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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6216728" data-attributes="member: 177">The title of the thread and the OP are a little at odds.&nbsp; The thread title is &quot;Would some other company make a better steward for our hobby?&quot; but the OP asks, &quot;What if Paizo (or whatever company) made your preferred ruleset?&quot;Those are by no means the same question, at all.&nbsp; Producing my personal favorite and stewarding the hobby are not the same thing.&nbsp; I don't really have a single favorite game.&nbsp; I like a variety of different kinds of play, so that no one ruleset is apt to do everything I like well.&nbsp; So, I won't address the &quot;what if they made your personal favorite game&quot; aspect.I do think we are well served by having a healthy RPG ecology - there should be one or two really big fish, and a whole bunch of smaller fish.&nbsp; The role of &quot;steward of the hobby&quot; goes to the Big Fish.&nbsp; I think anyone in that position will end up looking, for most purposes, just like WotC does to us.&nbsp; Being the Big Fish implies being a business of some size, and those have issues like WotC does.&nbsp; Bigger companies lumber.What if Paizo had it instead?&nbsp; Remember TSR?&nbsp; It put out a lot of good stuff.&nbsp; But as a business, was too small to really keep the top spot, and faltered.&nbsp; Smaller companies don't have the resources to weather problems well.The question has a lot of, &quot;the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,&quot; to it.&nbsp; We have a tendency to look at things we don't like, and think, &quot;If the universe were different, we could have those bad things go away, and not have *any* other bad things crop up.&quot;&nbsp; That's not usually how things work in practice, though.&nbsp; No company is perfect, at least not for long.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 6216728, member: 177"] The title of the thread and the OP are a little at odds. The thread title is "Would some other company make a better steward for our hobby?" but the OP asks, "What if Paizo (or whatever company) made your preferred ruleset?" Those are by no means the same question, at all. Producing my personal favorite and stewarding the hobby are not the same thing. I don't really have a single favorite game. I like a variety of different kinds of play, so that no one ruleset is apt to do everything I like well. So, I won't address the "what if they made your personal favorite game" aspect. I do think we are well served by having a healthy RPG ecology - there should be one or two really big fish, and a whole bunch of smaller fish. The role of "steward of the hobby" goes to the Big Fish. I think anyone in that position will end up looking, for most purposes, just like WotC does to us. Being the Big Fish implies being a business of some size, and those have issues like WotC does. Bigger companies lumber. What if Paizo had it instead? Remember TSR? It put out a lot of good stuff. But as a business, was too small to really keep the top spot, and faltered. Smaller companies don't have the resources to weather problems well. The question has a lot of, "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence," to it. We have a tendency to look at things we don't like, and think, "If the universe were different, we could have those bad things go away, and not have *any* other bad things crop up." That's not usually how things work in practice, though. No company is perfect, at least not for long. [/QUOTE]

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