Mike Mearls said:
To start with, we want to ensure that the quality of anything D&D fans create is as high as possible....For that reason, we don't want to launch anything at least until the Dungeon Master's Guide has been released in November.
Moreover, it's not enough simply to launch anything the day the DMG hits shelves. It'll take time for everyone to absorb the rules and how they all interact. The R&D team can also share what we've learned while working on the game and the traps and challenges to avoid in design.
Not a bad goal, but to be fair, it's not up to WotC what is high quality and what isn't. That's what an open market is for. And in any open market, some of the stuff is not going to be of equally high quality to other stuff.
And by high quality, are we talking about dodging the janky rules bits of stuff like some Mongoose Publishing stuff, or getting rid of stuff like the
Book of Erotic Fantasy, which was a pretty high-quality book, just not a subject matter germaine to most games? Or do publishing methods matter and PDF files are too "low quality" to fall under this umbrella?
I think it's smart to wait until after the DMG guidelines are released, that makes sense (the DMG including advice on "here's how to make good D&D stuff"), but they won't be able to control this very tightly if they want to benefit from the awesomeness openness brings, and I hope they realize that. If they try to quality-control too tightly, they're just going to wind up GSL-ing the whole thing, putting restrictions down that people just can't easily comply with, so they just don't bother making stuff (or they work off of stuff you can't copyright like game mechanics and elves).
It's a good thought. It carries some potential problems, but nothing smart folks can't navigate.
