RyanD
Adventurer
Re: Conversion Doc clarifications (sorry, kind of long)
The question was asked by Jester about how the policy relates to converting ESDs "in whole, or in part".
My opinion is that the policy isn't designed to support conversions "in part". It envisions a complete conversion of a whole product, kept together as a unit, and clearly identified to the public as a conversion of a prior work.
My opinion is that WotC is probably not going to move forward with a license to convert materials "in part" such as a big list of monsters or a big list of magic items. Most of the pre-existing D&D monsters will almost certainly appear in a published WotC product at some point, and will probably move from that product into the SRD, meaning that eventually there will be a "legal" source for all those monsters. While that's probably less true of spells and magic items, it probably is true of the spells and magic items likely to be usable in the 3e environment.
It will be up to the business managers at WotC to determine if they want to move away from the old "don't ask, don't tell" policy with regard to the library of converted monsters, magic items and spells that has been created. I can see reasonable arguments for both sides of the matter and don't have a personal opinion. This is another issue that WotC is going to have to make some official announcements about relatively soon.
Ryan
The question was asked by Jester about how the policy relates to converting ESDs "in whole, or in part".
My opinion is that the policy isn't designed to support conversions "in part". It envisions a complete conversion of a whole product, kept together as a unit, and clearly identified to the public as a conversion of a prior work.
My opinion is that WotC is probably not going to move forward with a license to convert materials "in part" such as a big list of monsters or a big list of magic items. Most of the pre-existing D&D monsters will almost certainly appear in a published WotC product at some point, and will probably move from that product into the SRD, meaning that eventually there will be a "legal" source for all those monsters. While that's probably less true of spells and magic items, it probably is true of the spells and magic items likely to be usable in the 3e environment.
It will be up to the business managers at WotC to determine if they want to move away from the old "don't ask, don't tell" policy with regard to the library of converted monsters, magic items and spells that has been created. I can see reasonable arguments for both sides of the matter and don't have a personal opinion. This is another issue that WotC is going to have to make some official announcements about relatively soon.
Ryan