Failed promises

[Kanegrundar]

Excuse? Who's asking for a flipping excuse. Re-read the opening line of the original post: "Well, people, what books have you bought because they sounded way cool, but - when you finally read them - failed to deliver?"

Sometimes the headings on a thread are not 100% the point of the thread, you need to at least read the first post to truly get what the original poster was getting at.

I bought GWD20 (as well as a few other books) in which I was interested in the premise, but disliked the implementation. It was a disappointment. I'm not looking for my money back. I'm not looking for an apology from the authors. I just simply stated that I thought it sucked. You don't like it that I dislike the book so much. Fine. Whatever. Your inane brow-beating isn't going to get me or anyone else who thought it sucked to change our minds. So just drop it already or at least start in on everyone else on the this thread that listed a book they ended up thinking was a waste. Sometimes people buy things that aren't what they thought it would be, everyone that listed a book here did that. Why don't you go after them as well? Is the GWPHB worth this much grief? Hell no.

Kane

 

[billd91]

Your offense and being disagreed with is not tatamount to being insulted.

The title of this thread is "failed promises." But in fact, many of the comments have little if anything to do with what the company or designers promised you.

Things that *were* promised are functions of commentary by designers, adcopy, and the like.

Ah, but what people have complained about wasn't a simple disagreement. It was a comment from you about gaming groups in which one person does all the buying have a bad social dynamic. For those of us who have groups with one predominant buyer and a fine social dynamic, it was, in fact, tantamount to being insulted, especially because you persisted even when contradicted by people who know their own games.

Now, as far as the comments living up to the title, I see no problems with them. Promises are not merely declarations made by the authors or companies, but also indications of things to come from any source. Hence you get things like "promising young player" based on an athlete's early achievements, or the "promise of spring" based on anything from a thaw, the advancing calendar, or the appearance of geese flying north.
In the case of gaming materials, the promise might be from early industry buzz, an author's previous track record, or the inherent attractiveness of the subject matter. None of these are express declarations of the author or publisher.

And I too would include Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil in the list of products that didn't live up to their promise. I would have expected a lot more of Monte Cook and any product that tried to build on the original adventure.

 

[eyebeams]

Ah, but what people have complained about wasn't a simple disagreement. It was a comment from you about gaming groups in which one person does all the buying have a bad social dynamic. For those of us who have groups with one predominant buyer and a fine social dynamic, it was, in fact, tantamount to being insulted, especially because you persisted even when contradicted by people who know their own games.

Actually, I persisted after people described situations that didn't resemble what I was talking about, even after reminding them it wasn't what I was talking about. If people choose to see themselves in something I said after repeated warnings to be careful about it, the blame passes from my hands.

Now, as far as the comments living up to the title, I see no problems with them. Promises are not merely declarations made by the authors or companies, but also indications of things to come from any source. Hence you get things like "promising young player" based on an athlete's early achievements, or the "promise of spring" based on anything from a thaw, the advancing calendar, or the appearance of geese flying north.
In the case of gaming materials, the promise might be from early industry buzz, an author's previous track record, or the inherent attractiveness of the subject matter. None of these are express declarations of the author or publisher.

A definition of promise that includes vague, unsupported preconceived notions is not one that's amenable to discussion. Again, the reductio ad abrudum. "Bud d00d. Anything could be a promise . . ." Yeah, sure it could. But who cares? If you expected something that the author/publisher did not tell you would be there, then your expectations are unrealistic. The vague conflation of a promise you get from adcopy with the warm fuzzy feeling you get when seeing geese do not have an equal claim on validity.

1)"Reading the entrails of this frog, I was told that 3.5 would be classless! This is an outrage!"

is not the same as

2)"3.5 adcopy said they'd have a classless option, but they don't. This is an outrage!"

but it *is* the same as:

3)"3.5 could have gone classless because of its structure. I wanted that but didn't get it. This is an outrage!"

1 and 3 have about the same argumentative weight. 3 just sounds smarter. 2 (if it existed, which it didn't) would be a legitinmate gripe. 1 and 3 would not. No amount of getting fuzzy over what "promise" means will really change that.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Why? Game publishing is a business. As I noted earlier in this thread, faithfully obeying the desires of the fans has led to either crappy products or failed to really affect sales.

Well, crappy products is, I assume, subjective. "Failing to really affect sales" is hopelessly unclear - did it fail to affect them, or didn't it? How much is "really?" Based on that statement, it had some, apparently nigh-irrelevant, affect. A fraction of a percent, maybe. Was that fraction a plus or a minus?

I suggested the formula I actually suggested. Feel free to respond to it. The fact is that nothing excuses indiscriminate purchases.

Good gracious, I didn't know I had to have an Excuse for my purchases! Not that they're indiscriminate, anyway; I buy stuff almost exclusively for market research, and not much at that.

Not to mention the fact that you're misquoting yourself. You explicitly said that favoring the wishes of fans would make a product sell less.

What allows stuff you don't like to proliferate is mostly your willingness to buy said stuff. The fannish desire to have everything with a brand name first on the block, no matter its content, is a long term burden.

Spelljammer is the sole brand I ever bought for the name, and last I checked, no one was even producing crap for it. I'd gladly take crap over nothing.

If you keep buying what you think is crap, I can't think of a single company that would be unwilling to continue to sell you said crap.

I can't either... well, sort of. Any company that would produce what it considers crap obviously has no self-respect, and any company with self-respect wouldn't produce something it considers crap.

On the other hand, I can think of many companies, among them Green Ronin, Privateer Press, Malhavoc Press, White Wolf and Wizards of the Coast, who produce products that some people consider crap, and perhaps still purchase, but which they consider high-quality.

Actually:

1) Gamma World's "fanbase" looked pretty miniscule to me. I didn't see a preponderance of GW fanpages before any kind of adaptation. How many of you can name one off the top of your head, without googling? I also note that nobody here has really ever discussed GW's setting, either -- awfully curious for such a "die-hard" fanbase never to talk about anything specific about the game.

In reality, perhaps some folks should be honest with themselves, look back and realize that GW as a going concern has been primarily driven by company-end hype.

2) The "old school" vision of Gamma World many of you talk about was a recent invention. Yes, there was a "How Green is My Mutant" article in the Strategic Review. There were, by contrast, several attempts to dee-"Wahoo!" GW in Ares. One I remember offhand: An article on how to use genetic engineering to justify PSH's stats because they didn't make any sense otherwise. But wait -- genetic engineering is supposed to be Bad, and Not Gamma World, right? A pity nobody told the authors back in the 80s.

Wouldn't know. Never played Gamma World, nor had much interest in it.

Considering what again? Oh -- you mean, "Considering that a dozen or guys on a few fora complain about GWD20 and I would like to think that has some sort of connection to economic reality."

It doesn't. Sorry.

In reality, Gamma World had a more successful run than most game books -- almost definitely more than Darwin's World, the perrenially-mentioned bridesmaid that "got it right." If SSS could run the books it did, it means that SSS sold enough to justify continued printings, which automatically puts its sales an order of magnitude above anything but a WotC offering.

Yep it still might suck, despite the fact that it sold well. But don't blame them -- you guys bought it, remember?

Never bought GWd20, couldn't care less about it.

If it was a big seller, then perhaps SSS made the correct decision with it. My understanding was that it failed from a financial perspective as well. I saw it in stores briefly, it apparently sold over time, and they never bothered to get more. It never saw any splatbooks or adventures or monster books, to the best of my knowledge. Considering the number of lines that received more support (including, off the top of my head, d20 only, non-WotC: M&M, Warcraft, AU/AE, Conan, Babylon 5, DragonMech, Iron Kingdoms, DragonStar, Spycraft, L5R, Scarred Lands, Kingdoms of Kalamar, Dragonlance, Nyambe, Midnight, Slaine and Everquest), I figured it for a flop.

I'd seen Darwin's World once, didn't care about it one way or another, and never saw it again, so that doesn't surprise me.

However, I know quite a few of Mongoose's books have continued printings, so you're wrong about that. IIRC, Green Ronin, Privateer and Malhavoc have all had multiple printings, and I'm sure there's others. Certainly White Wolf's WoD, various Palladium products and GURPS have had multiple printings. I guess GWd20 wasn't 'orders of magnitude' greater than anything not from Wizards of the Coast. :muchmissedrolleyessmiley:

I'm having trouble parsing this, because you can't define how "faithful" GWD20 is compared to Omega World without making a claim about how faithful Omega World was in the first place.

Omega World was quite nice, but its relationship to Gamma World was pretty much like any tale about the "good old days" -- more grounded in sentiment than reality. Gamma World was a game without a central thesis and with a generally shoddy design where quick character death was easy to come by. Omega World is Jonothan Tweet's rather clever portrayal of how you actually played it -- since most of you were at most, 14 at the time, you played it with the feel of the cheeseball games people play when they're 14 or so.

I can't speak for Mr. Tweet or, indeed, GW's fanbase, since I never played the game, am not a fan of it, and know Mr. Tweet by reputation only.

I can, however, say that appealing to sentiment is damned fine marketing, and a lot better than appealing to what something may or may not have actually been, but apparently few people remember it as.

I can also say that at 14, I was not playing cheeseball games, at least by the standards you've defined.

I assume, judging from your comments, that you were neither 14 at the time, nor did you like the wahoo or cheeseball style games of Gamma World, but that, in point of fact, you were a fan of the opposite style of Gamma World.

Plus, Omega World was one of only a handful of rebooted minigames. And it's being compared to Spelljammer? Spelljammer's first incarnation bombed so badly it was left as fodder for Roger E. Moore's random jokes, making print because TSR printed pretty much anything.

You be dissin' the 'Jammer, foo? And dissin' ROGER MOORE? In the SAME SENTENCE?



I shouldn't have bothered arguing with you in the first place, sir; yours is a level of bad taste so alien, so unutterable, so eldritch, so cacodaemonical, so non-Euclidean - so cosmically horrific as to defy the very existence of a sane reality!

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Cut it out, people! This discussion stops right here. If you want to continue it, you're all perfectly able to open a new thread about it. This one has been derailed enough.

 

[eyebeams]

Well, crappy products is, I assume, subjective. "Failing to really affect sales" is hopelessly unclear - did it fail to affect them, or didn't it? How much is "really?" Based on that statement, it had some, apparently nigh-irrelevant, affect. A fraction of a percent, maybe. Was that fraction a plus or a minus?

It fails to significantly affect sales when people buy something without seeing whether or not they would actually like it. Buying something because of a brand and not because of content is an example of this.

Good gracious, I didn't know I had to have an Excuse for my purchases! Not that they're indiscriminate, anyway; I buy stuff almost exclusively for market research, and not much at that.

If you don't impulsively buy something to collect or out of brand affiliation, you are obviously not representative of what I'm talking about.

Not to mention the fact that you're misquoting yourself. You explicitly said that favoring the wishes of fans would make a product sell less.

Sure, if it's at the expense of creating broad appeal for a book. And actually, you were misquoting me. I welcome responses to what I actually wrote, instead of a reworked paraphrasing.

Spelljammer is the sole brand I ever bought for the name, and last I checked, no one was even producing crap for it. I'd gladly take crap over nothing.

I think this is a problem, too. In my opinion, no product is better than bad product.

I can't either... well, sort of. Any company that would produce what it considers crap obviously has no self-respect, and any company with self-respect wouldn't produce something it considers crap.

On the other hand, I can think of many companies, among them Green Ronin, Privateer Press, Malhavoc Press, White Wolf and Wizards of the Coast, who produce products that some people consider crap, and perhaps still purchase, but which they consider high-quality.

I think most companies realize that they don't bat 1.000. But the best way to help them realize that is to exercise care in purchases, look, research and talk to people you trust before you buy. Inevitably, this means that someone will take the plunge first, but *no* method of buying wisely is absolutely perfect, and what I'm talking about trumps buying blindly any day.

To bring it back to the topic: If you don't want "failed promises," don't make *yourself* promises about what a book will be like that you can't back with evidence.

If it was a big seller, then perhaps SSS made the correct decision with it. My understanding was that it failed from a financial perspective as well. I saw it in stores briefly, it apparently sold over time, and they never bothered to get more. It never saw any splatbooks or adventures or monster books, to the best of my knowledge.

As I mentioned, a failure for SSS would be considered a success for many other companies. But as a matter of fact, it did have a monster book: Mutants and Machines, and a splatbook: Cryptic Alliances and Unknown Enemies.

Considering the number of lines that received more support (including, off the top of my head, d20 only, non-WotC: M&M, Warcraft, AU/AE, Conan, Babylon 5, DragonMech, Iron Kingdoms, DragonStar, Spycraft, L5R, Scarred Lands, Kingdoms of Kalamar, Dragonlance, Nyambe, Midnight, Slaine and Everquest), I figured it for a flop.

The line had 6 releases -- that's more than several of your examples. My point, though, was that for all the complaints, it still is the most popular line in its niche.

However, I know quite a few of Mongoose's books have continued printings, so you're wrong about that. IIRC, Green Ronin, Privateer and Malhavoc have all had multiple printings, and I'm sure there's others. Certainly White Wolf's WoD, various Palladium products and GURPS have had multiple printings. I guess GWd20 wasn't 'orders of magnitude' greater than anything not from Wizards of the Coast. :muchmissedrolleyessmiley:

Of course, I was referring to comparable products, not every non-WW/SSS book in existence.

I can't speak for Mr. Tweet or, indeed, GW's fanbase, since I never played the game, am not a fan of it, and know Mr. Tweet by reputation only.

I can, however, say that appealing to sentiment is damned fine marketing, and a lot better than appealing to what something may or may not have actually been, but apparently few people remember it as.

No argument there, but it also means that claims about being "True to Gamma World" are pretty much invalid.

You be dissin' the 'Jammer, foo? And dissin' ROGER MOORE? In the SAME SENTENCE?



I shouldn't have bothered arguing with you in the first place, sir; yours is a level of bad taste so alien, so unutterable, so eldritch, so cacodaemonical, so non-Euclidean - so cosmically horrific as to defy the very existence of a sane reality!

They were fine jokes. Roger E. Moore is a funny guy. But they got in there because nobody really cared about the setting.

 

[Belen]

It fails to significantly affect sales when people buy something without seeing whether or not they would actually like it. Buying something because of a brand and not because of content is an example of this.

This thread has gone so far past the intended topic that it is now rounding the M31 Galaxy. No offence guys, but I think you're arguments are have the unstoppable force versus immovable object scenario. Neither side is willing to budge.

 

[GMSkarka]

This thread has gone so far past the intended topic that it is now rounding the M31 Galaxy. No offence guys, but I think you're arguments are have the unstoppable force versus immovable object scenario. Neither side is willing to budge.

Which I'm finding amusing as hell, because one participant in the argument has been working in the industry for quite a while, and knows what he's talking about, and the others have anecdotal evidence that they think somehow puts them on equal footing.

So, in other words: Pretty much par for the course for every industry-related internet argument, ever.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

It fails to significantly affect sales when people buy something without seeing whether or not they would actually like it. Buying something because of a brand and not because of content is an example of this.

Fair 'nough. I would like to see market research to back up your belief that this blind fan loyalty 'really affects sales.' Many products have fans who actually do like them.

If you don't impulsively buy something to collect or out of brand affiliation, you are obviously not representative of what I'm talking about.

I never claimed to be representative of what you're talking about. Rather, as a neutral party, I considered your views on the matter wrong.

Sure, if it's at the expense of creating broad appeal for a book. And actually, you were misquoting me. I welcome responses to what I actually wrote, instead of a reworked paraphrasing.

Actually, I responded to a quote specifically from one of your posts.

You'd previously stated the point in the manner you do here, and the manner I did in my post - catering to fans at the expense of broad appeal is a mistake. However, the specific post to which I responded didn't make that clear.

Either way, I've yet to see evidence of said broad appeal in the specific instance (but see below), or a response to my claim that what made fans in the first place might generate new ones.

I think this is a problem, too. In my opinion, no product is better than bad product.

I really couldn't say how I feel about this, generally. Some bad products sully what went before and offer nothing new. Some sully the past but offer something new. Still others don't do any harm but offer nothing new. Some are bad but still provide new content worth adapting or fixing.

I generally find it easier to fix than to make from scratch, so I'd rather see the last type than nothing.

There's also the matter of HOW bad something is.

I think most companies realize that they don't bat 1.000. But the best way to help them realize that is to exercise care in purchases, look, research and talk to people you trust before you buy. Inevitably, this means that someone will take the plunge first, but *no* method of buying wisely is absolutely perfect, and what I'm talking about trumps buying blindly any day.

To bring it back to the topic: If you don't want "failed promises," don't make *yourself* promises about what a book will be like that you can't back with evidence.

Probably true.

D&Dg is a fair example. Perhaps I shouldn't have expected Epic compatibility; it wasn't advertised anywhere.

BESM d20 is an example of something that specifically promised to translate Tri-Stat BESM to d20 and to work for anime d20 roleplaying... and basically failed, IMO.

As I mentioned, a failure for SSS would be considered a success for many other companies. But as a matter of fact, it did have a monster book: Mutants and Machines, and a splatbook: Cryptic Alliances and Unknown Enemies.

The line had 6 releases -- that's more than several of your examples. My point, though, was that for all the complaints, it still is the most popular line in its niche.

Wow... I never saw any of those splatbooks! I never imagined the line was that extensive.

Of course, I was referring to comparable products, not every non-WW/SSS book in existence.

That was unclear.

No argument there, but it also means that claims about being "True to Gamma World" are pretty much invalid.

Not really. Tales of the good old days matter far more than the actual good old days, because the tales are sentimental (and hence can be marketed to) and potentially instructional (and hence have societal value, though I doubt that applies to Gamma World).

They were fine jokes. Roger E. Moore is a funny guy. But they got in there because nobody really cared about the setting.

Nobody, eh? That's flatly wrong. I know of at least one person who cared about the setting far more than any other game product ever released - yours truly.

However, as long as you weren't dissing Roger Moore, I suppose I can tolerate your misguided thoughts on Spelljammer.

 

[billd91]

Actually, I persisted after people described situations that didn't resemble what I was talking about, even after reminding them it wasn't what I was talking about. If people choose to see themselves in something I said after repeated warnings to be careful about it, the blame passes from my hands.

You actually repeated the commentary about social dysfunction more than once (posts 178, 188, 195, 207 in which you specifically said something that Kanegrundar took as a direct insult... with good reason, 230, and 233) before you made vague statements about people's descriptions didn't match what you were talking about (first post with that caveat #236), without really elaborating on what you were, in reality, talking about.
Just how are we supposed to take your comments? You are responsible for your own comments.

A definition of promise that includes vague, unsupported preconceived notions is not one that's amenable to discussion. Again, the reductio ad abrudum. "Bud d00d. Anything could be a promise . . ." Yeah, sure it could. But who cares? If you expected something that the author/publisher did not tell you would be there, then your expectations are unrealistic. The vague conflation of a promise you get from adcopy with the warm fuzzy feeling you get when seeing geese do not have an equal claim on validity.

<snip>

It is, nevertheless, clear from the very first post on this topic that it was the 'fuzzy' promise that was germaine to the topic. A product that "sounded way cool" doesn't sound to me like like being way cool was explicitly promised. And reading frog entrails or other straw men has nothing to do with it since I already mentioned other means of assessing a product's promise (industry buzz, track record of author, inherent interest in subject matter).