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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 3992804" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>Perhaps I can make this clearer:</p><p></p><p>Rabid fans, as in genuinely "rabid" ones, tend to fixate on a particular iteration of a setting. In the case of the Forgotten Realms, virtually everyone who describes themselves as a "rabid" fan fixates on the 1E Grey Box (which was a beautiful thing, I admit) version of the FR. Most of these "rabid fans" denounce a hell of a lot of the 2E stuff, and often the 3E stuff as well.</p><p></p><p>So I really can't see them keeping the franchise "alive and vibrant". Instead it seems like they want it "preserved in aspic". Many older aspects of the FR might seem dated, or dull or unappealling to a more contemporary audience, many of whom were born after the Grey Box went out-of-print! So if the rabid fans are listened to/catered to, and the setting is indeed "preserved in aspic", whilst those rabid fans will be happy, the casual fans (who are the VAST MAJORITY of the buyers of FR products) will gradually drift away. No amount of "PHWOAR, the Grey Box 3.0 is great!" from rabid fans will drag them back, for they are bored and annoyed with certain aspects of the FR. </p><p></p><p>Now, perhaps with the FR you have a more complex situation. You have the rabid fans, who love the Grey Box and the 1E stuff and some of the 2E/3E stuff, and love it regardless of any faults. Then you have the "ex-FR-fans", like myself, who loved 1E and the beginning of 2E FR, but gradually got turned off by the uber-NPCs, the constant RSEs (none of which changed things in interesting ways, just annoying ways, imo), and the decline of the general tone of the FR from "high fantasy" to "ren-faire fantasy". Then you have the casual fans who just like "FR stuff".</p><p></p><p>WotC do a lot of market research. They aren't stupid, and they're very interested in making money. They know that the <em>current</em> rabid fans alone will not keep FR viable in the long-term. Hence the changes - they want to do two things:</p><p></p><p>1) To win back the ex-FR-fans, who are numerous. Killing off various NPCs, PoL'ing the setting and so on seems appealling to me, as someone who was once a big FR fan, but now hasn't bought any FR books for a while.</p><p></p><p>2) To get the "new generation" interested, who were perhaps previously play 3E Greyhawk or homebrew or Eberron or what have you. A "return to the FR's old style" would be extremely unlikely to be appeal to this group, so a new style was needed.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, "No fan is forever", even rabid fans get bored/distracted anyway, and nowdays are frequently clique-y and fail to communicate with non-rabid fans, so tend to think their positive effect on sales is small, at best. To keep the FR going, they need new fans, and simply pushing along the old handcart wasn't going to do that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 3992804, member: 18"] Perhaps I can make this clearer: Rabid fans, as in genuinely "rabid" ones, tend to fixate on a particular iteration of a setting. In the case of the Forgotten Realms, virtually everyone who describes themselves as a "rabid" fan fixates on the 1E Grey Box (which was a beautiful thing, I admit) version of the FR. Most of these "rabid fans" denounce a hell of a lot of the 2E stuff, and often the 3E stuff as well. So I really can't see them keeping the franchise "alive and vibrant". Instead it seems like they want it "preserved in aspic". Many older aspects of the FR might seem dated, or dull or unappealling to a more contemporary audience, many of whom were born after the Grey Box went out-of-print! So if the rabid fans are listened to/catered to, and the setting is indeed "preserved in aspic", whilst those rabid fans will be happy, the casual fans (who are the VAST MAJORITY of the buyers of FR products) will gradually drift away. No amount of "PHWOAR, the Grey Box 3.0 is great!" from rabid fans will drag them back, for they are bored and annoyed with certain aspects of the FR. Now, perhaps with the FR you have a more complex situation. You have the rabid fans, who love the Grey Box and the 1E stuff and some of the 2E/3E stuff, and love it regardless of any faults. Then you have the "ex-FR-fans", like myself, who loved 1E and the beginning of 2E FR, but gradually got turned off by the uber-NPCs, the constant RSEs (none of which changed things in interesting ways, just annoying ways, imo), and the decline of the general tone of the FR from "high fantasy" to "ren-faire fantasy". Then you have the casual fans who just like "FR stuff". WotC do a lot of market research. They aren't stupid, and they're very interested in making money. They know that the [I]current[/I] rabid fans alone will not keep FR viable in the long-term. Hence the changes - they want to do two things: 1) To win back the ex-FR-fans, who are numerous. Killing off various NPCs, PoL'ing the setting and so on seems appealling to me, as someone who was once a big FR fan, but now hasn't bought any FR books for a while. 2) To get the "new generation" interested, who were perhaps previously play 3E Greyhawk or homebrew or Eberron or what have you. A "return to the FR's old style" would be extremely unlikely to be appeal to this group, so a new style was needed. Anyway, "No fan is forever", even rabid fans get bored/distracted anyway, and nowdays are frequently clique-y and fail to communicate with non-rabid fans, so tend to think their positive effect on sales is small, at best. To keep the FR going, they need new fans, and simply pushing along the old handcart wasn't going to do that. [/QUOTE]
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