Ryan Dancey no Longer working with Wizards on OGL/D20

[maddman75]

Wizards took the open style development from the Free software movement. A brilliant idea, and one largely responsible for the current gaming renaissance, IMHO. But that power does not come without responsibility.

If they clamp down on IP, add nothing to the SRD, discontinue d20, etc., while at the same time losing talent they will face something that open sourcers fear.

Fork. What does that mean? It means that if WotC goes in a direction that hurts the game and the public, much like the later days of TSR did, there is nothing stopping others, perhaps led by former WotC illuminati, from creating an alternate free version of the game. They can't afford to be jacking around the fans.

I don't think they are doing this - I'm just reminding everyone of the consequences of going open source. You can't take it back.

PS - I think Wolfspider rolled a 20 wrt the Hasbro suits.

 

[Holy Bovine]

*please forgive me for this moment of mindless vitriol*

I have a theory. (And, no, it's not bunnies.) Some big man at Hasbro took a second look at how many people were employed at WotC in developing this Dungeons and Dragons board game and compared it to the numbers involved in developing other Hasbro board games, like Clue and Monopoly.

"This is ridiculous! They've had more than a year to release this D&D board game, and they're still employing Research and Development staff? Nonsense!"

The big man makes slashes through several names on his list.

"The game has been made. It doesn't need any more development. For goodness sake, how many times have the rules to Monopoly changed over the years? Hmmm? Or the ones to Clue? Bah. It's finished."

The exec cocks his head to one side and thinks for a moment.

"Although we might want to do a Star Wars themed version of the D&D board game some day. Yeah, that's an idea...."

He makes a few notes and leaves his office, whistling.

Wasn't this current round of layoffs initiated by WotC on its own? I seem to remember seeing that stated repeatedly in the last couple of days. Hasbro didn't have their 'fingers on the button' this time.

I am more heartened by the fact that there are still a lot of talented guys n' gals working for WotC (check out the main page on ENWorld for a partial list - Skip Williams, Johnathan Tweet and Jeff Grubb are the ones that give me the most comfort). I don't think the sky is falling quite yet.

 

[Henry]

The sky might not be falling, but I'm feeling the need to duck my head quite low lately.