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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PapersAndPaychecks" data-source="post: 3985493" data-attributes="member: 28854">It's not "underhanded" to protect your intellectual property.  But I agree that WOTC are no longer proceeding in the way Ryan Dancey intended; in fact, I get the sense that Ryan's legacy is an inconvenient obstacle to their new corporate direction.I think this community has influence over WOTC, its interests and its policy, and I think there's an argument to say that we should organise to use that influence.The fact is that WOTC do seem to be repudiating the previous editions of D&D.  And that doesn't make any business sense to me.Fact: Not everyone will choose to switch to 4e.I expect WOTC to try to convince us that 4e will be better.  Whatever our financial investment in previous editions, WOTC will want us to drop that now and start buying again from scratch; and many people will comply.  But not all.RPGs don't have a shelf-life.  There are still plenty of people playing thirty-year-old editions of the game who see no benefit in switching.  And with each new edition, the community fragments further, because previous editions are still played, even if relatively unsupported.In the meantime WOTC are sitting on a pile of potentially revenue-raising intellectual property, and refusing to use it, in case that material has a negative impact on sales of the new flagship product 4e.That's nuts.  A fiction author wouldn't suppress copies of his previous novels in the hope of boosting sales of the new one, would they?  No--a fiction author carries on trying to sell everything that's his intellectual property for as long as a market remains for that product.What I'd really like to see now, is for WOTC to put OSRIC out of the picture and make some money in the process.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  Why not?Declare a new initiative: Vintage D&D.  Make SRD-equivalents for all of the previous editions (1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e) and release them free.  Then start selling print copies of the rulebooks and modules--with little intial investment, this could be done via print-on-demand technology--under the Vintage D&D label.Those old evocative rulebook covers with the 1980's amateur art and the microscopic fonts have huge nostalgia value for a generation of thirty-somethings who're turned off by the idea of learning a new and complex ruleset, but might remember the days of orc-bashing and falling into 10' pits with fondness.  Ease them back into the hobby and make some money from doing so.  And gain goodwill and trust from three major groups: The open gaming enthusiasts, the 1e/2e enthusiasts, and the small publishers who'd like to continue supporting previous editions rather than dropping $5k or going without a substantial proportion of sales for the next year.Bingo--with such an initiative, OSRIC has no further purpose.  I'd withdraw it at once and start writing 1e material as open gaming content, thereby enhancing WOTC's bottom line instead of damaging it.  WOTC expands and diversifies its product range using assets it already owns.  And fans who're concerned about 4e and feel trapped have an escape route, because 3.x or whatever their preferred edition might be, is still in print and supported by publishers.Can we organise to persuade WOTC to try something like this?</blockquote>

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