Indie game designers unite to buy D&D!?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I say, get all the 4th Ed and Pre-4th Ed zealots in a mud-fight.

Edition-based jello wrestling?

 

[Neonchameleon]

I have thought that if WOTC ever figured out a way to use this edition war to their advantage they could make a fortune.

Start selling various editions of the game with support and then turn it into a competition which edition is better or most popular.

Release Vampire the Masquerade under D&D covers and power the whole of Seattle based on the nerdrage?

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

I say, get all the 4th Ed and Pre-4th Ed zealots in a mud-fight.

The clear answer is a Nerf fight, Battleship tournament, and other Hasbro brand-based competition.

They could make a TV show out of it, call it Geek Wars. The US Mint wouldn't be able to keep up with the money it would print.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I wonder how much it would cost to buy the D&D intellectual property outright.

Picture this: Paizo, Monte Cook, Green Ronin, Ryan Dancey, and Peter Adkinson, with the help of a massive Kickstarter, co-operate to make an offer to Hasbro.


This D&D Initiative:

• Owns the D&D brand and all its rule books, campaign settings, novels, magazine articles, board games, memorabilia, and other spin-offs; with the minor pen & paper RPG brands, such as Gamma World and d20 Modern, thrown in too.
• Simultaneously releases D&D Next and reissues Original D&D, BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia D&D, First Edition, Second Edition, Third Edition, and Fourth Edition.​
• Rebrands all Paizo, Monte Cook, and Green Ronin d20/OGL products as Dungeons & Dragons. Pathfinder RPG, True20, Arcana Evolved, and other related rules sets become iterations of D&D.
• Makes an easy-to-use license for 3rd Party D&D publications.
• Explicitly opens all D&D content for non-commercial purposes.
• All D&D/d20/OGL campaign settings and adventures from TSR, WotC, Paizo, Malhavoc, and Green Ronin are translated into each rules iteration.
• Perhaps operates as a game designer co-op, a sort of "CSG" (community supported gaming), which aims to provide a partial or full livelihood for many past, present, and future game designers and fantasy artists, where they may work in artistic freedom while receiving enough bread to live a modest life.
• Commissions work from all sorts of former TSR and WotC designers and artists, and other grognards, to make new material for all the D&D settings. For example, for Mystara: Bruce Heard, Aaron Allston, and Ann Dupuis.
• Enacts all the product suggestions in Mike Evan's petition for a content-provider publishing model.

This contains so much wrong i don't know where to start.... Since when is any of the above "Indie"? Paizo has a rock-hard mainstream business model, and the others... Bwuh. Adkinson is indie now?

Open up the game for "non-commercial use" and then releasing all editions? Releasing how? Printing? As in, incurring major losses because you do not have a clue how much you'll make? POD? Pdf? And how are all those people that have been named (AND their companies) paid? Space Bucks?

Rebrand their brands into D&D? Yeah, THAT is what brand creators REALLY want! And of course, the whole D&D crowd will be totally happy because "it's not D&D" has never been uttered about this kind of shovelware.

Transfer all settings into all rules - welcome, 0D&D Dark Sun and Greyhawk - Skills & Powers Companion.

While we're at it - who decides which rules systems do belong to "D&D"? I mean, do we let True 20 in but what about Star Wars Saga? No, this would not create continent-engulfing flamewars AT ALL.

And of course comission work from all the "good old" authors and artists that left a big impression on certain products. Because we all agree who has been good and who has been bad, right?

You heard it here first: 80s hair and chainmal spandex for EVERY SETTING.

This is a pipe dream and a nightmare mixed together, and shows why fans should NEVER control D&D. No offense to the OP.

 

[Mark CMG]

Indie game designers unite to buy D&D!?

It'd be better if just one person bought it then released it all into public domain.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

In theory, if I put up a kick starter to buy D&D and put that the money Wod be used as an offer, and hasbro refused to sell and I kept the money... Would that. E legal Becuse I tried?

 

[wedgeski]

In theory, if I put up a kick starter to buy D&D and put that the money Wod be used as an offer, and hasbro refused to sell and I kept the money... Would that. E legal Becuse I tried?

I don't believe a Kickstarter project has been tested legally, as of yet.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I don't believe a Kickstarter project has been tested legally, as of yet.

I bet someone could make ALOT of money putting up the "buy d&d from wotc" kickstarter

 

[triqui]

More money than the entire rest of the RPG industry has.

This.
Just the posibility to make someday a blockbuster film with D&D logo makes this IP way more expensive than any kickstarter could get.

 

[triqui]

Fans could pull this off despite what Hasbro wants if they raise enough capital. Hasbro is a publicly traded company -- it is the target. Get enough shares of Hasbro stock to get sympathetic controlling votes on the board, then vote to release D&D.

Hasbro is so incredibly big, that WotC isn't even named more than once in their annual brief to shareholders. They only mention Magic the Gathering in a side note, it's a minor product for them, and it's like 10 times bigger than the entire D&D franchise. Just to point out, Paizo Revenue is estimated around 20 millions. Hasbro revenue is 4 BILLIONS.


I think people do not realize how small this hobby is.