Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6217935" data-attributes="member: 37579">Well... Mrs. Stevens isn't just someone who saw the balance sheets, she combined them. She was the one that pulled together the figures. Dancey knows because he tasked her with finding out.Possible. But the counter argument is if people hadn't been buying Basic they would have been buying the PHB and the other line wouldn't have need propping up. Or, as Paizo is doing, the Basic set could have been compatible with all the other products and fuelled sales of AD&D. The fact that Basic and AD&D survived for so long while competing against each other is really a testament to the popularity of D&D during the '80s. I doubt she had access to the figures as far back as the early '80s and agree that she was likely only looking at the late TSR era when it was dying. But she's said pretty plainly that it was the result of fragmentation in the D&D brand with Basic and AD&D being increasingly incompatible, but also the settings being incompatible as Greyhawk fans were not buying Dark Sun or Forgotten Realms products. This alone really killed D&D but it was accelerated by mispriced boxed sets, bad investments (Dragon Dice, Spellfire), and side games (SAGA)She goes into it quite often in her regular Auntie Lisa's Story Hour at GenCon (and now PaizoCon). The past 2 or 3 years can be heard on the 3.5 Private Sanctuary podcast. I imagine if Basic and AD&D hadn't drifted so far apart it might have been easier. If there wasn't the Basic campaign setting and the AD&D campaign settings for example. Or if monsters were compatible. Or, during second edition, if things like kits or many accessories had a shared audience. In an interview I heard a Paizo staff member going into the details of how they made the Beginner Box affordable. They were sneaky and did things like only using recycled art and having it written by staff rather than freelancers so they didn't need to pay them (as they were salaried). They worked hard to get it into Big Box stores so they could have a larger print run.  They knew the starter box was important for bringing new people into the game. That's why they worked so hard to make one and adjust the presentation. Because they knew how many people were introduced to D&D via the Red Box. And, as the industry leader, it was their job to introduce people into the hobby. (They often said that exactly. Not just the game, but the hobby. They truly felt it was their responsibility.) But they also didn't want to make a second Pathfinder line that sucks sales away from the Core Rulebook. They didn't want to make a Basic Bestiary when people could just buy any of their other Bestiary books. As said, they really view it as their responsibility to make it easy on new players to start the game. They can't make a new version of the Core Rulebook (although I wish they would) they are doing what they can. And while they're not making a Beginner Box 2 or Pathfinder Basic, they are doing products like the <a href="http://paizo.com/products/btpy90bd" target="_blank">Strategy Guide</a>.</blockquote>

Verification