>I think Wizards is depending upon the Skaff Effect for a return on
>investment, not direct licensing fees. They're going to sell a heck
>of a lot of PHBs because of the d20 system. Like I said, it's a
>great business move.
you know, i have to wonder if i'm the only one who bridles at being
the SKaff Effect's guinea pig. personally, i refuse to buy a D&D3E
PH *precisely* because i need it to play some otherwise good games.
initially, my intention was to not buy any D20 games, solely for this
reason. promotion of the D20 "brand" by buying a game that uses the
D20 system? if it's good, why not? promotion of WotC's profits for
a game that someone else wrote? not on your life. my resolve is
crumbling, however, and i may buy the Farscape RPG, and muddle
through without the PH. (well, more likely, convert to Fudge or
CORPS.) i've seen nothing yet to convince me that the underlying
system in D&D3E is ownable, therefore i see no reason to reward WotC
when another game uses it. (there are quite a few bits of the D20SRD
that are quite copyrightable, IMHO, but they're mostly the parts that
a game with as different of a setting from D&D as Farscape won't use.)
oh, and i may have asked this on this list before (but i think it was
elsewhere), so forgive me if so: do you really think they're going to
sell any appreciable number of D&D3E PHs *because* of other D20
games? so far,in my admittedly very limited experience, i don't know
anyone who has bought a PH solely for a non-D&D game. i know people
who bought 3E and are planning on using it as the basis for other
games (commercial or homegrown), but they would have bought it even
if 3E was the only game using D20. but i haven't yet heard of anyone
who doesn't want to play D&D, but does want to play some other D20
game, buying a PH. admittedly, so far there aren't a lot of options
(IIRC, The Foundation is the only one so far (Star Wars stands on its
own), and it got very lackluster reviews), so it's not that
surprising that it hasn't happened yet. on the other hand,
everything i've heard says that the buying public is not amenable to
the idea of having to buy B so that they can use their new toy, A.
even buying batteries separately (something that is inevitable with a
battery powered object, even some are packaged with it, due to their
consumable nature) seems to be a bit of a sales hurter. and that's
an additional, say, $10 to make a $50 toy work. how are people going
to feel when they're looking at this new game on the shelf, and it
only costs $30, but then they read that they'll also have to buy the
$20 PH? it'll take some pretty devoted fans, IMHO, to buy a game
that requires them to also buy a D&D PH. [and if the target market
is only people who only already own a PH, then there goes the Skaff
Effect, because you're only marketing to the converted.] if i were a
huge Farscape fan but not already a roleplayer, and heard there was
an RPG coming out, and then found out that it would require me to
also buy the D&D3E PH to play it, i'd be as or more likely to write
the company a nasty letter (and buy neither) than to buy both. heck,
i *am* a huge Farscape fan (though already a RPer), and i've been
following the whole WOGL/D20 thing so if the Farscape RPG requires
the PH to play it, i even know and understand why, and i'm *still* as
likely to write AEG a bitchy letter and not buy the game (though my
letter will be "why'd you use D20?" rather than "why didn't you tell
us how to create characters?").
woodelf <*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://members.home.net/woodelph/
The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#31 Law of Follicular Chroma Variability
Any color in the visible spectrum is considered a natural hair color.
This color can change without warning or explanation.
_______________________________________________
Ogf-l mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
