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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 6206657" data-attributes="member: 59082">[MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION], what you wrote reminded me of a thought I had some time ago with regards to Paizo's success. It came to me that D&D, as a franchise and brand name, may partially be a victim of its own success - with the alleged "25 million" always hanging over their heads, not to mention the very successful resurgence with 3E and the OGL. The problem is that WotC is owned by a corporate powerhouse who is always looking at the profit margin, first and foremost. Obviously Paizo cares about profit margin, but I still get the sense that company is, first and foremost, a gaming company run by and for gamers.WotC might be better off being independent like Paizo, because then they can go back to a similar model and decisions can be made from a "creativity first" approach rather than "profitability first" approach. I mean, obviously Mearls & Co are as gamerish as they come, but they've go the looming shadow of Hasbro forever over their shoulders. That said, it does seem they have some leeway. I mean, in some ways Hasbro is carrying a full cast of designers for a year or two without producing a single new product. We've never seen this kind of gap before between editions.Anyhow, there's such a thing as too big. I think it really depends, though, on how much Hasbro thinks they can make from D&D - or if they're OK with it being a "modestly successful" corner of the corporation.  [MENTION=6691682]adamc[/MENTION], I hear you. After playing 4E for a few years with the Character Builder, I could barely remember how to make a PC the old fashioned way. Or we could talk about smartphones - once you start using them, its hard not to rely upon them and then other, older faculties start atrophying. I have a friend in his early-to-mid 30s who said that he's noticing that he's not retaining recent, trivial memories as much anymore because he stores so much on his iPhone. I'm caught between finding that creepy and rather intriguing in terms of what possibilities may arise if our brains re-allocate energy from memory storage into something else, even unknown.Anyhow, I think its the state of things in 2013 and beyond. Any new iteration of D&D must include an online suite of tools, apps, the whole nine yards. But there's still a pretty daunting access point for newbies; WotC tried to address this with Essentials, but I don't think it was all that successful.</blockquote>

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