D&D 4E Best of 3PP 4E products

[Morrus]

Yeah, the whole Character Builder issue is a big one. A lot of folks simply won't use something if they can't use the CB for it.

I think it's the cleverest way yet of leading folks towards official products and away form third-party products. They don't forbid third parties from producing them, but the environment now makes third-party products a lot less appealing to the consumer. And they did this not by taking something away, but by giving the consumer something so awesome that they can't say no!

 

[Nyronus]

Yeah, the whole Character Builder issue is a big one. A lot of folks simply won't use something if they can't use the CB for it.

I think it's the cleverest way yet of leading folks towards official products and away form third-party products. They don't forbid third parties from producing them, but the environment now makes third-party products a lot less appealing to the consumer. And they did this not by taking something away, but by giving the consumer something so awesome that they can't say no!

I disagree with this comment mostly because of the fact that I seriously doubt the DnD managers are some evil cabal trying to quash out the incredibly minor competition DnD has with its 3PP. 3PP doesn't compete with Wizards so much as begs nicely for a treat anyway. No, I honestly think the reason the CB is killing 3PP is just because the 4E fanbase has become lazy and spoiled. WotC aren't some powerful group of Machiavellian masterminds (if they really were, why does everyone always hate them so much?), but are in fact a business that just happened to release a good product. One so good that it made it hard to compete. I'm a little angry that most of the fanbase has come to witness this product like it is some indespensible holy instrument which the game cannot be played without, but as a fellow capitalist I don't blame WotC. In fact I congratulate them.

 

[Riley]

It seems to me that WOTC has pretty much dropped the ball on adventures, so that seems to be the one place where 3rd party publishers can really fill a need.

I really like Wolfgang Baur's 4e Open Design projects. Although the first couple adventures were only available to subscribers, the latest, Courts of the Shadow Fey, is now available to everyone as a PDF, and in print soon-ish:

Courts of the Shadow Fey (PDF, 4th Edition) [CSF-PDF] - $14.00 : Kobold Quarterly, http://www.koboldquarterly.com/

 

[Badwe]

interestingly, it's just XML underneath the various character builders, but any kind of attempt at a solution to integrate to the CB is likely to expose 3pp to the risk of piracy, which is no bueno.

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

I was going to answer "EN World". Does it not count?