jasamcarl said:
Uh, and how does any of this reflect on Wotc. From what I have gathered, only the SSS crew made any claim to that effect and most of the wording amounted to, "we are working hard to try and prevent overlap..." And even that was only in regards to MMII, not all future products.
Well, as I said previously, I was under the impression that there was a gentleman's agreement that WotC would try to avoid overlapping conversions with the ToH. If they aren't going to do this they shouldn't have said they would. My understanding was that this agreement was made with MM2, FF and BoVD (at the least) in mind. I could have the story wrong, but that's what I was led to believe, and that's what irks me- there's overlap in both the FF and the BoVD, as well as in several other products that I've seen advertised from WotC (such as Unapproachable East).
Please explain to me why Wotc should concede absolute ground in converting material that arose out of the DND liscence that they themselves control to what will all but surely be a rather be in the long haul a rather minor product from a third party which relativly few people will either purchase or even have access to. Again, why should Wotc give third party's any slack? Are you afraid that will in fact beat them at your own game?
Er, I'm not even sure what this bit about beating them at my own game means. I'm not a member of the staff at SSS or NG or any other design company.
My complaint is that if WotC makes an agreement to help make a product more attractive to all of us consumers out here, WotC shouldn't undermine that agreement. I don't think that WotC conceded absolute ground about
anything; but they weren't about to put a book like ToH together, were they?
I'm not trying to pick a fight here; I just find it annoying that the company that sets the standards and is ostensibly trying to help the industry as a whole through the OGL movement would turn around and undermine it. Unapproachable East doesn't make a difference to me since I have no plans to buy it, but ToH is a very good product that should have a chance to make it without being stabbed in the back by the guys who said, "Sure, go ahead, and we'll help by assisting you in making sure the content's unique and unduplicated."
Or is this rather the griping of a small number of people who purchased Tomb of Horrors and are so anal about the material in their books being 'official' that they would seek to deny those who would see great worth in a Wotc alternative any chance of that. Could you simply be content with having conversions from any source?
Again, what annoys me has nothing to do with whether a conversion is "official" or not. It's about the principle of sticking to your agreements (you being WotC). I understand that some amount of duplication is unavoidable in the long term- after all, is every single WotC-employed designer going to double-check the ToH to make sure nothing they're working on is in there? No, that's a ridiculous expectation. But couldn't they have done it for six months? Couldn't they have done it for the products that they discussed when the agreement was made? Couldn't they have avoided turning their backs on the agreement immediately and at least tried to avoid it for a little while?
And mouseferatu, I know they said there'd be a few overlapping creatures- but the back of my ToH says, "You won't find any of the monsters in this book in any official product!"
I mean, come on- they shouldn't make claims like that when they know they aren't true. Just add an "m" to that first any and you satisfy me from NG's end. But WotC should try harder to hold to high ethical standards.
In my opinion, of course.
