7 Years of D&D Stories? And a "Big Reveal" Coming?

When asked what he was working on, WotC's Chris Perkins revealed a couple of juicy tidbits. They're not much, but they're certainly tantalizing. Initially, he said that "Our marketing team has a big reveal in the works", and followed that up separately with "Right now I'm working on the next seven years of D&D stories". What all that might mean is anybody's guess, but it sounds like there are plans for D&D stretching into the foreseeable future! Thanks to Barantor for the scoop!

 

[Mark CMG]

But if it's a skirmish game, then how can its unsuitability (in your view) as an RPG be a flaw?

It's marketed as an RPG when it is "seemingly designed as a set of Minis Skirmish Combat rules with aspirations of appealing to CRPG and MMORPG gamers then squeezed into a very thin tabletop RPG skin." Or are you purposefully missing the point? I can't tell. So, I'm not going to engage with you anymore.

 

[Shasarak]

I think most posters on these boards would characterise 2nd ed AD&D as a "healthy" edition cycle, yet from the point of view of its publisher that did cause bankruptcy.

Is there any actual evidence that 2e caused TSRs bankruptcy?

 

[pemerton]

Is there any actual evidence that 2e caused TSRs bankruptcy?

Ryan Dancey seemed to think so. Here's the link. This passage seems as good as any other:

I discovered that the cost of the products that company was making in many cases exceeded the price the company was receiving for selling those products. I toured a warehouse packed from floor to 50 foot ceiling with products valued as though they would soon be sold to a distributor with production stamps stretching back to the late 1980s. I was 10 pages in to a thick green bar report of inventory, calculating the true value of the material in that warehouse when I realized that my last 100 entries had all been "$0"'s.​

 

[Shasarak]

Ryan Dancey seemed to think so. Here's the link. This passage seems as good as any other:

I discovered that the cost of the products that company was making in many cases exceeded the price the company was receiving for selling those products. I toured a warehouse packed from floor to 50 foot ceiling with products valued as though they would soon be sold to a distributor with production stamps stretching back to the late 1980s. I was 10 pages in to a thick green bar report of inventory, calculating the true value of the material in that warehouse when I realized that my last 100 entries had all been "$0"'s.​

So nothing about selling boxed sets for less then cost, or producing so many unsold Dragon Dice that WotC was going to use them to pave a courtyard at their building, or printing so many novels that they had no money left to refund the returned stock?

 

[pemerton]

So nothing about selling boxed sets for less then cost

I don't follow - I quoted Dancey as saying "the cost of the products that the company was making in many cases exceeded the price the company was receiving for selling those products".

In the comment that I linked to Dancey talks about a Random House distribution agreement - I'll leave you to follow up the details, and also his brief comment about Dragon Dice.

EDIT: Here's another passage that seems relevant:

I retreated to my home office; a place filled with bookshelves stacked with Dungeons & Dragons products. From the earliest games to the most recent campaign setting supplements - I owned, had read, and loved those products with a passion and intensity that I devoted to little else in my life. And I knew, despite my best efforts to tell myself otherwise, that the disaster I kept going back to in Wisconsin was the result of the products on those shelves.​

 

[Shasarak]

I don't follow - I quoted Dancey as saying "the cost of the products that the company was making in many cases exceeded the price the company was receiving for selling those products".

In the comment that I linked to Dancey talks about a Random House distribution agreement - I'll leave you to follow up the details, and also his brief comment about Dragon Dice.

EDIT: Here's another passage that seems relevant:

I retreated to my home office; a place filled with bookshelves stacked with Dungeons & Dragons products. From the earliest games to the most recent campaign setting supplements - I owned, had read, and loved those products with a passion and intensity that I devoted to little else in my life. And I knew, despite my best efforts to tell myself otherwise, that the disaster I kept going back to in Wisconsin was the result of the products on those shelves.​

So, again, where is the evidence that 2e caused TSR to go bankrupt? If anything 2e carried the company for a decade before it finally succumbed to chronic miss management, under priced products and over runs in non-rpg product lines.

 

[pemerton]

under priced products

These were (or at least included) 2nd ed AD&D products. Hence Dancey's comment that "the disasters I kept going back to in Wisconsin was the result of the products on those shelves". As he says, his shelves were "stacked with Dungeons & Dragons products". Not Dragon Dice!

 

[BryonD]

I wonder if BryonD will now start taking others to task for confirmation bias.

I have.
But you really do make it easy.
Thanks for acknowledging the issue.

 

[delericho]

So, again, where is the evidence that 2e caused TSR to go bankrupt?

It wasn't 2nd Edition, although some parts of 2nd Edition were problematic.

As others have mentioned, there were a couple of big hammer blows that fell at just the wrong time: the bottom dropped out of the Dragon Dice fad just after TSR placed a massive order for new dice, and there was an issue with their novel distributor which meant a whole lot of unsold books came back.

But there was also a problem that they were busily supporting a dozen or so settings (which is a problem since most groups don't use any published setting at all, and a vanishingly small number use more than one), storing large amounts of unsold books (and books that would never sell - things like old copies of the "Dungeoneer's Survival Guide" from 1st Ed), and even selling some books at near-zero or even negative profit (the Encyclopedia Magica - though I think it was confirmed as an urban myth that they actually sold those at less than cost; I think they were sold at a tiny, tiny mark-up).

Oh, and they kept doing "Buck Rodgers" RPGs that nobody wanted.

 

[Shasarak]

It wasn't 2nd Edition, although some parts of 2nd Edition were problematic.

As others have mentioned, there were a couple of big hammer blows that fell at just the wrong time: the bottom dropped out of the Dragon Dice fad just after TSR placed a massive order for new dice, and there was an issue with their novel distributor which meant a whole lot of unsold books came back.

But there was also a problem that they were busily supporting a dozen or so settings (which is a problem since most groups don't use any published setting at all, and a vanishingly small number use more than one), storing large amounts of unsold books (and books that would never sell - things like old copies of the "Dungeoneer's Survival Guide" from 1st Ed), and even selling some books at near-zero or even negative profit (the Encyclopedia Magica - though I think it was confirmed as an urban myth that they actually sold those at less than cost; I think they were sold at a tiny, tiny mark-up).

Oh, and they kept doing "Buck Rodgers" RPGs that nobody wanted.

And that is not even taking into account shewhomustnotbenamed.