Forgotten Rums....? Evil Overlords...?

[The Grumpy Celt]

My underwear is evil.

Point 1.
This was from an earlier post but it was not a rhetorical question. How far can the game mechanic – the “crunchy” – be drawn out before it gets stretched thin and becomes redundant and starts to belabor the point.

Technically speaking, only the “Players Guide,” the “Dungeon Masters Guide” and the “Monster Manual” are necessary. Books like “Tome and Blood” and all the class builder books do help but are strictly optional. As such they are a kind of “crunch light” game mechanic. The same is true for the “Psionics Handbook,” “Deities and Demigods,” “Manual of the Planes” and the “Epic Level Handbook.” They all help the game, they are more game mechanics – i.e. “crunch” – than they are superfluous story – i.e. “cream” – but at the end of the day they are all still optional game mechanics – “crunch light” to coin a term.

The same will be true for the forthcoming “Monster Manual II,” the “Book of Vile Darkness” and “Savage Species.” They will help the game, they will be more game mechanics – “crunch” – than superfluous story – “cream” – but at the end of the day they will still be optional game mechanics – “crunch light.”

After the “Players Guide,” the “Dungeon Masters Guide,” the “Monster Manual,” the “Psionics Handbook,” “Deities and Demigods,” the “Manual of the Planes,” the “Epic Level Handbook,” the “Monster Manual II,” the “Book of Vile Darkness” and “Savage Species,” what other books – even optional game mechanics/“crunch light” books – can be done? (This does not include pre-prepared and pre-canned adventures modules.)

After these ten book are published, there will be dozens of playable races, dozens of playable classes and prestige classes, hundreds of spell, hundreds of feats and probably thousands of magical items ranging from the great to the small. Everything from good to evil to arcane magic to divine magic to psioncis to fist fighting to castle building and beyond will have been covered.

What else can be made - even optional game mechanics/“crunch light” books – before it begins to become redundant? This is not a rhetorical question.

What else can be made - even optional game mechanics/“crunch light” books – that will not start to belabor the point? This is not a rhetorical question.

What else can be made - even optional game mechanics/“crunch light” books – that will not stretch thin the game mechanic, customer plausibility and the market? This is not a rhetorical question.

Point 2.
To reiterate, to Wall Street a 4% profit is an inexcusable failure because the “board of directors” had been counting on a 5% margin so much so that they went ahead and spent the 1% they did not (and would) not have. And if you want to refute this and to deny that it happens, then how can one explain WorldCom, Xerox, and Enron?

So, if the DMG and the PG and the MM made – hypothetically speaking – a 5% profit. However, the FRCS only made a 4% profit. By the standards of Wall Street, FRCS then is a failure. If further Realms books only make 2.5% profit or 2% profit then that is even worse. If Magic the Gathering and Pokiemon and the Harry Potter trading card game made a 10% profit, then the failure of the Forgotten Realms books becomes past being inexcusable and its time to schedule a trip to the slaughterhouse.

There will never be a way to make FRCS – or any setting for that matter – "profitable" in a way that makes the board of directors happy. Because no setting can possibly live up to the sales standards set by the PG, the DMG and the MM – and that is so say nothing of the sales standards set by Magic the Gathering and Pokiemon and the Harry Potter trading card game.

Because that is the way the world works.

 

[TiQuinn]

I am trying to think of a logical rules book left to be put out. I can think of minor books that would be best left to d20 (mass combat, equipment manuals) publishers. But I cannot think of a good solid need that 3E has left to print.

I agree. I think the issue is one of balance. Crunchy bits are born from the fluff, not the other way around.

My ideal product:

An adventure module for 4 to 6 characters of levels 6 to 10 that includes a good dose of fluffy material along with the crunchy bits (PrCs, new monsters, new spells, new items, a new feat or skill here or there) that supports the adventure and the material.

The material is detailed yet not restrictive...it does not have world-changing events that are bound to disrupt a campaign....it assumes that once everything is said and done, the PCs are going to be primary movers and shakers in the adventure....it has plenty of plot hooks that can move players into conflict with other NPCs or organizations, or not.

But then again, adventure modules don't sell so I'm way off base here.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

I don't know if you had a chance to read Green Knight's post on page six before it was edited by Morrus but it is what prompted me to post. Not it's content but it's tone.

No, but I gather it was nasty.

 

[Sinistar]

Imnop, ignore the celt. He is grumpy after all...

I thought it was a great quote. Boo was the best part of that game!

 

[Nathanael]

Once again, it's not about how crunchy or fluffy a book needs to be to sell well. The books sell and make a profit, that is not the problem. The Problem is how much profit is enough profit,

The reason increasing profit needs to be made, as is evidenced by recent events, is not for the growth of the company, or even the stock held by the public. It is for the largess of the CEO and other company execs.

Seriously, you need to make serious cash to pay for executive compensation packages, defecit spending, lawyers to save their butts from Sexual Harassment/Equal Opportunity/Fair Trading violations and loans granted by one executive in the company to another so he can by a new 100 foot yacht, which he may or may not pay back.

This isn't about making a profit. The point is about the current business model needing to support the not so new corporate culture that consists of parasites that cannot be fired without sending the company into trouble. Read the latest issue of Forbes. The article on 'Bad Boys' will be enlightening, and also frightening, because you will get a glimpse of the real reason enough profit is never enough.

 

[Coreyartus]

I've spent the last hour and a half reading this thread, and my emotions have ping-ponged back and forth from anger to frustration to elation to disgust to retrospection to deliberation... and I've finally drawn some conclusions.

Ultimately, the debate over the degree of crunchiness and fluffiness is a symptom of several larger concerns: what is considered a quality product (content), who determines that definition (designer, executive, or consumer), and the impact of that definition (profit margin). I think it's difficult to debate one topic without considering the others.

It seems many of the issues that have been discussed concerning WotC/Hasbro have been re-hashed over and over again for several years now, with no resolution in sight. Most say it's the maga-lithic company's fault for not knowing about the industry and it's players, and some say it's the Open-Gaming License and it's continuing ripples of impact on the gaming industry... Some could even say it's the blinded fan-consumer-designers that have lost all business sense in their zeal to create! I think perhaps it's a combination of all of these factors to some degree or another.

In the end, though, the game we all love will survive. The mega-lythic corporation will sell it in the end because they are blinded by their inability to see anything beyond their business concepts of profit and loss. (We've had our WotC feast, now expect famine for a while. Hasbro is just too big to know how to handle a niche industry like RPGs, and their hired guns are just that: hired to emulate their kind of thinking.) The game system will survive because the OGL has ensured we will continue to have supplements of some nature ad infinitum, crunchy and fluffy both. And there will always be those who have the zeal and drive to share their creations with others who also have their same interests, whether their motive is profit or simply proliferation.

The real question is whether we are patient and wise enough to withstand the trials and tribulations that these inevitable fluctuations in our hobby/industry will have. Product lines will come and go, sometimes returning and sometimes not. As long as the industry operates under a business ethic, it will always be so. Money and increasing profit margin are what drive the people in charge of the larger RPG companies right now, and until those unsavory elements burn themselves out and lose interest, we are at the mercy of their irrational judgments. Some good things have come from those companies, but like all large corporations that merely market commodities regardless of what they are and ignore the essence of why they produce the product in the first place, they are now strangling themselves to stay on top.

It is up to us as consumers and designers to keep the torch alive, to continue to support the hobby we all so very very evidently love. Ultimately, our efforts in buying (and publishing) what we feel in our hearts is quality--that's what will ensure that products that are all degrees of crunchy/fluffy will continue to be seen on shelves.

Unfortunately, for a while, those items that will never see the light of day from the large profit-driven coporations will be sacrificed. I, personally, would rather have those special supplements produced by people who care, with the profit going to people who encourage quality in RPGs. It scares me to have my hobby in the hands of people who base all their decisions on profitability. But, perhaps in a new incarnation, when there are new or different executives, we will be able to enjoy the best of both worlds. But are we patient enough to wait? TSR, WotC... perhaps the third time's the charm?

 

[Darraketh]

I like many here lost touch with the game during the 2e days. So I missed "The Savage Frontier." Someone in this tread mentioned that this was a book done right. So I downloaded it from the WOTC site. What I found most interesting was this quote, under the title "Using This Book"

"This book is intended to be read by Dungeon Masters only. Much of the information contained within would not be known to players and their characters under any circumstances."

Putting a directive like that in a product is sure to increase the enjoyment of a game, using the material, for the players while limiting sales of the product.

 

[Wicht]

I disagree with you in part Wicht. But not entirely. I think that the rules system runs its course far before the setting material does. 2e was dead as a game to put out new rules for long before they stopped printing FR material.

I am trying to think of a logical rules book left to be put out. I can think of minor books that would be best left to d20 (mass combat, equipment manuals) publishers. But I cannot think of a good solid need that 3E has left to print.

I think what I was trying to say was that the marketing of any particular book or product does not ensure the life of the game. If they stopped making monopoly games, noone would say the game was dead. I personally have five monopoly games at least on my game shelf and will play it regardless of whether the company produces it or not. Same with 3e. Even if WotC went belly up, as long as there is a steady fan base playing the game it would be hard to pronounce the game dead. While we may not need new rule books that does not mean that we cannot continue to play on our own. The game has hardly run its course in my circle.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Kaptain Kantrip and I agree here (*gasp*).

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'll get you and your little dog, too!

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Eric, my response on the Silver Marches is sort of mixed.

This is my response as well. There are aspects I like and aspects I dislike and aspects about which I am ambivalent. I hope to post a review soon.

The model seems to be going to the Magic:the Gathering model that I really loathe. "Hmm, expansion has stopped selling. Ok pump out the new expansion with the same material just re-arranged. Oh and throw a different artist at it."

I worry about this too. About existing setting being dropped in favor of the company doing their “one or two books” setting – Like Coc and WoT - each year. It could even become rather crass is Hasbro forced WotC to start doing only movie-tie-ins.