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As someone who loves the Pathfinder setting and the quality level maintained in the consistent release schedule products I have to give a huge resounding NO.

First, it would distract from the products that Paizo is already putting out that are top notch. Even if you don't like the system the writing quality of a lot of published adventures and setting materials are worth getting for porting to a system you do like.

Second, it would be over a year before we would really see anything produced. Paizo's public playtesting pattern is one of at least half a year in the public before bringing it back in to do all the shining and additions and whatnot. It's not worth the wait when the brand is still fine.

Third, why take it from the hands of those who have the most intimate experience with it? There's business practices that WotC employs (some of them might be the result of pressures from Hasbro, but there's no was we can know) that aren't good for them or their customers, but those are business practices. The game is still really dang fun.

Fourth, Hasbro and WotC never sell anything to anybody. It just doesn't happen. There are huge chunks of fans in the designer board game market that would gladly buy up tons of products that Hasbro and WotC are just sitting on, but they don't get produced because they don't make enough money to fit their business expectations. Notice that it's not "they wouldn't make money" it's that they wouldn't make enough money. And they still won't sell the licenses.

Fifth, I'm not sure Paizo could handle the demand levels required for something like D&D. They do great with their stuff, but that's because their business practices (subscriber service for printed products or pdfs and just having the pdfs available in general) allow them to much better protect themselves from overprinting any one product. D&D is in practically every bookstore, board game store, and even some of the big box stores - they can't help but print a massive amount more than they might need just because all those stores want to put up the books on the shelves.

Pretty much I just think Paizo's better off doing their own stuff and that D&D is in the right creative hands, just maybe not the best business hands. 

Feb 10, 2011 -- 1:28PM, arderkrag wrote:

I don't know about being dead currently, but the rest of this is spot-on for what I'm thinking D&D as a brand will turn into. Eventually, I think Hasbro will decide that the niche RPG market just doesn't hold up to what they were wanting, and the D&D brand name will be used for more primary markets - board games, video games, apparel, and so forth. It would't be the first time the actual original product was used as a brand for deritave products over the original product.

Not saying that it will definitely play out that way, but the possibility is certainly there.

I have to agree - I've begun to feel that at this point D&D is more valuable to Hasbro as a brand they can push into other markets (e.g. board games) and license (e.g. movies, video games) than as an RPG line they release themselves.