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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DinoInDisguise" data-source="post: 9439465" data-attributes="member: 7045806">Simply put, there is a saying that goes something like; "a rising tide lifts all boats."We know that 5e is the only system, and Hasbro the only publisher, with the ability to reach a mass market through advertising and other mass media. People on this forum use it as an excuse for 5e being both bad and popular at the same time. That argument is nonsensical given 5e's player retention but that's a different conversation.We also know that many, if not almost all, players that enter the hobby do so through D&D. Some will enter through Pathfinder home games, but given the relatively tiny player base we can assume that is a very small percentage. Same for Call of Cthulhu and it's ilk. Plus we know that the hobby's growth over the last 10 years came, mostly, from 5e.It is only reasonable to believe that the growth seen industry wide, outside of D&D, over the last few years, in sales of Pathfinder books and such, is from ex-5e players who choose to move on to another system. This happened in an accelerated fashion during the OGL debacle. You may recall Pathfinder selling out of months worth of supply in days. This was, according to Hasbro shareholder calls, a tiny percentage of 5e's player base.Others have said it before. Without a successful 5e, this hobby shrinks back to it's niche roots and the player base as a whole shrinks dramatically. This would mean a great reduction in the number of viable publishers and a great reduction at play opportunities for those without a current group. It is very hard to argue those are net positives for the hobby outside of a very twisted and very narcissistic view of things.Every system and every publisher benefits from 5e's success, and every player should hope the growth of the hobby continues. That growth is, at this point, almost entirely reliant on 5e. So hate it all you will, but the hobby needs 5e to succeed.EDIT: The reason we know the growth came from 5e is that no other publisher saw the huge spike in popularity. And since no other publisher had the player numbers to lose to 5e through attrition, we know those players started with 5e.</blockquote>

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