Relationship between D&D and d20

[Arnwyn]

So, what i am thinking is that for a long time, people went to d20 companies to support D&D, precisely because WotC was busy re-imagining the classics for the new edition. Now that that is finished and WotC is looking forward, both in terms of 'fluff' and in terms of rules, d20 publishers are suffering. Because, i think, given their druthers, D&D players would rather have 'official' material if given a choice. Now they have a choice.

Thought?

I disagree.

I think it's because of the absolutely horrendous distribution system currently in existence for the RPG industry.

It's all about the distribution.

 

[DaveMage]

I swear to god, I think Diaglo has built a custom web bot that searches every EN forum just to make this post.

He reads several RPG message boards, so I'm sure the bot is not exclusive to EN World.

 

[Psion]

So, what i am thinking is that for a long time, people went to d20 companies to support D&D, precisely because WotC was busy re-imagining the classics for the new edition. Now that that is finished and WotC is looking forward, both in terms of 'fluff' and in terms of rules, d20 publishers are suffering. Because, i think, given their druthers, D&D players would rather have 'official' material if given a choice. Now they have a choice.

I'd 'ruther have someting good, interesting, and fresh.

Hate to break it to you, but WotC has not been where I have been shopping for that lately. Or for a long time, really. Releases like Magic of Incarnum and Weapons of Legacy are being thumbed through and left on the shelf by me.

As someone else alluded to, if there is a reason behind resistance to acceptance of third party publishers, it's lack of market penetration. Everyone who plays D&D knows who WotC are. Not everyone knows who else to look for... or look out for.

 

[Oryan77]

d02 ain't D&D.

OD&D(1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are just poor imitations of the real thing.

I swear to god, I think Diaglo has built a custom web bot that searches every EN forum just to make this post.

That's why I skip over his posts...I don't find him informative because it'll be the same old d02 comments. It's old & tiring, just like OD&D

Actually I don't have any complaints about OD&D, but come on man, enough is enough. Everyone gets that you prefer OD&D over d20. There's no need to be a popup ad.

On topic, this might sound petty, but artwork and quality of the book has a lot to do with why I mainly use WotC books. They really are fantastic looking and more impressive. The color and picture quality is great. The artwork is really good which influences me on whether I think a weapon is cool or a PrC might be cool. It's also more impressive showing players pictures of the monsters that look detailed rather than an amature drawing that's not even in full color detail.

The quality of the paper used is better most of the time also. I like the glossy pages. I feel like I've gotten more for my buck. For some reason it's more comfortable flipping through a nice glossy paged book rather than a dull rough paged book.

 

[Garnfellow]

As someone else alluded to, if there is a reason behind resistance to acceptance of third party publishers, it's lack of market penetration. Everyone who plays D&D knows who WotC are. Not everyone knows who else to look for... or look out for.

I think another important reason for consumer resistance is that most 3rd party publishers have refused to effectively take advantage of open gaming. Many companies still do not clearly delineate the open content in their works, or else release crippled OGC [1]. And most companies ignore perfectly good existing open content in lieu of reinventing the same wheel over and over again [2].

Because of this, 3rd party books generally have only a fraction of their potential value, because they are rarely referenced by other books. In contrast, Wizards has a large (but closed) network of new rules outside the core rules, and their network gets stronger with every new WotC book because these rules all build on each other. Libris Mortis might refer to a feat in Complete Warrior, that might mention a monster from the Book of Vile Darkness. All these cross-references reinforce each other, add new value, and make the network stronger.

Third party publishers by and large do not have such a large, shared network of rules to draw on – though they could and should. For example, I really like the Tome of Horrors, but imagine how much more useful the ToH would be in a world where the ToH was a standard reference work for all other d20 publishers; where other d20 publishers freely drew on this resource to populate their own books with new monsters. But instead, we get 10,001 minor variations on the same monster concept.

[1] Necromancer Games, in contrast, was a shining and early example of how to clearly mark open gaming content.

[2] Green Ronin and Bad Axe Games have been particularly good about using good Open content, as seen in the Black Company Campaign Setting and Grim Tales.

 

[Turjan]

So, what i am thinking is that for a long time, people went to d20 companies to support D&D, precisely because WotC was busy re-imagining the classics for the new edition. Now that that is finished and WotC is looking forward, both in terms of 'fluff' and in terms of rules, d20 publishers are suffering. Because, i think, given their druthers, D&D players would rather have 'official' material if given a choice. Now they have a choice.

I don't think so.

People didn't go to d20 companies to support D&D. You make it sound as if Ryan Dancey's business strategy, which originally resulted in the OGL, was part of the conscious buying decisions of early customers. The real reason was that people were curious. Many people got burnt by some bad d20 purchases and went back to 'WotC only'. Others, like me, were not that much enthused with some of the WotC products, either, and decided to keep an open eye for good product, regardless of the company (well, with some exceptions ). Nowadays, I buy more d20 products than WotC products, because I buy what interests me.

I agree with Arnwyn. Many d20 publishers are heavily hit by the current distributor turmoils. WotC doesn't have these problems, and those companies that managed to get under the White Wolf umbrella don't have these problems, either. You can see, though, that WW is tightening the thumbscrews and allows only those titles to be published through S&S that promise decent sales. Mongoose seems to have become somewhat more successful with US distributors in the course of the last year. Green Ronin was heavily hit by the distrubutor disaster, and I'm not sure whether they have fully recovered from this problem yet. For details, you have to ask the companies yourself, though, as I can only judge the situation from what I see.

This means that many d20 publishers have a visibility problem at the moment. Most customers simply don't have the possibility to find good d20 products at the preferred dealer of their choice.

 

[Ranger REG]

Thought?

Third-party publishers are struggling to make their products 3.5e compatible. While major publishers can keep up with WotC's whim at a moment's notice, small print presses are struggling. When fans are bypassing old products for 3.5e compatible products, they end up with a warehouse of unsold wares that they have to eat up from their own pocket.

Add to that the distributor's discretion on which products would guarantee profits, and small print presses are left with only a few fringe stores to sell their products to.

As for supporting D&D, it was at first (e.g., Slayer's Guide, Freeport) but the motive is to expose their products and their company to interesting (non-hardcore) D&D gamers. Once they figuratively got their foot into the customer's door, they can offer other products including standalone like Spycraft (originally a 3.0e-compatible d20 products now OGL) and Mutants & Masterminds.

Of course I could blame WotC for screwing them, but they're simply a publisher trying to stay ahead of their competition in the industry (as if they can go above #1).

I disagree that they're not reviving the classic 3e books (for which you are thankful). I had hope they would since they decided on 3.5e. In fact, I have not been so enthusiastic about 3.5e products than I was with 3.0e prior to 2003. So far, they got from me is a "meh" rating.

IOW, it's like watching paint drying, or Braga-produced Voyager series. Meh. :\