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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 1144782" data-attributes="member: 177">Well, there's "what does this mean?" on different levels.  Overall, it's more than just being able to say "Dungeon and Dragons" on it - that's a matter of licensing, not "offciality"...In one sense, it means that it contains material vetted by WotC.  I don't really think that implies anything about balance, nor should it.  It's more a stamp that WotC doesn't find the stuff therein so far out in left field as to be objectionable.In anohter sense, it says that this is a place you can look for the word, "right from the horse's mouth".  If you're looking for direct word from WotC on a development, product, rules clarifications, and the like, this is a place to do it.  It's a place where WotC will present the actual articles they choose to produce.In another sense, it's an advertising gimmick.  A lot of people seem to frown on that.  But folks, the colors you see on soda bottles are calculated advertising gimmicks too.  I don't see anyone compaining about that.  "That evil Coca-Cola company made the bottles red, so we'd buy more.  The sleazebags!"But there's a good question there - why is it an effective advertising gimmick?  Why do people care if the content is "official"?  WotC hasn't done much of anything that I can see to foster the idea that "only official D&D will do".  That idea comes from the market.  WotC and Paizo only take advantage of the reaction among us.So, why do some players care?  Well, for one thing the only place to get even halfway decent D&D stuff was from the originators - licensing wasn't given out.  So you had homebrew and "official", and homebrew was notoriously poorly thought out.  So part of the tendency is a very old habit.Another is... I'll call it an overactive sense of propriety.  Some folks just don't think it through - that they're playing a game, among friends, and that it doesn't matter much where the material you use comes from, so long as it is solid.  Folks forget that games are not cars, and it isn't like if you buy a part from another manufacturer that you're going to run into trouble.</blockquote>

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