New versions of D&D are made mostly to attract new gamers, not to please people who already play D&D. To that end, they will try to appeal to a market share they do not already have.

Hehe, thanks.

I also think there is this false idea among fans - and designers, at least, should be aware of it - that D&D "won the 80s" because TSR had the better rules.

They won because they had the best artwork, the highest production values of the time,
and a viral media campaign in their favor that included a cartoon series and an extensive and popular movel line.

For comparison, Troll Lord Games easily put together the best fantasy RPG ruleset in the last decade, and their Castles & Crusades is a margin product.

So, it's not as if rules would necessarily be a selling factor...

Of course, I am not debating YOU, I am debating the, with all the respect, shitty, yet inexplicably popular article.

Asking Ryan Dancey and Andy Collins about the state of RPG and D&D is as smart as asking a liver transplant whether he'd like another glass of wine.


I think you're mistaken though in reducing this to the old gamer vs. new gamers debate, as, generally, is the notion that Wizards is pursuing any consistent tactic here:

They simply created a product that is generally regarded, if not outright bad, inferior to its predecessors.
Yet they decided to stick with it.


And now they get bad press for it. My bad.


That, as far as I see it, is really the whole range of the problem.