D&D General Extra Credits: The History of D&D Hasbro Refused to Learn

[Incenjucar]

Look, if you’re going to make a detailed video about learning from history it’s important that you get the history correct.

This is why you'll never have a show on cable.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Not interested in wat hing the click bait, so what's the thesis? What gap?

The thesis: Hasbro is trying to regain control of how the game is played and create a more standardized experience with less outside influence (from 3pp developers.) Like TSR did with 2e and WotC did with 4e. Those changes generally went badly, cause developers and players to seek out alternatives.

The gap is where those players go: in the 90's White Wolf picked up the lion's share, in the late 2000's Paizo was the biggest winner. Neither of those are likely to repeat the performance.

 

[nevin]

I think Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax had many ideas. Some of which actually worked.

Gary had no problem stealing anything that worked . His willingness to sacrifice ethics for success arguably are what eventually brought TSR down at the end. He had almost no friends at the company left when his wife joined forces with his enemies and ousted him.

 

[pogre]

Look, if you’re going to make a detailed video about learning from history it’s important that you get the history correct.

Not saying this video does this, (and I am not interested in watching to see if they do), but getting small parts of the history/lore wrong that you know is going to irk fans is a long standing tactic to get better engagement. The hardcore fan can hardly resist commenting to correct the errors and they will do it over and over again. The result is the video gets lots of comments and does better on YouTube's algorithm.

Add a little clickbait title and you have a winning video with clicks and engagement.

 

[nevin]

The thesis: Hasbro is trying to regain control of how the game is played and create a more standardized experience with less outside influence (from 3pp developers.) Like TSR did with 2e and WotC did with 4e. Those changes generally went badly, cause developers and players to seek out alternatives.

The gap is where those players go: in the 90's White Wolf picked up the lion's share, in the late 2000's Paizo was the biggest winner. Neither of those are likely to repeat the performance.

I've never seen any numbers that indicate White Wolf ever got even close to the size of DND during the 90's. It was a ompetitor and a successful system. I don't want to say anything bad about it. I liked the system even if I didn't like the doom and gloom of the setting. If I'm wrong I'd love to see some hard numbers showing that.

 

[nevin]

Not saying this video does this, (and I am not interested in watching to see if they do), but getting small parts of the history/lore wrong that you know is going to irk fans is a long standing tactic to get better engagement. The hardcore fan can hardly resist commenting to correct the errors and they will do it over and over again. The result is the video gets lots of comments and does better on YouTube's algorithm.

Add a little clickbait title and you have a winning video with clicks and engagement.

so sadly true.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

I normally start by checking local libraries then I ask my sister if her college library has it.

I've gotten more obscure books by ILL to win arguments on Usenet before.

 

[Nikosandros]

It’s a niche book that was a small print run and is now out of print. Ebooks are wildly cheaper.

It used to be available on Kindle. I bought a copy in 2015. However, it is no longer available as an ebook from Amazon.

 

[TerraDave]

Gary had no problem stealing anything that worked . His willingness to sacrifice ethics for success arguably are what eventually brought TSR down at the end. He had almost no friends at the company left when his wife joined forces with his enemies and ousted him.

So just stopping by the thread and completely making stuff up?

 

[billd91]

The thesis: Hasbro is trying to regain control of how the game is played and create a more standardized experience with less outside influence (from 3pp developers.) Like TSR did with 2e and WotC did with 4e. Those changes generally went badly, cause developers and players to seek out alternatives.

Kind of a weird thesis considering the push to create a more standardized experience was a major reason for 1e (cutting out Dave Arneson being another major one).
And for 3e as well.

Honestly, creating a "more standardized experience" is probably a bad thesis to land on to try to explain underperformance of 2e or 4e.