Mark, you know what, you're absolutely right. However, that doesn't alter my opinion of it, because I, unlike most people, and willing to stop and take the time to sign the form, and mail it back as they originally asked us to do. I think I was FanCC member #19. The simple fact that most people chose to ignore that relatively painless, and simple process probably ultimately led to their downfall. Yes, I was discovered through the FanCC (as were all the original Thunderhead Games' authors), but I don't necessarily believe that the inclusion of the FanCC being d20 compliant had anything to do with that. As the netbook of Tinkering author, I didn't really care. I had a vision for what I wanted to create, and I set about doing that however I felt best. At the time, I didn't even fully understand the d20 license, and included sections such as campaign-specific rules for Tinkering like "Tinkering in Ravenloft" and "Tinkering in Al-Qadim" which are clearly not compliant. I didn't know that then, which is a large reason why I pulled the work down.
I think another factor that contributed was the fact that some writers (myself included, and sounds like maybe HellHound as well) figured out fairly quickly that they could write what they wanted, and get paid for it to boot. That was the other reason I took the netbook of Tinkering down, because I decided that I could finish it, and publish it, and get paid for it.
So, sad as it may seem, capitalism might ultimately be responsible for why it didn't succeed.
