Out of Print License?

[Samloyal23]

I have friends who still run 2E campaigns, a couple who still use the original brown booklets that started D&D, and quite a few who love 3E. When 5th Edition comes out, I am quite certain a percentage of 4E players will turn up their noses and insist on staying with that system. I think both players and game publishers are missing out on an opportunity here. Why can we not have an OGL that includes at least parts of earlier editions of D&D? Campaign settings like Planescape and Dark Sun never felt the same when converted to 3E or 4E, how come we cannot publish articles and supplements to support the original material? Why NOT support every edition? The entire hobby would be richer if we did.

 

[Sunseeker]

You'd have to take that up with WOTC, but perhaps the bigger issue is copyright reform.

 

[Samloyal23]

I would buy the out of a line of products to support a 2E Dark Sun, Planescape, or Al-Qadim campaign. WOTC is missing the folding boat on this...

 

[delericho]

I have friends who still run 2E campaigns, a couple who still use the original brown booklets that started D&D, and quite a few who love 3E. When 5th Edition comes out, I am quite certain a percentage of 4E players will turn up their noses and insist on staying with that system. I think both players and game publishers are missing out on an opportunity here. Why can we not have an OGL that includes at least parts of earlier editions of D&D?

There's no need. The retro-clones do exactly what you ask - they used the OGL and SRD to reverse-engineer the rules for the old editions, thus creating a 'new' game with compatible rules... and thus allowing them to support those rulesets.

The key thing that's not covered are the campaign settings...

Campaign settings like Planescape and Dark Sun never felt the same when converted to 3E or 4E, how come we cannot publish articles and supplements to support the original material?

The campaign settings are valuable IP, and so WotC are (rightly) reticent to simply let people at them. These will never be opened under the OGL or any equivalent license - although potentially they might enter the public domain in 80 years or so.

However, what was done in early-3e days, and might potentially be done again, was for specific third-party companies to license the settings from WotC for a time - White Wolf licensed Ravenloft and Margaret Weis Productions licensed Dragonlance. (Of course, in both cases they chose to convert the settings to 3e, because that was where the money is.)

Both those licenses ran out, and one of the parties involved elected not to renew. (IIRC, White Wolf allowed the Ravenloft license to lapse, while WotC chose not to renew Dragonlance.) As for whether WotC would be willing to enter into a new agreement for one of their settings... well, you'd need to ask them. (My suspicion is that they're not really keen... but that everything has its price.)

 

[Samloyal23]

A company that was able to get a license to do supplements for any prior edition of D&D could make a killing updating and expanding settings from 2E and 3E. Out of print games for many publishers still have followings that could be turned into profitable niche markets. ALL markets are niche markets today, there really is no such things as a mainstream...

 

[delericho]

A company that was able to get a license to do supplements for any prior edition of D&D could make a killing updating and expanding settings from 2E and 3E.

True, but by the same token, WotC may very well want to keep that job in-house, for two key reasons:

- If they allow another company to publish Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Birthright, etc, then they've helped create a competitor for their own new (Forgotten Realms) material. While it's obvious why we might want these things supported, there's good reason for WotC to want them to stay buried.

- Keeping those settings in-house means that they have a huge reserve of possible topics for the e-magazines. Any time they run short of ideas, all they need do is an issue on "Birthright 5e!!", and they've got something meaty to fill the magazines with.

But, hey, there's no harm in asking. All they can do is say "no".

 

[mudbunny]

But, hey, there's no harm in asking. All they can do is say "no".

The more people ask, the better WotC gets an idea of the size of the customer base for this. If only a couple of thousand people ask for the settings to be updated, the likelihood of them getting done is much, much lower then if several 10s of thousands of people ask to get it done. If the brand manager at WotC can show to the executives that there is a significant chance of a decent profit off of a conversion project, the opposition is much, much less.

 

[Reynard]

I don't think it is particularly likely that WotC would open up licenses on the settings, I can see them doing so with the editions. While not necessary due to the OGL and the retro-clones, providing a free "Powered by D&D" license would earn some good will and, if they keep the core rule reprints in print, sell some books. With the potential of the RC seeing a hair copy reprint, almost all versions of the game are back on the shelves or will be soon. Companies like FrogGod that sell adventures for earlier editions already -- via the clones -- would likely leap on the bandwagon very quickly.

WotC embracing all editions of the game could well lead to a D&D renaissance even greater than the one following 3E's publication, and put WotC back on top of the RPG publisher list. I don't see Yet Another Edition doing that.

 

[Reynard]

The more people ask, the better WotC gets an idea of the size of the customer base for this. If only a couple of thousand people ask for the settings to be updated, the likelihood of them getting done is much, much lower then if several 10s of thousands of people ask to get it done. If the brand manager at WotC can show to the executives that there is a significant chance of a decent profit off of a conversion project, the opposition is much, much less.

In addition to making some revenue between editions, WotC is also likely using the PDF sales to gauge interest in such things. I suspect Planescape PDFs are going to end up being very popular and that's something WotC is going to want to pay attention to.

 

[Samloyal23]

WotC embracing all editions of the game could well lead to a D&D renaissance even greater than the one following 3E's publication, and put WotC back on top of the RPG publisher list. I don't see Yet Another Edition doing that.

Exactamundo! They need to at least have some kind of regular feature in Dragon or on the WOTC website that supports past campaigns...