Forgotten Rums....? Evil Overlords...?
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Orcus said:Wow. We have now officially come full circle. People lamenting the TSR days and griping that WotC D&D is run by bean counters. If that isnt bass ackwards...
You live long enough you see it all.
Yeah, most seemed to have forgotten that TSR was run by bean counters ever since Gary was kicked out. And dumb bean counters at that.
That is the beauty of d20, to some extent. I am the elf and the bean counter. If I want to make a Judges Guild Wilderlands Boxed Set with all 18 maps in it that will definately barely break even (If I'm lucky) I have the authority to do it!
And that is why I have no fears about the future of D&D, The Realms may go the way of Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Spelljammer and the others but D&D will always remain. D&D is *not* a published setting, D&D is a set of game rules. As long as people can still use these game rules D&D will survive and may even florish.
And that folks is why I love (and buy) Necromancer Games products. The entire organization is run as much for the fun of the game as it is to make some money. Unfortunately the company doesn't, and probably never will, pay as well as thier "real" jobs. But they get to do what they love and make some "pocket change" in the bargin.
Now this option of making "pocket change" isn't an option for Wotc/Hasbro. They have a need to make serious money, not just from greed but to pay all those elves that work there.
Last edited:
KnowTheToe
First Post
I don't plan on buying any of the background FR stuff, but I did buy Magic of Faerun because of crunch, so I can understand where the bean counters come from.
What they need to realize is that without enough background the FR could lose its feel and many of its followers. Balance is key, maybe they need to throw in a few more crunchy pieces to entice non FR players into buying books.
What they need to realize is that without enough background the FR could lose its feel and many of its followers. Balance is key, maybe they need to throw in a few more crunchy pieces to entice non FR players into buying books.
cyphertube
First Post
Long rant with some suggestions
I hope I don't drive everyone nuts on this.
First off, as a former project manager, I understand the need for profit margins. I have worked for companies in which people LOVE what they do, use no business sense, and end up in layoffs. This happens in almost any industry, and the failure to understand what is required as a profit margin will kill a company quickly.
I agree with the person who posted earlier about justifying products. Perhaps there is a problem with Hasbro not giving very clear definitions. I've had bean-counters who decided that something didn't make enough money, but who didn't give me the criteria they were basing that decision on. Get the criteria written down and then when you need to justify something, justify it within the criteria. Rare is the time I've met anyone in a paper-pushing decision-making position who looked at someone from multiple angles.
Second, while I love reading Forgotten Realms novels and I think it's a neat setting, it has been running for a long time and, well, much like adrenaline, I can't do high magic for hours and hours on end without having something taken out of me. I made a conscious decision for 3E to buy no FR books whatsoever. Yeah, I know, I'm a traitor. But since I don't run an FR campaign, I'm waiting for a campaign setting that meets what I want, or else I'll develop my own.
I guess that makes me a traitor to the cause, but I didn't get hooked on Dungeons & Dragons through FR. Actually, the overkill of FR through 2E almost lost me. I started off with the Basic D&D rules and checked out the 1E AD&D rules from the library so often I practically owned them. (I do own copies now.) The original feel of those 1E books was one of danger and excitement. Wondrous things are only wonderful if they are rare. Does anybody here remember the excitement of getting online for the first time? That was wondrous! But now it is mundane.
The first novels from TSR I read were the Dragonlance novels. Magic wasn't everywhere within them, and it was great. I was gripped by the setting. Now, settings come and go and most people would agree that DL has more/less been killed off, but that's ok. I don't believe in a catch-all setting for WotC to kill by overloading it, but a use of three settings would be great. Greyhawk is sort of middle-of-the-road. FR is definitely high magic. So where's the low magic world?
My third and last point is to look at the classics of fantasy. Take a look at Tolkien's writing as an example. No, it's not all a great read. But it is so intricate and well thought out. When we talk about crunchy versus fluffy well, we need to start looking at how things tie together. A good setting will be filled with lots and lots of crunch and be brought together with fluff. A rulebook is going to be crunch, crunch, and more crunch, but disparate rules are useless. Campaign books, as well, should not be fluff only. They should be factually presented, much like a good history book. (Want a good one - try Norman Davies' "Europe: A History".) If we look at life, we look at law books to find rules, history books to find out what has happened, and novels to understand how it felt. Why can't we see that a good campaign setting should be more/less the same?
Ok, enough rant.
I hope I don't drive everyone nuts on this.
First off, as a former project manager, I understand the need for profit margins. I have worked for companies in which people LOVE what they do, use no business sense, and end up in layoffs. This happens in almost any industry, and the failure to understand what is required as a profit margin will kill a company quickly.
I agree with the person who posted earlier about justifying products. Perhaps there is a problem with Hasbro not giving very clear definitions. I've had bean-counters who decided that something didn't make enough money, but who didn't give me the criteria they were basing that decision on. Get the criteria written down and then when you need to justify something, justify it within the criteria. Rare is the time I've met anyone in a paper-pushing decision-making position who looked at someone from multiple angles.
Second, while I love reading Forgotten Realms novels and I think it's a neat setting, it has been running for a long time and, well, much like adrenaline, I can't do high magic for hours and hours on end without having something taken out of me. I made a conscious decision for 3E to buy no FR books whatsoever. Yeah, I know, I'm a traitor. But since I don't run an FR campaign, I'm waiting for a campaign setting that meets what I want, or else I'll develop my own.
I guess that makes me a traitor to the cause, but I didn't get hooked on Dungeons & Dragons through FR. Actually, the overkill of FR through 2E almost lost me. I started off with the Basic D&D rules and checked out the 1E AD&D rules from the library so often I practically owned them. (I do own copies now.) The original feel of those 1E books was one of danger and excitement. Wondrous things are only wonderful if they are rare. Does anybody here remember the excitement of getting online for the first time? That was wondrous! But now it is mundane.
The first novels from TSR I read were the Dragonlance novels. Magic wasn't everywhere within them, and it was great. I was gripped by the setting. Now, settings come and go and most people would agree that DL has more/less been killed off, but that's ok. I don't believe in a catch-all setting for WotC to kill by overloading it, but a use of three settings would be great. Greyhawk is sort of middle-of-the-road. FR is definitely high magic. So where's the low magic world?
My third and last point is to look at the classics of fantasy. Take a look at Tolkien's writing as an example. No, it's not all a great read. But it is so intricate and well thought out. When we talk about crunchy versus fluffy well, we need to start looking at how things tie together. A good setting will be filled with lots and lots of crunch and be brought together with fluff. A rulebook is going to be crunch, crunch, and more crunch, but disparate rules are useless. Campaign books, as well, should not be fluff only. They should be factually presented, much like a good history book. (Want a good one - try Norman Davies' "Europe: A History".) If we look at life, we look at law books to find rules, history books to find out what has happened, and novels to understand how it felt. Why can't we see that a good campaign setting should be more/less the same?
Ok, enough rant.
The only thing in the story that SKR left out was the pure greed part of being a public company.
So Let's bring those that are not in it for the long haul but have legal rights. And are expecting the company to make a profit.
Now it becomes a Business of greenbacks and not a business of love for the product.
The story about AMC buying Harley is a perfect example.
While profit should be a major concern in business. it is driven to the point of quarterly over analysis in the public sector. (and sometimes not analyized enough in the case of enron and others)
So you have a CEO that is now tasked will bring a return on stocks on a Quarter by Quarter basis. and that is where
the margin numbers come in.
A small company that isn't public that only has its small amount of owners to please, can take lower margins and turn out a product. But most of those people do it for the love of game. And you get a higher quality product in alot of cases.
Ever notice that most of the D20 companies products get higher reviews than those of WOTC. It is a different of Focus.
haze brothers is a public company with WOTC as a division. Haze brothers has to meet the expectations of its owners (every one that owns stock in the company and attempt return a profit. Or cause the loss of value in that company as the owners leave)
What is worse is that it is ran on a 3 month cycle. which means that a certain number of sales are expected to maintain a certain amount of growth of the company to keep a growing value for the investers in the company.
Now take that into account and the Beanies make a bit more sense. although it does make a statement against publically owned companies.
The public doesn't care about the company or its products in most cases. ownly that it has a return on investment.
Worked at 4 private companies that went public and saw the degadation of the product to accomedate ROI to many times.
el
So Let's bring those that are not in it for the long haul but have legal rights. And are expecting the company to make a profit.
Now it becomes a Business of greenbacks and not a business of love for the product.
The story about AMC buying Harley is a perfect example.
While profit should be a major concern in business. it is driven to the point of quarterly over analysis in the public sector. (and sometimes not analyized enough in the case of enron and others)
So you have a CEO that is now tasked will bring a return on stocks on a Quarter by Quarter basis. and that is where
the margin numbers come in.
A small company that isn't public that only has its small amount of owners to please, can take lower margins and turn out a product. But most of those people do it for the love of game. And you get a higher quality product in alot of cases.
Ever notice that most of the D20 companies products get higher reviews than those of WOTC. It is a different of Focus.
haze brothers is a public company with WOTC as a division. Haze brothers has to meet the expectations of its owners (every one that owns stock in the company and attempt return a profit. Or cause the loss of value in that company as the owners leave)
What is worse is that it is ran on a 3 month cycle. which means that a certain number of sales are expected to maintain a certain amount of growth of the company to keep a growing value for the investers in the company.
Now take that into account and the Beanies make a bit more sense. although it does make a statement against publically owned companies.
The public doesn't care about the company or its products in most cases. ownly that it has a return on investment.
Worked at 4 private companies that went public and saw the degadation of the product to accomedate ROI to many times.
el
CRG
First Post
I think the actual resolution and summary was described a few pages back...
Fact - Various products are not as profitable as the Haze-Bros want
Fact - The Toast-Boys are looking for ways to make some of their products more profitable or at least meet the targets of sales, etc. on the metrics that the Haze-Bros require
Fact - If things go as they presently do, many of these products will miss those targets
Fact - If that occurs products such as those may not be produced by the Toast-boys anymore
Assumption - If correlation is drawn between this and the post by Mr Dancey about the Toast-boys producing a few core rulebooks and then licensing out all future development is used as a base, one could see a point in time where the Rum production becomes like the DragonPants or RaisinLoaf production. This means one or two base books coproduced by the Toast boys with another company and then that other company producing future material under license.
Conclusion - The market from the Toast-boys will become crunch heavy.
*** not necessarily a bad thing
Conclusion - The third-party companies will produce the fluff and crunch (as well as just plain fluff) baked goods under license at a lower profit margin and thus still be able to function.
*** not necessarily a bad thing
Conclusion - To do this, elves will start migrating from the Toast-boys to other bakeries.
*** not necessarily a bad thing
Conclusion - This doesn't mean the end of the Rums, but it may mean a drastically smaller focus for the Rums and maybe even a transition time period where new material is virutually non-existent for the Rums.
*** not necessarily bad things but could hurt the Rums a bit
Conclusion - With the Toast-Boys producing mostly crunch and yet holding supreme license over the Donut Cores (with the noted exception of the OGL/D20 capabilities) it puts production of Donut Cores in the hands of a group which becomes increasingly dis-interested in the fluff.
*** at some point people may wonder what value the Toast-Boys continue to provide - if a new movie / setting is produced and they want to license a game, who will win that business?
Fact - Various products are not as profitable as the Haze-Bros want
Fact - The Toast-Boys are looking for ways to make some of their products more profitable or at least meet the targets of sales, etc. on the metrics that the Haze-Bros require
Fact - If things go as they presently do, many of these products will miss those targets
Fact - If that occurs products such as those may not be produced by the Toast-boys anymore
Assumption - If correlation is drawn between this and the post by Mr Dancey about the Toast-boys producing a few core rulebooks and then licensing out all future development is used as a base, one could see a point in time where the Rum production becomes like the DragonPants or RaisinLoaf production. This means one or two base books coproduced by the Toast boys with another company and then that other company producing future material under license.
Conclusion - The market from the Toast-boys will become crunch heavy.
*** not necessarily a bad thing
Conclusion - The third-party companies will produce the fluff and crunch (as well as just plain fluff) baked goods under license at a lower profit margin and thus still be able to function.
*** not necessarily a bad thing
Conclusion - To do this, elves will start migrating from the Toast-boys to other bakeries.
*** not necessarily a bad thing
Conclusion - This doesn't mean the end of the Rums, but it may mean a drastically smaller focus for the Rums and maybe even a transition time period where new material is virutually non-existent for the Rums.
*** not necessarily bad things but could hurt the Rums a bit
Conclusion - With the Toast-Boys producing mostly crunch and yet holding supreme license over the Donut Cores (with the noted exception of the OGL/D20 capabilities) it puts production of Donut Cores in the hands of a group which becomes increasingly dis-interested in the fluff.
*** at some point people may wonder what value the Toast-Boys continue to provide - if a new movie / setting is produced and they want to license a game, who will win that business?
Psion
Adventurer
Orcus said:That is the beauty of d20, to some extent. I am the elf and the bean counter. If I want to make a Judges Guild Wilderlands Boxed Set with all 18 maps in it that will definately barely break even (If I'm lucky) I have the authority to do it!
Marketing and product management by coolness... the beauty of d20.
Personally, if I want the non-crunchy stuff, I'll buy a FR novel. The problem I have with most, if not all, campaign settings is that using them is like playing someone else's campaign and when they put the crunchy stuff in with the fluff, you have to buy the stuff you're not interested in and will never use to get the stuff you might want and might use.
To SKR and AV
Sean and Anthony:
I appreciate both sides of your argument. This is where I stand.
1) I didn't by Lords of Darkness because I thought it was just a book on NPC's and such. I also don't have a current campaign that I'm running in the Forgotten Realms, and in my mind it was a DM book. In the event that I run a Forgottem Realms campaign again, I will probably buy it. Basically, the marketing (perhaps title?) of the book was misleading. If it has spells and PrC's and such and I had known this, I probably would have bought it already. I often buy my books in my mind before they are on the shelves, that way I don't read the back cover, or preview the content before purchase.
2) The d20 Liscense/OGL/OGC/SRD or whatever you wanna call it was marketing genius. You probably have sold more core rule books because of this. That being said, don't you think this is exactly why your Donut Cores have sold better than your Forgotten Rum? For every OTHER setting out there that requires your Donut Core books, you probably will lose a Forgotten Rum sale. I know that I only have a limited amount of money to spend on roleplaying material. If I find one or two other settings that catch my fancy, AND I'm running a game or playing a game in that setting, I will probably buy those books instead of the FR books I don't need at the moment. Most gamers I know have limited budgets as well.
3) Sean, I understand your frustration and irritation on this matter, but it is hardly professional to express your vitriol in such a public manner. Unfortunately the nature of our country, capitalism, and big business, means that the artist WILL suffer some. That being said, when I have run FR campaigns in the past, I have really LOVED the creamy stuff and bought most, if not all of it. You would probably be fairly impressed at my collection of FR stuff from the original AD&D and 2nd Edition.
4) Anthony, I understand the business aspect of this. But... a bean counter has GOT to know that campaign specific stuff is going to suffer because of the d20 liscense deal while the core stuff is going to profit off of it. It is NOT fair to FR developers and fans alike to hold both to the same standard. The margin, perhaps, needs to be lowered a bit for FR stuff, because you KNOW it won't sell as well, BECAUSE you've created a dynamic that WILL sell core stuff better. The OGL was pure marketing genius in my mind. Assuming that people will buy FR because of name recognition (FR or WotC) and that you can hold FR to the same standard you hold DC is a delusion at best. I personally, probably won't buy too many more FR books because I don't run in FR AND it seems to simply be a rehash of all the old stuff. How many copies of Waterdeep or the Dalelands or Cormyr do I really need? I have the old FR# and FRE# series from the original AD&D and I bought many of the 2nd edition versions of the same thing and I bought the remake they did in the 90's. So in some cases, I own 3 or 4 copies of revised material for the Dalelands and Cormyr. Will I buy a 3E FRCS version of the Dalelands just to get some Dalelands specific spells and PrC's? Hell no! FR has pretty much exhausted any uniqueness it can present except to just convert all the stuff I already have to 3E, which isn't too difficult for me to do on my own. That being said, Silver Marches and the Spider Queen books are good ideas because they do detail new stories and new developments in areas that have drastically changed. The vision of Alustriel has advanced in Silver Marches.
Well that's my 2 cents.
Andy Christian
Sean and Anthony:
I appreciate both sides of your argument. This is where I stand.
1) I didn't by Lords of Darkness because I thought it was just a book on NPC's and such. I also don't have a current campaign that I'm running in the Forgotten Realms, and in my mind it was a DM book. In the event that I run a Forgottem Realms campaign again, I will probably buy it. Basically, the marketing (perhaps title?) of the book was misleading. If it has spells and PrC's and such and I had known this, I probably would have bought it already. I often buy my books in my mind before they are on the shelves, that way I don't read the back cover, or preview the content before purchase.
2) The d20 Liscense/OGL/OGC/SRD or whatever you wanna call it was marketing genius. You probably have sold more core rule books because of this. That being said, don't you think this is exactly why your Donut Cores have sold better than your Forgotten Rum? For every OTHER setting out there that requires your Donut Core books, you probably will lose a Forgotten Rum sale. I know that I only have a limited amount of money to spend on roleplaying material. If I find one or two other settings that catch my fancy, AND I'm running a game or playing a game in that setting, I will probably buy those books instead of the FR books I don't need at the moment. Most gamers I know have limited budgets as well.
3) Sean, I understand your frustration and irritation on this matter, but it is hardly professional to express your vitriol in such a public manner. Unfortunately the nature of our country, capitalism, and big business, means that the artist WILL suffer some. That being said, when I have run FR campaigns in the past, I have really LOVED the creamy stuff and bought most, if not all of it. You would probably be fairly impressed at my collection of FR stuff from the original AD&D and 2nd Edition.
4) Anthony, I understand the business aspect of this. But... a bean counter has GOT to know that campaign specific stuff is going to suffer because of the d20 liscense deal while the core stuff is going to profit off of it. It is NOT fair to FR developers and fans alike to hold both to the same standard. The margin, perhaps, needs to be lowered a bit for FR stuff, because you KNOW it won't sell as well, BECAUSE you've created a dynamic that WILL sell core stuff better. The OGL was pure marketing genius in my mind. Assuming that people will buy FR because of name recognition (FR or WotC) and that you can hold FR to the same standard you hold DC is a delusion at best. I personally, probably won't buy too many more FR books because I don't run in FR AND it seems to simply be a rehash of all the old stuff. How many copies of Waterdeep or the Dalelands or Cormyr do I really need? I have the old FR# and FRE# series from the original AD&D and I bought many of the 2nd edition versions of the same thing and I bought the remake they did in the 90's. So in some cases, I own 3 or 4 copies of revised material for the Dalelands and Cormyr. Will I buy a 3E FRCS version of the Dalelands just to get some Dalelands specific spells and PrC's? Hell no! FR has pretty much exhausted any uniqueness it can present except to just convert all the stuff I already have to 3E, which isn't too difficult for me to do on my own. That being said, Silver Marches and the Spider Queen books are good ideas because they do detail new stories and new developments in areas that have drastically changed. The vision of Alustriel has advanced in Silver Marches.
Well that's my 2 cents.
Andy Christian
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