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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chris Durham" data-source="post: 1755625" data-attributes="member: 19629">We're still feeling the reverberations from MTG in the way that the game is marketed, and I'm not jusst talking minis. Options are the collectible currency. As D&D has become more of a system than the melting pot of dissociated rules it sometimes was in previous editions, it has taken on a "mix-and-match" quality similar to CCGs. It's a bit more evolved, but whereas in MTG I might have a creature that's +2/+3 and replace it with another that's +2/+2 with trample, in D&D, if I don't like my basic cleric, I have a bunch of prestige class options to choose from. The more books I have the more options I have. I know it's always been this way, but the sourcebooks these days are so focused on options to standard game mechanics that that's what people look at them as. Buying options, just like a new booster pack. Gone are the days where a regional sourcebook was just information on that region and some key characters. Now there are Prestige Classes, spells, feats, races. We're just buying the crunch and the fluff becomes secondary. Now, I say that lovingly. I do it myself, but personally I love the fluff. But we have to ask ourselves: Would we buy it without the crunch?This is actually a digression from my actual point. The thing is I love the way the game is marketed right now (with the possible exception of the minis, which I'm suspicious of). The problem is that over the next few years I can see the game devolving further into this CCG Model. The further it goes, the worse off the game will ultimately be. At the other end of the spectrum is the MMORPG which lacks the human touch, fun as it may be. Without leaps and bounds in artificial intelligence (large enough to make computers creative), MMORPGs can't replace the human end of gaming, and I wouldn't want them to anyway.Unfortunately we as the audience are less in control of our hobby than the marketing departments of the gaming companies. Even the designers are slaves to marketing these days. Such is the way of the 21st century. There's one thing that can fix it, but it won't happen in 3 years. Maybe the next decade. A smaller company has to buy D&D. Monte Cook has said it before and he's absolutely right. As long as the game is a tool to fill shareholders' pockets, it will completely devolve into "Wal-Mart fare." A smaller company, with the welfare of the game in mind and reasonable expectations as to what the bottom line should be from a niche hobby is the only real hope for the game as we know it.Oh yeah, and they should bring back the TSR name. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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