I think TSR was right to publish so much material

[Greg K]

I mentioned in a earlier post regarding book market and returned books sa factor. I found the following on the TSR Inc. Wiki regarding Random House returning unsold novels.

" These and other factors, such as a disastrous year for its fiction lines in 1996 (over one million copies of tie-in books for various game lines were returned to TSR that year), led to TSR ending accumulating over $30 miillion in debt by 1996, and having to endure multiple rounds of layoffs.[10]"

Edit: and the following on the Lorraine Williams Wiki in the fall of TSR section.

" Despite total sales of $40 million, TSR ended 1996 with few cash reserves. When Random House returned an unexpectedly high percentage the year's inventory of unsold novels and Dragon Dice for a fee of several million dollars, TSR found itself in a cash crunch."

I still wish I could find the orignal source regarding the above.

 

[Alzrius]

To my understanding, the Complete Book of Elves is the only RPG book where the author apologized for it.

Citation please.

The author is Colin McComb, and in the forward of an interview with him, Monte Cook calls the book notable (in a good sense), and Colin himself expresses no particular regret in talking about it, that I can see.

 

[Dausuul]

Okay, can someone provide examples of what they consider "drek" from 2E?

Note: Every sentence in the following paragraphs should be assumed to have "In My Opinion" appended to it in giant flashing neon letters.

There were the books about running campaigns in real-world settings like Rome and Viking-era Scandinavia, which tried to be GURPS sourcebooks and succeeded not at all. There were Dragon Dice and Spellfire, both colossal flops. There was the Complete Book of Priests, for those who wanted to play totally ineffectual characters.

There was the entire Dark Sun line after the original boxed set. The original set was the shining jewel of 2E, everything that followed it was utter garbage. There was Spelljammer--I mean, the giant space hamsters and hippo-people were certainly good for a laugh, but to run a campaign there? Not bloody likely. There was Council of Wyrms. I never picked up Maztica, but I've heard bad things.

That's what comes to mind offhand. I'm sure other people can contribute more.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Citation please.

The author is Colin McComb, and in the forward of an interview with him, Monte Cook calls the book notable (in a good sense), and Colin himself expresses no particular regret in talking about it, that I can see.

I would expect he may have come close to apologizing for the Bladesinger. The closest I have seen was when he popped up over on The Piazza, and in a Q&A thread devoted to him and his work, he explicitly told people to be avoid using the Bladesinger kit.

 

[BigWeather]

I've been playing D&D in some form since almost the beginning (late '70s) and while the golden age is almost undeniably in the early '80s (and yes, I was 12 then, but it really was the golden age) the '90s are a mixed bag in my book. I appreciated them branching out. For every bad there was a good to offset it, whether it was Al-Qadim, Birthright, or any number of interesting lines. It also coincided with my college and early professional years when I actually got real money to spend on things. And, yeah, I have a complete set of the historical green books... I like 'em, though you are right that any GURPS book is better.

 

[Alzrius]

I would expect he may have come close to apologizing for the Bladesinger. The closest I have seen was when he popped up over on The Piazza, and in a Q&A thread devoted to him and his work, he explicitly told people to be avoid using the Bladesinger kit.

Okay, thanks for the information there. I did some Googling and I think I found what you're talking about over on this thread. He's asked a question about adapting TSR books he worked on so as to be set in Mystara's Thunder Rift. Part of his answer is:

Complete Book of Elves could be a valuable resource for the elves of the Rift, but I would caution against relying on it too heavily. I've said it in other places, but I'll do it here, too: Do not use the bladesinger. A role-playing detriment does not balance out a mechanical advantage. Take what you like from the book and ignore the rest.

His stance of a role-playing detriment not balancing out a mechanical disadvantage is something I've heard often before, and while I agree with it in general, I think that if it's handled by a mature player and DM - that is, they're operating on the explicit understanding that the DM will be using the role-playing disadvantage against the PC on a semi-regular basis - it can be made to work.

But yeah, if he's saying not to use the kit, then it's clear he doesn't think too highly of it. The rest of the book doesn't seem to draw any particular condemnation from him, though.

 

[Erik Mona]

I thought the "joke" Castle Greyhawk was a high-water mark!

--Erik

 

[Erik Mona]

Ooh, ooh!

Also Puppets, Childsplay, and Gargoyles. I heard they were updating all three of those to 4th edition, so the proof is in the pudding. Classics to endure the ages!

--Erik

 

[Greg K]

It's notable that there is almost nothing that is 'classic' from that era.

but 2e's biggest problem was that it was a relative wasteland of terrible products.

They drove people from their product. They weren't addressing the customers actual wants and desires. They weren't addressing the customers actual complaints with the system or the products. They had their own agenda, and to a certain extent I'm not sure they were communicating even within the company. They were completely out of touch and they were arrogant and dismissive of criticism or complaints beginning with the 2e release, which just wrong footed practically every long time player I knew and often for reasons which were completely avoidable.

Different experiences. Everyone I knew at school and back home liked 2e when it was released and felt it was bettter than prior editions. We all started with AD&D1e, Holmes or B/X. However, after a couple of years, we decided the changes had not gone far enough and left. (note: edited because I had said we went back to to prior editions, but meant started with)

However, we felt that there were many great products and that these products surpassed anything before them:

Al Qadim/Arabian Adventures
Dark Sun and many supplements (1991+)
Ravenloft and many supplements (1990+)
Complete Thief's Handbook
Other Complete Handbooks (many kits and Complete Humanoids not withstanding)
The green historical books
Faiths and Avatars
Monstrous Compendium
withstanding)
PO: Combat and Tactics
PO: Spells and Magic
T1-T4
many of the FR supplements

Some of my friends would add Planescape and Spelljammer

Hell, the campaign setting stuff we continued to use with other systems. And, I still use PO: Combat and Tactics, PO: Spells and Magic, and the Handbooks to steal as or inspire house rules for my 3e campaign.

It wasn't merely that they were releasing source books for playing D&D in Ancient Rome which practically no one had a need for (and those that did, probably knew Ancient Rome in more detail than the sourcebook covered).

As mentioned above, I and several of the people I know loved the historical books. We thought they were some of the best stuff produced and we integrated them into our campaigns

It wasn't the breadth of material that killed TSR alone. It's that so much of the material was just bad. Take 'Haunted Halls of Evenstar' and 'Terrible Terrible Trouble at Tragidore'. Please. I mean seriously, you can't expect to sell material to DMs when the quality of the material and imagination involved is lower than what they are on average producing themselves.

I and the people I knew never bought modules (outside of the collected/expanded classic modules) so I can't comment. However, Spellfire and Dragon Dice flopped.

 

[Lanefan]

Okay, can someone provide examples of what they consider "drek" from 2E? I'm honestly curious, as a lot of people bandy it about as the prime problem with TSR, but I never see examples, or I actually liked what they hated.

Some things I was decidedly less than impressed with, after having bought them:

- most of the "Complete Book of [whatever]" series
- The Seven Sisters (large blocks of this are verbatim reprints of other products)
- the core books, once their bindings gave out under very little use a few years after purchase
- the Forgotten Realms boxed set. I had the 1e version, I got the 2e version hoping for better maps but to my taste they filled in too many gaps (the 3e hardcover version was even worse).

There was loads of other stuff I didn't buy and have since mercifully forgotten.

Lan-"Birthright, however, was years ahead of its time"-efan