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Message: <blockquote data-quote="teitan" data-source="post: 8701198" data-attributes="member: 3457">People keep comparing Dark Sun sales and Planescape or Spelljammer and Planescape. So something to consider here. When Spelljammer was release it was early in 2e so when the new edition was still “hot” and it still failed within 15 months. It’s lifetime sold better than Planescape very true. The core boxed set. Dark Sun was also somewhat early and was designed to help sell copies of the new Psionics Handbook. Still a “hot product” with a new edition, not quite brick walling yet. When Dark Sun came out Spelljammer and Dragonlance were in the case of SJ, dead, and in the case of DL, in a long twilight. That’s to give perspective. By the time Planescape came out though 2e had hit the brick wall and I don’t know if anyone remembers how the advertising campaign for Planescape was tied to the BoA but the two coincided with each other and the Manual of the Planes in the BoA as the common reference point. The sales in 94-95 though are in a rapidly changed AD&D2e market and not long before the bankruptcy which was preambled with a long period of drought in product availability as TSR got hit with a bill for returned novels, misfires in other game lines like the dice game, Spellfire, and really insane business decisions. Planescape was one of those settings though where when you were done reading it you were like this is sooooo cool,  now what do I do with it? I don’t think we ever really got a good answer until March of the Modrons and Dead Gods. The planes were thought of as high level adventure locations, not easily accessible and by then TSR products had become incestuous in nature, referring to each other this rendering them difficult to use unless you had a large library. By the time Planescape was released, for example, it made unnecessary references to Legends & Lore, but it was no longer commonly available and TSR didn’t have the resources available for a reprint. They would be common in the products early lifetime cycle and throughout products developed in the preWOTC but out such as when they released the new GH setting in 1998 that referred readers to From the Ashes for some material rather than including it in those books (why not just reprint From the Ashes then or at least reprint the material from FtA in the books?). Planescape was a setting that developed its reputation and status as a result of time, it’s lore and word of mouth. Especially the late life cycle when Cook and Baur worked on it going into 3e development and the consolidation of 2e settings under the AD&D. The 3e developers were strongly influenced by their own work in crafting 3e by nature and so Planescape was a massive influence on subsequent settings.So I don’t think with Planescape it’s so much that sales were so gonzo amazing. It came out at the beginning of a bad time and the DS revised box was a poor seller as well, SJ was canned pretty quickly early in the edition. I think it was shorted sales for sure due to the mid edition financial shortfalls for TSR going into the bankruptcy but Planescape was a bridge between pre3e into 3e lore. Planescape was developed by Zeb Cook and then a lot of the best elements later developed by Monte Cook and Skip Williams. Developers on 3e with Jonathan Tweet from WOTC. Their work on monsters and lore in Planescape would be a huge influence on 3e without directly referencing PS itself. The video game itself in 1999, right before they launched 3e, also helped to build the brand for Planescape. It was a different video game and concept and expressed the ideas of Planescape very well. So the low sales on Planescape do not surprise me because 1: it wasn’t clear what to DO with it and 2: TSR and their financial issues making even the key D&D products unavailable for a long stretch of time such that what was on the shelf was what you could get so good luck and 3: it was definitely a niche setting.</blockquote>

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