<story><title>Dungeon Magazine</title><url>https://archive.org/details/dungeonmagazine?sort=titleSorter</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Paul_S</author><text>The history of Dungeon and AD&amp;amp;D is an interesting lesson in licensing and IP ownership. Also a lesson in power of brands and marketing.&lt;p&gt;Pathfinder is the real successor to AD&amp;amp;D and Paizo had the subscribers communication channels to fans and yet people remained with WotC and moved on to the new WotC system whose only connection with AD&amp;amp;D was the name. Back when I was a more active DM this puzzled me to no end.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ajross</author><text>Hah, I love when HN strays into obscure RPG industry flame war.&lt;p&gt;See, I think this is wrong.  People didn&amp;#x27;t, in fact, stick with D&amp;amp;D at the point where Pathfinder launched.  Pathfinder was (relative to the third party RPG market) a huge success.  And 4e D&amp;amp;D was objectively a failure in the market (though sure, it sold more than Pathfinder).&lt;p&gt;Where Wizards won was with the 5e rules.  And the 5e rules are better than Pathfinder in fundamental ways that lead to higher sales and more player satisfaction.&lt;p&gt;And the reason is that 5e is, really for the first time since the Holmes Basic Set of 1978, &lt;i&gt;accessible to the mass market&lt;/i&gt;.  Kids like D&amp;amp;D again!  Prior to covid, I ran a 2-year campaign for my 10-12 year old son and a bunch of his friends and they &lt;i&gt;loved&lt;/i&gt; it.  Some of them are hooked hard now.  Likewise, couples play 5e; random groups in offices.  You can watch people play it on the internet, and apparently that&amp;#x27;s a big thing too.  There are communities of women and queer folks plugging a game that used to be associated mostly with unwashed cloistered incels.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a straightforward, easy game that gets out of the way and exposes the actual fun part of in-person RPGs to people who would never have had the patience to read through the tomes full of prestige classes and feats that 3.x&amp;#x2F;Pathfinder require.&lt;p&gt;Basically: with 5e WotC finally got back to the promise we all saw in the early 80&amp;#x27;s.  Pathfinder is a fine game, but it&amp;#x27;s really just trying to hang on to a player culture from 2004 that doesn&amp;#x27;t have a lot of growth in it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Dungeon Magazine</title><url>https://archive.org/details/dungeonmagazine?sort=titleSorter</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Paul_S</author><text>The history of Dungeon and AD&amp;amp;D is an interesting lesson in licensing and IP ownership. Also a lesson in power of brands and marketing.&lt;p&gt;Pathfinder is the real successor to AD&amp;amp;D and Paizo had the subscribers communication channels to fans and yet people remained with WotC and moved on to the new WotC system whose only connection with AD&amp;amp;D was the name. Back when I was a more active DM this puzzled me to no end.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mcv</author><text>Pathfinder 1st edition was a direct successor (near-clone, even) of D&amp;amp;D 3, which was created by WotC. That&amp;#x27;s where the big break from AD&amp;amp;D happened. D&amp;amp;D 5 has about as much in common with AD&amp;amp;D as D&amp;amp;D 3 and Pathfinder have. Perhaps more, because D&amp;amp;D 5 was in some ways (though not all) an explicit attempt to go back to earlier, less complex editions of D&amp;amp;D.</text></comment>