[an unfinished sandbox]
Gamer Collectives
Gaming as a Valid, Social Lifestyle
For the Love of the Games. For the Love of the Worlds
Gaming Free Culture co-operative
All Open content
Only Public Domain fictional worlds
If there are later works of a public domain IP which are copyrighted, our own timelines diverge from them. We make our own "brand IP"
Starting Polyhedral Columbia TRPG Co-op Guild (April 10)
A "Gamer's Cooperative" is a fitting name, since tabletop RPGs are "cooperative games"
Paizo, Green Ronin, Malhavoc, Pelgrane, Ryan Dancey, Peter Adkinson, Morrus, and an international consortium of past and present D&D authors and artists unite as a worker-owned co-operative which is authentically devoted to the love of the game. This "Mondragon of Roleplaying" enacts as much as can be accomplished without access to the D&D brand, and more. If 5e remains closed-sourced, the Co-op simply leaps over 5e (and 6e) and issues its own ultra-D&D which distills Pathfinder, 13th Age, and other D&D offshoots into a sort of "D&D Seventh Edition". The market access of Paizo, the business acumen of Dancey (who loves the game), and the combined efforts of dozens or hundreds of rpg luminaries (from the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, and today) makes for a third Golden Age of roleplay (the 70s/early 80s being the first golden age, and the 3e/d20 era being the second). Gaming is offered as a freely-given cultural service.
Like 'gaming monastics' or a 'gaming family', the authors and artists put all the money they receive from their work (such as sales and kickstarters and donations) into a pot, and receive a basic dignified income, like these Duke grad students have recently done (and which me and my friends have done for the past couple years--we're the Columbia CommonWealth). The creators would receive their daily bread so that they are freed up to do what they do best--make rpg games and rpg art and rpg-related novels and organize rpg cultural events.
The co-operative makes a multi-million dollar kickstarter to purchase the D&D brand and worlds from Hasbro. If Hasbro won't sell, then in 20 years, once the darkish corporatist bent has continued to run D&D into the ground so that it's no longer a profit for Hasbro, this "Community Supported Gaming" co-operative buys the D&D IP outright. The laid-off WotC workers would be welcome to join the co-operative.