TSR A New Taxonomy for TSR-Era D&D

[Laurefindel]

Supernova would probably be the phrase I'd pick actually, good analogy!

I guess the only other quibble I have is I feel Planescape is a product of the later approach, the more experimental, product-heavy one, rather than the more cautious approach of the late '80s and early '90s. It's all Zeb of course, but I feel like until they sort of "cut loose" a product like that wouldn't have existed. But this is more down to a perception of when the change starts. For me, it seemed like 1993 is the change-over year. Suddenly the sort of products TSR was putting out changed a bit, and frankly, AD&D started being interesting again to a bunch of people who'd been converted to WW, SR, 2020 and so on (er by which I mean purely anecdotally, i.e. people I knew, online and off).

An aging TSR collapsing under its own weight, blowing up in one colossal explosion, and leaving a black hole behind?

that sounds about right...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

An aging TSR collapsing under its own weight, blowing up in one colossal explosion, and leaving a black hole behind?

that sounds about right...

Pretty much yeah lol.

 

[Mercurius]

Jumping in a bit late, I wanted to comment on something I think @Ruin Explorer said - that TSR became more "experiemental" later on. I'm not sure this is actually true. If you look at the actual product out-put of TSR during the 2E era (1989-2000), the only real difference--or at least the most marked one--is the increase in quantity, more than doubling from 1989 to its peak in 1995.

2E was, pretty much from the beginning, focused on settings. In 1989, they published products for four settings: The Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Spelljammer, which is about as experimental as anything that has ever been published for D&D, TSR or WotC. Then you had another quite "experimental" setting in Dark Sun added two years later.

During 2E, you have the following settings being supported to some degree (that is, having products published):

1989-00: Forgotten Realms
1989-94/98-00: Dragonlance
1989-93/98-99: Greyhawk
1989-93: Spelljammer
1990-99: Ravenloft
1990-93/95-96: Lankhmar
1991-96: Dark Sun
1992-94/98: Al-Qadim
1994-98: Planescape
1994-96: Mystara (for AD&D)*
1994: Council of Wyrms
1995-98: Birthright
1998: Jakandor

(*Obviously Mystara started as the default setting for the BECMI line, with the gazetteers published from 1987-91, but as BECMI faded in the early 90s, TSR published a series of Mystara products for AD&D).

So you have an increase in number of settings--and resulting products--from four in 1989 to eight in 92-93, then a "swapping out" of settings over the next two years, and then the contraction in 97 as things switched over to WotC.

As far as non-setting products, I don't see a huge difference. You have the "faux leather series" of books (the "Complete" options and DM equivalents) published from 1989-96, and then various accessories replacing them starting in 95. You had various box sets and miscellaneous adventures. And then, post-TSR, you have WotC's various products, like the classic module series. But these products were but a fraction of the campaign setting stuff, especially during the TSR era.

Again, the point being that I'm not sure there's a real bifurcation between a "safer" earlier period and a more "experimental" later one. It is just changing flavors, with the Forgotten Realms being the connecting setting throughout all 12 years of 2E publications.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Jumping in a bit late, I wanted to comment on something I think @Ruin Explorer said - that TSR became more "experiemental" later on. I'm not sure this is actually true. If you look at the actual product out-put of TSR during the 2E era (1989-2000), the only real difference--or at least the most marked one--is the increase in quantity, more than doubling from 1989 to its peak in 1995.

Hmmmm.

To me it looks like your own list backs when I was saying, but I guess people can read things differently.

I'm not just talking about settings though - I'm talking rules, formats, and so on.

Also you missed out Taladas!

 

[Mercurius]

Hmmmm.

To me it looks like your own list backs when I was saying, but I guess people can read things differently.

I'm not just talking about settings though - I'm talking rules, formats, and so on.

Also you missed out Taladas!

Taladas = Dragonlance, and it came out in 1989. So I'm not sure how my list backs what you're saying, given that "experimental" stuff was relatively distributed through 2E's run.

As I pointed out, most of the 2E output was setting related. I'm not sure how rules became more experimental later on, although that tends to be the case in every edition (e.g. latter-day 3.5). Format? That seems a secondary element.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Taladas = Dragonlance, and it came out in 1989. So I'm not sure how my list backs what you're saying, given that "experimental" stuff was relatively distributed through 2E's run.

As I pointed out, most of the 2E output was setting related. I'm not sure how rules became more experimental later on, although that tends to be the case in every edition (e.g. latter-day 3.5). Format? That seems a secondary element.

Well, I think it is fair to say that late TSR-era 2e had a HUGE amount of optional rules cruft larded onto it. I mean, 1e in its entire run got very little of this stuff, basically UA and that was about it, unless you count WSG and DSG, which were only released at the very end of the 1e era.

From day 1 2e was pumping out supplements covering every aspect of play, those leatherette books were really an unprecedented experiment, not just in terms of publishing format, but also in terms of making 2e a much more 'extensible' game, with kits, sub-class templates, and lots of other player-facing options, none of which really existed in 1e (unless you went outside of TSR to look for material).

So, in that sense, I think TSR did get more 'experimental' over time. As you say, most game systems tend to do that, but it was rather remarkable at the time, at least for D&D. Of course by the mid 90's game systems were so common that it didn't seem quite as crazy as it might have 10 years earlier in the 1e era.

 

[Orius]

Jumping in a bit late, I wanted to comment on something I think @Ruin Explorer said - that TSR became more "experiemental" later on. I'm not sure this is actually true. If you look at the actual product out-put of TSR during the 2E era (1989-2000), the only real difference--or at least the most marked one--is the increase in quantity, more than doubling from 1989 to its peak in 1995.

2E was, pretty much from the beginning, focused on settings. In 1989, they published products for four settings: The Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Spelljammer, which is about as experimental as anything that has ever been published for D&D, TSR or WotC. Then you had another quite "experimental" setting in Dark Sun added two years later.

I agree with that. 1e didn't push itself too far, it was mostly a standard sort of setting which was presented in the form of Greyhawk. The Realms wasn't too terribly different from Greyhawk, there's a bit of flavor difference to be sure, but they're both mostly vanilla. Dragonlance did shake things up a bit, but didn't stray too far from the core of 1e. There's also OA and Kara-Tur, but that was about presenting a D&D setting that wasn't based on European culture. The Bloodstone module series is the only other thing which did anything to push 1e's limits but that was primarily all about high level campaigning.

2e OTOH, had settings which really pushed the boundaries of what kind of fantasy the system could support, and the most exotic stuff were Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Planescape. Ravenloft pushed things a bit with elements like the Mists and the Dark Powers or whatever they were called, though much of the setting was based on more familiar gothic horror tropes. Al-Qadim wasn't terribly too far out there either, since Arabian flavored stuff tends to be somewhat familiar, and isn't all that uncommon in D&D anyway.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Which brings us to Moldvay's basic. I completely agree with you that Moldvay was tasked with creating a "basic" system and introductory system by using ... OD&D's LBBs (and also referenced Holmes). They went back to the LBBs because they were going to credit Arneson as a co-creator (which they did). But Moldvay (and later Mentzer and the RC) ended up creating a completely separate fork of the game through different rules.

In other words, because AD&D (1e and 2e) is part of an unbroken line that goes back to 2e, it is the evolutionary heir to OD&D; Basic is a separate branch that forked off after Moldvay/Cook that was based on the LBBs, but lacked the seven intervening years.

The common view among people who know and care about such things is that OD&D gave rise to twin, coequal branches with Advanced D&D and Basic D&D. This view has at least one good argument in its favor: neither AD&D nor Basic D&D is directly rules-compatible with original D&D.

It's also not uncommon among OSR and B/X fans to treat TSR D&D as a single unbroken line from the white box through the Rules Cyclopedia, which makes AD&D (and thus WotC D&D) the aberrant "fork". This, at least, has some textual evidence to back it up, since TSR (and thus the books they published) treated D&D as one game, and AD&D as another separate game.

You, however, seem excessively invested in this alternate narrative, that OD&D leading to AD&D is the unbroken "primary" lineage, while Basic D&D is the branching fork, and that B/X was some sort of break-point. I don't quite get the obsession, but I have written before about the evidentiary problems with this point of view ("There's No Such Thing as D&D 0th Edition"). And that's the key here: evidence-based arguments are worth listening too, and bare assertions aren't.

Or you can keep your head buried in the sand and ignore any evidence that contradicts your opinion—which is frankly what I've come to expect by now.

 

[Mercurius]

The common view among people who know and care about such things is that OD&D gave rise to twin, coequal branches with Advanced D&D and Basic D&D. This view has at least one good argument in its favor: neither AD&D nor Basic D&D is directly rules-compatible with original D&D.

It's also not uncommon among OSR and B/X fans to treat TSR D&D as a single unbroken line from the white box through the Rules Cyclopedia, which makes AD&D (and thus WotC D&D) the aberrant "fork". This, at least, has some textual evidence to back it up, since TSR (and thus the books they published) treated D&D as one game, and AD&D as another separate game.

You, however, seem excessively invested in this alternate narrative, that OD&D leading to AD&D is the unbroken "primary" lineage, while Basic D&D is the branching fork, and that B/X was some sort of break-point. I don't quite get the obsession, but I have written before about the evidentiary problems with this point of view ("There's No Such Thing as D&D 0th Edition"). And that's the key here: evidence-based arguments are worth listening too, and bare assertions aren't.

Or you can keep your head buried in the sand and ignore any evidence that contradicts your opinion—which is frankly what I've come to expect by now.

A bit harsh, but I've always kind of thought that AD&D was the version EGG came up with after a few years of development and rules-morphing, while B/X/BECMI was created for those that wanted something that remained closer to OD&D.

So, in a way, both are successors to OD&D in different ways: B/X as closer in form and feel, and AD&D as a development and next iteration.

 

[Jack Daniel]

So, in a way, both are successors to OD&D in different ways: B/X as closer in form and feel, and AD&D as a development and next iteration.

I unequivocally agree.