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A New Taxonomy for TSR-Era D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8347824" data-attributes="member: 7023840"><p>Look, Ruin, if you want to mentally give it a different title, that's cool. Discussing subjective quality is, to me, a fool's errand (roughly on par with "What edition is best" or "Quien es Mas Macho, Cesar Romero o Fernando Lamas*).</p><p></p><p>From 1995 on, TSR pumped out products trying to save the company. However, unlike the prior eras, there wasn't a single <em>signature product </em>in the D&D line. I don't mean to be unfair- I specifically noted that Birthright came out in '95, and that's excellent. But they weren't producing any new rulesets, their greatest campaign settings (Planescape, Spelljammer, Dark Sun for example) were produced earlier, and they were just making a lot of products that cannibalized their earlier successes of varying quality. Some of it was quite good. Some of it wasn't. But it was treading water, and unlike the last period of treading ('85 to 2e) it wasn't going to lead to TSR making anything new.</p><p></p><p>It wasn't just the dragon dice. It wasn't just the Random House contract (although ... yeah, that was massive). It wasn't just the mismanagement. It wasn't just the complete lack of knowledge and care for the IP (reading about the art alone .... <em>sigh</em>). It was all of it. And I think people are, and should be, thankful that (as you point out) that instead of turtling, they pumped out an extreme amount of product. Personally, I think that it's symptomatic of a decline, in the same way that a sun will expand before going supernova; but I have no issue with someone calling it something else. Whether it "decline" or "implosion" or "experimentation before death" isn't that interesting to me, I guess.</p><p></p><p>EDIT- I realized that this conversation about TSR is probably the time to invoke Hemingway...</p><p>How did you do bankrupt?</p><p>Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>*Trick question- it's Ricardo Montalban.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Snarf Zagyg, post: 8347824, member: 7023840"] Look, Ruin, if you want to mentally give it a different title, that's cool. Discussing subjective quality is, to me, a fool's errand (roughly on par with "What edition is best" or "Quien es Mas Macho, Cesar Romero o Fernando Lamas*). From 1995 on, TSR pumped out products trying to save the company. However, unlike the prior eras, there wasn't a single [I]signature product [/I]in the D&D line. I don't mean to be unfair- I specifically noted that Birthright came out in '95, and that's excellent. But they weren't producing any new rulesets, their greatest campaign settings (Planescape, Spelljammer, Dark Sun for example) were produced earlier, and they were just making a lot of products that cannibalized their earlier successes of varying quality. Some of it was quite good. Some of it wasn't. But it was treading water, and unlike the last period of treading ('85 to 2e) it wasn't going to lead to TSR making anything new. It wasn't just the dragon dice. It wasn't just the Random House contract (although ... yeah, that was massive). It wasn't just the mismanagement. It wasn't just the complete lack of knowledge and care for the IP (reading about the art alone .... [I]sigh[/I]). It was all of it. And I think people are, and should be, thankful that (as you point out) that instead of turtling, they pumped out an extreme amount of product. Personally, I think that it's symptomatic of a decline, in the same way that a sun will expand before going supernova; but I have no issue with someone calling it something else. Whether it "decline" or "implosion" or "experimentation before death" isn't that interesting to me, I guess. EDIT- I realized that this conversation about TSR is probably the time to invoke Hemingway... How did you do bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly. *Trick question- it's Ricardo Montalban. [/QUOTE]
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