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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6931043" data-attributes="member: 37579">So...your counter argument is basically "nuh-uh"?  Neither of us can cite numbers or sales figures. Both of us have to operate with some assumptions. At least I provided deductive reasoning to back up my claim. Care to offer anything to this discussion? To expand any of your points into an actual rebuttal?  The only people who have access to the actual numbers are WotC. Who have been dramatically reducing the number of RPG books they release each year. They went from monthly D&D books in 3e, down to books every couple months, and then down to a book each quarter. And now just three books a year. They're not going to do that for no reason. What could it be?Well... there are two realistic possible options for "the reason": 1) The D&D team at WotC is really, really bad at their job and is ignoring the majority of their fans. And even though D&D is experiencing a renaissance unlike anything seen since the '80s, this would be even bigger if they were releasing annual or twice annual books of crunch. Twice as big actually since the majority of fans are not being served. OR 2) The group of fans that want large supplemental books of crunch and will buy those books are a smaller subset of the entire fanbase and not enough of an audience to entirely sustain the RPG or profitable enough on the long term to cater to. In one option, D&D is good. Because the fans are happy, the brand is well-managed, and there's limited risk of the edition being killed by bloat or power creep. No everyone is happy, but you can't make everyone happy all the time.In the other option, D&D is effed. Totally effed. And not just because the majority of fans won't be satisfied by anything less than endless and regular new crunch (which risks bloat and power creep). No, it is effed because it means D&D is staffed and managed by people with no concern for the desires of the fans that pay their salary and sustain their brand.  That are not only mismanaging the brand, but are doing so after a massive public playtest and armed with the feedback from numerous surveys, customer feedback forms, and direct customer feedback on Twitter and message boards. And are unable to do anything to correct this due to under staffing and a limited operational budget set by upper management. So D&D is either staffed by people who are hilariously poor at their jobs or are purposely sabotaging the game.And that is CRAZY depressing. Because it means the D&D RPG is going to rapidly die in the next couple years and WotC/Hasbro is going to shelve it along with the dozens of other "failed" brands and IP.So I don't believe that. Because it goes against what I'm seeing everywhere else and not just a few people here and there on message boards. And because it's needlessly depressing and I choose not to swallow that bitter pill. Because there's enough negativity out there already. And because the amount of mental hoops needed to jump through to believe that possibility are borderline full-on conspiracy theorist.</blockquote>

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