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<blockquote data-quote="RyanD" data-source="post: 3642692" data-attributes="member: 3312">There's theory, and there's practice.In theory I would have liked to have seen a much more aggressive use of OGC in D&amp;D products, because I think that feeds the idea &quot;pump&quot; (the more likely someone thinks their work is to become &quot;Dungeons &amp; Dragons&quot;, the more likely they may be to make the complete effort required to thoroughly write up and distribute their ideas).In practice I'm not too surprised at the lack of OGC use in D&amp;D.&nbsp; There are several dozen people paid quite well to design &amp; develop Dungeons &amp; Dragons.&nbsp; You will remember that just after 3.0 shipped, Wizards went through 4 disastrous rounds of layoffs.&nbsp; The &quot;survivors&quot; (many of who also survived the Last Days of TSR) know how to keep their jobs:&nbsp; Do great work, and get it published.&nbsp; So there's an economic (and personal) motive to avoid using a lot of 3rd party OGC in the work that team produces.&nbsp; Nobody in that team wants an upper level manager to think &quot;well hell!&nbsp; Let's just get rid of the RPG R&amp;D group and rely on this talented pool of freelancers instead&quot;.I'll also say that there's a unique thing going on at Wizards of the Coast, and that thing is what I call the &quot;culture of design&quot;.&nbsp; At WotC, game designers are constantly challenged to refine their ideas, define them rigorously, and fit them within larger design principles that have been in constant evolution since Richard Garfield kicked off the CCG revolution.&nbsp; Working at WotC is unlike working at any other game company -- not only do you do your game design work, but you're essentially subjected to PhD level game theory instruction on a continuous basis.&nbsp; The result is, in my opinion, a qualitative difference between the WotC produced content and a lot of 3rd party content.&nbsp; They don't bat 1.000, but they get on base far more often than most other sources of content, and occasionally, they smack one out of the park.As a result of that culture of design, it's hard for outside material to make it through the design inspection and review process and into a Dungeons &amp; Dragons product.&nbsp; ideas may (and probably often do) percolate in the 3rd party OGL community, which then get discussed, and perhaps incorporated in the logic &amp; planning for a D&amp;D product, but the resulting material likely bears little or no textual resemblance to the original source material.Assuming there is a 4E project underway at WotC, I suspect that part of that project was a thorough review of some of the better OGL content, like Mutants &amp; Masterminds, Castles &amp; Crusades, and Spycraft 2.0.&nbsp; (a clearly not-exhaustive list!)&nbsp; I am pretty sure that if WotC chooses to do a 4E that is a lineal descendant of 3E, some of that review will likely transmogrify into new D&amp;D content.&nbsp; It will be hard to untangle from the new content produced by WotC R&amp;D though, and all that may remain is the intent &amp; the result, not the system or the process.&nbsp; Only time will tell.Ryan</blockquote>

[QUOTE="RyanD, post: 3642692, member: 3312"] There's theory, and there's practice. In [b]theory[/b] I would have liked to have seen a much more aggressive use of OGC in D&D products, because I think that feeds the idea "pump" (the more likely someone thinks their work is to become "Dungeons & Dragons", the more likely they may be to make the complete effort required to thoroughly write up and distribute their ideas). In [b]practice[/b] I'm not too surprised at the lack of OGC use in D&D. There are several dozen people paid quite well to design & develop Dungeons & Dragons. You will remember that just after 3.0 shipped, Wizards went through 4 disastrous rounds of layoffs. The "survivors" (many of who also survived the Last Days of TSR) know how to keep their jobs: Do great work, and get it published. So there's an economic (and personal) motive to avoid using a lot of 3rd party OGC in the work that team produces. Nobody in that team wants an upper level manager to think "well hell! Let's just get rid of the RPG R&D group and rely on this talented pool of freelancers instead". I'll also say that there's a unique thing going on at Wizards of the Coast, and that thing is what I call the "culture of design". At WotC, game designers are constantly challenged to refine their ideas, define them rigorously, and fit them within larger design principles that have been in constant evolution since Richard Garfield kicked off the CCG revolution. Working at WotC is unlike working at any other game company -- not only do you do your game design work, but you're essentially subjected to PhD level game theory instruction on a continuous basis. The result is, in my opinion, a qualitative difference between the WotC produced content and a lot of 3rd party content. They don't bat 1.000, but they get on base far more often than most other sources of content, and occasionally, they smack one out of the park. As a result of that culture of design, it's hard for outside material to make it through the design inspection and review process and into a Dungeons & Dragons product. ideas may (and probably often do) percolate in the 3rd party OGL community, which then get discussed, and perhaps incorporated in the logic & planning for a D&D product, but the resulting material likely bears little or no textual resemblance to the original source material. Assuming there is a 4E project underway at WotC, I suspect that part of that project was a thorough review of some of the better OGL content, like Mutants & Masterminds, Castles & Crusades, and Spycraft 2.0. (a clearly not-exhaustive list!) I am pretty sure that if WotC chooses to do a 4E that is a lineal descendant of 3E, some of that review will likely transmogrify into new D&D content. It will be hard to untangle from the new content produced by WotC R&D though, and all that may remain is the intent & the result, not the system or the process. Only time will tell. Ryan [/QUOTE]

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