D&D General The $150,000 Question: How TSR Learned It Was Dying (And Why I Was in the Room) by Ken "Whit" Whitman

Aside from the storyteller being dubious, so much of what this anecdote really means comes down to exactly what was said many years ago (if it really happened at all) that I wouldn't really trust anyone's testimony based on a single meeting. Did TSR folks actually say that their primary goal with publishing so much was to cut off competition, did they see it as a side benefit of an extensive catalogue, or is this just how our narrator interpreted what was said?

In any case, the question from a business perspective that actually matters is not "how long will a customer keep playing the game?" but rather "how long will a customer keep buying new 1st party products for the game?" If a TTRPG publisher is publishing too much stuff my first guess is that they are desperately casting around to produce something that will convince a player who already has everything they actually need to play the game to buy yet another thing.

It's trippy how he keeps reappearing, like a wandering monster. No Appearing 1-100

Benjamin Olson said:

Did TSR folks actually say that their primary goal with publishing so much was to cut off competition, did they see it as a side benefit of an extensive catalogue, or is this just how our narrator interpreted what was said?

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In the early days, long before Whitman arrived, I think there was a little bit of resentment from Gygax and TSR in general towards other companies producing RPGs. i.e. These companies dared to compete in a market created by TSR with their inferior imitations of D&D.

I'm not a market analyst, nor am I an expert in RPGs marketing. It does seem to me that there's a shelf life for D&D for the majority of people who play it. That doesn't apply to most of us who participate on this message board. Quite frankly, we're weirdos in many regards (in the best possible way). I think most people play D&D for a few year and then they move on to other things. Those of us who have been playing for decades are probably oddities.

Okay, all this Whitman stuff is blowing up on Facebook for me. Stupid algorithm.

Ken Whitman is at the center of scandals reaching back to at least the 1990s (when I was kvetching about Ken's multiple Kickstarter scams on Facebook, a freelancer on his licensed Ralph Bakshi's Wizards tabletop RPG contacted me to say that he'd not been paid by Ken). And the non-existent quality control at Ken's Rapid POD (an early POD service with marketing targeted at indie RPG publishers) ruined GenCon for more than one indie publisher I know (a large number of books arrived with printing errors, pages falling out, and mis-cut covers). And THEN you have the Kickstarters. And the multiple shell companies. He is, in my opinion, the most prolific fraudster in all of RPG history. Even Justin LaNasa's antics pale by comparison.

dragoner said:

It's trippy how he keeps reappearing, like a wandering monster. No Appearing 1-100

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% in Liar

jdrakeh said:

Ken Whitman is at the center of scandals reaching back to at least the 1990s (when I was kvetching about Ken's multiple Kickstarter scams on Facebook, a freelancer on his licensed Ralph Bakshi's Wizards tabletop RPG contacted me to say that he'd not been paid by Ken). And the non-existent quality control at Ken's Rapid POD (an early POD service with marketing targeted at indie RPG publishers) ruined GenCon for more than one indie publisher I know (a large number of books arrived with printing errors, pages falling out, and mis-cut covers). And THEN you have the Kickstarters. And the multiple shell companies. He is, in my opinion, the most prolific fraudster in all of RPG history. Even Justin LaNasa's antics pale by comparison.

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My memory MAY be faulty here, but I thought he was running as an agent in front of Lightning Print in its "Oh ((&^ we have to expand fast" days. If so, the Lightning Print QC was REALLY bad for a spell due to understaffing and training up vs the rush to get things done.

Source on the QC: My Lightning Print rep at the time.

MGibster said:

In the early days, long before Whitman arrived, I think there was a little bit of resentment from Gygax and TSR in general towards other companies producing RPGs. i.e. These companies dared to compete in a market created by TSR with their inferior imitations of D&D.

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Oh, yeah, and it wasn't just other game companies horning in on his market. Gygax turned on the 'zines too. You'd think all these competitors were picking his personal pocket directly making whatever money they could from their customers. And I'm pretty sure he felt EXACTLY like that.

MGibster said:

Quite frankly, we're weirdos in many regards (in the best possible way).

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Staffan said:

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Its true.