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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MDSnowman" data-source="post: 1587852" data-attributes="member: 6255">I've been playing D&D since I was eight years old... and until many years later I was ignorant of a lot of the history behind the game. Now that I know I'm inclined to say.. it is just that, history.I've never been one to diefy anyone... and if often makes me come across as uncaring, but I'm of the opinion that Gary's perspective is slightly skewed.Instead of posting a lengthy point by point argument I just want to put my two copper pieces into the discussion.I love D20 and OGL to death, but I think that WotC have shot themselves in the foot with how they've approached it. They're taking sole responsiblity for the basic things, players handbooks, DMGs, Monster Manuels, and all premutations of such. Unfortunatly they've boxed themselves into just selling that stuff, when 3.0 came out they updated old material and I flocked to buy it without thinking. Now a few years go by and they release 3.5.... I felt a little slighted... did this mean I'd have to buy a new fiend folio? a new Book of Vile Darkness? A New Psionics Handbook? But still I bought my 3.5 books like a good boy and then I bought the complete warrior and it struck me... all WotC seem to be doing is rehashing their old ideas over and over again and dressing it up with fancy production costs and full color art few other companies can't afford and leaning back on the fallicy that just because WotC is "official" it is inherently better than 3rd party work... heck check the thread about different "flavors" of D&D core books... WotC will not stop until they've beaten the horse dead.That's why the release of Unearthed Arcana, Dragonomicon and now Eberron are causing such a stir, these three books represent the first attempts for WotC to expand beyond what they know is safe. I applaud these efforts and consquently these are the only WotC books (well the jury is still out till I actually get and read Eberron) I haven't regretted buying in the longest time. The books I enjoy and I am moved by are all by third party publishers. Scarred lands presents me with a standard fantasy realm turned on it's ear by an earth shattering event, or Ravenloft... which WotC sold the rights to (much to their chargrin) has finally finished the ressurection it was trying to achieve for years and now the setting is finally expanding into new horizons, and Green Ronin, in my opinion one of the best d20 publishers bar none. Producing not only great d20 supplements, but also creating Mutants and Masterminds, showing just how flexible d20 can be. All of these are great books and products I would have never seen if d20 didn't exist. If Mr.Gygax wants to deprieve me of that then I'll disregard his opinion all together.WotC will be lucky if I buy three books from them in a year...Since January I've bought more than double that many from at least two third party publishers. Will just publishing Core books and the like hurt WotC? no, in fact it will keep them around for a long time...but if they stagnate they may wake up one morning to realize that another company, maybe White Wolf, maybe Green Ronin, hell maybe some company starting today, may be doing D&D better than they do. The OGL is a challenge for WotC to take risks, and I hope the success of books dedicated to one kind of monster, or optional rules shows them that those risks are worth making....I just realized I may have given you two silver worth.  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/paranoid.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":uhoh:" title="Paranoid    :uhoh:" data-shortname=":uhoh:" /></blockquote>

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