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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesM" data-source="post: 3793657" data-attributes="member: 2762">The more of these Design & Development articles I read, the more it seems clear to me that, whatever other purpose this new fluff serves, it also creates a new batch of D&D IP. This serves two purposes. First, it establishes a strong brand identity of something that is distinctly D&D (in the sense of "associated with the currently available D&D edition" -- I personally don't think most of the new fluff feels very much like "historical" D&D, but that's neither here nor there). Second, I'd be willing to bet that someone within WotC (or Hasbro, or both) thinks that the D20 SRD for 3E basically gave away the store when it came to D&D-specific IP. Remember sometime in the v.3.5 era when WotC removed several monsters from the SRD, like the beholder and the mind flayer? Why did they do that? My feeling is that the same motivation behind that is what's going into overdrive with 4E: to have fluff material that obviously separates D&D from Generic D20 Fantasy Game #532. Given all of this, I would not be surprised in the least if nearly every bit of fluff from earlier eras of D&D gets changed or at least significantly modified in 4E. WotC wants to reclaim D&D as their own intellectual property and, to do that in the post-OGL era, they need to create new IP to replace stuff that's now open. I'll bet that the 4E SRD will be more open rules-wise than the 3E one, but far, far more restrictive about fluff, even to the point of lots of new monsters not appearing in it and you can be sure there will be lots of new monsters.</blockquote>

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