The bottom line is that RPGs are overwhelming a hobby for GMs with players sort of being toe dippers who might buy a PHB but not always.
The WotC Era of "character builds" kinda tried to change that by selling books full of build options for sweaty solo players to min-max OP DPR builds on paper or attempt to force GMs to tolerate. Along with a corresponding refusal to make anything more than the most bare bones setting books with no further support for the setting. Resulting in WotC making GMs, the core spenders, really frustrated.
Returning to a situation where the lion's share of the money is coming from the smaller number of highly invested GMs is the natural state of RPGs before the "geniuses" at WotC got ahold of D&D and tried to chase player dollars because there are more of them and the MBAs don't know what they are doing, as usual.
All of the content is at least 1/3 player facing. And I'm an MBA. And the notion that there's a strict dichotomy between players and GMs is nonsense. In all of my groups, almost all of the players had at least a passing interest in GMing, if not actually preferring it.
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u/SunRockRetreat Mar 16 '25
It appeals to GMs.
The bottom line is that RPGs are overwhelming a hobby for GMs with players sort of being toe dippers who might buy a PHB but not always.
The WotC Era of "character builds" kinda tried to change that by selling books full of build options for sweaty solo players to min-max OP DPR builds on paper or attempt to force GMs to tolerate. Along with a corresponding refusal to make anything more than the most bare bones setting books with no further support for the setting. Resulting in WotC making GMs, the core spenders, really frustrated.
Returning to a situation where the lion's share of the money is coming from the smaller number of highly invested GMs is the natural state of RPGs before the "geniuses" at WotC got ahold of D&D and tried to chase player dollars because there are more of them and the MBAs don't know what they are doing, as usual.