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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Why 3.5 Worked
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7884091" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>No, it doesn't. And, the "bloat problem" came down to a couple of fundamental decisions about how they'd monetize the edition.</p><p></p><p>Decision #1: Players are where the money is at. Third edition was the first edition primarily marketed to players and not to DMs. Where as most of the content in prior editions was aimed exclusively at DMs - monster manuals, setting supplements, adventures, etc. - they made a conscious decision to aim 3e primarily at players. (I should say here I'm not privy to the actual internal details of WotC's brand management, so this is all speculation on my part, but I do think I'm a pretty good detective.) As a result, there was a rule that no book was going to be produced by WotC without at least part of the book aimed at players. Since players are only interested in one thing from a rules perspective, that meant every book came loaded with character options. And it's that, and not rules aimed at making settings or minigames come to life, that caused the mechanical bloat. </p><p></p><p>Decision #2: Highly aggressive publishing schedule. When it became obvious that 3e was a success, someone made the decision to milk that cash cow as fast as they could. That meant publishing like 6 large hardcover rules supplements a year. It was an avalanche of books. Not only did that mean that new options were being introduced all the time, it also meant that no one in brand management had a comprehensive picture of what they were doing with the brand. The pace of publishing exceeded the ability of anyone to adequately review much less play test what was being published, and it meant that there was basically no real coordination between products. No one was even attempting to address how all this material would be used or how it would fit together. Brand management was de facto being left up to the individual Dungeon Masters to decide if and how they would integrate all this content with their game. In effect, they were directly sacrificing the long term health of the brand for short term profits.</p><p></p><p>I'd like to think that among the lessons the 5e brand management team has absorbed, is the consequences of the above two mistakes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7884091, member: 4937"] No, it doesn't. And, the "bloat problem" came down to a couple of fundamental decisions about how they'd monetize the edition. Decision #1: Players are where the money is at. Third edition was the first edition primarily marketed to players and not to DMs. Where as most of the content in prior editions was aimed exclusively at DMs - monster manuals, setting supplements, adventures, etc. - they made a conscious decision to aim 3e primarily at players. (I should say here I'm not privy to the actual internal details of WotC's brand management, so this is all speculation on my part, but I do think I'm a pretty good detective.) As a result, there was a rule that no book was going to be produced by WotC without at least part of the book aimed at players. Since players are only interested in one thing from a rules perspective, that meant every book came loaded with character options. And it's that, and not rules aimed at making settings or minigames come to life, that caused the mechanical bloat. Decision #2: Highly aggressive publishing schedule. When it became obvious that 3e was a success, someone made the decision to milk that cash cow as fast as they could. That meant publishing like 6 large hardcover rules supplements a year. It was an avalanche of books. Not only did that mean that new options were being introduced all the time, it also meant that no one in brand management had a comprehensive picture of what they were doing with the brand. The pace of publishing exceeded the ability of anyone to adequately review much less play test what was being published, and it meant that there was basically no real coordination between products. No one was even attempting to address how all this material would be used or how it would fit together. Brand management was de facto being left up to the individual Dungeon Masters to decide if and how they would integrate all this content with their game. In effect, they were directly sacrificing the long term health of the brand for short term profits. I'd like to think that among the lessons the 5e brand management team has absorbed, is the consequences of the above two mistakes. [/QUOTE]
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