Welcome Back From Gencon & More DNDNext Thoughts

To all of you who had the good fortune to be at Gencon, welcome back. And thanks to you folks all over that kept those of us in the audience at home up to date with all the happenings.
Time for me to do another little rant about some gut feelings about DNDNext. As far as the crunchy rules bits go, I think they maybe on the right track on a lot things. WOTC’s real challenge it to fit all of their nifty little modular rules into some sort coherent system. It’s going to be interesting to say the least.
From what I got from the now infamous key note speech is that basically the D&D brand is going to be treading water for the next two years. Everybody knows a new edition is coming out. Many will wait for it. I’m sure that the bean counters at WOTC are going to need a lot of antacid.
But I still have the same ugly feeling in my guy. That sense of dread. It’s not about mechanics. It’s about lawyers and the accountants. It’s my crazy assed opinion that DNDNext is going to live or die by whatever kind of license they come up with. The GSL left a bad taste in lot of people’s mouths. And it’s my theory that the choice of licensing for 4th Edition helped Paizo more than it helped WOTC.
It’s pretty damned scary to have the fate of something as iconic as Dungeons & Dragons in the hands of bunch of beancounters who see as entry on a spreadsheet.