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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1491507" data-attributes="member: 10201">Or optimistic. Tomato, tomahto. Heck, i'd say there's even an element of self-fulfilling prophecy going on here, given the level of communication between publishers and consumers, and their significant intermingling: I suspect that the more you bitch about people "stealing" your work, the more it'll happen, if only because of some malicious/mischievious/contrary sorts doing it just because you had the temerity to tell them not to. Likewise, if you simply expect people to follow their nobler impulses, IME they more often do. Worrying only about WotC's survival is what i'd call "short-term thinknig". I can't speak for the person you were responding to, but IMHO those supporting open-content RPG development are the ones thinking about the long-term survival of RPGs. Sharing content, thus minimizing effort for new producers to contribute the New Great Thing, combined with the relatively low barrier to entry of PDF publishing are the two things saving the RPG, IMHO--not WotC/D&D3E.  If you're concerned about the long-term fate of RPGs, you should be considering how to keep them alive in the face of increasingly-interactive computer/console games, and certainly not throwing your eggs in one basket (i.e., company).  If anything, WotC is working against this by, until Unearthed Arcana, not having D&D participate in the feedback loop of open-content development. And, IMHO, one of the best things that could happen to the RPG industry right now is if the D&D brand name disappeared--i honestly think that WotC is resting on D&D's laurels, getting sales disproportionate to the quality of its products because of the D&D label, and if they didn't have that mindshare advantage, they wouldn't have nearly the marketshare dominance they currently do. If the playing field were leveled in that regard, i think that *all* RPGs, but most especially D20 System ones, would become better.</blockquote>

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