First 3rd Party Product available already...

[The Little Raven]

Well, you'll see Violet Dawn.

Glad to hear. Back when Roc Games started up during the early d20 days, the talk of Violet Dawn is what drew me to their site, and part of the reason I ended up contracting to develop their Celtic Adventures book (or whatever our final name was going to end up being).

Glad to see your project didn't fall into oblivion like CA did.

 

[Alikar]

On RPG.NET a couple people said you could release free products prior to Ooctober 1st. Is that in the license and I just missed it or...?

Its there. I don't have it in front of me and I'm not sure if you have to send it in before the rest of the product. Not to mention I don't think know if you can even release free products without wotc acceptance.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Not everyone can just throw money away on crap products like you can, so maybe you shouldn't be such a jerk about other people's spending decisions.

You're right, the sarcasm was too strong, I admit my jerkitude. I'm sorry.

I still think that anyone who outright dismisses all 3rd party materials is being a scaredy-cat at best, and those who act like they are better for it are just wrong.

Could have fooled me, especially with how long the "Don't Like 4th Edition?" thread (totally an edition war thread) lasted after the "no edition wars" post.

Liking or not liking fourth edition is not casually linked to thinking that WotC is a big evil corporation. People have been thinking WotC is a big evil corporation since the days before they had D&D. It's not new, it's not in vogue, it's old and boring. Liking WotC is not something counter-culture and rebellious, it is what most people do, because they're a pretty good company. And neither of those have anything to do with the moderation policy of this board.

It's ridiculous to think that a decision to not buy an RPG accessory product needs to be justified at all. It doesn't work that way, unless your support of 3rd party material borders on religious fanaticism.

I'm not really asking anyone to justify their decision not to buy anything.

I'm mostly criticising one specific excuse that people do give when asked about why they don't: that WotC's products are somehow inherently superior.

I find that to be a little sad, and kind of condescending.

WotC makes some good stuff. 3rd parties make some good stuff, some of which WotC can't or won't do. To rule out all of the 3rd party material and then to pretend that the 3rd party material, as a whole, isn't as worthy as a WotC product, is a pretty deeply flawed line of reasoning.

You think WotC is the best? Sure, more power too ya. You're only interested in what WotC makes? Okay, but that's too narrow for my tastes, and I'm a little sad that your games won't have some nifty things, but whatever, have fun. You think that WotC makes excellent products and that 3rd party products are uniformly worse? Now you're getting off the chart.

...now as to what Jack99 is actually saying....

This could of course be totally wrong, but I do think that WotC want the shiny stuff, they want DND to look good, not like some of the lesser 3rd party products in 3.x....That's why I do think (and hope) they will vet the applicants for the license, so that we won't see stuff like the encounter linked. Stuff that looks pretty much thrown together in 10 minutes.

I think WotC doesn't really bear the responsibility for the quality of the 3rd party. If you don't like it, you probably shouldn't buy it, but WotC shouldn't be shooting things down just because they aren't pretty enough (or they're unbalanced or they're too hard or whatever). The GSL isn't really about quality control.

I don't think WotC cares about how good this little encounter is, how well it's presented, or even if it's properly balanced. They probably care more about the community feeling this creates, and the fact that a fan is adding to the game in a way that makes the fan feel empowered. Caveat emptor and all that.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Are you sure Goodman is releasing their product under the GSL?

It's one of the reason's I'm looking forward to Free RPG day as well.

Not at all. I'm actually hoping that they're doing this under special arrangement with WotC and that it won't be pulled for fear of being in violation of the GSL.

 

[The Little Raven]

You're right, the sarcasm was too strong, I admit my jerkitude. I'm sorry.

Accepted. These are tense times (edition changes always are), so it's understandable.

I still think that anyone who outright dismisses all 3rd party materials is being a scaredy-cat at best, and those who act like they are better for it are just wrong.

I've never seen someone act like they're better than someone just because they use WotC materials exclusively. The type of people who act like that will act like a d-bag no matter the situation.

I'm mostly criticising one specific excuse that people do give when asked about why they don't: that WotC's products are somehow inherently superior.

And that's a bit of a jerkish thing to do, since you don't necessarily know all their history or reasons for doing such. For every good third-party product I bought, there were at least two that were a waste of my money, even doing research on them. That's why I, personally, don't buy most third-party products. I'm not saying that Wizards is perfect or superior, just that with my preferences, I've had a far higher success rate with their materials. That's not elitism or snobbery or fear, it's simply action based on precedent.

 

[GMSkarka]

On RPG.NET a couple people said you could release free products prior to Ooctober 1st. Is that in the license and I just missed it or...?

Here's the section. (Emphasis added)

5.4 First On-Sale Date. Licensee will ensure that no Licensed Product is first on sale to consumers prior to October 1, 2008. Wizards may terminate this License immediately upon notice to Licensee in the event that any sale of a Licensed Product is made, by any individual or entity, to a consumer prior to October 1, 2008. Without limiting the foregoing, Licensee may produce, publish, and distribute (a) marketing and promotional materials for Licensed Products, and (b) non-commercial Licensed Products (i.e. free), in accordance with the terms of this License prior to October 1, 2008.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I've never seen someone act like they're better than someone just because they use WotC materials exclusively. The type of people who act like that will act like a d-bag no matter the situation.

It's not always prevalent, especially on ENWorld, but I've seen it. "That's not a Wizard's product?" like it was some diseased rat's corpse.

And that's a bit of a jerkish thing to do, since you don't necessarily know all their history or reasons for doing such. For every good third-party product I bought, there were at least two that were a waste of my money, even doing research on them. That's why I, personally, don't buy most third-party products. I'm not saying that Wizards is perfect or superior, just that with my preferences, I've had a far higher success rate with their materials. That's not elitism or snobbery or fear, it's simply action based on precedent.

Well, that's why I limited it to one specific excuse, since they have claimed that reason. Anyone who claims Wizard's products are inherently superior should probably be called out on that.

And that's ultimately why I pity those who don't branch out at all. Because they're missing out on some good stuff because of that preconcieved notion.

I've got no shame in disabusing someone of the concept that Wizards has some sort of monopoly on quality.

I don't really care if you end up prefering a lot of Wizard's products, though I'd still probably raise an eyebrow over someone who buys all of WotC's books, no 3rd party books, and claims objectivity over that. At the very least, they haven't seen some of the best Non-WotC stuff out there.

 

[EdPovi]

Perhaps, but I am taking an optimistic view. Hopefully it's a case of A. some people are enthusiastic about releasing 4E products or B. some people aren't fully understanding the license. However, some people are just C. pushing the system.

Since the link down, I'd guess it's a combo of A with a bit of B.

 

[Darrin Drader]

It's not always prevalent, especially on ENWorld, but I've seen it. "That's not a Wizard's product?" like it was some diseased rat's corpse.

I've seen it often and like I said, it gets my blood pressure up when I see it.

Keep in mind that this is coming from me, a guy who has had most of my published work published through Wizards. I freaking love Wizards, I just don't love them to the exclusion of all others.

And that's ultimately why I pity those who don't branch out at all. Because they're missing out on some good stuff because of that preconcieved notion.

I've got no shame in disabusing someone of the concept that Wizards has some sort of monopoly on quality.

Same here. I'd also like to point out that Wizards took many cues from OGL products on how to better their own. Pinnacle released a monster book towards the end of 3.0 called Liber Bestarius that included badass versions of their monsters. Later, WotC released advanced versions of some of their monsters in the 3.5 Monster Manual. Racial substitution levels also didn't originate with WotC. And didn't Iron Heroes in some way influence the Book of Nine Swords (I'm a little shaky on this one since I don't actually own the Book of Nine Swords).

I don't really care if you end up prefering a lot of Wizard's products, though I'd still probably raise an eyebrow over someone who buys all of WotC's books, no 3rd party books, and claims objectivity over that. At the very least, they haven't seen some of the best Non-WotC stuff out there.

Again, I agree. Some of my favorite OGL books include the Babylon 5 RPG, True20, Darwin's World 2nd edition, Tome of Horrors I-III, Denizens of Avadnu, Book of Fiends, and Dungeon Crawl Classics #35. Those are, in my opinion, all excellent books, and they are exactly the kinds of books I hope to see more of from third party publishers in the future.

Granted, there is that other list full of products that I'm not so fond of, and I don't think I'll offend Mongoose at all if I mention Sheoloth: City of the Drow as being one of those books, given that they have themselves admitted that it was less than wonderful. There are of course the other products released by inexperienced publishers, or projects that ran afoul of one problem or another, that were also less than stellar. As someone said earlier, caveat emptor, and all that. But if the reviews are good and the only thing people can say about a 3PP product is that it isn't official D&D, I get irritated.

 

[Henry]

...And didn't Iron Heroes in some way influence the Book of Nine Swords (I'm a little shaky on this one since I don't actually own the Book of Nine Swords).

Book of Nine Swords possibly owes more to Mike's work on the Book of Iron Might than Iron Heroes (the maneuvers and such, as well as "evocative battle locations".) Also, in Iron heroes, there's a hit point recovery mechanic that looks like a precursor to Healing Surges.

Frankly, with as many former designers who did their own work in outside publishing houses, the idea that a third party product is "inferior" because it's not official D&D is pretty foreign to me.