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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 457068" data-attributes="member: 4937">No, it is not my job.  I do this for fun.  If it were my job, I'd expect to get paid for it.I _AM_ a DM.  _HE_ is a DM.   We're all DM's here.To the extent that I have a reason for doing this (other than it is fun), I do it because I am a DM and a game player.   I'm not a technical writer (though I have experience doing that).Sure, I can look at the conversion guidelines and see that they forbid making public essentially everything a DM does with the module.   Sure, I can understand why they are being so heavy handed.What I can't understand is why anyone who loves RPG's would celebrate that, nor can I understand why anyone but a WotC lawyer would take on the role of 'crusader for banality in public conversions of modules'.   So, they tied my hands.  They made it so that I can't make available to my fellow DM's a conversion of a module even if I avoid quoting anything that isn't open gaming content.  I don't want to give them the module.  I don't want to copy the text.  I want to give them a tool for some 'Saturday-night-special-20-minutes-of-preparation- and-we-are-rolling-for-initiative-session.'  I want to help some 14 year old DM play a classic module I enjoyed in my youth, and play it well.  What I don't understand is why a fellow DM would jump up and down and go, 'Yippee Skippee! WotC made it so that none of you freaks can share your ideas!'  Isn't this a grand thing!'No, it is not a grand thing.  It sucks.  It would be one thing to provide a standard that encouraged well written thoughtful conversions, because there were alot around that sucked.  But this doesn't encourage good writting.  It discourages it.And finally, I vehemenently deny that there is a qualitative difference between what I'm suggesting and what you are suggesting.  The difference is only in quantity not in kind.  You are yourself advocating rewritting the module (indeed I think it is impossible to 'convert' a module and not rework it).  The only difference is you are advocating a messy uniform minimalist approach where you arbitrarily decide what is fine to change and what isn't, and I'm advocating coherent playable text even if it means changing some things that don't strictly speaking have to be changed, or avoiding the most literal (and banal) transformation in favor of one that is more flavorful.  Yes, maybe my way requires better judgement on the part of the DM/converter, but neither way requires NO judgement and no editting on the part of the DM.</blockquote>

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