thecasualoblivion
First Post
Is the significance and importance of 3rd Party Publishers by people on the internet overrated, underrated, or right on?
Significance of 3rd Party Publishers: Overrated?
- Thread starter thecasualoblivion
- Start date
I don't know if it is or not overall. However, it was extremely important for me getting into playing/running 3e, continuing running it, and even buying d20Modern (despite liking the class structure). It is also the quality and options of the third party products that I use that primarily keep me from 4e- I think they are that much better.
Which 3rd party publishers?
Green Ronin? Kenzer & Co? Paizo? Mongoose? Bastion? ENPublishing? White Wolf/Sword & Sorcery? Malhavoc?
Some might be over-rated, some might be under-rated, some might have a mixture of great and good and 'eh' products.
and, more importantly, which 'people on the internet?' Some are fanbois of a particular 3P publisher. Some refuse to touch anything that isn't core or WotC published.
I picked 'just right.' I could give a rat's butt if some people don't like this company or that. I'll buy what I want to have. I don't have an axe to grind against WotC or Paizo or anyone else. If they put out books I want, they'll get my money.
thecasualoblivion
First Post
Significance of 3PP in general, in the minds of people in general is the answer to that.
deganawida
Legend
Assuming that by 3PP you mean people who use the d20 license to make non-official D&D products, then I have to vote, just on my own experience, that their significance is overrated. Neither anyone in my group nor myself have ever purchased a 3PP supplement. If we purchase a non-WotC product, it is for a different gaming system, not D&D or d20. I cannot speak for others, only for what I've experienced directly.
Shroomy
Adventurer
I wouldn't dismiss 3PPs or anything like that, but I do think we tend to overrate their importance in the general scheme of things, especially to those of us that frequent messageboards.
Dragonbait
Explorer
As much as I like a lot of the 3PP, I am one of four players out of 27 players I know locally who know about 3PP.
Ah, that changes things. Since 99.9% of people in general have no idea what a 3PP is, I'd have to go with 'underrated' then.
I think the whole 'Open Gaming Content' idea is fairly amazing, and wouldn't mind seeing the model expand to various other media. Creative Commons takes a similar view, as does open source software, but the idea has yet to really take off and most copyright holders don't really have a set policy in place regarding 'allowed use' of intellectual property (both 'for sale' licensing and more freestyle 'third-party' works like fanart or fanfic or
'gaming days').
Can you imagine someone like J.K. Rowlings (who is fairly unsympathetic towards people using her characters) adopting a more 'open content' stance and setting guidelines for fair use of her intellectual properties?
Other creative types, such as Joss Whedon, already have a laissez-faire attitude towards fanfic or even published works involving his creations, but without a clear 'Open Licence' concept, he's obviously taking his chances on some twit attempting a copyright challenge.
I mistook the original question to be about gaming and specific 3rd party publishers (such as our hosts here at ENWorld), not about *people in general* and the whole 'third-party publishing' concept.
In retrospect, that was a silly assumption on my part. It seems unlikely that someone would post to ENWorld talking down the significance of their various contributions to D&D in general. (And talking down the significance of 3rd party publishers like Monte Cook, or authors who have worked for 3rd party publishers like Skip Williams (Green Ronin Advanced Players Guide), Ed Greenwood and Gary Gygax (various modules and books for diverse 3PPs)).
My apologies for the confusion.
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I voted "overrated," just because I don't think polls like this are valid and figured I might as well use it to kick people in the shins for annoying me.
What does "significance" mean? If you're the sort of person who likes buying 3rd party books (there's a particular type, trust me), then I imagine they're pretty "significant." I'm not, so to me they're pretty insignificant. I don't know how to measure their overall effect on the hobby in any meaningful way.
The only thing I can really say on those grounds is that I think that a lot of games that were made for the d20 system might have been better games if they had been made with a system designed specifically for them. So to a certain extent, some "third party publishers" really should have been "first party publishers" for their own property.
What does "significance" mean? If you're the sort of person who likes buying 3rd party books (there's a particular type, trust me), then I imagine they're pretty "significant." I'm not, so to me they're pretty insignificant. I don't know how to measure their overall effect on the hobby in any meaningful way.
The only thing I can really say on those grounds is that I think that a lot of games that were made for the d20 system might have been better games if they had been made with a system designed specifically for them. So to a certain extent, some "third party publishers" really should have been "first party publishers" for their own property.
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