WotC didn't necessarily save D&D

[an_idol_mind]

As I noted, AD&D is no longer in print. That is a current standing.

My belief is that it WOULD BE in print today if someone else had gotten the rights and handled it differently.

I'm not sure how accurate that belief is. Sure, AD&D was the top dog for a long time. But it was also waning by the 90s. Had the D&D game not been revitalized, I don't think it's necessarily true that it would have made it all the way to 2011, especially with the way it was being mismanaged.

Sure, AD&D might be around, but I don't think it would be a lock. It had been badly managed for years and was showing its age as a system. Even with the power of the brand name, it needed something to keep it going.

Hence, AD&D is not currently saved, but dead and buried...at least in regards to being printed (for the present).

It is a non-competitor on the RPG scene.

The same could be stated for D&D (B/X, BECMI, whatever your preference, though I think some of the retros come close...they don't hit it exactly).

This is around where you lose me. Does the game need to be called AD&D? I don't see how OSRIC can't be considered AD&D - its got nearly identical mechanics and flavor. Same with Labyrinth Lord and B/X D&D. Why do these not "hit it exactly," especially when you considered 3rd edition and Pathfinder to be about the same?

Furthermore, the AD&D that existed in the 1990s was almost certainly not going to make it in the 2000s. Whether AD&D continued as a brand, 2nd edition was dying and whoever picked it up was going to do some sort of revision. 3rd edition AD&D might not have ended up the same as WotC's version, but the game would have changed, possibly to something closer to Castles & Crusades, possibly in a much more radical departure than what WotC did with it.

Is that good or bad?

I don't think that any game disappearing from the market is good (well, except for FATAL), but I definitely don't miss AD&D all that much.

I can only answer from my perspective, but I probably wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore had it not been for the changes that WotC made. The system was frustrating to me, and the flavor wasn't so unique that I needed the AD&D game to make it work. I was already about to ditch the game and either go back to the Rules Cyclopedia or move on to a totally new game like Big Eyes, Small Mouth. AD&D was inconsistent, required a lot of house rules, and was just generally not my kind of game anymore.

Obviously, this isn't the case with everyone, since some folks have stuck with the AD&D rules and had a lot of fun with it. But for me personally, 3rd edition streamlining the game's mechanics was welcome and I didn't mind one bit that the older editions were put on a shelf to make it happen. I think the high sales of 3rd edition suggest that there were more folks on board with the revision than upset at the removal of the AD&D brand name.

 

[Sorrowdusk]

They may not have saved it but as Dave Chappelle said in his Jesus skit "Kay normally I dont do this but...." *turns water into wine* "Keep tha party goin' ."

 

[Hussar]

Just a point about the surge in the reprint market.

Something to not forget when talking about this, and the reprint novel market is very healthy and growing, is that many of those reprints have become public domain. That REH Conan reprint you just bought? Yeah, they got that book for free because the copyright has expired. Same with pretty much anything published before about 1940.

The same thing wouldn't apply to AD&D. The copyright for even 1e won't give out for another thirty years or so (or is it X years after the death of the author, I can never remember) and then there is the Trademark issue as well. Trademark is a whole 'nother beastie.

I can publish a Conan book with zero problems because Conan is not a trademark. I can do a Flash Gordon book with no problems. I'm not sure how trademark would work for AD&D books.

 

[Mark CMG]

THE COPYRIGHT AND OWNERSHIP STATUS OF THE WORKS AND WORDS OF ROBERT E

Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter8/8-a.html

 

[tomBitonti]

Maybe, but there are other sources out here on the net, posted by people reasonably in the know, that say there are good financial reasons for doing so. The answer in the interview says that his job, at least in part, was watching out for the shareholders. A bunch of those shareholders were early employees who had sunk a lot of money into WotC. Selling out to Hasbro was one way of rewarding them for their investment in the company and getting it off the ground.

I think this misstates the situation: The shareholders, through the company charter, define the company mission. The CEO is obligated to pursue that mission. There is no rewarding the shareholders. There is only following their directions, within the framework of the charter and other controls. If the shareholders have created a mission which includes financial returns, the CEO, and any other company officers, have the job to obtain financial returns.

They don't get the returns as a perk: They get the returns because the company, as their instrument, is required to provide them.

TomB

 

[am181d]

I think this misstates the situation: The shareholders, through the company charter, define the company mission. The CEO is obligated to pursue that mission. There is no rewarding the shareholders. There is only following their directions, within the framework of the charter and other controls. If the shareholders have created a mission which includes financial returns, the CEO, and any other company officers, have the job to obtain financial returns.

They don't get the returns as a perk: They get the returns because the company, as their instrument, is required to provide them.

Unless you have specific insight into how shares of WotC were distributed and defined, I think you're falsely conflating the idea of shareholders and a board of directors. Shareholders ability to effect policy is constrained by their percent share. A shareholder with a minority stake does not have any specific powers in isolation, and it's not unusual in privately owned companies for the CEO and/or management team to maintain a majority stake for exactly this reason.

From a legal and ethical standpoint, Adkinson had a duty to follow the best interests of his shareholders, and I'm guessing that many of the early investors were friends or close associates, as tends to be the case with smaller ventures, which would add a personal dimension to this as well.

I think it's fair to say: Adkinson was a D&D geek. Adkinson had a company to run that he'd spent years building from the ground up. Those are two powerful motivations, but the 2nd was obviously always going to be the stronger of the two. That doesn't make him greedy. That makes him a successful entrepeneur with a great job.

 

[billd91]

I think this misstates the situation: The shareholders, through the company charter, define the company mission. The CEO is obligated to pursue that mission. There is no rewarding the shareholders. There is only following their directions, within the framework of the charter and other controls. If the shareholders have created a mission which includes financial returns, the CEO, and any other company officers, have the job to obtain financial returns.

They don't get the returns as a perk: They get the returns because the company, as their instrument, is required to provide them.

TomB

That's a nice business theory answer, but I think the specifics of the situation also bear keeping in mind. It wasn't just the CEO's job, many of them were also personal friends and coworkers who had taken on a substantial financial burden on WotC's behalf. This wasn't just a company with faceless shareholders. This was the people he'd been sharing his dreams with and they weren't in such great shape.

So I don't think it's a misread of the situation at all.

 

[an_idol_mind]

While there's no doubt that WotC buying TSR was partly a business decision, I don't think there's any denying that Adkison's love of D&D was a major motivator as well. He had a chance to buy D&D and he took it. If any one of us had that kind of ability, I'm sure most of us would take it.

At the time, D&D needed WotC more than WotC needed D&D. Had Adkison not been a fan of the game, I doubt he would have pounced on the property as quickly as he did.

 

[tomBitonti]

I would say, the agreements which were made when the company/corporation was formed are key. Maybe, the investors were of a mind to give up there money with a hope of a return. Or, they might have had clear and strong financial motivations. I don't think we can know the precise details, but, usually, for profit organizations have a strong motivation to make a profit.

In the case of D&D, I'd say what continued the game was the inherent value of the game, combined with the ability of WotC to recognize that value, while having the means to acquire the game.

Perhaps the larger business world considered D&D as a property to be relatively worthless stuff. I can imagine (but this is just my inclination) there being disdain to the property. I can also imagine Adkinson having a deeper insight into the property and able to see the value, perhaps because of a deeper association with games and the gaming community.

Then, he saw a valuable property available for a relative steal, and he took the opportunity to acquire that property.

TomB

 

[Hussar]

THE COPYRIGHT AND OWNERSHIP STATUS OF THE WORKS AND WORDS OF ROBERT E

Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States

Stanford Copyright & Fair Use - Welcome to the Public Domain

Sorry Mark, but was that a rebuttal, support or simply information? It is interesting reading to be sure.