This has been going on for at least 6 mths, speculation is because WotC is too busy with other things. I don't think that the development team would be involved in legal matters so I'm not sure what they (legal) would be so busy doing?
Personally as someone who fully supported 4e and the DS setting, this is another example of WotC just not caring at all anymore for the fans of the current edition and losing whatever goodwill you have had with me.
DoctorNecrotic, I heartily agree with you.
Especially with the eventual changeover to DDNext and the recent slackening in Dark Sun products...the AoA type stuff is exactly the only thing that will keep interest in the setting high and the community vibrant. Cannot imagine how it makes WOTC's property more value to prevent people from getting excited with/engaged with it.
My name is Feetz and I support this thread.
Unfortunatly, looks like they will do to DS4 what happened to DS2 when DS3 never happened. DS5 won't exist... (but I hope not).
All hail to the athas.org team who kept the setting alive for all those years in 3.0 and 3.5!
Wizards of the Coast, if you're listening, please take a look at this issue and work with the folks of Ashes of Athas to help us gamers out. We can sell some more 4E Dark Sun books if we can get this content out.
Thanks to the good folks at Ashes of Athas for their efforts thus far.
My Dark Sun campaign had so many NPCs I created that I actually had to make a giant word document for the guy taking my place as DM. His response, "I think I'll just start a Forgotten Realms game".
I'm rather curious!
Thanks.
Just PM me I will send my email over.
I'll do my best to recount what I believe to be the situation. I'm an admin, but I'm often not involved in direct discussions. Because of that, some of what is written below may be incorrect.
Phase 1: Con Only
The original concept for Ashes of Athas was a convention-only program. Chapters of three adventures, released at D&DXP (Winter Fantasy), Origins, and Gen Con. We started that way, but there was enough interest and support that at some point Wizards agreed to consider additional distribution.
Phase 2: Distribution Window
The decision was to allow distribution of the adventures through other conventions and also to allow a narrow distribution window for home play. Distribution would be through Baldman's site, confined to a narrow time-frame of one month after a chapter had run at two of the main conventions. Chapter One ran at D&DXP and then at Origins, then was available for a one-month period of time. Gamers could go to the Baldman site, request the adventures, and receive them some time after that. After a month, the window closed. The same happened for Chapter Two.
Phase 3: No Distribution
I'm not entirely sure what happened, but at some point either the popularity of the program or the discussions we were having with WotC about larger distribution opportunities had the opposite effect and created worries that caused a ceasing of distribution. There are two concerns that I consider the most likely. The first is quality. When an entity (Baldman Games and volunteers) is providing content, there is the chance that the content may be perceived as coming from WotC in its entirety, and that any problems with the content would be attributable to WotC. In an extreme case, imagine something really bad and how it would play out if we put that in an adventure and then someone felt Wizards condoned that. In a less extreme case, someone might dislike something, perhaps finding it to be of low quality, and attribute that to Wizards. One option would be to have WotC professionally edit and develop the content, but it seems very likely that there is far too much content for that to be cost-effective. I've had the pleasure of working on Dark Sun content for DDI, and I can say with certainty that Wizards staff are really at the top of their game. Their development and editing is better than ours. At the same time, I think that fans are okay with that (as they are with Living Forgotten Realms, which sees distribution through specific channels).
The second likely concern is intellectual property. There is often at Wizards a concern that allowing any distribution can weaken the brand or WotC's ownership. I don't frankly feel this concern is valid, but it could perhaps be an issue.
Current State
There is no question that the lack of distribution has hurt our campaign. Gamers at Gen Con 2011 showed up in huge numbers, but having largely having played the previous chapters. That was no longer the case at Gen Con 2012. Very few gamers can attend even two of the major conventions and that means they fall behind. Our campaign is story-driven, so it hurts play when DMs and players are not connected to the story. Most players of Chapter 6 adventures had not played Chapter 4 or Chapter 5.
If you read the editorial for the Dark Sun month of DDI, heard the mentions of the program in official podcasts, or have been to conventions where Wizards staff love wearing Ashes of Athas T-Shirts, you can see the the support that Wizards shows our campaign. Unfortunately, a developer might really dig the campaign, but they aren't in the team that deals with distribution concerns. So, while overall there is a lot of support for AoA, somehow we have this issue within WotC. The AoA admin team, Baldman Games, WotC Organized Play, we are all working on resolving this issue. It isn't simple, for various reasons.
What Doesn't Help
Badmouthing Wizards doesn't help at all, and isn't accurate. WotC's concerns aren't at all about not wanting us to have great games. They are actually about ensuring that we always get great games. Illegal distribution doesn't help (and we are really glad to have not seen any... thank you!).
What Does Help
Showing your interest in seeing AoA's adventures distributed helps. In particular, it is great to hear the reasons why you want to see the AoA campaign become available. It may also be helpful if you are fine with this not being officially edited and developed by WotC, and if you are okay with this offering having a slightly lower quality as a result. Communicating here, via Customer Service, in-person when you see Wizards staff at conventions... all could be effective.
In the meantime, the admins are staying focused on this issue. We really believe it is important for these adventures to be distributed. This is arguably the longest Dark Sun campaign ever created for the setting. It ties one other, but that one really doesn't have a coherent story. We think this campaign will create great value for Wizards of the Coast customers not just for 4E but for the brand well into the future.
Regardless, we are working on Chapter 7, which will premiere at Winter Fantasy in January. We believe it will be a fantastic part of the campaign!
I hear WotC's concerns on the first point. Although I feel the AoA adventures have been top-quality in terms of story, creativity, play, etc., they are not copy-edited to the level a professionally published product is. While I've spotted typos and such in WotC products in the past--and we all remember things like the +18 attack bonus tareks from Marauders of the Dune Sea--generally they adhere to professional standards of copy editing. There are far more errors in AoA than would be acceptable in a printed product.
I get it: if the AoA products were published by a professional corporation, they'd have hired a professional copy editor to give them the once-over before putting them into print, and Baldman Games simply doesn't have resources like that.
However (and this also addresses the second point), I think that over the past decade or more, the customer base for RPGs has evolved in their outlooks so that not all products for a certain rules system are automatically thought of as part of the core company. Wasn't that the point of open-source systems like d20? Consumers would become conoisseurs of the game, and would think, "I really like the adventures Baldman puts out" and "I think Kobold Games' adventures are really crappy" without lodging the idea of WotC = crappy (or even WotC = great) in their minds. And I think that worked--look what happened with Paizo and Pathfinder.
So it seems a real step backwards into a 1980s mindset when WotC's business department puts such a massive stranglehold on AoA. (I'm remembering how Nintendo would refuse to "certify" some company's NES cartridges). The risks Alphastream mentioned seem quite minor (especially if you think about open-source gaming) compared to the actual consequences of what happened: Dark Sun as a brand has assuredly been diminished by not having AoA out there, winning fans to the setting (and to the system; I only purchased 4E rulebooks when I heard Dark Sun, which I loved in 2E, was getting a 4E release. That's hundreds of bucks WotC got from me they would never have otherwise earned).
Anyway, again, thanks for the thoughtful post.
Thanks for the update Alpha but here is what drives me and maybe others absolutely nuts:
Thinking like Chancellor Palpatine:
Please work your contacts within WotC and get some people from Legal (or whatever section is being blamed for the hangup) to come visit you at Winter Fantasy.
This way they can see AoA in action and send favorable reports back to Headquarters. Objective: break up the logjam.
Then (late in the weekend) WE can get our hands on them.
Life on Athas is tough, man...
Guess I'll be the first one to ask, what happened to the Baldman games site? I've been trying to check on any info about the modules for ashes of athas on their site and now it seems like the whole site is M.I.A.
I'm getting to the site (www.baldmangames.com), but all the menu bar links other than forums seem to be broken. It's recently redesigned, so something was probably dropped somewhere.
EDIT: Baldman Games is telling me that they're getting pages repopulated as quickly as they can. FWIW, no updates reported recently on availability of adventures apart from Chapter 7 being available at Winter Fantasy 2013 in January and that chapter being the campaign's conclusion.
I own a gamestore, and I've written some things for both LFR and Ashes of Athas. I love them both, but if a player comes into my store and asks if I can get a copy of the Dark Sun Campaign Setting so that they can be better prepared for Ashes of Athas or another homebrew game, I have to tell them no. The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting? Great material, but one of my warehouses recently closed them out due to have too many copies left over (all from the first printing).
I can agree with the initial outlook that Wizards and the AoA admins shared when the campaign began - as a convention-only storyline. By overlapping the storylines (chapter 1 and 2 at DDXP, then 2 and 3 at the next show, then 3 and 4 after that), players were empowered to be a part of the ongoing storyline but could afford to skip a major show. The ability to download missing adventures at a later date was a great addition and outside the scope of the original vision; I was incredibly pleased when this happened.
But then nothing more happened, and there was no further communication on it. Dark Sun evokes a powerful, visceral response from gamers once the subject is explained to them. Dark Sun sells books. Providing adventure materials helps us sell books, and selling books in turn encourages the publisher to create more new materials.
I write this with no small amount of dismay, but please don't think that I'm "knocking" or "bad-mouthing" Wizards. I'm concerned that clear communication has not been given, and that we have been left to such a device as a public forum post as a plea for help.
Waiting on Wizards to help with anything distribution-wise seems pointless. Quite frankly, they aren't doing anything of note to promote your program that you couldn't do yourself. What, are they all of a sudden going to distribute your year-old one-shot 4e convention adventures on the main site? Seems incredibly doubtful. That Wizards mentioned you in a podcast one day a year ago, or wore a t-shirt one afternoon does not seem a very good reason not to make these available to the few people that even care. So, my fear is that you guys entered into some sort of contractual agreement with them. I hope you didn't, but I fear you did.
It sounds like you guys were hoping for a bigger partnership that involved Wizards doing more to promote your stuff. I am sorry that didn't work out. I still want to check out your adventures; maybe one day I will be able to. But to imply that anyone reading it would somehow confuse it with a Wizards product is, I'm sorry, laughable. We are not knuckle-dragging Cro-Magnons, and can certainly fathom the production credits of an adventure.
You guys will ultimately need to make these available for download yourselves, on your own site, in order for anyone besides convention-goers to get to read them. I know you have spent a lot of effort writing them and developing the program, so you honestly deserve to have them read by more than just a handful of people. Hopefully Wizards will release you from whatever nightmarish agreement you apparently made with them, and allow you to distribute your material.
You guys will ultimately need to make these available for download yourselves, on your own site, in order for anyone besides convention-goers to get to read them.
To clarify, we can't distribute the adventures. Dark Sun is a copyrighted setting and not part of the OGL or similar agreement. No one can publish or distribute a Dark Sun adventure without permission.
When distribution was available/allowed, there was tremendous interest. Forum posts don't capture the amount of people who downloaded and played the adventures (only chapters 1 and 2 were available for download). I don't believe I can share numbers, but the adventures have been very popular.
The campaign exists at Wizards' discretion. Their promotion and interest (such as in the May DDI editorial) has been great for us. Unfortunately, it doesn't change the issue that gamers interested in the campaign just can't attend all three conventions. As we prepare for the Winter Fantasy convention and Chapter 7, this hurts our ability to deliver on our strong story-rich focus.
You guys will ultimately need to make these available for download yourselves, on your own site, in order for anyone besides convention-goers to get to read them.
To clarify, we can't distribute the adventures. Dark Sun is a copyrighted setting and not part of the OGL or similar agreement. No one can publish or distribute a Dark Sun adventure without permission.
When distribution was available/allowed, there was tremendous interest. Forum posts don't capture the amount of people who downloaded and played the adventures (only chapters 1 and 2 were available for download). I don't believe I can share numbers, but the adventures have been very popular.
The campaign exists at Wizards' discretion. Their promotion and interest (such as in the May DDI editorial) has been great for us. Unfortunately, it doesn't change the issue that gamers interested in the campaign just can't attend all three conventions. As we prepare for the Winter Fantasy convention and Chapter 7, this hurts our ability to deliver on our strong story-rich focus.
Yes, I tried to get in on the month-long dl window but was too late unfortunately; those were still released on your Baldman site though, if I recall correctly. Forgotten Realms isn't covered by the GSL either, and LFR make their adventures available for free download. I guess they have a different agreement with WOTC (I honestly have no idea)? Maybe one day they will let ya'll release the adventures to the public.
Yes, I tried to get in on the month-long dl window but was too late unfortunately; those were still released on your Baldman site though, if I recall correctly. Forgotten Realms isn't covered by the GSL either, and LFR make their adventures available for free download. I guess they have a different agreement with WOTC (I honestly have no idea)? Maybe one day they will let ya'll release the adventures to the public.
The month-long window was at the Baldman site.
LFR has an agreement to distribute. What we would like is a similar ability to distribute. This thread is really people supporting that.
My hope as an admin is that Wizards sees enough people wanting distribution that they take the steps to do so. They are busy people, even while being great people. I'm hoping they see the interest and allow for distribution, because I think many would benefit (including Wizards).
Please, make this happen Wizards!
Please add me onto the list of folks who would like to see Ashes of Athas be available for wider distribution. I had a few players in the area who did the first chapters after the conventions where they were released. They were looking forward to doing the other ones as well. Not everyone can travel to two or three conventions each year, and the strong story makes a lot less sense if you skip every second or third chapter.
There should be allowance for use of D&D and it's campaign materials for a shared world campaign. The passion and work of the authors of this campaign can only be considered to be promoting D&D above other game systems. In the diverse and fragmented RPG space we find ourselves, one needs to consider more highly how much your product is used, adored, and promoted as is being done with Ashes of Athas.
I do have the occasion to run home games, or the occasional in-store session, and Ashes of Athas has been perfect for that; it's served as a good introduction to the setting for players who would not have otherwise noticed it; and the shared-campaign aspect of it gives us something in common to talk about; helping to strengthen a community ... and Dark Sun has lived and surivived on the basis of it's community.
Please let Scrooge's heart open up and support the people who support you making a living (literally) by buying Wotc products. Myself being high on the list but I will vote with my dollars and find other places to spend my money if decisions like this aren't reversed.
There are some excellent modules in the campaign and it is dissapointing that players around the world are unable to enjoy them because of an obfuscated legal concern.
The amount of work spent on these modules is amazing, and they deserve to be shared with a wider audience.
all the best
Ken
Wizards please allow Baldman Games to distribute these outstanding adventures and stoke the fire for more 4th edition playing!
WOTC has shown interest and support initially by allowing us to create a wonderful storyline, but once the storyline is completed in January it will only be part of Athas's history that a few poeple know about and no one will be able to relive the great set of adventures that everyone had worked on.
Please release the Ashes of Athas adventures for everyone to enjoy!
....this kind of reminds me of the cleansing wars on Athas...no one will really remember it over time! Gotta go the templars are here already.........
There's really no downside to it, Wizards guys, it's free advertising, and good PR on your part.
I hope distribution issues are resolved and Chapter 3 and onward become accessible for homeplay again for those who can't participate in Organized Play programs.
I would even purchase a book or pdf that compiles all of the AoA adventures and material at the standard prices.
Eric M. Paquette ( @ericmpaq on twitter )
My sincere thanks to everyone for their support!
In other news, Baldman Games just opened up judge registration for Winter Fantasy. One way you can get a copy of Chapter 6 and 7 is to judge at the convention. Chapter 7 will feature a way to jump into the campaign even if you have never played before. And, it will have a very huge event taking place on Sunday - so, keep your schedule clear or sign up to judge accordingly.
I guess I keep hoping where there isn't any hope of someone at WotC to address us.
Funny thing is, as it stands now, I almost wish I never got the first two chapters. That way at least I wouldn't really know, how good it really was what I'm missing.
Thanks, that's really kind!
I, too, agree with the sentiments expressed in this thread. Please allow the release of the AoA material.
Add me to the list: WotC, please allow the release of the AoA material.
This just continues to highlight WOTC/HASBRO's inability to understand their fanbase. Perhaps this could be a reason why Pathfinder continues to grow and DnD just languishes?
I hope someone is listening.
What's the difference between AoA and the Forgotten Realms adventures that are available for distribution?
I'd like to voice my support for AoA homeplay. This is really one of the best published adventures I've ever played and it's a shame my whole group can't participate. Can't wait to play chapters 6 and 7 at Winter Fantasy later this month. I plan to make a plea to every WoTC employee in attendance about this issue, hope the community will join me.
What's the difference between AoA and the Forgotten Realms adventures that are available for distribution?
Please do, let them know that it is absolutely cowardly that we have to get our info. from people like Alphastream whereas all we get from WotC is a wall of silence.
The only difference that I can tell is that WotC has more direct control over LFR whereas AoA is a Baldman property.
At all steps of our discussion with Wizards, we understood the issues they faced. The issues were not simple, and really they could have easily decided that overall it wasn't worth their time. We thank them for being such fans of the campaign and seeing value in persevering. And we thank all of you for helping make the case that they weren't the only fans - you showed how much you wanted that content!
Thanks!