D&D General Darksun novel sales! From Ben Riggs.

[The Scythian]

Does this stand in as a proxy for other novel sales?

Depending on the series or product line, other novel sales might have been better by a significant margin. The Dragonlance novels were mainstream fantasy bestsellers and I think the same was true of some of the Forgotten Realms novels.

 

[darjr]

Depending on the series or product line, other novel sales might have been better by a significant margin. The Dragonlance novels were mainstream fantasy bestsellers and I think the same was true of some of the Forgotten Realms novels.

Yea. Still it’s a good sign that they indeed did much better than the settings.

 

[Reynard]

Depending on the series or product line, other novel sales might have been better by a significant margin. The Dragonlance novels were mainstream fantasy bestsellers and I think the same was true of some of the Forgotten Realms novels.

How many Drizzt novels are there? It has to be rivalling Star Wars books by now.

 

[Jer]

And this curve helps to explain why the other curves could look so bad but TSR would just keep throwing games at the wall and see what stuck.

Their novel lines were doing reasonable numbers while their game lines were tanking. But the material for the novel lines was coming from the game lines so TSR kept telling their creative folks to create more worlds to set novels in. I'll bet the numbers for the Ravenloft novel line are also pretty good - and the FR numbers would have been even better - even as the game lines themselves were not selling big numbers.

And that strategy worked until it didn't. Which I'd like to see more novel lines to make a more than educated judgment about, but with these numbers appears to be right around 1996. Which is not coincidentally when Random House sued TSR for lack of payment on their loan money and cut off the money fountain that TSR was relying on.

 

[Shardstone]

Novels always outsell games. Novels are basically what games pretend to be to people who don't want to play the game (adventure books read like novels etc).

 

[Reynard]

Novels always outsell games. Novels are basically what games pretend to be to people who don't want to play the game (adventure books read like novels etc).

I don't think the novel lines are stand ins for playing. I bet the vast majority of novel readers did not play and had no interest in playing and read the DL or FR novels exactly the same way with the same "goal" as they read Eddings of Feist.

 

[darjr]

Wait! So TSR invented the Marvel comics/movies strategy that WotC was trying to emulate near the beginning of 5e?!? The circle has closed!

 

[Shardstone]

I don't think the novel lines are stand ins for playing. I bet the vast majority of novel readers did not play and had no interest in playing and read the DL or FR novels exactly the same way with the same "goal" as they read Eddings of Feist.

That is exactly what I said.

 

[el-remmen]

I've known countless people who either. . .

have read many D&D novels, never played, and didn't care to

OR

had been reading those novels for years before ever finding people to introduce them to the actual game so they could try it.

 

[Reynard]

That is exactly what I said.

You said

Novels always outsell games. Novels are basically what games pretend to be to people who don't want to play the game (adventure books read like novels etc).

I don't think the game has any impact at all, is not even considered, when the vast majority of people pick up a FR novel, is all. It is a totally different audience.