Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Turjan" data-source="post: 1790789" data-attributes="member: 3477">Yes, you can. You will have quite a lot of work to do with your spellcasters, though, and I heard from players that the power level is not really the same. Anyway, AU is presented in a way that doesn't make it easy to transfer the elements into D&D. I suppose that's part of the concept. M&M is definitely not transferable into D&D. Right, the point of the OGL was to let other companies produce those products that are not profitable for WotC. This went well for both sides, because WotC could concentrate on the high volume core products with general topics (I mean this in a broader sense, including things like the "Manual of the Planes" or "Psionic Handbook"), and the small low-cost companies could shell out very specialized source books ("Hammer and Helm"), variant concepts ("Artificer's Handbook") or adventures. Unfortunately for the small companies, WotC has published all core books and is now grazing on the same meadow as the d20 crowd with specialized race books ("Races of Stone") or variant concepts ("Unearthed Arcana"). Only adventures seem to be too small of a market for WotC, leaving (more or less) one other company that makes money in this field.You are completely right with the point that the companies you mentioned became big with "vanilla" D&D supplements. However, three of them recently shifted a good part of their production into non-"vanilla" products, like Slaine (didn't go well), Conan, AU, Mutant & Masterminds. The only exception is Necromancer Games, who found a nice niche with their clever nostalgia concept combined with a look on quality and the fact that their product does not compete with WotC at all; in this case it's a perfect synergy.Hmm... maybe your definition of "vanilla" differs from mine. Is there anything in the Penumbra line that does not fit into plain D&D? I don't think so. I think it's simply the combination of high production costs (the books are well produced), high prices (small hardbacks have a high per page price, and their layout seems not to go well with many gamers ("Ah! I found a white space on the page! Give me my money back!")), lower print runs and the new competition with WotC. As they see that they cannot compete with the original company on the same subjects, they may have decided to concentrate on their own games instead. Perhaps, White Wolf drew a similar conclusion.</blockquote>

Verification