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<blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 2756738" data-attributes="member: 14159">I've been wondering.In the realm of &quot;Alternate History&quot; scenarios, &quot;What if's&quot; and wondering about the way things could have been, for all the revival of D&amp;D that has happened in the last 5 years, for all that has happened to gaming with the advent of d20, for all that's happened, it came so close to never happening.What if WotC never bought TSR?&nbsp; What if Ryan Dancey's visit to the TSR offices ended with him realizing that the copyrights and trademarks to D&amp;D were effectively unsalvageably tied up, that TSR's finances were beyond any shadow of repair, or that WotC didn't have the money to fix the problems?What if TSR collapsed circa 1998, went out-of-buisness, and was broken up and liquidated in bankruptcy?&nbsp; What would have happened to gaming, what would have happened to D&amp;D?Would another gaming company stepped in and picked up some of the pieces in the liquidation, buying the rights for cheap?&nbsp; Would Anti-D&amp;D critics buy them to bury them?&nbsp; Would they be picked up by some large corporation and essentially forgotten, languishing until the trademark expired and some utterly unrelated game came out years later with the same name but only vaguely similar rules?&nbsp; Would many of the &quot;Big Names&quot; of TSR stayed in the industry at other companies and created new games to fill the niche?How would the gaming industry cope?&nbsp; How much would gaming decline?&nbsp; How long and strong would D&amp;D last without any active support or publishing?&nbsp; What company would step into the gap?&nbsp; What games would have become popular in the vaccum?I'm interested in seeing what people think would have happened here.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="wingsandsword, post: 2756738, member: 14159"] I've been wondering. In the realm of "Alternate History" scenarios, "What if's" and wondering about the way things could have been, for all the revival of D&D that has happened in the last 5 years, for all that has happened to gaming with the advent of d20, for all that's happened, it came so close to never happening. What if WotC never bought TSR? What if Ryan Dancey's visit to the TSR offices ended with him realizing that the copyrights and trademarks to D&D were effectively unsalvageably tied up, that TSR's finances were beyond any shadow of repair, or that WotC didn't have the money to fix the problems? What if TSR collapsed circa 1998, went out-of-buisness, and was broken up and liquidated in bankruptcy? What would have happened to gaming, what would have happened to D&D? Would another gaming company stepped in and picked up some of the pieces in the liquidation, buying the rights for cheap? Would Anti-D&D critics buy them to bury them? Would they be picked up by some large corporation and essentially forgotten, languishing until the trademark expired and some utterly unrelated game came out years later with the same name but only vaguely similar rules? Would many of the "Big Names" of TSR stayed in the industry at other companies and created new games to fill the niche? How would the gaming industry cope? How much would gaming decline? How long and strong would D&D last without any active support or publishing? What company would step into the gap? What games would have become popular in the vaccum? I'm interested in seeing what people think would have happened here. [/QUOTE]

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