D&D is now in (exceedingly awesome) commercial form

[Raven Crowking]

Bidding was taken out for about a 20 year period. And the speed die is now, I believe, the default rather than the optional rule in new Monopoly sets - and mandated in tournament play. Both significantly change the way the game works.

Apparently the Speed Die came in in 2007, according to the wiki. Interesting; I didn't know that. What is your source for bidding being taken out for a 20 year period?

I played Monopoly as a kid; I've played it with my kids. Obviously, I haven't picked up a set since 2007, or I would presumably have been aware of the Speed Die. I am not aware of any game play changes to the sets I've played (although perhaps from not re-reading the rules). (Obviously, Star Wars Monopoly renamed the properties, etc., but the game itself plays exactly the same IME.)


RC

 

[Hussar]

Heh, playing Monopoly and not reading the rules... Isn't that the way we're supposed to play.

You're right of course, btw, there is no hard data regarding the actual numbers of gamers during that period. I'm going by what was general opinion of the time - the gamer pop spiked around 82 then tailed off sharply for the next couple of years and then, with a few upticks like when Vampire came out, continued to dwindle until the 3e era.

I know that Gary Gygax said that the Unearthed Arcana was pushed out the door very quickly because of flagging sales, which is why I mentioned that. The Buck Rogers and Spellfire stuff doesn't really come into the picture at all in the 80's, that wasn't the cause of the financial difficulties as I recall.

Wasn't Spellfire a 90's thing?

 

[Raven Crowking]

I am not sure when Buck Rogers came out. Spellfire was the 90s; I think you're right. But the specific games don't matter; TSR has always had more than D&D on the go.

It is hard to actually parse out what happened with TSR because we don't have anyone credible telling us what had occurred. Even the earlier statements made when WotC took over have some serious shadows cast over them.....and were contradicted by at least one TSR insider at the time. Too many egos, and too much self-interest in how things looked, are involved.

The odds are that we will never know.....apart from a rather generic "mismanagement of assets".


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Anecdotally, I know people who, back in the late 3.5 days, asked me to run a D&D game for them.....and were not aware of 3e. They expected 2e (original, not Option). I had a hell of a time explaining that THAC0 was no more.



RC

 

[Rel]

This is the part where I remind the participants in the thread to be kind to one another.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Apparently the Speed Die came in in 2007, according to the wiki. Interesting; I didn't know that. What is your source for bidding being taken out for a 20 year period?

My source for it having been taken out in at least some printings is my own eyes. The 20 year period is anecdotal.

(although perhaps from not re-reading the rules)

Mine's the only family I've ever heard of where we played strictly by the rules and actually read them. It definitely beats the "Money for free parking" variants.

 

[billd91]

No it did not.

3e FUNDAMENTALLY changed how the gameworld operated.

<snip>
And you consider this a small change?

It's not necessarily a question of small or large changes. Not all changes, no matter the size, are killing sacred cows. For some thing to be a sacred cow in the first place, it really has to have some special reverence. That's why I'd consider transforming the direction of the armor classes killing a sacred cow - but a worthwhile one because of its benefits.

 

[Raven Crowking]

My source for it having been taken out in at least some printings is my own eyes. The 20 year period is anecdotal.

Fair enough. I guess I don't normally wear out games as fast as you do!


RC

 

[Beginning of the End]

You're right of course, btw, there is no hard data regarding the actual numbers of gamers during that period.

Random fact injection: Print Run

Dragon Magazine's circulation was 80,000 in '82, climbed to 120,000 in '83, and then 125,000 in '84. In '92, it was still sitting at 125,000.

The 1E Fiend Folio (copyright 1981) sold 190,000 copies. By contrast, first-year release sales for hardcover accessories in '92 were 170,000 copies.

The Dragon Magazine numbers are highly suggestive that the market had not peaked in '82. By '84 it may have (hard to say without figures from '85 thru '92), but what's definitely missing here is any sort of "sharp tail-off". What the limited numbers we have at our disposal seem to indicate is that the population of gamers who were actively engaged consumers in the gaming industry was essentially stable throughout the '80s and into the early '90s.

(Note: That page includes a letter from an anonymous WotC employee claiming TSR sold 1,000,000 Basic Sets in 1989. Erik Mona recently posted here on ENWorld to suggest that figure is hyper-inflated. Bearing that in mind, I'm ignoring all of the statistics from that letter.)

 

[Hussar]

The problem with any of the TSR related stats is they were frequently, umm, creative.

Considering that Paizo Dungeon and Dragon were running about 50000 copies per month, combined, there had to be some tailing off somewhere along the lines. Now that number I know is true because it gets reported in the pages of the magazines every year.

Hey, maybe there never has been a large tail off. But, my question is, where did they all go? Did they all stop buying all of a sudden, at the same time? Why is there no huge online presence of gamers who have been gaming for twenty or thirty years?

Or, to ask another question, if there is this huge population of gamers that never dropped out of the hobby, why is 3e credited with bringing back so many gamers? After all, if the gaming population was fairly static, they never left.