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<blockquote data-quote="Balsamic Dragon" data-source="post: 749027" data-attributes="member: 2433">My guess?&nbsp; If TSR had gone into bankruptcy, Black Isle (i.e. Interplay) would have tried to buy the D&amp;D rights to preserve the future viability of the Baldur's Gate series.&nbsp; Not being a publishing company, they would have either wanted to license out the rights to the publishing side of the game or get someone else to buy it out of bankruptcy that would give them an exclusive license for the games.&nbsp; So Black Isle would be putting out probably even more D&amp;D games (to take advantage of their license).&nbsp; Someone would publish a revised edition of D&amp;D that would trim the rules down to what could easily be implemented in a computer game.&nbsp; Black Isle would also license the rights to a D&amp;D card game to compete with WOTC's Magic (WOTC didn't do this because they would have been cutting into their own fantasy CCG market).&nbsp; The d20 OGL concept would probably never have happened.&nbsp; Instead of D&amp;D being based in publishing the tabletop game, it would become much more multi-media.&nbsp; If the new edition of the game caught on, a massively multiplayer game would not be far behind.&nbsp; New players to the game would be much more interested in building online modules ala Neverwinter Nights than the low tech tabletop method.&nbsp; The game would also be aimed at a much younger market (the CCG card game / video game market) and the rules would be simplified.&nbsp; The adult roleplaying audience would not come back to D&amp;D, and instead the emerging Swashbulker, Pulp, Anime and Science Fiction genre games would have greater popularity than they have (having been hit halfway through their stride by the OGL and forced to abandon their own systems to convert to OGL).It's a theory.&nbsp; Of course, I'm happier the way things worked out.&nbsp; The only thing I'd like from this alternate future is that Master Tools would have been a real killer app <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Balsamic Dragon</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Balsamic Dragon, post: 749027, member: 2433"] My guess? If TSR had gone into bankruptcy, Black Isle (i.e. Interplay) would have tried to buy the D&D rights to preserve the future viability of the Baldur's Gate series. Not being a publishing company, they would have either wanted to license out the rights to the publishing side of the game or get someone else to buy it out of bankruptcy that would give them an exclusive license for the games. So Black Isle would be putting out probably even more D&D games (to take advantage of their license). Someone would publish a revised edition of D&D that would trim the rules down to what could easily be implemented in a computer game. Black Isle would also license the rights to a D&D card game to compete with WOTC's Magic (WOTC didn't do this because they would have been cutting into their own fantasy CCG market). The d20 OGL concept would probably never have happened. Instead of D&D being based in publishing the tabletop game, it would become much more multi-media. If the new edition of the game caught on, a massively multiplayer game would not be far behind. New players to the game would be much more interested in building online modules ala Neverwinter Nights than the low tech tabletop method. The game would also be aimed at a much younger market (the CCG card game / video game market) and the rules would be simplified. The adult roleplaying audience would not come back to D&D, and instead the emerging Swashbulker, Pulp, Anime and Science Fiction genre games would have greater popularity than they have (having been hit halfway through their stride by the OGL and forced to abandon their own systems to convert to OGL). It's a theory. Of course, I'm happier the way things worked out. The only thing I'd like from this alternate future is that Master Tools would have been a real killer app ;) Balsamic Dragon [/QUOTE]

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