That is how every commercial RPG outside the d20 continuum other than 13th Age functions. Those games generally have no fan-made retail product affiliated with them. Certainly, if they do, no one suggests it is in any way reflective of the quality of the official game.
Maybe, but that's a very different world. You can probably fit everyone who has played
Dogs in the Vineyard regularly for at least two years on a small island in the Carribean and still have a lot of jungle. Among other things, it's a lot easier to police than a game with millions of continuously active players (and more potential writers).
And games like FATE are
OGL, so certainly at least some quite popular non-d20 RPGs feel very confident in not controlling what others do with their game mechanics. There's more diversity out there in this small sphere than you're giving it credit for.
Your assertion was that nothing could stop IP squatters. Regardless of the efficiency of the methods involved, that statement is not true.
You misunderstand my assertion. My assertion was that nothing could legally stop someone from making a D&D-compatible product and selling it. This is not the same as being an "IP squatter" (not even sure what that would actually be?).
Are you speaking from the perspective of a content producer or of a consumer? Because those are two very different positions and I am having trouble following you as a result. Consumers always have the right to vote with their wallets. Content producers do not always have the right to sell elements from someone else's IP because of some community mandate.
The license is a product they are selling to content producers.
Content producers do currently have the right to sell D&D compatible adventures whether or not WotC recognizes that right because game mechanics aren't IP. Most of the things in D&D aren't IP (elves, dwarves, orcs, halflings, dragons, dungeons, tentacled horrors from beyond the stars, creatures from myth and legend and old fiction, heroes saving bystanders from villains with magic and skill, rolling a d20+modifiers vs. a DC, etc., etc....). There's a lot of stuff it couldn't have that would be really useful (trade dress resembling WotC's, likely some specific terminology, mentioning "D&D" anywhere on it, some D&D-specific IP like mind flayers), but nothing strictly necessary. They can do that and have a "shoddy" product all the livelong day.
Content produces can also see a limited license and say "Screw that," and then not work on the game. That's kind of what happened with the GSL. People went and made Pathfinder supplements instead. And consumers responded by buying a
hell of a lot of Pathfinder product.
Which means WotC is in a place where its license needs to offer a competitive product to these legitimate options. It can probably do that, but if it tries to too tightly control for "quality," those other things are going to happen, just as they did during 4e (which mostly only saw the latter, and none of the former...though I wonder if that's a "success" in the eyes of some of the GSL's architects...).
That's not even counting the
illegitimate options, which in the presence of significant enough authoritarianism and customer discontent are rather inevitable (see: the offline 4e character builder).
You're moving the goalposts. If Wizards opens a curated store, how is that not establishing themselves as the arbiters of quality in D&D supplement design?
Because, as I mentioned in my second post, promoting quality is much different than trying to quash crap. WotC can -- and should, I think! -- do the former. It can't hope to ever 100% effectively do the latter. Encouraging quality and waiting for the DMG are good things, but those weight the scales, they don't prevent problems. If their goal is to absolutely prevent shoddy D&D supplements from coming into being from ardent fans, then they won't meet that goal. If their goal is to encourage quality and favor the good, they totally can, and it'd be a good idea.
