der_kluge
Adventurer
In looking over the new AP from Paizo, I couldn't help but be a little "meh" about their new world, "Virisia", I think they're calling it.
As bland as I've always felt Greyhawk was (and is), at the very least, it creates a well-known, and well-understood environment that supports just about any kind of class concept you'd like to play. Virisia has enough baggage with it that certain classes and races (and concepts) are a bit harder to fit into the world.
Which got me to thinking - what would the damage be if WoTC basically "opened" Greyhawk up to 3rd party publishers for 4th edition. They could create a brief bio of the world in an SRD format, and as long as publishers stuck to those guidelines, they could create modules using that shared world. That way, Goodman Games could say, create a module feating a temple of Pelor, or dwarves who worship Moradin. They wouldn't have to come across all dodgy by referring to dwarves "of the hammer deity" or the temple "of the sun god".
I can fail to think of any reason whatsoever why doing this would basically be a bad idea. So long as the terms of the OGL indicated exactly what could and could not be done with the license, any publisher could use Greyhawk. I think it's probably in WoTC's best interest to keep all their other settings closed.
Thing is - unless WoTC is actually going to *publish* a Greyhawk book, then I fail to see how they could stand to lose any money from doing something like that.
As bland as I've always felt Greyhawk was (and is), at the very least, it creates a well-known, and well-understood environment that supports just about any kind of class concept you'd like to play. Virisia has enough baggage with it that certain classes and races (and concepts) are a bit harder to fit into the world.
Which got me to thinking - what would the damage be if WoTC basically "opened" Greyhawk up to 3rd party publishers for 4th edition. They could create a brief bio of the world in an SRD format, and as long as publishers stuck to those guidelines, they could create modules using that shared world. That way, Goodman Games could say, create a module feating a temple of Pelor, or dwarves who worship Moradin. They wouldn't have to come across all dodgy by referring to dwarves "of the hammer deity" or the temple "of the sun god".
I can fail to think of any reason whatsoever why doing this would basically be a bad idea. So long as the terms of the OGL indicated exactly what could and could not be done with the license, any publisher could use Greyhawk. I think it's probably in WoTC's best interest to keep all their other settings closed.
Thing is - unless WoTC is actually going to *publish* a Greyhawk book, then I fail to see how they could stand to lose any money from doing something like that.
