Dancey resigns as GAMA Treasurer

[eyebeams]

This is one of the most persistent death magnets in gaming - the rumor that Underground sold 10,000+ copies and was considered a failure.

If Underground really did sell that many, the margins on RPG books are big enough that the book itself must have been so expensive to produce that they needed to sell more than that to turn a profit. That points to a failure in vision, budgeting, and planning, not a sales failure. Considering that the book was published in a binder, I could see that as a possibility. I can only attribute it to the self-deluded design precepts of the 1990s that a game like Underground could be considered a viable game.

Underground was not actually that daring a game. It emulated a very, very popular genre in comics from the period, as exemplified by the work of Dan Brereton and Frank Miller. It used a highly-regarded supers system. With the passage of time, people have begun to think that it was an alienating arthouse game, but it was nothing of the sort.

Furthermore, I seriously doubt that Underground sold that many copies into the distribution network. They may have printed that many, but I doubt that many ended up in game stores or on distributor shelves. If Underground really did sell that well, it would've been a hit at any point in the hobby's history.

Not so sure about that. Underground's problem, from what I can gather was the number of reorders: Almost none. It is probably one of the most common pieces of backstock I see in game stores. If it behooved me to do so, I could probably hop on a bus to Toronto and score a few copies with supplements right away.

You also seriously distort Ryan's stance. Vampire and the TSR novels did not kill TSR. TSR's inability to produce RPG books that were relevant or useful killed them. The company was, as a whole, unable to connect with its audience.

I've heard him say various things at various times. He's mentioned Birthright as a setting that came from the influence of the fiction department. He's also pretty mcuh all but described Vampire's approach as exemplary of games that hurt the industry.

Personally, I think 2e killed TSR. It took a few years, but I think the player network slowly crumbled and gamers slowly converted from active purchasers to hobbyists who spent nothing on RPGs.

I'm not inclined to think that 2e was exceptionally hated. It, like 3e, came about with lots and lots of moaning about the spirit of the game and alleged consultation with fans. The main problem with 2e is that it's an example of a closed design which actively thwarts the possibility of followup products. It was designed so that it was hard to add anything to it.

IMO, the failure of the industry as a whole can be attributed not to Vampire, but to the legion of designers who slavishly followed the Vampire model of design. The 1990s are a graveyard of dead games that followed the story-first paradigm. It's funny in that a designer can produce a D&D clone and everyone wants to laugh at him or ignore his work. But if he produces a Vampire clone, or throws in vague references to story, foreshadowing, and other literary tools in his work, suddenly he's a visionary.

Y'see, I actually took a look at this claim by looking at the games that were released throughout the mid-1990s to see how many Vampire/WoD clones I could actually find. I decided on checking out John H Kim's site and going from 93-98 (basically, the advent of the decline to the release of Vampire Revised). The English language RPGs that seemed relevant were:

Kult
Whispering Vault
Immortal
Nephilim
Psychosis
Shattered Dreams
World of Bloodshadows
Don't Look Back
Everway
The 23rd Letter
Fading Suns
Witchcraft
Armageddon
Everlasting
In Nomine
Dark Conspiracy
Deadlands
Heaven and Earth
Warlock: Dark Spiral
Unknown Armies

Several of these games are translations of games that were contemporaries of or predated Vampire. Several of these games are still successful or are considered to be good games anyway, like Unknown Armies. There are a few duds in there, to be sure, like Immortal and (sorry Chip, I call em as I see em) The Everlasting, but we're not tyalking about a list that's all B-games.

Now here's the thing. This list of 20 games may look big, but it's probably outnumbered at *least* 2/1 by fantasy heartbreakers of one sort of another. There are an equal number of fairly straightforward (not "storyish") SF games and almost as many supers games. But you don't see people blaming those.

Could it just be something as simple as there being a hell of a lot of crappy games that folks are willing to toss good money after bas to produce? Ockham's Razor suggests that maybe this is it.

 

[baseballfury]

It's funny to see all the anti-2E sentiment around here. Riddle me this then. If 2E was so horrible, why did so many d20 fans buy a line of books that slavishly ape the 2E Complete series (Mongoose's Quintissential series, which are generally more poorly designed and edited than the books they imitate)? And why is that not a week goes by without a thread about wanting Planescape or Birthright or some other discontinued 2E campaign setting to come back?

Sure, there were bad 2E products, just like there are bad 3E and d20 products. But there were some very good ones too and it's revisionist history to pretend that 2E was nothing more than a dark age.

 

[Nisarg]

Underground was not actually that daring a game. It emulated a very, very popular genre in comics from the period, as exemplified by the work of Dan Brereton and Frank Miller. It used a highly-regarded supers system. With the passage of time, people have begun to think that it was an alienating arthouse game, but it was nothing of the sort.

Now here's the thing. This list of 20 games may look big, but it's probably outnumbered at *least* 2/1 by fantasy heartbreakers of one sort of another. There are an equal number of fairly straightforward (not "storyish") SF games and almost as many supers games. But you don't see people blaming those.

Could it just be something as simple as there being a hell of a lot of crappy games that folks are willing to toss good money after bas to produce? Ockham's Razor suggests that maybe this is it.

Regarding the first paragraph above: Underground was not essentially a very "challenging" (as in challenging the norms) game, hell, system-wise it was a rip-off of DC heroes. But it tried very hard to sell itself as an "arthouse" game.. so any rep it may have gained as being unapproacheable in that regard is self-earned. Their ads in the gaming magazines were very artsy.

Second, regarding the Vampire-clones issue: there's two different considerations to be made.
The first is the "Fangstasy Heartstakers", ie. games that ripped off Vampire setting-wise; in the broad sense of wanting to also be "dark angsty games of personal horror". These are no worse and no better an impact on the industry than the Fantasy Hearbreaker D&D-clones. And there were certainly less of the straight-out Vampire copies than there were straight-out D&D copies. Clones of either kind tended to suck at roughly equal levels.
The second, however, was the number of games that weren't essentially like Vampire setting or tone-wise, but jumped on the "story-based" bandwagon. With these you would have a MUCH bigger list, and would have to include things like Heavy Gear (which tone wise isn't very angsty or gothic at all), and AD&D2nd Ed. itself. There was a while there where you literally couldn't find a book on the "what's new" shelf of your FLGS without bumping into either metaplot, artsy story-focused systems, or both.

Nisarg

 

[Maggan]

Ratio

It's funny to see all the anti-2E sentiment around here. Riddle me this then. If 2E was so horrible, why did so many d20 fans buy a line of books that slavishly ape the 2E Complete series (Mongoose's Quintissential series, which are generally more poorly designed and edited than the books they imitate)?

The ratio of sales comparing Mongoose Q-series and WotC own books is something like 1 to 50. That is, for every 1 book Mongoose sell, WotC probably sells 50. Of the core rules, the ratio is probably even higher in WotC:s favour.

This is probably why there are a larger proportion of people harping in 2nd ed, because maybe 95% or more of current D&D customers aren't buying the Q-series.

That does not mean it's a bad series, or that it sells badly, it's just that... well, many bought the Q-series, but many, many, many more didn't.

Cheers!

M.

 

[Rasyr]

Could it just be something as simple as there being a hell of a lot of crappy games that folks are willing to toss good money after bas to produce? Ockham's Razor suggests that maybe this is it.

eyebeams, how do you figure the frontlist syndrome fits into all of this?

 

[Acid_crash]

Man, people sure do like to argue.

I had a bunch of time to kill, can't sleep, it's almost 0400 hrs where I'm at right now, read this thread because I found it funny and rather ludicrous in what people do and how people react to things.

I don't know what GAMA is, and never been to a game convention (which is something I want to rectify next year), but I do know about the game awards that happen at Origins (it is at Origins, right?) and the last four years, primarily after d20 came out, I have see products that won that I thought was utter crap, distasteful, and I wondered who it was that not only nominated for these products, but felt the need to give them an award despite the fact that I never heard of some of them, and others I did hear of, I remember not liking or buying for a specific reason...and now I know why this is the case.

Nothing too personal to those who are on this board who nominate the games for those awards, but you guys don't have a clue as to what most general gamers like.

You pick products that you feel deserve them, and maybe in your subjective eyes they do, but not in mine. You pick products that fit niche areas that are less known and less popular, and sometimes I get the feeling that you flat out ignore the more popular products because of the fact that they are, indeed, popular. At least with ENnies, I understand the process better, and I can select who I want to pick the products up for nomination. Heck, if I become a popular board member on these threads I could become a judge myself, but for that to happen I would probably have to become, well, popular, and that won't happen because even the ENnies have it's flaws (some judges get picked every year just because of name recognition within the threads) and some other people get overlooked because we might have 200 or so posts and others have 5000 posts and therefore is looked upon with more respect by others. Sorry, got off on a small tangent, but no system is perfect, and yours at GAMA is flawed more than most. I'lll never be a judge of the ENnies, that's fine, at least I can still vote on which product within the category I find more choosing, and I can honestly say that if the one I vote on doesn't win, at least my vote did count.

You pick products based on quality...stop because you can't define quality, it's one of those philosophical terms with no real meaning because it's so subjective...it's like trying to tell someone what Good is, or Virtue, or anything of that sort, and the only ones you are pleasing are the ones who have the same style of quality that you do.

But, above all of this crap I have read over the last 11 pages, there is way way too much politics going on and NOT enough gaming going on...and that is what we are supposed to be doing, right?

------------- about the d20/anti-d20 peoples -------

This is getting just worse each year from my very small and apparently insignificant view. I am just a gamer, I spend some money on products that I like in the hopes to eventually play them. I spend money on anything that catches my eye, d20 or not. I am an all round gamer (I'll play ccgs, computer games, board games, rpgs, video games...but not larps). I have been on these bards since late 1999 using different names when one name gets boring to me I resign up under a different name, but I've been around from the beginning of d20.

I am the type of person that you game designers and industry people should be wanting to catch...I have money to spend, so make products that will catch my eye. There's more of me than of you, more people like me who wants variety than the same.

When d20 first came out, that was the first time I ever liked D&D. I hated it up until then. Just how many class books, race books, spell books did 2e need to have? As far as I'm concerned, we only need the core boooks for all that. d20 was fresh, new, and exciting. We had feats to give us variety, prestige classes to give us focus, and new classes and a new experience/leveling system. Now, it's boring as hell. How many class books, race books, spell books, feat books do we really need for 3.5? It's the same thing all over again, and it's amazing that history is going to repeat itself over the next couple years until D&D 4.0 is released. Then history will repeat itself again because for some reason D&D is so popular and people are so easily manipulated by the name that for many it's the only game to play.

But we have our d20gamers, and our antid20gamers, and whenever two are in the same room sparks begin to fly. Arguments occur over which system should be played, which is better, how much d20 sucks, or how good d20 is. People explain that only d20 should be played because of all the support for it, others say that d20 shouldn't be played at all because it's driving so many game companies and publishers and game authors to writing so many similar books for a single game system that it's going to cause a great stagnation to the point where nothing will get sold just because of too much stuff being printed under a single d20 logo.

The way things are going, there is going to be two roleplaying industries in a few years...we will have the d20 game industry, and we will have the anti d20 game industry. d20gamers will only play d20, or play it the majority of the time and anti-d20gamers will not play it at all and will constantly look for something else to play. This split in the industry is because of so many of you game designers pushing one game system over others that you will be forcing people to really make a choice, and one that isn't good for gaming in the long run. But, I guess, as long as you get your money, why should some of you designers care, right?

This year, there are at least three games I know of that will be pretty darn good... Fireborn, Weapons of the Gods, and A/state that is neither d20 or Storyteller, but the WoD 2.0 looks pretty darn good as well.

I don't know if I made any points at all, or just rambled, but I don't really care. I am just a lowly gamers who plays these games for the enjoyment of the game, and it sickens me to see established designers, publishers, and whatnot who have no clue what general gamers know, think, and like to play, and you assume you know what we want when you might not have a clue.

 

[Staffan]

The lone supplement was the more conventional black-and-white

Underworld had at least three supplements. I know, because my friend has them on his bookshelf ("Fully Strapped, Always Packed", "Techno", and "Player's Handbook").

Personally, I think 2e killed TSR. It took a few years, but I think the player network slowly crumbled and gamers slowly converted from active purchasers to hobbyists who spent nothing on RPGs.

I'm not inclined to think that 2e was exceptionally hated.

I know I spent a lot of money on 2e. I don't think the failure was 2e in itself, but what WOTC folks have referred to as "fragmenting the fanbase". In the 90s, TSR were routinely putting out nearly a hundred game books per year (this doesn't count novels and the like) spread over plenty of product lines (core AD&D, Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, Birthright, Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, Planescape, Mystara, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Ravenloft - not all of these were supported simultaneously, but 6-7 or so at once was pretty average). In 2004, WOTC are releasing 2 books for d20M, 18 books for D&D (not counting dice, DM screen, character sheets, and map folios, neither of which requires all that much development), and 2 books for Star Wars. That's a significant reduction of production (though it does seem like it's on the rise again), which means that each book is more likely to be bought, thereby being more profitable.

Still, I miss many of the wonderful 2nd ed settings.

 

[WizarDru]

Underground was not actually that daring a game. It emulated a very, very popular genre in comics from the period, as exemplified by the work of Dan Brereton and Frank Miller. It used a highly-regarded supers system. With the passage of time, people have begun to think that it was an alienating arthouse game, but it was nothing of the sort.

Well, let's look at the facts: Underground was hyped on two things: it's Peter Chung artwork (who was and is still most famous for his MTV series, Aeon Flux) and it's 'Supers Punk" attitude and style. A game in which the main characters, afaik, were genetically-altered former super-soldiers from a war in South America trying to survive on the mean streets in a Shadowrun-esque oppresive world, working towards the overthrow of the government. There appears to have been quite a few supplements, as it turns out.

I mean, look at these pictures...does this strike you as mainstream superhero stuff that's not attempting to apply the vampire design-ethic to the 4-color genre?

You pick products that you feel deserve them, and maybe in your subjective eyes they do, but not in mine. You pick products that fit niche areas that are less known and less popular, and sometimes I get the feeling that you flat out ignore the more popular products because of the fact that they are, indeed, popular.

This year, there are at least three games I know of that will be pretty darn good... Fireborn, Weapons of the Gods, and A/state that is neither d20 or Storyteller, but the WoD 2.0 looks pretty darn good as well.

I'm not terribly enthused with Origins, as it happens, but these two statements strike me as conflicting. Winners at Origins this year included Indy Heroclix, Savage Worlds, Dragon Magazine, Mechwarrior, Dork Tower, Shadowrun, A Game of Thrones and .hack. Those are hardly unknown or unpopular products....whereas I've never heard of the three games you mention, before. I investigated Fireborn and Weapons of the Gods and discovered they aren't even out YET. A|State came out in February, it's true...but where? It's a little RPG from the UK and I have no idea where it's available or how big a print run it's had. A little unfair to peg the awards show for that, IMHO.

 

[Desdichado]

Y'see, I actually took a look at this claim by looking at the games that were released throughout the mid-1990s to see how many Vampire/WoD clones I could actually find. I decided on checking out John H Kim's site and going from 93-98 (basically, the advent of the decline to the release of Vampire Revised).

I think he specifically referred to the Vampire business model, not any Vampire setting elements, i.e. "Vampire clones."

 

[Desdichado]

It's funny to see all the anti-2E sentiment around here. Riddle me this then. If 2E was so horrible, why did so many d20 fans buy a line of books that slavishly ape the 2E Complete series (Mongoose's Quintissential series, which are generally more poorly designed and edited than the books they imitate)? And why is that not a week goes by without a thread about wanting Planescape or Birthright or some other discontinued 2E campaign setting to come back?

Sure, there were bad 2E products, just like there are bad 3E and d20 products. But there were some very good ones too and it's revisionist history to pretend that 2E was nothing more than a dark age.

All the anti-2E sentiment? Are you referring to the forum in general, or this thread? 'Coz so far on this thread, one guy accused 2e of killing TSR, which is difficult to interpret as "all this anti-2e sentiment." But I'll add some; I never bought a single 2e product, and until 3e came out, I wouldn't touch D&D again with a ten-foot pole.

Besides, I think your comparisons are flawed. Mongoose's books only slavish aping of 2e books was in the cover design, and although I don't know how many people bought them, it's hardly like their the definitive class books or anything like that (probably FFG's Path of... series belongs there, or hey! Howabout the Complete xxx series by WotC?). Also, some of the 2e settings are the only things that people want to revive. Nobody's clamoring to bring anything else back from 2e. And of course there were some good products; but that's not really the point. We're talking about an aggregate of the entire system, not a piecemeal comparison of product by product.