"Quality Standards" in the d20 System Guide

[HeapThaumaturgist]

And Valar? He's no villain either. He wanted to publish an adult-oriented fantasy product. I'm an adult, as are my fellow gamers, and many of us cut our teeth on lurid fantasy a la Heavy Metal, Gor, and the lurid pulp fantasy of fellows like Fritz Leiber. Maybe it's something we can use, maybe not. I have yet to see anyone provide a calm, rational, intelligent explanation of what's so terribly wrong with that.

I would agree with you on the later part of what I quoted. Alot of us enjoy and even miss the lurid fantasy. Hot busty babes in chainmail bikinis, slashing swords, some nookie.

But that doesn't seem to be what "The Book of Erotic Fantasy" is about. It seems to be a "crunch" book more about pointless erotica than a coherent "lurid fantasy" product. Do we need 190 pages of sex-themed skills, sex-themed feats, sex-themed classes, sex-themed class abilities tied to sex-themed skills, sex-themed gods, sex-themed spells?

I'd LIKE to see a well-produced RPG book with boobies. I don't think, however, a book ABOUT boobies really enhances anything. All it does is mean we won't be seeing boobies in any ACTUAL adult game content because they made it juvenile. The product sounds like the completely juvenile "NET book of SEX" that circulated around online during the 2nd Ed AD&D days, but with pictures and a binding. I'm more disappointed in AV for producing it and forcing WotC to slap everybody down than I am with WotC for doing it.

--fje

 

[Harlock]

Wulf is absolutley correct. When I was in charge of the d20/OGL license and the D&D brand we were very liberal and very forgiving. In the three years we never asked a single company to destroy product. Numerous times people came to us saying that they had created a product and only after it was done realized that they had inadvertently used material that was not part of the SRD. In every case we gave them permission. We allowed numerous companies to license material that we were not planning on reissuing to make small sub sets of fans happy. And we bent over backwards to make the d20 network an easy place for companies to be creative.

I doubt that anyone - even those d20 publishers who are saying things about me that are in violation of the new WotC Quality Standards (what is it with all the potty references, peeing the pool, taking a dump??) would bad mouth my administration of the license itself during my tenure.

Of course I am no longer there. In fact of the original team that put out the d20/OGL license (Ryan Dancey, Keith Strohm, Cindi Rice, Jim Butler, David Wise, Doug Steves and myself) the only ones left are...
Oh I guess no ones left.

AV

I hate to be the jerk that gets scowled at if I am wrong, but does a mod mind checking the credentials on this fellow? Thing is, I've seen AV post here before and so he should have registered before today and have more than this lone post. Unless of course he simply forgot his password or something and just created a new account rather than waiting for the email with his password to arrive, in which case I gladly apologize.

 

[Felon]

I would agree with you on the later part of what I quoted. Alot of us enjoy and even miss the lurid fantasy. Hot busty babes in chainmail bikinis, slashing swords, some nookie. But that doesn't seem to be what "The Book of Erotic Fantasy" is about. It seems to be a "crunch" book more about pointless erotica than a coherent "lurid fantasy" product. Do we need 190 pages of sex-themed skills, sex-themed feats, sex-themed classes, sex-themed class abilities tied to sex-themed skills, sex-themed gods, sex-themed spells?

Well, IMO no. Sounds a bit ludicrous, in fact.

But that's just it. He can't make either of us buy it. If BoEF is something nobody wants, then its ultimate fate is ignominious failure. If it turns out to be something there's a demand for, then he's validated.

So here's a crazy thought: let the consumers see the book and vote with their dollars. That's what was ultimately decided with TBoVD, and here we have a follow-up book in the "mature readers" line on its way.

If a guy like AV truly had a vile agenda, then WotC certainly played into his hands. The winning play would've been to dismiss it.

 

[azildurn]

Wulf is absolutley correct. When I was in charge of the d20/OGL license and the D&D brand we were very liberal and very forgiving. In the three years we never asked a single company to destroy product. Numerous times people came to us saying that they had created a product and only after it was done realized that they had inadvertently used material that was not part of the SRD. In every case we gave them permission. We allowed numerous companies to license material that we were not planning on reissuing to make small sub sets of fans happy. And we bent over backwards to make the d20 network an easy place for companies to be creative.

I doubt that anyone - even those d20 publishers who are saying things about me that are in violation of the new WotC Quality Standards (what is it with all the potty references, peeing the pool, taking a dump??) would bad mouth my administration of the license itself during my tenure.

Of course I am no longer there. In fact of the original team that put out the d20/OGL license (Ryan Dancey, Keith Strohm, Cindi Rice, Jim Butler, David Wise, Doug Steves and myself) the only ones left are...
Oh I guess no ones left.

AV

They may have shown good faith so far in the d20 arena but as a whole TSR and WotC have been money whores from the beginning and it's obvious that they still are. They're afraid that their corporate image will be tarnished by stuff such as the BoEF and they're trying to censor everyone to stop that. I personally have no use for the BoEF mainly because I think it's stupid, rather than offensive. That said, it doesn't have Wizards thinks this is a good idea on the cover and they've made their position clear.

They have not shown good faith over the last 15 years (combined TSR and WotC) and although the d20 movement was a step in the right direction in the long run they proved they couldn't actually work in good faith and have proven that they are about control of the content as well as the brand. d20 was supposed to be some relinquishing of the control of the content while still protecting the brand but now they've decided that because the two have some minor overlap that's not good enough and they want all the control back. It's not anti-corporate to suggest such either, it's simply one analysis of the facts of what they've done.

 

[Simplicity]

I hate to be the jerk that gets scowled at if I am wrong, but does a mod mind checking the credentials on this fellow? Thing is, I've seen AV post here before and so he should have registered before today and have more than this lone post. Unless of course he simply forgot his password or something and just created a new account rather than waiting for the email with his password to arrive, in which case I gladly apologize.

Well, it certainly sounds like him (though he's not posting under the
usual Zulkir handle), and it's not like he said anything all that contentious. I've certainly never heard of WotC demanding any
company destroy product.

 

[TheRaven]

Do we need 190 pages of sex-themed skills, sex-themed feats, sex-themed classes, sex-themed class abilities tied to sex-themed skills, sex-themed gods, sex-themed spells?

Who do you adress with "we"? Maybe the majority of the community but does this give you the right to decide for everyone. Maybe there are mature people who want books like that and why should anyone prohibit them to buy it, let alone write it. Why should the mainstream gamer care about valar products or realms of evil products? If WotC follows such guidelines for their own, official D&D products, then that's perfectly fine but why should they enforce such a policy on the whole community.

There goes the call of cuthulhu d20 supplement about a fanatic christian order that fights against the terrors. Bye bye Arcana Unearthed d20 demon ritual book. It was nice to meet you star wars d20 laser sabre dismemberment rules. Maybe most of the D20 players see no use in such products and it is their right to do so and not buying it but in the same manner other people should have the right to buy it and publishers should be able to create them.

 

[KDLadage]

You say Valar has a right to publish it and the Wizards is way out of line, yet you still think we should be mad at AV?

I'm just curious if this will have any real effect on what we see. It seems to me that 90% of the companies out there at least have nothing to worry about with this.

Just because you believe that WotC has everyones best interest in heart does not make the actual wording of this any easier to read without getting a big headache.

This is akin to saying (albiet, this is an extreme example of what I am trying to say, in order to make my point): Suppose the "war on terror" were to expand such that the illegal search and seasure laws were revoked (sure, far fetched -- but not as far off as one might think given the current climate). Would this bother you? Would it still bother you if Uncle Sam said that it would only use this new legal power to deal with terrorists and bad guys? After all, 90% of us have nothing to worry about, right? If you have nothing to hide, you should have no problem inviting the Police Officer into your house.

 

[azildurn]

All censorshp issues and hypocrisy issues aside...

I have one question/conjecture. I am wondering how much of this has to do with the recent crackdown by the Justice Department on "Public Decency" issues? Was it even a factor or is WoTC just acting in a retailiatory way to a former employee who decided to "get back" at his former employer?

Well actually I have a second and third question too... How much is this going to affect the prices of books? All the new hoops that publishers have to jump through to meet WoTC's standard have to eventually efect our pocketbooks (In any other business it does so what's different about this one.)

Third what does WotC consider a "real-world" religoin? The Church of the Jedi is recongized as a religoin, so is Wicca. Where do they draw the line? Or are they only talking about christian based religions?

This is an uninformed opinion and please response since I would really like to understand. ^_^

Baastet a.k.a Da Kitty Goddess
(edited for typos and clarificaiton)

I'm sorry but kitty goddesses were worshiped in Egypt...please change your handle or face the wrath of the decency standards police. ;-)

 

[azildurn]

Just because you believe that WotC has everyones best interest in heart does not make the actual wording of this any easier to read without getting a big headache.

This is akin to saying (albiet, this is an extreme example of what I am trying to say, in order to make my point): Suppose the "war on terror" were to expand such that the illegal search and seasure laws were revoked (sure, far fetched -- but not as far off as one might think given the current climate). Would this bother you? Would it still bother you if Uncle Sam said that it would only use this new legal power to deal with terrorists and bad guys? After all, 90% of us have nothing to worry about, right? If you have nothing to hide, you should have no problem inviting the Police Officer into your house.

Actually 90% of companies do have something to fear. They have the fact that tomorrow they may be the publisher that WotC targets for a totally different reason. They shown a lack of good faith thus far what's to prevent them from deciding that because something is so popular they need to take it down then deciding that the norse pantheon is based on a real religion so the product can't be published. It's a principle not how they practice it in one given circumstance that matters.

 

[kreynolds]

Do we need 190 pages of sex-themed skills, sex-themed feats, sex-themed classes, sex-themed class abilities tied to sex-themed skills, sex-themed gods, sex-themed spells?

I do. Crap. That just blew your point right out of the water, didn't it? Sorry.