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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 5693077">I am sure they had a valid reason for the shift. If the softcovers weren't selling I suppose there isn't much they could have done differenty; however going over the softcovers I did own for 3E, I have to wonder if it was more an issue of the content than the cover. The one that leaps immediately to mind was the hero builders guide (or something on that theme). It was pretty bad.   Power creep is difficult but also almost inevitable if you keep expanding the game. I guess I just never understood why they went that route. It was simply something that didn't appeal to me. It got to the point where their books were built around prestige classes, feats and spells. I guess I just wanted more than that. I also felt many of these options could have been playtested more thoroughly to vet for unexpected combos.  I also don't think I buy the assumption that most gamers just want options that are more powerful than core. D&D is like building a magic deck. There were always be min/max-optimizing players, but in my regular gaming I encounter that mentality somewhat infrequently. When I do encounter it, I am happy to cater to it as a GM, but I have only met a handful of people who were all about finding more powerful options for characters. What I suspect most people want is cool and interesting material with flavor that inspires them.   I don't think you do. I'd much rather have a solid core game with minimal splat material (perhaps occassional optional feats or prestige classes when it is truly warranted). By the end I just felt all the splat material created a clutter effect more than anything else.   It depends on the kind of flavor. When I say flavor I mean I want lots of flavor material to draw from and not just stats or mechanics. I don't expect all the flavor material to apply to my campaign, but I'd like to see stuff that provides it. To be fair some of their releases did a good job of this. I felt the 3E Oriental Adventures had plenty of inspiring flavor material in it. I can't remember if it was an official WOTC product but the d20 Cthulu book had lots of excellent flavor as well (I thought some of it was more impressive than the original CoC stuff). I think what I am saying is I really would have liked to see more stuff for the GM rather than the player (which is kind of what I meant when I said they could have learned from the old 80s to 90s approach).</blockquote>

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