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D&D 3E/3.5 WotC Rejecting 3.5 Writers?
- Thread starter takasi
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dmccoy1693
Adventurer
takasi said:
Was a freelancer. He's accepted a positition with Paizo. I don't know when he begins but I believe he has started employment with Paizo already.
LightPhoenix
First Post
kenmarable said:
Ding!
I'm honestly surprised that at any point WotC didn't have a non-competition agreement. It's pretty standard, especially in fields where innovation and ideas are important. Heck, I'm a grad student and I've been told not to talk to certain people about my research because it's too similar to what they're doing.
Jack99
Adventurer
kenmarable said:
You seriously over-estimate how many people care about WoTC's business decisions when it comes to writers. Only the die-hard roleplayers who visit places like ENworld and Paizo daily (or very often at least) will ever know, and of those, a majority won't care. Normal gamers will never know, and even if they did, a vast majority won't care at all.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I really hope there's another side to this story, because I don't see this one ending well.
It's one thing for WotC to tell their full-time employees that they can't freelance. I don't like that, but I can understand why they wouldn't want them to do so. However, it's another thing for WotC to turn down freelancers purely because said freelancers are working with other companies as well. Doing so creates a de facto blacklist, where anyone working on an OGL product - whether writing, publishing, or editing (or making art? Man I hope not) - is automatically going to be passed over for freelancing on WotC material.
Freelancers, by definition, aren't employees of any particular company. They rely on working with a large and varied group of companies at a time to keep getting material out regularly. WotC's punishing them for that - particularly since the GSL and 4E aren't out yet, so those freelancers have little alternative but to work on OGL products at the moment - is a very bad move on their part that will create a lot of bad will.
EDIT: Looking back at the OP, this seems to be WotC's reaction to Nick's employment at Paizo, rather than his freelancing. In that case, this is slightly more forgivable, though I still think it's ultimately a bad idea. Lending fame to someone's name doesn't seem like it'd be more important than putting out a good book that could sell a large number of copies.
It's one thing for WotC to tell their full-time employees that they can't freelance. I don't like that, but I can understand why they wouldn't want them to do so. However, it's another thing for WotC to turn down freelancers purely because said freelancers are working with other companies as well. Doing so creates a de facto blacklist, where anyone working on an OGL product - whether writing, publishing, or editing (or making art? Man I hope not) - is automatically going to be passed over for freelancing on WotC material.
Freelancers, by definition, aren't employees of any particular company. They rely on working with a large and varied group of companies at a time to keep getting material out regularly. WotC's punishing them for that - particularly since the GSL and 4E aren't out yet, so those freelancers have little alternative but to work on OGL products at the moment - is a very bad move on their part that will create a lot of bad will.
EDIT: Looking back at the OP, this seems to be WotC's reaction to Nick's employment at Paizo, rather than his freelancing. In that case, this is slightly more forgivable, though I still think it's ultimately a bad idea. Lending fame to someone's name doesn't seem like it'd be more important than putting out a good book that could sell a large number of copies.
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dmccoy1693
Adventurer
LightPhoenix said:
That is a good point. Nick was also a playtester of 4E. I have heard of playtesters (not necessarily for 4E, but I would not be surprised if this did apply) not being allowed to playtest or take part in the creation of another RPG system for a certain period of time. Now that he's working for Paizo, Wizards could be doing this as merely a precaution to protect their IP, since Paizo is involved in creating their own system.
kenmarable
Hero
That's a great example of the creativity of being the underdog. WotC actually did let a couple of their designers have free reign and asked them to write whatever they wanted (well, I'm sure they had to get approvals along the way, but you get the point). Sean Reynolds and Monte Cook came up with Ghostwalk - which either due to bad timing and/or poor business support, got delayed and then dumped on the market as one of the last 3.0 books before 3.5. Whereas, Monte Cook free to do really whatever he wants through his own company, comes up with something as new and original as Ptolus.JohnRTroy said:
It's a common thread through the entertainment industries - the companies on top tend to lean conservative in order not to jeopardize their position on top, while the lower companies tend to lean more into innovation in order to find a way to the top. Out of the major TV networks, where does more innovative programming tend to come from? The #3 network. #1, and to a lesser extent #2, and too busy focusing on "what works" than "what's new", and can't afford as much risk on untested concepts as well. (Of course, where does REALLY innovative programming tend to come from? HBO and other networks outside of the big 3 or 4).
So, it's the nature of all entertainment industries (and probably even into other industries as well) that WotC, as the company on top, would tend to have less innovation and ground-breaking products, whereas smaller 3rd party companies would really excel at it. The example of "Monte Cook unleashed under WotC" vs. "Monte Cook completely unleashed" is a very clear case of that.
Caveats: I'm not saying big companies can't be innovative - I'm only talking tendencies here. Also, I certainly don't want to equate "innovative" with "good", because they can happen quite independent of each other.
Dragonblade
Adventurer
For a pure free-lancer who makes their living solely by writing game material, this seems a little harsh unless WotC intends to provide that free-lancer with enough work to actually make a decent living.
However, since Nick Logue is now an actual Paizo employee, I don't find WotC's position unreasonable at all.
It would also be perfectly reasonable for them to not allow their regular employees to moonlight for other publishers. That's standard common sense for any company to not allow your employees to work part time for a potential competitor.
However, since Nick Logue is now an actual Paizo employee, I don't find WotC's position unreasonable at all.
It would also be perfectly reasonable for them to not allow their regular employees to moonlight for other publishers. That's standard common sense for any company to not allow your employees to work part time for a potential competitor.
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