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

[the Jester]

and WotC made it worse.

How so?

 

[Cadence]

I think the biggest screw job of it is that he should have gotten royalties on every FR product TSR produced and I don't think he did. He did, as @Parmandur says get royalties on his own books, which is great, but he should have gotten a cut of the stuff that wasn't written by him but was set in his world as well IMO.

It would have been nice if someone had suggested he put in that he gets a cut when he sold it to TSR. But if they had I'm guessing if it was a meaningful percent that TSR would have had someone make an in house world to use instead and given it the space in Dragon magazine.

 

[Parmandur]

I think the biggest screw job of it is that he should have gotten royalties on every FR product TSR produced and I don't think he did. He did, as @Parmandur says get royalties on his own books, which is great, but he should have gotten a cut of the stuff that wasn't written by him but was set in his world as well IMO.

I mean, I know that Peter Adkinson made the rounds with a checkbook righting any grudges over D&D IP when he bought it...so I don't know thst he didn't make it right then, because Greenwood has never talked about it to my knowledge.

 

[Jer]

I mean, I know that Peter Adkinson made the rounds with a checkbook righting any grudges over D&D IP when he bought it...so I don't know thst he didn't, because Greenwood has never talked about it to my knowledge.

That's a good point - and I'd forgotten about Adkinson doing that.

 

[Bolares]

We also have to consider that TSR and WotC are a huge part of why FR is so popular. Maybe if Greenwood asked for more money, or a heavy royalty contract they would not buy it, and we would have another setting be the main thing...

 

[Rabulias]

and WotC made it worse.

I believe a lot of opinions about Ed Greenwood's deal have been colored by hindsight. In 1987, buying the rights to the Forgotten Realms from an outsider instead of having an employee write something was a pretty risky move. If FR had flopped for TSR, today we would be saying how Ed got a sweet deal. I don't think anyone at that time could have imagined how popular, successful, and influential FR (and by extension, D&D) would become.

I love Hoopla! it has a surprisingly large number of good movies. And while you can only get them for 2-3 days you can easily get them again. I've never even approached the 10 item limit they impose.

One thing to keep in mind is that hoopla is a relatively expensive service for libraries; on top of the base annual fee, there is a fee charged to the library for each item downloaded. The library I worked at had it for a while, and it was popular, but its popularity made it too expensive to continue.

 

[Cadence]

Apropos of nothing, reading up on FR, I was interested to see that it originally had connections with Earth (and other worlds). I'm not sure I ever knew that. Going through Appendix N, its interesting how many of the books on it are portal fiction.

 

[Parmandur]

We also have to consider that TSR and WotC are a huge part of why FR is so popular. Maybe if Greenwood asked for more money, or a heavy royalty contract they would not buy it, and we would have another setting be the main thing...

Yeah, that's what I've heard Greenwood say: he is to a large extent happy thst he got stories from other people in his world, so that it van surprise him. FR would have been a cool personal project at any rate, but now he can get any convention appearance he wants, too.

 

[Parmandur]

Apropos of nothing, reading up on FR, I was interested to see that it originally had connections with Earth (and other worlds). I'm not sure I ever knew that. Going through Appendix N, its interesting how many of the books on it are portal fiction.

Yeah, it was Greenwoods fanfiction crossover playground as a kid. It would be cool if it kept more of that: fun fact, the Gulthmere Forest is straight-up Narnia, and "Noba ion" is simply Aslan.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

which is wonderful, but it doesn't really address the fact that Ed Greenwood getting a raw deal from WotC.

I strongly suspect that the Forgotten Realms would not have been worth much of anything as an IP but for its use in Dungeons and Dragons. Rather generic fantasy settings (which is what it is, that's what I like about it for the record) are a dime a dozen, and TSR would not have invested heavily in one they didn't own outright when they easily could have just used another of the ones they owned outright (so even some sort of ongoing royalties arrangement was not realistically in the cards).

If Greenwood was an exceptionally talented author or the owner of his own popular rpg, or computer game, or other product in need of a fantasy setting he might have been able to turn a rather bog-standard fantasy setting into something he himself could see more substantial profits off of. But I think in the scenario where he, as the person he is, held on to his IP he would have maybe sold a few obscure fantasy novels.

Meanwhile by selling out Greenwood has gotten a prominence, prestige, and at least some degree of employment over the years. I just don't see the realistic scenario where that particular person held on to that particular IP and it worked out the same or better. I'm sure the rights holders could have been a bit nicer to him over the years, but he's hardly been a victim.