Al-Qadim Anyone?

[Greatwyrm]

Seems just a tad bit sleazy to me.

Nobody put a gun to Soverign Press' collective head and said, "write a free book for WotC, or else." If they couldn't live with the terms of WotC's deal, they wouldn't have taken it.

Further, we don't know what cut SP is getting from the sales of that book. It's also none of our business. SP obviously feels it's enough to warrant going forward with the project.

Not to point a finger specifically at Alzrius, but since the beginning of the whole OGL/d20 movement, a lot of people are just expecting WotC to give away the store. Why? If you give money to a charity, wouldn't you be a bit angry if they came back and said you really should give ALL your money to them?

I'd love to see a 3e version of Arabian Adventures. I'll take it with Zakhara, a Legend of the Buring Sands tie in (which was in the works at one time), or anything else creative they come up with. Whether people think WotC is turning into some kind of D&D Microsoft doesn't matter. It's their property, why should I care what deal they make as long as it's made?

 

[jaerdaph]

Seems just a tad bit sleazy to me.

Why? It's their intellectual property. Fans of discontinued settings should just be glad that their OOP worlds are returning to print.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Re: AL Qa *FRICKEN* Dim

I would love to see Al Qa *FRICKEN* Dim published again, but there are web converstions you can find out there.

A while back I bookmarked these two sites:

www.al-qadim.com
www.arabianadventures.org

They both have some conversion material.

 

[Blacksad]

Not really. Zakhara is part of Forgotten Realms. Al Qadim: Arabian Adventures can be published without Zakhara, like they did with the new Oriental Adventures.

HOWEVER, while they can do that, it would be a dumb business move, since most of us expected the new OA to have updated Kara-Tur material but instead featured Rokugan. The same expectation if they publish a new Arabian Adventures.

You are a bit fast in saying that most of us expected an update to Kara-Tur

and the Arabian Adventure book in 2nd edition was very good with almost no Zakhara info, though I would miss the setting info, given the habits of WotC to publish only hardover, and to stay away of setting book or any follow up book, I think that it would be the best we can get from WotC.

 

[CCamfield]

Seems just a tad bit sleazy to me.

Seems to be pretty much exactly the same principle as with the core rulebooks and the d20 license. Wizards wants to focus on the books that will sell the best, and leave everything else to others. Granted, other companies didn't have to contribute anything to the core books, but when the revised books are released we may see some stuff included in them that originally came from other companies.

 

[Ranger REG]

REG, I think you misunderstood. The fact that WotC is publishing the DL3E book (which I'm pretty sure Sovereign Press people wrote; from what we can see on the cover, Weis and Perrin are mentioned there, and neither work for WotC), and letting Sovereign Press pick up the rest of the line is by no means a good thing.

Jim Butler talked about this in an interview. WotC's current policy is that pretty much any old (2E) campaign world is up for being reprinted in 3E by a third-party company now. Thing is, WotC insists that they will be the ones to publish the campaign setting book for such a new incarnation. Campaign setting books are always the best sellers of a campaign line of products. This means that even though WotC is doing virtually none of the work, they'd be taking the lion's share of the cash, with the third-party company eating up what's left from the inflow of cash generated by supplementals.

If not for that little quid pro quo from WotC, we'd most likely see more old campaigns brought back already. We know that to be true because the one time WotC didn't pursue that deal (probably before it occured to them) was when they Sword & Sorcery Studio be the one to publish the new incarnation of Ravenloft. Then, after that, they change their policy, and suddenly no old worlds are being brought back for quite a while...Sovereign Press are apparently just willing to take the hit anyway, due to what appears to be a genuine wish to bring Dragonlance back again.

To reiterate, WotC did not just decide to reprint DL in 3E out of nowhere and then graciously let Sovereign Press continue it. Sovereign Press asked to publish the campaign, and WotC only agreed under the stipulation that they would publish the main book to earn money on the deal.

Seems just a tad bit sleazy to me.

That depends. If the supplements they write for the DLCS is good and essential, then consumers will pick them up. What are essentials? Magic? Monsters? Region? Campaign-specific like the Knight of Solamnus or the Order of High Sorcery? These essentials can expand and complement the core campaign book.

So what if Wizards get the lion's share via sales of the essential core campaign book? They've been doing it since they started up the d20/OGL movement.

P.S. Don Perrin and Margaret Weis may not have worked with Wizards other than as freelance authors for the Wizards' Dragonlance fiction line they acquired from TSR, but they were part of the TSR game design pool (also acquired from TSR) with the longtime employees who switched from TSR to Wizards during the transition.

 

[Alzrius]

Wow. I had no idea there would be such strong reactions to my view of WotC's business practices there.

I think that it's sleazy because its basically WotC cashing in on a book they pretty much didn't write. WotC has been cashing in like since the start of the d20 license, its true, but thats because you had to buy the books they wrote, and wrote on their own initiative. The new Dragonlance book is something that WotC didn't write, and weren't going to if Sovereign Press hadn't come along and said they would do it for them. WotC is getting paid for a book they didn't write and had no intention of writing. That just strikes me as wrong.

I'm not saying that WotC shouldn't be paid for the license of their IP, but to eat up the profits on the best-selling product of a product line by insisting on being the ones to publish it, that's giving them more than they deserve. It's especially galling to know that this attitude is the pretty much the sole reason we don't see more old worlds published.

Maybe fans "should" just be glad that their favorite old world is being reborn, but fans "should" also be concerned with what happens to the company printing that, since they're the ones bringing that old world back for our pleasure. Sovereign Press is taking a financial hit (though almost certainly nothing they can't afford to lose, but still) for bringing Dragonlance back, and considering that its ultimately their money on the line there, that strikes me as unfair.

 

[Ranger REG]

Wow. I had no idea there would be such strong reactions to my view of WotC's business practices there.

I think that it's sleazy because its basically WotC cashing in on a book they pretty much didn't write.

But Wizards are absorbing the expense of publishing the book (layout, artwork, and paying the printers) into many copies. They're doing what many companies are doing these days, hire freelance authors more often since they reduce their in-house game designer pool, or did you suddenly forgot about the two layoff last year?

Maybe fans "should" just be glad that their favorite old world is being reborn, but fans "should" also be concerned with what happens to the company printing that, since they're the ones bringing that old world back for our pleasure. Sovereign Press is taking a financial hit (though almost certainly nothing they can't afford to lose, but still) for bringing Dragonlance back, and considering that its ultimately their money on the line there, that strikes me as unfair.

They knowingly and willingly accepted the agreement.

But hey, if you want to convince them that this is not right, by all means talk to them.

 

[Alzrius]

But Wizards are absorbing the expense of publishing the book (layout, artwork, and paying the printers) into many copies. They're doing what many companies are doing these days, hire freelance authors more often since they reduce their in-house game designer pool, or did you suddenly forgot about the two layoff last year?

I didn't forget, but as I said, its fine for WotC to try and gain some money on the deal since it is their IP, but not all of it for being the publisher of the main book. If they didn't want to expend the money for being publisher, then they should have let Sovereign Press publish the book, and thusly be the ones to profit from that enterprise. As it is, WotC is paying a minimal amount and receiving the high end of the returns on that.

They knowingly and willingly accepted the agreement.

True, but that doesn't necessarily mean they don't feel that its a bad deal. The way I interpret that is that their desire to give something to their fans was enough that it overrode their desire not to lose money on the deal, which is a true mark of a company being concerned with the people they produce the game for. When someone has a stranglehold on something you want very badly, you're going to end up knowingly and willingly accept whatever terms they put forward in the end, because you have to have it and they can set whatever terms they want.

 

[Ranger REG]

AFAIC, Wizards of the Coast are the publishers and Sovereign Press are the designers of the upcoming Dragonlance Campaign Sourcebook. They accepted their roles in getting this product released this year.

The same goes for Neverwinter Night whose designers/developer are BioWare but the publishers are Infogrames (originally it was Interplay but the relationship soured between Interplay and BioWare).

If you still don't like it, talk to Sovereign Press.

Is there anything else you wish to bash Wizards for?