, some like it meatless, etc.But there are still a certain number of flavors that are profitable to make.  Making every possible combination isn't economically feasible, so you focus on the flavors that will capture the majority of the spaghetti sauce market, including significant numbers of people who don't currently like spaghetti sauce because no one is making their preferred flavor yet.The more I think about it, the more I think that if there is a new edition of D&D coming, it should come in more than one flavor, that is, more than one ruleset should be fully supported at the same time to support the varying tastes of D&D players.This is something that has happened before.  BECMI and AD&D coexisted in harmony when I started playing in '82, and I think it was a great time for the hobby to be a player or DM.With much of the support going digital, it seems to me that it would be economically feasible to support multiple, active editions of D&D at the same time.  IMO, an active 2E, 3E, 4E, and a limited Essentials line would be ideal if they decide to do something new with a limited staff.  In this primarily digital environment, adventures could economically be published in multiple versions.  Print hopefully wouldn't be dead, but perhaps be limited to core products of each flavor.This isn't a new idea by any means; I've seen numerous posters suggesting something similar in various threads.  Mostly I'm posting this because seeing the Moskowitz video clicked with my memories of the BECMI / AD&D days, and I think that multiple edition support might be a worthy topic in itself for discussion.</blockquote>

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