Has 3rd Party Material Helped (!!!) WotC ?

[MerricB]

Then there's the people that 3rd party d20 products have kept playing D&D... thus keeping the player pool large and making it more likely people will learn about the game and join in (and quite possibly buy WotC products).

Cheers!

 

[TheGM]

To be honest, it's hard for to wrap my head around the fact that some DMs allow or disallow crunchy elements on a book by book basis.

I took my worlds (three of them), mapped what they had in them to 3.5 classes, prestige classes, weapons, etc, and that's all I allow.

I take player requests seriously, but only rarely give them the nod. There are good ideas and bad ideas, and like the Dragon's Horde, I can only cart away so much, so I'm sticking with the stuff I know is valuable to my game.

But it's not just Wizards stuff, it really is what fits in the given world.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Or he could, like, be selective? Buy stuff he's interested in and helps his campaign?

Yeah, like, that's what I do. With WotC material.

 

[S'mon]

I certainly think 3rd party material helps WotC, that's the whole point of the OGL. It makes a bigger better game and sells more PHBs.

 

[Buttercup]

Not in the least. Frankly, I'm about ready to abondon the Wizards books and just use the superior third party books for my game. THe players are basically using the PHB and other Wizard sources, but I'm not even going to be using the Monster manual. The other monster books by Third Party are much better. I may use DMG2 but only becasue it has Saltmarsh and I might end up running those modules. But in all seriousness I've been slowly workjing on my new campaign for 6 days and of the 11 books I've consulted none have been produced by WotC.

I'm in this camp, more or less. The WotC books I use regularly are the PHB, the monster manual and, um, that's it. With each new WotC release, I come to feel ever more strongly that I am not a member of their target market. Necromancer and Green Ronin, to name just two examples, meet my gaming needs and interests far better than WotC has done for a couple of years now. In fact, looking at the WotC releases for the rest of 2005, the only ones I might possibly buy are Stormwrack and the Spell Compendium, and this last one is iffy.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I am actually in the process of re-writing everything, with the SRD as the basis and material from both WotC and other companies (some of both require massive re-writes for my purposes). I am including ideas from many sources.

Some of them have good flavor material, but the rules require alteration to make them work properly (Goodman Game's Complete Book of Fey -- I needed to determine how long abilities took to use and whether they provoked AoOs, for example).

Others have interesting rules but lame examples (Book of Vile Darkness -- I am sure that the drug rules use poor examples to prevent drugs from seeming glorified, but, really, why would anyone get hooked on these?).

All in all, a lot of work, but having the SRD helps, and it will give me a set of rules that exactly fits what I want to do with my campaign.


RC

 

[mhacdebhandia]

If I didn't look at third-party d20/OGL material I would never have encountered The Book of Iron Might. That factor alone justifies taking the time to read reviews and threads about new products.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I know for me it is not book-by-book, but rather case-by-case.

Ditto.

It's all a matter of simply picking and choosing, from any source as seems appropriate, to create the right texture and flavour for a particular gaming world. I don't worry about which company makes the material as much as how much the material seems appropriate.

I agree. And well put, too.

Surely it's the best of all (or at least multiple) worlds then.

Really, there's little time and effort involved in flipping through a book and reading a few choice bits, and maybe checking out a reliable review or two, or for that matter downloading and perusing the nearly ever-present free sample.

Tangentially, I hope people do that with WotC books too, rather than compulsively collecting.

Map folio or Dungeons of Doom? Dungeons of Doom.
Races of the Wild or Bow & Blade? Bow & Blade.
Deities & Demigods or Book of the Righteous? Book of the Righteous.

...and the list goes on.

 

[johnsemlak]

I have to say, I haven't noticed this phenomena locally. The only "Players Wanted" poster I've seen in the last year was for an Iron Kingdoms game.

PbP games I've been involved in nearly always stick close to the core books, plus the main WotC splattbooks. Not to say that non core stuff isn't used, but IME it's the trend.

 

[delericho]

I've found I don't have time to remain educated on everything that's out there, I don't have funds to invest in even a cross-section of the available materials, and I'm extremely unlikely to ever use most of what I already have, never mind anything new. As a result, I've basically stopped following new releases, except by a few key companies: WotC, Malhavoc and Green Ronin (also Mongoose's Babylon 5 line, and, recently, Paizo).

Of those companies I do follow, I at least look at everything, buy many of their products, and am generally satisfied with those things I do buy. There have been a few exceptions. I found Heroes of Battle, the Advanced Player's Manual and the Book of Roguish Luck to be disappointing, for example.

I also occasionally look into products I see recommended here, and sometimes something just catches my eye. However, it is fairly rare for me to stray from the main companies I follow.

As far as allowing things in my game is concerned, I find myself constrained by weight limits. I have to carry any books I'm using to my game (and I'm also the only member of my group to have a large library of books - three of four players in my last campaign didn't even have the PHB v3.5!). Since I can only carry so much, I've taken to allowing Core Rules only. Since I now have to move for work reasons, I'm hoping to find a new group, and may find that circumstances change if, for instance, I can drive to the game. My preference would be to allow a handful of carefully chosen supplements, depending on the campaign, on an almost book-by-book basis.

As regards whether the OGL has helped Wizards, I think it definately has. If nothing else, the proliferation of d20 materials has led to a lot of game stores increasing the shelf space for D&D and d20, at the expense of every other system, which means new players are almost certain to come in via d20. The wide variety of materials has kept the game fresh, which probably aids with customer retention (rather than leave D&D behind, they pick up a 3rd-party supplement this month, and maybe get the WotC book next month). The fact that Necromancer and Goodman (amongst others) are producing adventures spares Wizards the burden of producing their own, at a margin that probably isn't sufficient for them.

So, yes, I think the OGL has definately helped Wizards. However, I think they could do more to improve the extent to which the OGL is helping them:

I think Wizards are doing themselves a disservice by not releasing the vast majority (if not all) of new monsters, spells and feats as OGC. This means that that material cannot be reused and expanded on by the 3rd party producers. So, if you find a really cool monster in the Fiend Folio, the only place where you might find an ecology is Dragon magazine. The only place where you'll see it in an adventure is Dungeon magazine (and perhaps Kenzer's products - I don't know how that license works). The monster will never feature in the background of any new setting (no ancient Spellweaver empires in Midnight, or Oathbound, or...). Granted, a 3rd-party producer could approach Wizards to ask for permission, but that requires effort on their part, and on Wizards' unless their answer to all such requests is a blanket "no". And effort, in this instance, costs money. So, better to just do something else. Create your own powerful race of mysterious spellcasters. Which means that the IP value of the Spellweaver does not increase from this new use.

(My justification for the last statement: Beholders are particularly valuable because they are identified as one of the iconic monsters of D&D. Why are they so identified? Because they were widely used as a D&D monster. Likewise, the only place you'll see Spellweavers is in a D&D game - as far as I know - but unless they're widely used, they remain a little-known creature. In this instance, more use for such a creature would make it more familiar to D&D players as an iconic monster, and thus make the creature more valuable. If nothing else, it then allows WotC to produce a "Lords of Madness II" featuring the new monsters that have become iconic through use. My use of Spellweavers in the previous example is, of course, entirely arbitrary. I just happen to like them.)