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<blockquote data-quote="EpicureanDM" data-source="post: 8866803" data-attributes="member: 6996003">Another failure of specificity, where &quot;the design team&quot; and &quot;WotC&quot; should be made more explicit. Who on the &quot;design team&quot; is senior enough to have relationships with the owners of the large, third-party publishers, and be on &quot;good terms&quot; with them? Crawford? Perkins? My impression of those two is that they keep to themselves and aren't going out to dinner with their third-party counterparts at GenCon. Other designers who are lower on the masthead might have better relationships that sprang from freelancing, but without the clout to steer WotC's policies. So, at best, they'd be using their own credibility with their contacts to vouch for Crawford and Perkins. This strikes me as incredibly unlikely.Is there anyone above Crawford and Perkins in the D&amp;D organization who has these relationships on &quot;good terms&quot; with third-party publishers? It can't be Rawson, the new D&amp;D SVP who just came off a job at Microsoft and used to work at Amazon. The guy who replaced Winniger? He's never worked on a D&amp;D product before being put in charge of the entire D&amp;D design team. (They could have promoted Crawford or Perkins to the job, people with experience making D&amp;D products, but didn't. Let that fact sink in.) Does that guy have a professional network among third-party D&amp;D publishers? Maybe, but I don't see any evidence of it.So who at &quot;WotC&quot; met with the third-party publishers? Probably the business development guys, the folks responsible for revamping the OGL so that it works harder for WotC. These are the lawyers and MBA-types, not the D&amp;D designers. Again, not people with real professional networks or experience in D&amp;D publishing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EpicureanDM, post: 8866803, member: 6996003"] Another failure of specificity, where "the design team" and "WotC" should be made more explicit. Who on the "design team" is senior enough to have relationships with the owners of the large, third-party publishers, and be on "good terms" with them? Crawford? Perkins? My impression of those two is that they keep to themselves and aren't going out to dinner with their third-party counterparts at GenCon. Other designers who are lower on the masthead might have better relationships that sprang from freelancing, but without the clout to steer WotC's policies. So, at best, they'd be using their own credibility with their contacts to vouch for Crawford and Perkins. This strikes me as incredibly unlikely. Is there anyone above Crawford and Perkins in the D&D organization who has these relationships on "good terms" with third-party publishers? It can't be Rawson, the new D&D SVP who just came off a job at Microsoft and used to work at Amazon. The guy who replaced Winniger? He's never worked on a D&D product before being put in charge of the entire D&D design team. (They could have promoted Crawford or Perkins to the job, people with experience making D&D products, but didn't. Let that fact sink in.) Does that guy have a professional network among third-party D&D publishers? Maybe, but I don't see any evidence of it. So who at "WotC" met with the third-party publishers? Probably the business development guys, the folks responsible for revamping the OGL so that it works harder for WotC. These are the lawyers and MBA-types, not the D&D designers. Again, not people with real professional networks or experience in D&D publishing. [/QUOTE]

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