D&D 5E (2014) How I think HoTDQ should of been handled.

[aramis erak]

One point, and I mean this with all sincerity. "Cheapening the Realms?!?!?" Seriously? Cheapening the freakin' Realms? At what point can currency have a negative value?

The "history" of the Realms reads like a 13 year-old's fanfic translated by a marketing firm. I mean, every author of middling talent was allowed to stretch the setting in order to monetize it as much as possible (I mean, didn't the Forgotten Realms novels bankrupt TSR?).

Real world currency having negative value - well, in 1925, having Tsar's Rubles could get you killed, and couldn't buy you bread or beer...

as for the novels, no, they didn't bankrupt TSR. They're part of what kept TSR from going totally under. The internal issues with the Blumes and later the Lorraine Williams & Dille Family Trust issues {including bad capital extractions (like Lorraine ordering TSR to take a disadvantageous license for Buck Rogers, produce a game, and basically sell it at a net loss...), and requiring the game be based upon the comic rather than upon the more recent TV show...}.

Ryan Dancey tells it better than I can: http://insaneangel.com/insaneangel/RPG/Dancey.html
A brief quote or two, however, from that page:

"And I read the details of the Random House distribution agreement; an agreement that TSR had used to support a failing business and hide the fact that TSR was rotten at the core."

and

"I know now what killed TSR. It wasn't trading card games. It wasn't Dragon Dice. It wasn't the success of other companies. It was a near total inability to listen to its customers, hear what they were saying, and make changes to make those customers happy. TSR died because it was deaf."

Note that Dancey was WotC's "fixit now!" guy for TSR in the acquisition.

Even under HasBro, WotC still is listening. They're doing what Pre-WotC TSR never did - actually listening to the data.

 

[Staffan]

As I understand it, the Random House distribution deal was what dealt the killing blow to TSR - though perhaps it would be better seen as the (3e-style) artificial Con bonus that allowed them to go on longer, and then expired and pushed them right past the "dying" zone to "dead." Here's what happened, as it was explained to me at the time: As TSR spiraled into insolvency, one of the things that kept them afloat was the book distribution deal with Random House. Since RH does mass market distribution, they get to return books - or worse, they get to destroy unsold books (or have bookstores destroy them) and have the publisher pay them for them. When TSR couldn't pay RH back, they accepted more books instead of actual money - but that just lead to a death spiral, and eventually RH said "Sorry, your books aren't selling much anymore, we want cash instead." That was cash TSR didn't have, which lead to insolvency and game books/magazines being held up by a "problem at the printer" (the problem being that the printer wanted to actually get paid).

So in one sense, Random House killed TSR, but it's likely that TSR would have fallen long before that had the RH deal not been in place.

 

[Hussar]

If i'm understanding this right, the PC's in the module only fight Tiamat at the very end of the module, but, rather, throughout the series fight her mortal servants on Faerun, how is this not precisely what SailorMoon claims he wants for FR?

IOW, what exactly is the problem?

 

[Eirikrautha]

Real world currency having negative value - well, in 1925, having Tsar's Rubles could get you killed, and couldn't buy you bread or beer...

as for the novels, no, they didn't bankrupt TSR. They're part of what kept TSR from going totally under. The internal issues with the Blumes and later the Lorraine Williams & Dille Family Trust issues {including bad capital extractions (like Lorraine ordering TSR to take a disadvantageous license for Buck Rogers, produce a game, and basically sell it at a net loss...), and requiring the game be based upon the comic rather than upon the more recent TV show...}.

Ryan Dancey tells it better than I can: http://insaneangel.com/insaneangel/RPG/Dancey.html
A brief quote or two, however, from that page:

"And I read the details of the Random House distribution agreement; an agreement that TSR had used to support a failing business and hide the fact that TSR was rotten at the core."

and

"I know now what killed TSR. It wasn't trading card games. It wasn't Dragon Dice. It wasn't the success of other companies. It was a near total inability to listen to its customers, hear what they were saying, and make changes to make those customers happy. TSR died because it was deaf."

Note that Dancey was WotC's "fixit now!" guy for TSR in the acquisition.

Even under HasBro, WotC still is listening. They're doing what Pre-WotC TSR never did - actually listening to the data.

Well, I don't exactly consider the open letter by the new owner desperate to retain the fans of the old owner as an unbiased source. Especially the favor-currying at the end. I think it's pretty well established that TSR tried a Hail Mary with its books:

"TSR also decided to publish twelve hardcover novels in 1996, despite a previous history of publishing only one or two hardcover novels each year."

The remaindered books finally killed them:

"When Random House returned an unexpectedly high percentage of unsold stock, the year's inventory of unsold novels and sets of Dragon Dice and charged a fee of several million dollars, TSR found itself in a cash crunch."

So I don't think it's unfair to attribute the death partially to the unsold novels (which included FR novels). Besides, as I pointed out in the original post, I was being humorous in tone. My point still stands... The Forgotten Realms is hardly a tolkienesque pristine work of literary principle. It's been compromised more than MI6 in the Bond films...

 

[MonsterEnvy]

If i'm understanding this right, the PC's in the module only fight Tiamat at the very end of the module, but, rather, throughout the series fight her mortal servants on Faerun, how is this not precisely what SailorMoon claims he wants for FR?

IOW, what exactly is the problem?

A fight with Tiamat is unlikely. If the Pc's stop her from being summoned they win. If she is summoned then they are likely screwed.

 

[Hussar]

A fight with Tiamat is unlikely. If the Pc's stop her from being summoned they win. If she is summoned then they are likely screwed.

Yes, well, that's my point. The OP is complaining about the game being all about a god and not the followers. You have to go all the way through several adventures, and what about 20 levels of development before you might fight a god. Instead you are fighting the god's mortal agents all the way along.

What's the beef here?

 

[DongMaster]

What's the beef here?

Internet access...?

 

[delericho]

As I understand it, the Random House distribution deal was what dealt the killing blow to TSR - though perhaps it would be better seen as the (3e-style) artificial Con bonus that allowed them to go on longer, and then expired and pushed them right past the "dying" zone to "dead."

That tallies with what I've read on the subject as well. And that's a good analogy, too - the deal kept them going right up to the point when it stopped doing so, at which point it was the death blow.

Well, I don't exactly consider the open letter by the new owner desperate to retain the fans of the old owner as an unbiased source.

There are no unbiased sources. But Ryan Dancey and others have been extremely candid about what happened with TSR in several places (including the 25th Anniversary boxed set) and gone into a lot of detail. It's not just that open letter, and much of it comes from after RD (and others) left WotC and so were no longer "desperate to retain the fans".

 

[Laeknir]

Hold on now- you made the claim that you "know for a fact" how he feels. It's not on anyone but you to back that up; the burden of proof is thoroughly on your shoulders.

Surely you can link a post he made expressing this point of view, for those who doubt you?

EDIT: "I know for a fact how Ed Greenwood feels" about something is an extraordinary claim; it requires extraordinary evidence to back it up, like him actually saying that.

Actually, I've heard about this "moving away from god-centric stories, back to local, mortal stories" thing. It was in one of the Wotc Forgotten Realms panels at Gencon, back when they were talking about diminishing most of the 4E Realms changes or at least minimizing them. It was a promise more by the people in charge at WotC than Greenwood, but both Salvatore and Greenwood were firmly behind the idea.

But hey, promises about the Realms have worn very thin. Everything Realmsy in the past few years (e.g., the Sundering novels, Murder in BG, this adventure) have ALL focused on deity-centric motivations pretty heavily. So, you know, those promises.

Truly though, what can we actually expect from a setting that has been nuked over not just once but twice? It's pretty amusing that a mismatched patchwork everything-in-the-kitchen-sink setting is still trying to promise things to its former fans, and people are still buying it.

I just wish WotC would show a tad more creativity than dusting off yet another old thing from the old days, putting a few new bows and bells on it, and selling something repackaged.

 

[Hussar]

Both HotDQ and the Sundering were new ideas.