Avalanche Press has announced that it is repositioning its RPG line in the wake of changes announced by Wizards of the Coast (see 'WotC Adds d20 Decency Standards').  Recently Avalanche has been moving away from the creation of typical RPG adventures and settings, gravitating instead towards the creation of 'Age Guides,' which provide the historical gamer with a place to find everything that there is to know about a particular period or theme, along with all the stats necessary to use this information in their games.  So far Avalanche Press has published three of these guides, Celtic Age, Viking Age, and The Little People: A Guide To Celtic Fairies.  These three books do carry the d20 logo, but future volumes in the 'Guides' series will not, although they will conform to the Open Gaming License (OGL), which will make them compatible with Dungeons & Dragons-based games.  Avalanche will keep the three already published guides in print, but won't make a decision about using the d20 logo on the cover of the reprinted versions until a second printing is necessary.

Aside from the three 'Age Guides,' Avalanche intends to let the rest of its d20 releases go out of print.  Future Guides covering additional historical eras and themes will contain some sort of indication of the OGL D&D compatibility on the cover, but Avalanche has not yet decided on the exact wording.  Avalanche Press CEO Mike Bennighof told ICv2 that Avalanche had been moving in its current direction even before WotC announced the changes to the d20 license and that there was nothing in the Avalanche Guides or d20 products that wouldn't meet the new standards announced by WotC. Bennighof reiterated that Avalanche's move away from d20 was not made out of pique: 'We bear absolutely no animosity towards Wizards of the Coast.  On the contrary, we're grateful they extended the license opportunity in the first place.  Just as the old version no longer met their needs, so the new version no longer meets ours.'