Wizards Pulls D&D PDFs, Forgets Its Own Open-Source Equivalent

Posted 04/10/2009 at 6:15pm | by David Murphy

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Wizards of the Coast upset a lot of geeks yesterday. From table-top dice throwers to the online retailers that sell their products, all who dabble in the funny world of Dungeons and Dragons depend on the game's tomes of information to run their fantasy worlds. Whether you're a twentieth-level enthusiast whose lined his (or her) bookshelves with Player's Handbooks, Dungeon Master's Guides, Monster Manuals, and legions upon printed legions of supplemental adventures... or you're just a fledgling geek with one 20-sided die to his name, the printed Dungeons and Dragon materials are your bread and butter.

Wizards of the Coast, arbiters of the D&D universe, have been trying to cross over into the digital realm by giving retailers the option to sell downloadable PDFs of core D&D material. But that's all past-tense now: WotC abruptly pulled the plug on the project yesterday, leaving those who originally purchased the cyber-materials with no available resource, save for going out and buying the tangible, printed books.

The reason? Piracy. Which makes about much sense as a Lich Paladin, given that anyone can freely download the requisite D&D materials straight off of WotC's Web site. Yes, WotC's d20 system -- the underlying mechanics behind the company's third-edition D&D product -- is completely open-source.

Why did WotC do this? Well, with the release of the third edition of the D&D ruleset, the level 10 WotC marketers realized that a lot of people were buying the core books for the game. That was a constant. Not as many people, however, were buying the additional supplements -- the print campaigns that various entities would craft for players to purchase and run in the comfort of their own homes and/or basements. The decision was made to open-source the entire d20 framework, thereby reducing the cost and effort required for publishers of all skill levels and setups to create additional D&D material. WotC surmised that this would increase overall interest in Dungeons and Dragons, period, eventually leading more gamers back to the core products: The Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual.

"The logical conclusion says that reducing the "cost" to other people to publishing and supporting the core D&D game to zero should eventually drive support for all other game systems to the lowest level possible in the market, create customer resistance to the introduction of new systems, and the result of all that "support" redirected to the D&D game will be to steadily increase the number of people who play D&D, thus driving sales of the core books," said Ryan Dancey, former WoTC Vice President, in an interview on the official WotC site. "This is a feedback cycle -- the more effective the support is, the more people play D&D. The more people play D&D, the more effective the support is"

In short, WotC wanted to create a Linux phenomenon: release a free, underlying core mechanic, then celebrate when your standard becomes prevalent and use this success to drive consumers to your premium offering. Do companies make money selling open-source Linux? Not necessarily. They make money from all the add-ons, packages, and support bundled around this core base. That's Dungeons and Dragons. While the open-source, available information is thorough, it nevertheless leaves out just enough of the critical Dungeons and Dragons framework (like experience and level advancement, for example) to maintain some kind of value for D&D. And the more the d20 standard permeates the marketplace, the more people will be interested in the premium, stereotypical offering.

So while it's sad to see WotC pull digital distribution of their content, it's laugh-inducing to watch them push their claims of piracy. Ninety percent of the game's content is freely available online by their own design. And the parts that aren't? Well, all it takes is a trip to your local gaming table to figure out the rest. But perhaps WotC is more aware of this fact than one would expect: the latest, fourth-edition release of Dungeons and Dragons operates under a more restrictive license than the d20 System's Open Game License. That, and a data-dump of the rule set is gone, substituted by a reference document that details what parts of the related core WotC books one is allowed to use in an original piece of work. Time for a trip back to the comic store...