ENworld has the scoop so read about it there, but Sasquatch Studios is the next third party developer contracted to produce official products for Dungeons & Dragons 5E in the same manner as Kobold Press for this year's two modules.
The Sasquatch Studios team consists of notable authors Richard Baker, Stephen Schubert and Dave Noonan. Richard Baker is known for developing the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms book among many others, Stephen Schubert is noted for not having a convenient wiki entry although I think he worked on ther D&D Minis game from the 2003-2004 era, and Dave Noonan did a lot of stuff on 3rd edition and also apprently did some work on the MMORPG Tera (that game requires copious back-story to explain the BDSM default armor of the setting, I bet). So: these guys have the design credits to pull this off, basically.
This is very interesting to see how WotC is farming out work to 3rd party developers with official "WotC' branded and distributed products. I'm eager to see who else they can get in on the act.
Shame Paizo has its own IP to protect now.....
The best part of Paizo's IP is its setting, not their rules. WOTC and Paizo have worked well together before. It wouldn't be the toughest port if 5e becomes popular enough. They could keep their own rules set going, just in case the licensing fell through again like with 4e.
ReplyDeleteGiven the way D&D is giving away the basic rules, I really believe this is going to be WOTC's last published version of D&D. After this version plays itself out eventually, they'll licence out the name to various other companies to make games with it.