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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 492026" data-attributes="member: 697">Actually, in my experience James Wallis doesn't hold anything against d20. He wanted the WFRP adventure I designed for him, Fear the Worst, to include d20 stats. I was even planning on creating a d20 troll slayer prestige class. Alas, that didn't happen. I think GW wanted to steer clear of any potential problems with the OGL and their intellectual property.James is probably the most professional, intelligent person I met in gaming. He paid me in full for Fear the Worst when he easily could have let it slide. I would gladly stop writing d20 material if I could pull a full-time wage working exclusively for Hogshead.The simple truth is that one can only produce so much RPG material before it gets old. The money ceiling is low. I've probably already maxed out my yearly earnings after 2, 3 years in the business. The technology is essentially in stasis ("innovation" and "RPG design" are almost mutually exclusive terms), the industry lacks an established base of criticism and design knowledge, the audience is limited, and precious few of the people who run game companies have clue one about business or an inkling of professionalism.What you're looking at is a simple proposition: keep doing what you're doing and accept that the money is never going to get better, or take risks and hope for the best. If the risks don't pan out, then it's on to another gig. For some, that's another RPG endeavor. For others, it's something completely different.The only difference between James Wallis and the many other people who leave this business is that he bothered to post a good bye note. I don't anticipate doing the same when I move on to something else.FWIW, Fear the Worst will be made available as a free PDF download from Hogshead's site. It's the best adventure I've ever designed, so it's rather bittersweet to see it released. I was looking forward to see it in print, but at least as a PDF it's out there.If I have time, I'll post a d20 conversion of the adventure to my web site.</blockquote>

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