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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eryndel" data-source="post: 1492760" data-attributes="member: 13120">I'm not sure if I see how distributing the OGC part of UA is harmful at least to what I perceive the plan was for UA.  I figured UA was released mostly OGC in an attempt to distribute much of these house rules into the systems and settings of other peoples games, primarily other publisher's settings.   Having a large number of people who have access to that can only increase the potential appeal that any one house rule might have.  More appeal for a rule, and the higher likelyhood a publisher might include in their source books.  Now, the question than is, if it was freely distributed, why would anyone bother to pick up the book, and so it would seem that this method would kill sales for the book.  But there are a number of secondary reasons that would bolster sales.  Though this might change in the future, generally electronic media isn't preferable to traditional media.  I personally would much prefer a book than a pdf, though having both is handy.  I know a lot of people who were happy to play D&D off of the SRD while money was tight and then later pick up a PHB.  So, likely a sizeable number of  people introduced to UA rules through free sources will eventually end up buying the hardcover when money permits, driving sales up.Also, I can't imagine any later edition of D&D leaving what they started here with the OGL.  If they did, I think they'd run the significant risk of leaving D&D behind.  If 4th ed was not open, all the myriad companies who currently profit off of 3.X ed would be prohibited from making the switch to 4th, and thus would still have to produce material for 3.X.   Anyone who makes good use of these settings and sourcebooks would then, by neccesity, also not make the switch to 4th ed.  I'm not certain how much WotC dominates the d20 community - assuredly more than any one company but surely not more that all the other companies combined.  This line of thinking would imply that a switch to a closed 4th ed would only bring a minority (perhaps a significant minority) of D&D players with.  Maybe I'm being naive, but this doesn't seem to be a good business move.</blockquote>

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