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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Khur" data-source="post: 1306963" data-attributes="member: 5583">Good points!Thanks for chiming in so far everyone. I wanted to add some things to what's been said. All of your opinions are interesting and valuable for thinking through this subject. That's true even if it is an academic point. <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    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Okay, I'd have to say that issues 1-3 can be taken care of easily. How? The rules set forth before any license is granted can define how the setting is to be used and defined. I think I can safely say that issues 1 and 2 can be controlled (in the case of tone-setting) and/or eliminated (no messing with iconic characters, no world altering events, and so forth). One way is requiring a concept submission before development. Another is warning the public that the material is oriented towards a specific setting, but is not "official"—it's discretionary material for your specific campaign. None of this is difficult.Issue 3 seems tricky, but I think that WotC need not be responsible for the "history" of specific campaign worlds. Third-party modules, once again, need be no more "official" than generic ones. Someone who has been playing in FR for years may already have changes to the game world that aren't in official material. As a DM, you work with your world, just like others have said in this forum. What I mean by this is that DM X may use Flying High Adventures Vol. 12, while DM Z doesn't. Their worlds are fundamentally different at that level. The thing is materials published for Forgotten Realms (area books) allow for a lot of customization anyway. Little harm would be done by adding "semi-official" adventures to the mix.One might say that if the third-party adventures can't change the overall tone of WotC's world, why bother setting them in that world? The answers are manifold. Adventures can change the overall tone and specific physical aspects of a specific DM's specific version of the "official" game world. There's no problem, because the same thing happens when a specific DM uses his or her own stuff or third-party generic stuff. The specific world is altered to contain that "non-official" material. The fact that the material in the adventure is already engineered to fit into the official world is valuable to those who want such things, and does little harm to those who would be willing to tinker with the module anyway. In my humble and limited experience, there's really no problem with allowing an adventure that sculpts an iconic character as different from the "official" take. That version of the character exists only in the specific worlds in which the adventure takes place. Persons who don't like the idea of a drug-addled Elminster won't use the adventure, but persons who do...Issue 4 can be taken care of in a few ways. First, limit who can gain the license (a potentially contentious legal matter). Second, give a good amount of lead-time and warn publishers approval may take a while, which is a reasonable thing. Finally, if the first and second steps are done properly a single staff member could handle it. Heck, an intern could handle it if the rules were clear enough and reasonable (that is, didn't bother with too much control).Issue 5 is really a non-issue, because this sort of thing already happens. Clever writers can hint at locations in trademarked worlds, and smart DMs pick up on those hints right away. There's nothing anyone can do about it either. I'd say there's little harm in it, and it's one of the reasons why....While it's true that most modules can be adapted to most campaign worlds, unfortunately, this isn't the point. The point is primarily that an adventure with a Forgotten Realms Compatible logo on it, from a reputable publisher, will outsell any generic adventure and probably by a huge margin. Anything that lessens a DM's workload will sell better than those that don't. Secondarily, setting-specific mechanical material (character statistics, monsters, and etc.) are great to have, instead of having to create them all from the "generic" ones in a generic adventure. Which brings us to....Every Necromancer Games module I've read has specific gods and a specific tone (dungeon crawl). While this is fine, it still doesn't dissipate the theories that setting-specific adventures would make money for those who can produce them and provide setting material for specific DMs to use in their worlds. Additionally, your statement (and Treebore's) doesn't really address the actual situation, which is that people seem to want setting-specific material. Why do they? Well....I'd reiterate that if the villain in a story is already a Red Wizard of Thay, and a DM doesn't have to rework the character and come up with motivations that makes sense for Forgotten Realms, the module's already better. Even if the material doesn't add to the canon of Open Gaming Content, small sections explaining character abilities or conversions to more generic terms would serve to make such an adventure as generic as it needs to be.At the risk of creating a tangential argument in my own thread, this is also why there's really no reason for WotC to put a leash on mentioning books other than the core rules in third-party material. It's also why more stuff should be open. If a company could at least cite Darrin's Book of Exalted Deeds in other works, it would help sales of that book. If conceptual information (like the idea of the Exalted or Vile feat) was added to the canon of OGC, especially if it was with a rule where the third-party had to mention Book of Exalted Deeds when publishing new exalted game mechanics, that would also sell more books.I'd be so bold as to suggest that "semi-official" modules would sell better to those who favor generic adventures too. This is especially true if the rules for crafting third-party adventures in WotC worlds were crafted carefully themselves. I think WotC could handle that. More support for core game worlds in this form would translate into more demand for WotC's core books and supplements.It makes me wonder why more people haven't put out d20 Modern  adventures. The setting there is, well, Earth.Thanks again everyone. Let's keep talking.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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