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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7024304" data-attributes="member: 996">You don't even need good initial adventures, HotDQ was just as awful as KotS, and there was more of it to suffer through.  There's more to the timing than just letting folks burn out of 3.x, which had a good few more years left in it, easily.  There were also major market timing factors.  2008 featured the worst recession since the Great Depression, the OSR movement, and a general malaise was already gripping the broader hobby. 2014, OTOH, the anemic recovery was in full swing, the OSR demand had been fully satisfied, and boardgaming was beginning a strong resurgence that drew potential new players to the FLGS where they could be ambushed by Encounters.Had 5e & 4e been swapped in the order, not only would it have made more sense in terms of the development of the rules themselves, 5e would probably have done better playing to the OSR-influenced market, and 4e would probably be doing better now appealing to a new generation of players. 4e addressed many long-standing, seemingly insoluble problems with D&D, and solved them. That's un-D&D like.  D&D had been comparatively stodgy throughout the TSR years, barely changing over decades while other games got downright experimental.   Functional class balance that doesn't rapidly lead to unquestioned spellcaster dominance certainly makes the game 'play differently,' though, doesn't it?</blockquote>