> Kal Lin
>
> This is exactly what people want. To make d20 products that no
> one else can supplement. I don't think most people are interested
> in supplementing someone else's adventure.
Adventure no, but adventures are only one small aspect of a
setting/theme/genre. Kevin was talking about lots of different kinds of
supplements, including but not limited to adventures.
If a d20 work becomes popular (and profitable) enough, others will want to
create material for it.
> It becomes an issue when
> people lock down half a dozen settings in a particular genre and
> start making it difficult for anyone else to work in that genre.
> For example, when people start locking down material like "snakemen",
> "mongoosemen", "downed timber monster", "moss monster", etc. it
> becomes hard to do an adventure set in a swamp.
These names are too generic to 'lock down' except in a specific context.
Just because you create 'snakemen' doesn't mean I can't create my own, so
long as they are different from yours in a significant way. It would take
dozens of aggressively protected swamp settings before most of the good
ideas were taken, and even then it would be very easy to create a new
setting even if it was similar to other settings in small and insignificant
ways - it would just be hard to differentiate yours from the rest of the
competition.
I could go out right now and create a 'Mind Flayer' with a mental attack
form, though if I also called it an Illithid and described it as a highly
intelligent humanoid creature with a purple octopus head I would be in for a
world of hurt, regardless of how many other differences there were between
my 'Mind Flayer' and WotC's.
-Brad
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