no, there were more sourcebooks for 2nd than any other edition, and the problem is, like with 3rd, 4th, and probably DDN; and was promoted in 4th heavily, that the DM isnt allowed to say "no" to published official material.TiaC wrote:Also, it sounds like you just want more 2e sourcebooks. However, the reason they're trying for the Grand Unified Edition is that no one segment of their market is big enough. You want them to focus on the smallest and most subdivided segment and you think that is a valid strategy in a company that you acknowledge is focused on profit?! Players like you are going to have to accept that WotC/Hasbro really doesn't care about you. You have something you like and are unlikely to buy anything new.
pantywaist players think they deserve playing all things from the sourcebooks in every game. players need to learn 2 things:
1. restraint
2. their own imaginative skills
those have been lost in the Blumes/LW era and forward.
the reason no ONE section of the consumer base is big enough is partly WotC fault with its 5 systems from around 2000 (3.x, d20 fantasy, d20 modern, d20 future, SRD), failure to realize what people needed most FROM them, and the attempt to use clusterfuck design methods such as DDN. also HASBRO has its part to play in thinking a worthy product line should make $50 per quarter or whatever, and its failing to understand D&D because it still lists it by book sales and much sale X number of each book like the novels. HASBRO doesn't understand that a rulebook can be a "game", so the edition treadmill runs on by itself with fewer and fewer for each failed edition, with no supprot for anything that existed prior to 2000 and only bastardizing it and trying to wear its skin. again i call attention to 4th red box confusing the market with the EXACT design of BD&D art, and naming the online product after 5th D&D books Rules Cyclopedia.
add to that MANY people these days do NOT follow jsut a single game like in the past in regards to RPGs. i can't tell you how many times that fucktard PEMERTON on enworld threads tries to bring up Hero Wars in regards to D&D rules discussions, when the discussion is about D&D, not other things you play and CALL D&D, yet he still cites himself/herself a D&D player though they only port some things from D&D over to their Hero Wars game. clusterfuck & dragons that they are working on now just won't work.
i dont want them to focus on ANY edition, but have the balls to acknowledge the editions that were made by TSR. again they do NOT acknowledge them save for token LE reprints. i cite again ENCOUNTERS format for stores will support 3.5, 4/E, and DDN. they have NOBODY that knows well enough the older editions to support them? since the new format will have no edition specific info for store play and you have to download it, then WHY leave out earlier editions?
1. they honestly think nobody plays them
or
2. they don't know how to use those earlier editions because it is not compatible with their d20/BAB system.
WotC only makes the d20 system, which means it will NEVER support the older segments of the game. they can not make money off of older systems since they offer nothing on the market for them and the surplus of AD&D books means that nobody needs to buy new ones. the ONLY reason to include 3.5 in ENCOUNTERS is the hopes that the ENCOUNTERS players will pick it up to drop into Pathfinder. i hate to tell you but 3.5 is the MOST divided segment of players.
the want to make more money off OOP editions then 3.5 isnt the way to go as people would only buy 1 WotC product that is the ENCOUNTERS book to drop into PF. they should include ALL the editions they just reprinted in LE format to bolster sales of those books, bolster sales of AD&D and BD&D PDFs. the more people that play AN edition of D&D, the more accessories they can sale that are "system agnostic" as factin puts it, as well MANY other people as though a game edition was a religion. i still call it system independent. things like DDM, maps tools (poster maps, dungeon tiles, spell templates, etc), and even novels, hell accessories such as Volo's Guides that is just giant fluff books.
a clusterfuck edition isnt a way to go especially when it has been mentioned that all the "dials" "can be set" to whatever, but it seems they will NOT have a default setting to play the game out of the "box". you will ahve to build your own edition of D&D. if there is no default setting, then nothing will be fully designed or playtested even with this open playtesting as the number of module permutations is already too high for all people to be able to test all things. i would even wager the number of permutations is already greater with the modules of DDN than 3.x had with its classes, PrCs, skills, and feats alone. this doesnt include monsters templates from 3.x because it would be unfair since EVERY monster in DDN will just be a series of templates applied to a human frame.
DDN will be as poorly playtested and designed as 4th was, because it will use the "everything is core" philosophy in the same way because all the "modules" of DDN will just be an adaptation of EVERY splatbook ever created thrown into the core rules. like ALL other WotC edition however when DMG2 and PHB 2 comes out, the power creep from failure to playtest all the permutations of modules will come, but likely at a quicker rate.
the ONLY feasible way from the "company to make profit" standpoint to do this is put ALL the modules in EVERY book, so that every book will be a clusterfuck of 3.0~4th with some PF and other new age RPGs thrown into it, and maybe a smidge of TSR editions. that way you force the consumer to buy things they don't need and pay for things they dont want like the 6 million CAlifornians had to pay for TV services so that one company could carry Lakers v Dodgers games even though 80% of the people having to pay dont want the channel or never intended to watch the game on TV.
the ONLY way from a consumer standpoint, as also analogous to the TV situation, is a-la-cart. and remember HASBRO thinks EVERY book should sell X units, so each UPC should sell at least X since they view the product via it distribution form and media and D&D is sold as...books. ERGO: HASBRO thinks that DMGs should sell as many as PHBs, though not every player needs a DMG as there are more players than DMs. this isnt Monopoly where it is one product/game for a group. to a-la-cart DDN would mean selling how many books with these "modules"? 3 per product? well that would work if they were making a real game rather than a cluster fuck and still disavow TSR edition with those being 3.x/4/DDN. maybe they could if they pull the modules into edition specific groupings like that so the people that want 3.5 support can ONLY buy the 3.5 material?
you are right, WizBRO doesnt care anything about pre-d20 systems games, but then why as this thread suggests, snowball the public by claiming it will include TSR edition "feel"? well they threw that away recently this year didnt they? the token playing of the REAL red-box version of D&D by Mearls was just lip-service. this means DDN has already failed. they have already moved the goalposts and shown to many people, the ones they wanted to get more money from, that they are not welcome. so why are there so many segments of players unreachable to WotC be they old or new, because new players have picked up and liked TSR editions better than d20-systems? Because WotC is like a teen girl, it finds a guy it likes and dumps everything into them and all efforts towards getting him and then throws him away after a week. BF-treadmill, edition-treadmill, same concept.
to your last statement, yes i have something i like, i dont NEED anything from WotC, but IF they produced something FOR me, i MIGHT be more likely to buy it. they do NOT yet still want my money, well their extortion through incompetence doesnt work with me like it seems to work with others. slapping the logo and name D&D on something does NOT make it so. 4th failed, it wasnt D&D solely by having some similar names of things. IF they want to capture the wallets of D&D players of old, they need to start selling D&D of old again in some format. adventures, fluff products, etc either directly built on those editions or system independent. i, like many others, will not buy their new products for their new editions to "support". those in order to farm for ANYTHING to take back to older editions. i am not a big adventure buyer, so likely for me new adventures wouldnt work, but MANY other people live by them. i create my own worlds, NPCs, etc because i have my own imagination, i dont need to buy one from WotC.
then they need to accept that people today do NOT need to be able to say they play D&D jsut to have a product for them that is called D&D, and have the balls to name things like 4th as "Superhero Fantasy Roleplaying Adventures". the thing is, the product they make suck so bad they MUST put the name D&D on them in order to sell them. 4th by ANY other name would have failed within a month or so of its release.
so maybe YOU and your ilk should realize that WotC doesnt make D&D anymore, jsut gimmicks directed at emptying your wallet and slapping the name D&D on something they call a game, because they have NOBODY that can design a game that could stand without the name D&D on it.
so maybe people like you should take the barrel of cocks out of your mouth, namely the big one that blocks your view of reality, and especially WotC's cock that you keep sucking on for them offering nothing in return for it. DDN is giving people the 9's cause they arent getting the 6 back in return.
DDN is going to fail quicker than 4th because it will be like the OGL SRD and only supply people like PEMERTON to mine these "modules" for their Ars Magica, Hero Wars, PF, etc games. DDN products beyond modules will likely sale poorly as people will have more work to do with tailoring an adventure and finding a group to use the same modules then ever existed in TSR days with the tons of houserules or splats that 2nd had.
i predicted 4th would be like a marvel superheros game and after the "ze game will remain ze same" add that it will be worse than they made the troll grappling out to be and i was right. i predicted the Dave Noonan video podcast example of play was jsut the beginning of the fight that would drag on for hours and gameplay would never pick up and i was right (ergo they had to half all monster HP and make essentials). i predict the failure of DDN because people cant see how poor the idea is.
making these "new" editions which are actually new games to appease some group of people that is unknown if they REALLY want a D&D product just have the ear of WotC will not provide a stable platform for ANY new edition, only cause MORE segments of the playerbase the create a future dilution of the numbers that can be sold to each.
they dont know what they are doing, Mearls is probably tagged as the next to get fired laid-off. again they don't have the balls enough to fail, so they stay at WotC and make games where the players can't fail either turning what once was D&D, a roleplaying game, into some PEMERTON wank-fest narrative story game. Tweet has the balls to fail, but oddly isnt, nor is he making D&D or working at WotC anymore. sure, like Monte, isnt making the impact on the market as the Mona-Lisa team is with Pathfinder, but they arent sucking WotC barrel of cocks, like you are for no reason. they got off the Renton street corners and stopped hooking and got real jobs and lives and left their WotC pimp to fend for its snaggle-toothed self. So you keep being WotC's bottom bitch all you want and think DDN will do something, but I agree with, i think it was said to be credited to Frank, DDN is vaporware.
