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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 2886673" data-attributes="member: 22779">In the recent thread about designing modules, people were asking why WOTC couldn't open up some of its material to the OGL and allow d20 publishers to use that material in modules.  Not a bad idea, but, really, I have to ask, what's in it for WOTC?  If WOTC allowed, say, the PHB 2 to be used in adventures, D20 publishers could then use the popularity of that book to sell their product.  Which, in turn, might spur more sales of the PHB 2.Maybe.But, instead of leeching off of WOTC's popularity, why don't the d20 publishers actually take a moment to help eachother.  Because the individual d20 publishers are so small, any effect they would have on a WOTC product would be comensurately small.  However, consider for a second the enormous library of OGC material there is out there for publishers to draw from.Looking at my own shelf, I see three Creature Collections, two Tome of Horrors and a Denizens of Avidnu.  There are more monsters in those books than anyone could possibly use in twenty modules.  Yet, every module that comes out, you almost never see anything from another publisher.Consider the following adventure for a second.  I freely admit that I suck at adventure design, but, just bear with me.  A local important figure is last seen at the Dancing Bull (Mystic Eye Games, Urban Blight) and turns up missing the next morning.  The party is hired to find this important figure.  They enter the Dancing Bull and after whatever find the trail leads to a slaver ship run by Captain Whiskers, a slitheren rat man (Creature Collection Revised).  Giving chase, the party embarks on a ship provided by the town to run down the slavers.  The chase leads to a remote island where unspeakable rites are being performed on the slaves (AEG's Secrets).Ok, the adventure maybe sucks, but you get the idea.  I've used material from three different publishers, all OGC.  Not only do I make a module that people might want to buy, but I tie it into other d20 products in the hopes that those who bought those books will buy my module.  And, it's generic enough that those who have never bought those books won't overlook it.  In other words, I have made my module that much more attractive.  The other d20 publishers win in this situation as well since they get free advertising for their books.  As a publisher I win doubly since I don't have to do the grunt work developing new creatures and other crunchy bits.  I just use what's available.I'm obviously missing something here.  To me, this seems a very obvious idea.  There are thousands of monsters, classes, PrC's, feats, spells, races, whatever that are OGC.  Why is this resource being ignored so that everyone can reinvent the wheel?  Why does publishing a book, be it sourcebook or module, automatically mean that the material must be 100% unique?((Steps off his soapbox, still ringing his cowbell <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ))</blockquote>

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