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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 5824986" data-attributes="member: 32164">Wanting back the old-school gamers is about one thing, that D&D shares with only certain types of products.Network effects.Because it's a game that you play with other people, like a fax machine, or an operating system, D&D is more valuable when more people play it. That was the whole idea behind creating the d20 System (and the OGL).If many roleplaying games used the same system, the barriers to entry are lower. And the network effects are greater. You have more people to play with and so the game becomes more useful to you.Fragmenting the player base into multiple editions has the OPPOSITE effect. Re-uniting those disparate groups behind a single game is a brilliant, long-term strategy. Even if you can't fully pull it off, it's smart business to try.Because the more people that play it, the more valuable a particular edition of D&D becomes. Remember, most gamers learn to play D&D from other gamers. The number of people who pick it up "blind" is rare.If the game could cater to all those different playstyles, it would unite the player base and mean that all new gamers would end up playing the same game, even if they were playing it with different option settings.</blockquote>