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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Monte At Home" data-source="post: 947512" data-attributes="member: 1335">No, and here's why. The key difference is that AU doesn't ask you to throw away your Player's Handbook. It doesn't give you all the same stuff, just a little different. (To put it another way, it's a variant Player's Handbook, not a replacement Player's Handbook.) No one is going to come to a messageboard, ask a question about Power Attack, and risk getting different answers based on whether you're using AU or the core rules--but they will get different answers based on 3.0 and 3.5. That's the nutshell of the concern about splitting the market.I suppose really the more apt comparison is Spycraft or Mutants and Masterminds. Are AEG or Green Ronin splitting the market with these products? I don't think so. I think they're fun alternatives to D&D, but no one is saying to me "Monte, if the next Book of Hallowed Might doesn't have Mutants and Masterminds stats in it, I'm not buying it."There's also a matter of scale. While AU is looking to be our most popular product ever, probably by far, we're talking about an order of magnitude of difference between our sales and core rulebook sales. In fact, I could release "Monte Cook's 3.5" and build it on the same business model as WotC's 3.5 (throw away your existing core rulebooks and use these instead) and it would not risk actually splitting the market in any measurable degree. The difference between WotC's sales and d20 industry sales is that significant.Ultimately, in a situation like the d20 industry, the guy at the top of the pyramid can't make the same kinds of decisions as someone farther down without inflicting far greater (and potentially hazardous) changes. That said, I'm hoping that even 3.5 won't upset the cart too much. Remember, my post was talking about risk, not predictions of doom.</blockquote>

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