Former WotC Vice President Ryan Dancey has announced the formation of OrganizedPlay, a new company.  The company will 'focus on developing a suite of web-based collaborative tools to manage networks of players.  The company's offerings will be packaged as web services using Microsoft's .NET platform.'  It has signed a five year license with WotC for the use of Living City of Raven's Bluff.  Living City is an RPGA  shared world tournament campaign.  RPGA is an organization of gamers that's part of WotC's Organized Play division.  Raven's Bluff is a port city in the Forgotten Realms setting.  It sounds like the products will be purely Web services at this point, without paper products to be sold in stores. 

 

Dancey co-founded Five Rings Publishing Group and subsequently sold that company to WotC in 1997.  In 1999, he was placed in charge of WotC's worldwide RPG business.  His main responsibility was the launch of D&D 3rd Edition in 2000, and creating the Open Gaming License that has allowed d20 -- the underlying game mechanics of the new D&D--to become an even larger game system.  Dancey also maintains a site devoted to the Open Gaming Foundation, which supports the Open Gaming License.