D&D General Darksun Adventure sales from Ben Riggs author of Slaying the Dragon

[overgeeked]

His source is confidential, that's how journalism works.

Some journalism, yes. Not all.

 

[darjr]

We must take asking someone for their source very differently then. When you make a claim and someone else demands you cite a source, they’re calling you a liar and demanding you back up your claim with proof because they don’t believe you.

I’m sorry. Bruce is awesome, but in this case if your asking me to take on Ben and his numbers and agreement from the other alumni vs Bruce? I’m picking Ben.

You can call people liers if you like. I think that’s immensely rude in this case and very over the top and unnecessary.

 

[darjr]

If I have 200 dollars and it all goes to TSR, TSR gets all of it.

IF I have 200 dollars and now only 20 goes to WotC...but WotC is printing just as much product as TSR was...who is going to lose more money?

I’m going to stop talking to you now.
Apologies

 

[overgeeked]

I’m sorry. Bruce is awesome, but in this case if your asking me to take on Ben and his numbers and agreement from the other alumni vs Bruce? I’m picking Ben.

You can call people liers if you like. I think that’s immensely rude in this case and very over the top and unnecessary.

I’m not calling anyone a liar. Ben is making claims and refuses to back those up with any evidence. It’s Schrödinger’s Truth. It’s in the box but we don’t know. It’s fairly common to want people to cite their sources. We’re not talking about military secrets and troop movements here. It’s the sales data for a company that ceased to exist 20-odd years ago.

 

[GreyLord]

His source is confidential, that's how journalism works.

True, but not how history works, or historical writing.

That said...

I don't have problems with what Riggs is posting, I find it interesting. I've stated before that it appears that some numbers may be missing, but that was already admitted by Riggs about the information and why that was. AS far as I know, the graphs look to be accurate in how they should look at least, and their portrayal seems to be about as straightforward as one can get with what is available.

I'd even support him and tell you all...go buy his book!

I have guesses at who the "confidential" source or sources may be, but it is what it is.

 

[a.everett1287]

Some journalism, yes. Not all.

I mean... no.
All journalists will have a source who wants to be off record/confidential/background. Doesn't matter if it's reporting on the inner workings of a federal agency, or the naughty word business practices of a TTRPG company in the 80's.
YOU DON'T BURN YOUR SOURCE NO MATTER WHAT, for two reasons. One, because you may want to tap that well again, and that's hard to do if you screwed them over; and two, because it's the right thing to do, considering this person has trusted you to relay information without attaching their name to it.

 

[Parmandur]

They tailored it. If you see the Graphs, it can become pretty obvious WHY they did so.

What the graphs posted show is that campaign settings seem to sell well and then have a steep drop off. Further re-releases or sales also tend to follow that. In that light, releasing a campaign setting is good, but you want to do it at maximum impact. Thus, a release probably ever year or so (or in Paizo's case, with AP's, ever 6 months).

You can see this start to form during 3.5, and it took over HARD for 4e. In that time, you see the idea to release ONE campaign setting per year or more if possible.

I think 5e has tried to follow this trend in a modified fashion as well, though not with campaign settings as it were, but in a fashion related to slower rules releases and adventures based on various campaign ideas.

5E Setting books are genre booster packs, meant to be broad based toolboxes for DMs.

 

[darjr]

I’m not calling anyone a liar. Ben is making claims and refuses to back those up with any evidence. It’s Schrödinger’s Truth. It’s in the box but we don’t know.

He is stuck. He can’t. Or decided his ethics means he won’t. But he has tried to back things up as best he can outside of that. Seeing all these ex TSR folks talking about his book and really only one taking anything like a huge exception to the numbers has gotta mean something?

Especially if it’s folks that are not treated exactly glowingly in the book.

 

[a.everett1287]

I’m not calling anyone a liar. Ben is making claims and refuses to back those up with any evidence. It’s Schrödinger’s Truth. It’s in the box but we don’t know. It’s fairly common to want people to cite their sources. We’re not talking about military secrets and troop movements here. It’s the sales data for a company that ceased to exist 30-odd years ago.

This sounds like a fancy way of skirting TOS and calling someone a liar.

 

[overgeeked]

This sounds like a fancy way of skirting TOS and calling someone a liar.

Not at all. Either a statement is true or it’s false. I don’t know which it is. All I have is his word he’s telling the truth. I’ll withhold judgement on whether it’s true or not until we have a source and/or independent corroboration.