Flying Buffalo Being Sold?

Flying Buffalo's CEO Steve Crompton has indicated that the company is being sold to an undisclosed buyer! Flying Buffalo a tabletop gaming company founded in 1970 - published Ken St Andre's Tunnels & Trolls back in 1975 (just a year after D&D launched), and is the oldest tabletop RPG company currently in existence.

"OTHER NEWS - FLYING BUFFALO TO BE SOLD SOON Sale PENDING

I'm letting you all know now - once the new company takes over Flying Buffalo, they have told us they plan to remove many of the items that are currently on our Drive-Thru page. So get them NOW before they are gone FOREVER..."

Tunnels & Trolls was created as an alternative to D&D, with point-based magic and a d6 core mechanic. It has been through numerous editions over the decades, and is currently on its 9th edition (some of which were licensed to companies like Fiery Dragon and Grimtooth). There have been two video games based on the system.

 

[darjr]

Shocking

 

[SAVeira]

Removing items from DriveThru sounds like a fantastic way for the new owners to alienate the existing customer base. Strange way to start a business venture.

 

[Ringtail]

A whole bunch of Flying Buffalo's products are on the Bundle of Holding right now if you still want to grab them.

They have two bundles: Tunnels & Trolls 2 and Catalyst (Containing Grimtooth's Traps, Citybooks, etc.)

These products can be re downloaded from Bundle of Holding at anytime, but you can also link your DriveThru account and they will add the titles to your library.

 

[Voadam]

Bundle of Holding currently has two big Flying Buffalo deals, a massive T&T one with a ton of adventures and a statless Catalyst game one with the Grimtooth's traps, their city series, and others.

That covers a lot of Flying Buffalo on Drivethru but there are others not covered in the bundles.

 

[imagineGod]

Color me interested.
I never heard of it before this announcement.

Ah! The"Tunnels and Trolls" people. I saw a lovely thick Compendium in my FLGS but picked up yet another D&D book instead. Will now try to get a hold of that T&T from somewhere.

 

[paleblade]

Removing items from DriveThru sounds like a fantastic way for the new owners to alienate the existing customer base. Strange way to start a business venture.

Probably to have the company's legal information, copyrights, trademarks etc updated

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Probably to have the company's legal information, copyrights, trademarks etc updated

Historically the issue has been that when that happens, things often don't come back on, and people who owned the product cannot necessarily download it from DriveThru in perpetuity. For example, WotC removed the original 2E PHB/DMG from DriveThru after I purchased them. Just straight-up gone, and DriveThru weren't allowed to let existing owners download them (still aren't). They were replaced later by the horrible late-2E versions, but people who bought the originals, did not get access to those (when I spoke to DriveThru about it they slightly grudgingly gave me a voucher for the cost of the PHB lol which did not greatly endear them to me).

 

[sevenbastard]

(when I spoke to DriveThru about it they slightly grudgingly gave me a voucher for the cost of the PHB lol which did not greatly endear them to me).

What was your expectation? That they would break a contract with WOTC to send you the PDF? Returning your money sounds like a fair solution.

 

[darjr]

I’m not a huge fan but it is absolutely worth owning a copy.
And the city books are great. I already own them all in print and pdf.
The grimtooths stuff is also hilarious