How will the WOTC PDF decision affect the Old School Renaissance?

[rogueattorney]

Anecdotally, I can say that up until yesterday, my campaign house rule document had a link to paizo.com and rpgnow.com and suggested the purchase of various OOP products such as the OD&D books, the Holmes set, the 1e PHB, the RC, etc.

Now my document has a link to the various places one can download S&W, OSRIC, LL, etc.

I - a person with no real love for WotC's rpg efforts (post Everway, anyway) -was actually advertising to my players to purchase WotC licensed products. No longer.

Shrug. My game goes on. For the few products I'm still looking for, I guess it's ebay (or other hard copy resale outlet) or bust. And some things are simply going to be priced out of my range forever.

And yes, I'm assuming that WotC is never going to make TSR era products available ever again. Nothing in their history of the stewardship of the game encourages me to think otherwise.

 

[avin]

I think that would be the perfect time for Wotc to release an older editions Character Builder.

There are a lot of people here who play older editions and don't like 4E who could subscribe just to have some older edition compendium and CB.

 

[Hopping Vampire]

the sad part is its the honest consumer thats going to get hurt by this the most.

 

[jdrakeh]

I was considering buying one or two of the older modules from RPGNow but that option is now dead in the water. It's going to limit what I can get.

I had been wanting to buy the DA modules for a while but was just recently able to fit them into my budget. Then they disappeared before I could buy them.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

I think that would be the perfect time for Wotc to release an older editions Character Builder.

There are a lot of people here who play older editions and don't like 4E who could subscribe just to have some older edition compendium and CB.

the 4th ed character builder is awesome, IMHO
one for prior editions would be wonderful!!

 

[avin]

the 4th ed character builder is awesome, IMHO
one for prior editions would be wonderful!!

Dude, I'll keep creating OD&D and AD&D chars just for fun, even if I'd never play them

 

[Remathilis]

the 4th ed character builder is awesome, IMHO
one for prior editions would be wonderful!!

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Core Rules 2.0 CD-ROM: Information from Answers.com

Good luck hunting down a copy, but its soooooo worth it.

 

[Sagawork_Studios]

I would like to believe that WotC isn't going to attempt leaning on some clone system publishers but I think all bets are off the table right now. They've implemented an extremely aggressive legal strategy that punishes loyal customers and has some real potential to hurt other PDF publishers.

If they told me today that they promised not to take action against clone system publishers, I wouldn't believe them. I mean, they're clearly circling their wagons now and anybody who denies it in the wake of this latest development is simply not being forthright.

You bring up a valid point which concerns me in the projects that I have undertaken. I was away at a seminar/interview when this occurence transpired, so I have come in late to this and have a bit of a fresh look at what's going on. I speculate that yanking the pdfs has been part of their legal action against the 'Eight' (which makes me think about a certain 8 Wizards in Greyhawk, but I digress...). To us it looks like that WotC have taken their bat and ball and gone home, but putting myself in the court proceedings I can hear the magistrate asking WotC: '...so, by enticing ne'er-do-wells' easy access to your product, you dangle a carrot in front of their collective noses for them to reap as they may...' to which WotC have acted on and eliminated with extreme prejudice.

Still though, it totally looks like WotC doesn't trust us as a community and have collectively:

• Taken their bat and ball and gone home
• Circled their wagons
• Stated that 'Well a few of you (as in us) have ruined it for everyone else.'

Or pick the analogy you want.

Bottom line is that we don't have access to these things any more and WotC are further driving themselves down a path where property is having an incestuous relationship with marketability at the cost of propritey.

How far will this go? Do I trust WotC to leave me alone in my small operation (granted it is PFRPG stuff I am working on, but I like OSRIC et al and I want to support that too). I don't know, but I am going to put up a hell of a fight if they do. I am straight up and down type of guy and I mean what I say. What drives me in my projects is a desire to get part of my childhood back and I want to share that by offering Old School to the Nth degree for as long as I am able to

Cheers,

Andrew Gale

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Core Rules 2.0 CD-ROM: Information from Answers.com

Good luck hunting down a copy, but its soooooo worth it.

I actually bought that a long time ago and still have it (one of the old items I havne't got rid of recently, sigh, ran out of room, so just keeping best bits of my collection, tempted to post a pic of it and my remaining collection which was once extremely extensive, getting rid of Queen of the Spiders etc sucked!!. I even managed to track down the Spelljammer PC game, in original box, on Ebay *squirms in lascivious delight!* muhaha! ),

but I haven't tried to install/use Core Rules in ages! Wasn't their patches for it? (if so, have I got 'em in me back ups I wonder?)

But the 4th ed character creator is really nice to use, E-Tools, despite Code Moneky's work, was a pain (making 3rd ed characters, in general was too complex anyway for my tastes), and E-Tools UI was not very pretty at all :/
"Pretty" is important, easy on the eyes = very importan ton any app you use a lot!
Man was I angry at having bought all of Code Moneky's stuff and then,...they got ganked, grrrrr!!!

need to dig out my Dragon 200 issues too, never installed it, kept it all safe and sound, my precioussssss...

 

[Psion]

The biggest single casualty as I see it doesn't affect retro-clone/homage publishers so much as would-be players.

And that casualty is Rules Cyclopedia. On many circles I run it, it's the one old edition book every seems to respect, and I heard of lots of people buying it to scratch that old school itch.