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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 5701806" data-attributes="member: 14159">In the various threads talking about the "edition treadmill" or "planned obsolescence" or a "monopoly model" and similar terms, I've seen a recurring point come up that as a business model that D&D must produce a new edition on a regular basis.That may be true, but perhaps we should re-think what is good for D&D as a game, and is this different from what is good business practice for whatever produces the company?In the 1e era, a new hardcover book was released about once per year, and that was the Golden Age of D&D.  Now there is no way on Earth that WotC would settle for one book per year for D&D.  However, one well playtested, copyedited, and generally well produced book a year on top of a trio of ideal core books could be more useful than the steady stream books that have been produced for far more than a decade now.By "good for D&D as a game" I mean a model of D&D production that:1. Promotes a stable rule base.  Even if the rules change over time, with inevitable new editions, changing them every few years means players have to buy new rulebooks, and re-learn the rules, constantly.  If a player doesn't have the money to upgrade, or is just fatigued with the constant new rules/editions, they stop buying.2. Promotes a steady and unified player base.  A steady stream of new editions fractures the player base as every new edition includes the decision to stay or go.  Over a long period of time, a consensus can build in the player base that some kind of overhaul or change can be needed, but the top-down secret agendas that are mandated by the fact that WotC is an arm of a publicly traded company and the rules that go with product announcements from publicly traded companies mean R&D and edition changeover decisions happen in a black box for legal reasons.  A case where being produced by a publicly traded company is bad for the game.3. Creates a balanced and flexible rule system adaptable to a wide variety of campaigns, from low-magic pseudo-historic games to high magic/high fantasy.  D&D campaigns run from quasi-historic games set anywhere from the ancient world to the golden age of piracy, to utterly fantastic worlds of pure imagination.  A good edition of D&D should be flexible enough to play out an adventure in any part of human history before industrialization, play out most popular fantasy novels and movies (especially ones that deeply influenced the genre and D&D legacy like the works of Howard, Tolkien, Lieber, and Vance).Am I proposing some kind of solution somehow?  No, not really.  I can't think of a practical one.  In a perfect world, like if I won the Powerball, I would buy the rights to D&D from WotC and set up a non-profit organization to administer it as an open-source game, but that's not exactly likely to ever happen.  Right now I would just like to open up the discussion of how the needs of a company to produce a profitable product differ from what makes for the best possible game and fosters a strong and vibrant gaming community.</blockquote>

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