D&D 5E 5e isn't a Golden Age of D&D Lorewise, it's Silver at best.

[Parmandur]

That's kind of my point. I'm sure a lot of newer players have actually played in the Forgotten Realms without even knowing it. They don't know about the world, they just think they're playing through Tyranny of Dragons or Princes of the Apocalypse or Tomb of Annihilation. A lot of people probably don't realize that they're playing in that setting because it's assumed at the core of 5e.

And I bet the same thing would have happened if, say, Greyhawk or Eberron were the main setting of 5e. So it's not that the Forgotten Realms is actually more-liked than any other setting or inherently better at fulfilling the role WotC gave it this edition, it's just the one they chose and there are other settings that would have worked at least as well as the FR.

That was how I was introduced to my favorite Setting, Greyhawk, as a fuzzy background assumption given in the Core books during 3E. It did not take off as well as FR, despite being the official Setting assumed in books and used in Organized Play.

 

[Parmandur]

More evidence for the popularity of Greyhawk that everyone keeps saying isn't popular...

Yeah, pretty astounding that after 3 decades of active mishandling 1 in 20 people were still playing in GH. I somehow doubt that it has kept up as well as FR, maybe Exandria has replaced it. But it does explain why to this day "here how you play this in Greyhawk" keepa making it into new products.

 

[Parmandur]

The first Spelljammer boxed set was released in 1989. The final one was released in 1993. Spelljammer was never the most popular setting, but it lasted a lot longer than 15 months.

He is referring to the AD&D wra sales information that has recently come to light. Spelljammer did not sell anything after 1989, basically.

 

[delericho]

He is referring to the AD&D wra sales information that has recently come to light. Spelljammer did not sell anything after 1989, basically.

The problem with that is that those sales numbers refer to the first boxed set only. So all that's saying is that 3/4 of the people who wanted it bought it right away. And that boxed set sold in excess of 80,000 units. Describing that as a failure is a stretch - there are an awful lot of D&D products that came nowhere near that.

 

[Parmandur]

The problem with that is that those sales numbers refer to the first boxed set only. So all that's saying is that 3/4 of the people who wanted it bought it right away. And that boxed set sold in excess of 80,000 units. Describing that as a failure is a stretch - there are an awful lot of D&D products that came nowhere near that.

Yeah, but comparing like to like it did not do well relative go other Settings at the time.

 

[delericho]

Yeah, but comparing like to like it did not do well relative go other Settings at the time.

But, again, does that by itself make it a failure? Any ordered list is going to have some items higher than others.

(I would at this point argue that it obviously did well enough for TSR to continue to support it for years... but given how badly TSR was run that doesn't hold any weight.)

 

[teitan]

He is referring to the AD&D wra sales information that has recently come to light. Spelljammer did not sell anything after 1989, basically.

this

 

[teitan]

But, again, does that by itself make it a failure? Any ordered list is going to have some items higher than others.

(I would at this point argue that it obviously did well enough for TSR to continue to support it for years... but given how badly TSR was run that doesn't hold any weight.)

Considering the whole failure of TSR was that they were producing boxed sets at massive losses and no one knew what was actually selling unless it was selling poorly. Compared to other settings released at the time, yes according to sales SPelljammer was an albatross eking out its existence, It really can't be spun any other way. It applies to a lot of TSR's settings and products though because the company was so mismanaged but of the material available at that time it was the poorest seller. AS AD&D2e slogged along and sales dwindled a product that sold poorer than Spelljammer could be considered a great success like comparing X-men sales in 1998 to 1991, comparing Jim Lee's X-Men no. 4 to X-men no 100 of course it looks really bad, the industry had a massive crash and Marvel had declared bankruptcy but X-men was still one of the industry's top selling titles so Spelljammer's 80k units may have been a skunk in 1989 when AD&D was selling much better than when Planescape sold 64k in 1994 when Random House was returning unsold books, boxed sets and other materials and demanding payment on unsold products.

 

[delericho]

Considering the whole failure of TSR was that they were producing boxed sets at massive losses and no one knew what was actually selling unless it was selling poorly. Compared to other settings released at the time, yes according to sales SPelljammer was an albatross eking out its existence, It really can't be spun any other way.

I disagree. You're drawing a lot of conclusions from a very small amount of data.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The problem with that is that those sales numbers refer to the first boxed set only. So all that's saying is that 3/4 of the people who wanted it bought it right away. And that boxed set sold in excess of 80,000 units. Describing that as a failure is a stretch - there are an awful lot of D&D products that came nowhere near that.

Indeed. The numbers who are currently buying a boxed setting does not give you good information about the number of people currently playing a setting. Remember, it's mostly DMs who buy settings, and there is always a time-lag between them buying the setting and them actually starting a campaign there.

The marketing of (original) Spelljammer was mishandled, and it wasn't as successful as it could have been, but it still managed to acquire a cult following and be hugely influential. And I know anecdotally of a 5e Spelljammer campaign running in 2020, long after the original boxed set was available.