Well, Orcus, that was mostly written when Ryan Dancey and Peter Atkinson was in charge. The people in charge of D&D, Wizards, and Hasbro have changed. I mean, c'mon Orcus, the company that Gygax and Kaye formed have gone through several different iterations. You can't expect the company to always have the same beliefs over the years.
Corporate culture is something that changes from time to time.
Actually, that sounds like a pretty good license Lizard, and probably something that they should have had with 3rd Edition. I thought the OGL was too much like giving away everything for free, not allowing standards, etc.
Gary Gygax told me in the past that if he was in charge, he would have had a standard license, vetted publishers, and would have had quality control, so you wouldn't have bad product riding on the back of the (hopefully good) primary product. This is how they handle licensing of movie properties, food franchises, etc. And market controls can help kill the glut.
I do think they'll try to avoid getting the player base mad by saying they'd shut down things like somebody's campaign setting he puts on a web site. They probably will have a form of the license one can use to freely distribute but not sell work.
Well, D&D has mutated a lot over time, so much that you have a lot of fans of the 1st Edition and 2nd Edition. And I think WoTC is further pushing older fans away by making so many radical changes, more than we had going from 2e to 3e, especially when you are changing the traditional views of monsters, the planes, the campaign settings, etc. I think that's gonna push off the people more than anything else.
I mean, despite what you say about Necromancer products, there is a significant difference in the D&D assumptions and rules this time around, probably say 5x the change from 3e to 4e than 2e to 3e was. It's gotta be a turnoff, and since your products are aimed at the traditionalists, I doubt it will always seem to be a good fit.
To be honest Orcus, If they were so concerned about the fractionalization, they would not have created a new edition so quickly, or made the radical changes they did both to the game system and the shared mythology of the D&D settings. They would preserve traditionalism and not have the desire to do things like radically alter campaign worlds, use Greyhawk names without their prior history, etc. They've decided to go in a more radical approach this time, which would obviously fractionalize the player-base. They could have learned the lessons of what happened when D&D changed twice before, some people stuck with the older system. The key thing is probably whether or not they are calculating if the new blood will make the old guard obsolete.
I think many of the other publishers have prepared for this. Monte released Arcana Evolved, Green Ronin has True 20, Pathfinder's releasing their own book. Many of the third parties realized that the best thing to do is control their own work and released their own systems--while simulateously building it from the base of 3e the OGL allowed them to do--which have given them a loyal following.
I fear because you didn't do this Orcus, and the worst happens (which I don't think it will), guys like you and Goodman Games would be the ones most hurt. Although that would be really sad since you guys are the kind of publishers they originally wanted with the 3e license.
I think they'll allow somebody to license their products for adventures--I hope! I agree that 4e isn't "inevitable", I think there's gonna be a significant amount of people who say "no" this time around, because of the changes. Not allowing third parties to publish for the game just exacerbates the problems.
Last edited:
