D&D 5E What a small industry 5e publishing really is, and WOTC are thieves.

[billd91]

I guess I'm a snob, proper labels are important to me ;P
View attachment 154875

A true snob would require Artisanal Welsh Lady Ass Fudge.
Or is that a hipster?
Damn, I can't tell them apart!

 

[Parmandur]

FR isn't generic, it beat out bunch of other popular settings time and again to be top dog.

It beat them out by being more perfectly generic. Greyhawk is too defined by Gygax's personal tastes in fantasy and Dragonlance is way too invested in Hickman & Weis's personal views, while Forgotten Realms is more all-encompassing due to its origin in comprehensive fan-fiction writing.

The generic nature of the Forgotten Realms is why it is great.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I go with how folks use the term in practice, I've never seen it used in a positive light..

However else you've seen the word used, the people in this conversation are not using "generic" as a negative word.

 

[Alzrius]

And he did get further royalties of some amount for the multitude of books he produced over the next 40 years.

Not to mention that he still has that clause in his original contract that says that if TSR (now WotC) stops publishing Forgotten Realms books, the rights to the setting revert to him.

(The above is sarcasm; there's no way that old myth is true.)

 

[Parmandur]

Not to mention that he still has that clause in his original contract that says that if TSR (now WotC) stops publishing Forgotten Realms books, the rights to the setting revert to him.

(The above is sarcasm; there's no way that old myth is true.)

Or if it ever was, WotC fixed it with a new contract decades ago, in all likelihood. Otherwise they wouldn't invest so much in it.

 

[Parmandur]

However else you've seen the word used, the people in this conversation are not using "generic" as a negative word.

Indeed, generic for an RPG is very much a good thing: it offers an ideal platform for creating one's own stories.

 

[Hussar]

Nook, Kobo, and other companies all do the same. But yeah, not the best example to lead with omni-scumbags when discussing a specific type of scumbaggery.

Speaking of digital publishing -- for the librarians on the thread, do your libraries participate in Overdrive or other ebook lending services? I think it's a great idea, but always wondered how much participation is actually on there.

My mom was the head librarian in our small town. When they went with Overdrive, lending nearly doubled overnight. It was HUGE.

I know I used the hell out of it. I haven't read a paper book in years.

 

[Hussar]

On the Greenwood rights thing, let's not forget, there's a LOT more here than just RPG books. Video games, after all, would be a nightmare to license if you had to go through Greenwood every time you wanted to make a D&D video game set in FR. It's another lawyer at the table every time. It does make things rather more complicated.

And that's ignoring things like t-shirts and various other things. Heck, look at the number of references to Forgotten Realms names in the core 5e books. Should Greenwood be getting money on every PHB sold too?

There are very good reasons for buying the rights to something.

 

[the Jester]

yeah it does, it's not generic.

Let's see... demihuman cultures taken from Tolkien, check. Nonhuman deities, as well as Kara-Tur, taken from Greyhawk, check. Deities taken from a combination of Moorcock, C. S. Lewis, real world mythology- check. Shoves in a kitchen sink with everything else, allowing literally anything to be inserted, check. Bog-standard fantasy setting, check.

I could go on.... but the point is that FR is a pastiche of every fantasy element Greenwood could shove in (and later authors, too).

 

[Parmandur]

Let's see... demihuman cultures taken from Tolkien, check. Nonhuman deities, as well as Kara-Tur, taken from Greyhawk, check. Deities taken from a combination of Moorcock, C. S. Lewis, real world mythology- check. Shoves in a kitchen sink with everything else, allowing literally anything to be inserted, check. Bog-standard fantasy setting, check.

I could go on.... but the point is that FR is a pastiche of every fantasy element Greenwood could shove in (and later authors, too).

Which is why it works do well for D&D...because it is emblematic of the genre.