D&D General If you were made president of D&D, what would you do?

[Warpiglet-7]

Is it? There was what, one 4e book?

ETA: I mean since 2e, when it was just another of a half dozen unprofitable worlds.

Asking not rhetorically…as a longtime player…

I honestly don’t remember a strong survival component. I had wilderness survival guide and it got used…a little.

We often survived in dungeons and had trouble with ammo and food but it was not a big player.

Are some of us remembering more survival stuff than there ever was?

(Side note: I would like more if it as an option for hexcrawls so am not against it).

 

[Reynard]

Asking not rhetorically…as a longtime player…

I honestly don’t remember a strong survival component. I had wilderness survival guide and it got used…a little.

We often survived in dungeons and had trouble with ammo and food but it was not a big player.

Are some of us remembering more survival stuff than there ever was?

(Side note: I would like more if it as an option for hexcrawls so am not against it).

Niche products like hardcore survival Sim rules are why 3rd party products exist. It's a great benefit to everyone involved. But it certainly wouldn't be profitable for WotC to develop such a book.

I have never seen any compelling evidence to suggest that Dark Sun would be a benefit to 5E, especially compared to doing something players under the age of 40 might care about.

 

[bmfrosty]

Not enough info.

I'm working from my phone, so there will be much brevity.

How much am I paid?

500k. Enough to live well as as head of a single income household with kids in a suburb of a major metropolitan area where the D&D Co is located.

How much did D&D cost?

Irrelevant. Rich Guy bought it to brag about. He's happy if it's paying for it's own expenses, but you get bonuses based on company performance.

What does it get the rights to?

D&D.

Is DMs Guild still operational?

You still have that relationship with dtrpg.

Who is manufacturing the product?

A capable printer/bookbinding company.

What outstanding licenses exist?

How do you mean?

How much is it in debt?

Not your worry. Rich Guy bought it outright.

What are my company assets?

Trademarks and copyrights. You also have an office with rent and salaries covered for 3 years. You need to worry about it being profitable to pay salaries and rent after that.

Define "profit"?

Rent and salaries and other costs.

Are there shareholders?

Only one.

This is mean to be an experiment about how someone might take the product(s) given the opportunity, while still doing sane things. Try not to overthink it too much.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Just asking why go that route and not copyrighting or trademarking everything thats possible and then licencing out IP for profit?

Because the genie's out of the bottle and the level of licensing you'd need to create the ecosystem the OGL did would require paying SO many lawyers.

People have gone into way better detail than I can as to why Open Source is a really excellent strategy for those looking toward fostering a thriving environment and promotes company and industry longevity.

And just how much those who want to see line go up for the quarter and don't care about longevity beyond the moment they cash out absolutely hate it because it's not infinite money NOWNOWNOW.

 

[LesserThan]

I'm working from my phone, so there will be much brevity.

Same.

How do you mean?

Licenses like movie rights, comics rights, novel rights (Dragonlance, Eberron, Drizzt, etc), apparel licenses like BlackMilk, Converse, etc., Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Foundry, etc.
Do I control everything D&D on the planet?

Try not to overthink it too much.

Well that takes away all the fun, but, after you answer the linceses bit, I got ideas.
Have NOT read any other posts as to not intentionally duplicate ideas.

 

[bmfrosty]

Same.

Licenses like movie rights, comics rights, novel rights (Dragonlance, Eberron, Drizzt, etc), apparel licenses like BlackMilk, Converse, etc., Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Foundry, etc.
Do I control everything D&D on the planet?

Well that takes away all the fun, but, after you answer the linceses bit, I got ideas.
Have NOT read any other posts as to not intentionally duplicate ideas.

Current licenses carry over.

 

[LesserThan]

Current licenses carry over.

I will work around it or violate exclusivity clauses then. That 1 shareholder can sort out any prior contract disputes.

1. Hire Work for hire artists. They get royalties on each use of art, more from art books, but I* retain rights to all art.

*I will always mean D&D.

2. Force disclaimers to be removed from DM Guild. No customer needs to be attacked for any reason. Koran (sp) nor Bible have disclaimers.

3. Open DM Guild to ALL editions to ruin OSR.

4. Open DM Guild to ALL settings. No more of this everything if Forgotten Realms nonsense.

5. Open DM Guild to custom/homebrew settings.
The system at DTRPG already has sorting for editions and settings since all editions are already sold there. Homebrew just needs to be sorted by seller, as DM Guild does NOT use OGC under OGL, but another license.

DM Guild, contrary to popular belief, does not grant WotC ownership to the products, just limits distribution. WotC must buy anything it wishes to use from the individual authors as DM Guild is NOT bound by OGL. Ergo I* will not own any authors work their either.

What number am I on?

6. Hire specialists for each edition. Rerelease ALL editions as special order books/sets, as cheaply as possible.

7. Rename 3e up to reflect they are AD&D line, and enumarate D&D properly.

0e, 1974 "OD&D"
1e, 1977 Holmes
2e, 1980 BX
3e, 1983 BECMI
4e, 1996? When was the Rule Cyclopedia?

This will be needed for DM Guild sorting.

8. Work on 5e D&D to split RC to 3 books like all the rest and fix its problems.

9. Hire a team for anime comics, and remake EVERY novel as a comic script. Then take the best 5 and begin releasing them in that Shonen type magazine style. Pole the next top 10 for 5 more to add.

10. Last of my Top 10, but not least. Make the damn final episode of the D&D cartoon with Studio Ghibli chosen artists since the company they used to be, Filmation, made all the 80s cartoons anyway.

Do you want the next 10, or unsatisfied with these?

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

3. Open DM Guild to ALL editions to ruin OSR.

To be clear the only edition missing now is 5e, so I don’t think this idea will kill OSR.

 

[LesserThan]

To be clear the only edition missing now is 5e, so I don’t think this idea will kill OSR.

View attachment 358799

The only edition allowed there is 5e. You can not create things on DM Guild for any other edition as an indepedent seller, and you can only use about 3 settings. Realms, Ravenloft, and Eberron I think.

This would allow wouldbe authors to not only use all D&D IP in products sold exclusively on DMG, but open the editions to stem the flood of OSR copies of all the older editions.

 

[bmfrosty]

I will work around it or violate exclusivity clauses then. That 1 shareholder can sort out any prior contract disputes.

1. Hire Work for hire artists. They get royalties on each use of art, more from art books, but I* retain rights to all art.

*I will always mean D&D.

2. Force disclaimers to be removed from DM Guild. No customer needs to be attacked for any reason. Koran (sp) nor Bible have disclaimers.

3. Open DM Guild to ALL editions to ruin OSR.

4. Open DM Guild to ALL settings. No more of this everything if Forgotten Realms nonsense.

5. Open DM Guild to custom/homebrew settings.
The system at DTRPG already has sorting for editions and settings since all editions are already sold there. Homebrew just needs to be sorted by seller, as DM Guild does NOT use OGC under OGL, but another license.

DM Guild, contrary to popular belief, does not grant WotC ownership to the products, just limits distribution. WotC must buy anything it wishes to use from the individual authors as DM Guild is NOT bound by OGL. Ergo I* will not own any authors work their either.

What number am I on?

6. Hire specialists for each edition. Rerelease ALL editions as special order books/sets, as cheaply as possible.

7. Rename 3e up to reflect they are AD&D line, and enumarate D&D properly.

0e, 1974 "OD&D"
1e, 1977 Holmes
2e, 1980 BX
3e, 1983 BECMI
4e, 1996? When was the Rule Cyclopedia?

This will be needed for DM Guild sorting.

8. Work on 5e D&D to split RC to 3 books like all the rest and fix its problems.

9. Hire a team for anime comics, and remake EVERY novel as a comic script. Then take the best 5 and begin releasing them in that Shonen type magazine style. Pole the next top 10 for 5 more to add.

10. Last of my Top 10, but not least. Make the damn final episode of the D&D cartoon with Studio Ghibli chosen artists since the company they used to be, Filmation, made all the 80s cartoons anyway.

Do you want the next 10, or unsatisfied with these?

You're not too far from my treatment of d&d myself and I'm not not going to go far into the media parts.