Indeed. I think WotC's early relationship with Paizo might have yielded a model that could have worked for support of product lines with IP originating from WotC's assets but spun out for support. But when they, ultimately, turned on Paizo (whether as a deliberate policy or as a cumulative result of a set of decisions), they kind of put an end to that potential.
There were many "NPC" classes such as the Bandit, Swashbuckler, Jester, Archer, Illrigger, etc... in Dragon Magazine throughout the years
Do we have to look at every game through the metric of sales? Everyone knows that TSR split their audience with all the campaign settings. I don't care how successful they were, I loved having them and was and am very glad all that stuff came out. Can we talk about games in any other terms, or will always come down to how much money they made?
It’s less a question about how much money they made. Rather it’s WERE THEY SUSTAINABLE. It’s a real Pyrrhic victory to have great materials that ultimately helped kill the company.
Pyrrhic victory for TSR, maybe. Big win for the fans.
Win for the fans, at an exorbitant cost (the company producing the material so that they can’t produce more) - pretty much a textbook example of a Pyrrhic victory. For the fans.
Let's not forget the actual motivation in the situation: to make money off the distribution deal. Ina company where creatives were kept from all the business aspects, it was a huge boon. They were told to design stuff and given freedom to do so. That means they got to make what they wanted, not whatever bland crap the company demanded.
Ok. I still loved what we got. It was a victory for the consumer, Pyrrhic or not.
