Talk:Dungeons & Dragons/Archive1

Wizards
Dude, Wizards didn't even exist in the 70s. They didn't buy TSR until the mid to late 90s (can't get exact date right now, I'm at work.) Researcher 21:54, 5 December 2007 (EST)


 * Dude, ANdy told me it was TRS-80, not TSR. Secret Squirrel 21:57, 5 December 2007 (EST)
 * And I doubt Andy knows D&D from ADD. Researcher 22:01, 5 December 2007 (EST)

Damn. I used to play D&D back in tha day. Great fun, really. --Kels 22:20, 5 December 2007 (EST)
 * I . . . still . . .do. (Hanging head in secret shame.) Researcher 22:53, 5 December 2007 (EST)

Perhaps more clarity required?
I know nothing about this subject and consequently this paragraph cause me a few problems. It reads:

''During its tenure as the flagship product of TSR, Inc., D&D was the undisputed king of the roleplaying world. However, TSR was notoriously *ahem* protective of its trademarks and system, often suing those who dared adapt D&D rules to their own products without TSR's permission with an almost estate-of-Tolkien-ian zeal (rather ironic, since Gygax had lifted massive amounts of the Lord of the Rings mythos wholesale for his settings). After TSR collapsed and Wizards of the Coast bought the smoldering remnants, however, WotC lightened up, creating the Open Gaming License (an application of open source well outside its traditional stomping grounds of software design) and releasing the fundamentals of the rules as the d20 system, essentially the rules from D&D third edition with the serial numbers filed off. [5] The d20 Modern game -- stylistically sort of a cross between D&D and the modern goth-horror games of White Wolf's World of Darkness -- is derived directly from the D&D 3e rules and has its own SRD.''

My questions are:


 * What is TSR?
 * What is Gygas?
 * What is WotC?
 * What is an SRD?

Apart from that it's quite clear.--Bobbing up 09:51, 8 June 2008 (EDT)
 * I can answer some of that. Gary Gygax was one of the creators of D&D. WotC stands for Wizards of the Coast (which is mentioned in that sentence), the publisher and distributor of D&D after TSR  (which was the first distributor, though I don't know what it stands for).  SRD I don't really know, but could be something along the lines of Standard Rule Development (though that's a complete guess).  ThunderkatzHo! 10:36, 8 June 2008 (EDT)
 * SRD is the System Reference Document which contains most of the core rules used by D&D 3E and is freely available under an Open Gaming License. It's pretty innovative, since by releasing the core rules separately in this way, Wizards has enabled a lot of third-party publishers to create materials for the game without having to pay royalties. That means there's much more material available for the game than there would otherwise be. (Most of which, unfortunately, is crap - but that's another discussion.) -- AKjeldsen Potential fundamentalist! 10:43, 8 June 2008 (EDT)