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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenmarable" data-source="post: 4840138" data-attributes="member: 40359">I agree that it's great for the hobby and I especially love having obscure topics explored. However, from what I've heard from those more experienced than me, the traditional distribution system doesn't handle that sort of variety and niche products very well - at least for physical books.But RPGNow arose and provided a distribution system that could handle that, and it did remarkably well from what I understand. Unfortunately many products that would have thrived as PDF only went to print, as well as many customers called for print copies of many products that should have PDF only.So that variety was awesome, and I loved it. It's just the practical distribution/printing side of things that didn't do so well. Now with PDFs well accepted (and even preferred by many) and the rise of Print on Demand, the industry can handle obscure products much better. Unfortunately, PDFs & POD pretty much cut the FLGS out of the loop*, and so many publishers have gone under that the stream of products is a trickle compared to the height of the 3.x/d20 era.But it would be nice to have that variety back. Yeah, some people didn't really care for having 3 different drow books, etc. But I agree with you, that variety is great for the hobby and customer, if only the production and distribution side could manage it better.* If someone can find a practical solution to providing PDF and/or POD services at thousands of game stores, there would be an believably massive resurgence in the 3pp market.</blockquote>

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