Alzrius said:
You and I must have very different definitions of "principle," then.
I honestly don't understand why people always rush to defend the rights of corporations when it's much smaller groups, and individuals, who lose out more based on a corporation's decisions.
I don't normally do so. Fact is, I hate the very notion of corporations. However, we're talking WotC here, not Hasbro. These are decisions that WotC makes with little, if any, input from Hasbro. And in this particular case, even if they
were getting orders from on-high, I don't think there's anything wrong with them.
When you offer an amount of (creative) freedom to a group, it is unprincipled to attempt to dial it back at a later date because you don't like what they're doing with it. As an analogy, Congress made television media public domain several decades ago - if they now decided that they don't like what's being shown on it, and decided to only let a few companies broadcast, giving them license to let smaller networks also broadcast - people would be up in arms. I see WotC's move as tantamount to this.
Except that analogy is 100% flawed. We're not talking about the government, and we're not talking about laws.
We're talking about a private entity allowing other private entities to work with their privately owned property.
You want a more accurate analogy? Let's say I have a brand new game system. I tell everyone in my apartment building "Feel free to come over at any time and play with my game system."
I realize after a few weeks of not getting any sleep that the offer was too generous. I institute a sign-up list, and only people who I know will be respectful of my sleep schedule are permitted to play the game.
D&D is WotC's
privately owned property. They did everyone a favor back in 2000. Now they're (hypothetically, if the rumor is true) doing fewer people that same favor.
Being nice once does not constitute an obligation to do so again, legally
or morally.
WotC's giving out the d20 system in 3E was a vastly generous move; now they're saying they're uncomfortable with other companies having that much creative freedom, because they might not like what's produced. I call that unprincipled.
WotC isn't limiting
anyone's creative freedom. To do that, they'd have to have the power to say "You can't publish anything, ever." They don't have that power, and they're not trying to claim that power. All they're saying is "Hey, if you publish, you might not be able to use the rules system and trademarks
that we own."
I cannot even fathom how people can't see the difference between those.