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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 6343274" data-attributes="member: 59082">I started wondering about the impact that 5E would have on Pathfinder, and the question arose in my mind: Can the D&D community/industry support two major, vibrant, versions of the game? (By "D&D community/industry" I mean the whole kit-and-kaboodle, including but not limited to all versions of the official game from TSR and WotC, retro-clones, Pathfinder, other d20 knock-offs, etc; anything that is in the "D&D family").Perhaps it has been an unspoken assumption, or hope, that Paizo won't be effected by a presumably successful 5E, even that they would feed off each other. Certainly, a healthy D&D means a healthier  RPG industry as a whole; if your flagship is doing well, the whole fleet is positively impacted.But the other side of things is that there's only so much pie to go around, only so many people who want to play D&D and buy books. Sure, we know that WotC is trying to extend the net and capture a whole new generation of gamers - and perhaps they'll be successful to some extent. But I think the law of diminishing returns is also in effect to some degree; it just doesn't seem that as many people are becoming gamers as are aging and fading away from the game. I would imagine that over the next year or two we might see a nice influx of new gamers, as well as lapsed players returning, but beyond that?As a side note, I would say that the health of the industry depends upon how much people are buying books, while the health of the community depends upon how much people are playing. There are scenarios where one is stronger than the other for various reasons. I can use myself as an anecdote; I plan on buying most 5E products for the foreseeable future, but very possibly won't play for some time because A) my focus is elsewhere - work, family, graduate thesis, novel, etc, and B) my game group is in shambles. I imagine that there are others in my rough demographic - D&D "Boomers", age 35-45ish who started in halcyon days of the early to mid-80s before Gary was ousted and people started getting MADD, and of course before the World of Darkness muddied the waters (just kidding) - people who want to stay in touch with the game, still love it, but can't quite fit it into one's life, or at least only minimally, or there isn't the right context, etc.So there are numerous ways to address this inquiry - take it how you will.</blockquote>

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