D&D 5E OAR #8

[Parmandur]

Why on earth would WotC want it to be a secret that they didn't want OAR books to have PDFs? They can be NDA-happy all they want, but that's a pointless restriction, unless they for some reason want their business partners to look like a bunch of weird jerks.

Could be that the NDA is worded to be very broad and far-reaching to cover WotC in case anytjing goes down, and Goodman Games is just being a stickler to the terms in case.

 

[Stormonu]

The opacity around the OAR licenses has been annoying since the beginning.

Goodman continually gets asked for legal PDFs of the OAR books and they just sit there in stony silence. All they have to do is say "that's not included in our license," and that would be enough. I cannot imagine WotC put them under an NDA about it.

I'm pretty sure at the outset you could get legal PDFs of the OAR books. I have one of OAR4 - The Lost City. I don't see them available any more on the website, though.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm pretty sure at the outset you could get legal PDFs of the OAR books. I have one of OAR4 - The Lost City. I don't see them available any more on the website, though.

No, they never had PDFs?

 

[jerryrice4949]

I'm pretty sure at the outset you could get legal PDFs of the OAR books. I have one of OAR4 - The Lost City. I don't see them available any more on the website, though.

They never offered PDFs.

 

[jerryrice4949]

I can understand an NDA may have made it so Goodman couldn’t comment on PDFs. I cannot imagine a NDA would cover disclosing the license had expired.

 

[Parmandur]

I can understand an NDA may have made it so Goodman couldn’t comment on PDFs. I cannot imagine a NDA would cover disclosing the license had expired.

If the NDA was vague yet sweeping, like a general threat without getting terribly specific...Goodman might feel safest saying nothing at all.

 

[darjr]

Also Goodman Games might not want to talk about it? Also it might not be a forgone conclusion yet? Could be negotiations are ongoing? Or stalled but not entirely done?

Could be a few things.

Could be WotC asked that the details of the license not be disclosed? Which would included sunsetting it? I’d think.

 

[Nikosandros]

One other peculiar thing (IMHO) is that WotC did promote extensively the first OAR and it was also featured as a D&D product on their webpage and then never mentioned (AFAIK) the series again.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

One other peculiar thing (IMHO) is that WotC did promote extensively the first OAR and it was also featured as a D&D product on their webpage and then never mentioned (AFAIK) the series again.

I suspect that the OAR deal was made under a previous WotC regime and the new regime is less enthusiastic about it. That matches the behavior we've seen and how the corporate world often works.

That said, if the new regime didn't like the OAR books, that's pretty silly. I suspect that most (but not all, so no one @ me) of the audience for the OAR books are people who aren't WotC completionists and vice versa. If you are excited to drop $120 on Temple of Elemental Evil, you probably weren't ever going to be excited for Princes of the Apocalypse. The money they got from this deal wasn't otherwise going to be flowing into their coffers.

 

[Parmandur]

One other peculiar thing (IMHO) is that WotC did promote extensively the first OAR and it was also featured as a D&D product on their webpage and then never mentioned (AFAIK) the series again.

I suspect that the OAR deal was made under a previous WotC regime and the new regime is less enthusiastic about it. That matches the behavior we've seen and how the corporate world often works.

To put too fine a point on it: the first two OAR books came oit when Mike Mearls was in charge of all things D&D, and Mearls got his start in the RPG industry writing for the Dungeon Crawl Classics line for Goodman Games.

Indeed, OAR 2, Isle of Dread, came out at the perfect time to fit in with Ghosts of Saltmarsh...which Mearls co-wrote. Mearls was gone from the public scene shortly thereafter.