I think TSR was right to publish so much material

[Keefe the Thief]

My "favourite" bad things from TSR from the early 90s:

- Amazing engine [amazing stuff not included].
- Buck Rogers RPG [it´s pulp! No, it´s realistic - let´s include serious stuff! Holzerhein is a GOOD name for a bad guy! Puppies!]
- Dragonlance SAGA [splendid idea, idiotic backstory ("we need BIGGER dragons!!!1!"), innovative but broken system].

Also, far too many adventures that bordered on shovelware.

And don´t let me start on the FR supplements of that time. Many were cool, had high production values - and spells that could break anything. No really. Read the Harpers book. Wizards & Clerics were SHOWERED with broken stuff. And i was a wizard player, mind you. I should have liked it. But it was just embarrasing.

 

[Hussar]

I think the thing that people kinda block out is the MASSIVE VOLUME that 2e TSR was producing. It's kinda hard to imagine it now, but, TSR was publishing numbers of books and products that look a lot like the 3e publishing bubble for almost ten years.

I recall something like 70 plus BOXED sets, although I might be misremembering and my google-fu is not up to the task. But, think about that a second. That's something like a boxed set every other month for ten years. Never mind the staggering number of rule books and other crap as well.

There's a bloody MOUNTAIN of stuff out there for 2e.

There's no way that can be good for the hobby. How could a hobby store possibly stock it?

 

[Dice4Hire]

There's a bloody MOUNTAIN of stuff out there for 2e.

The blood of TSR employees no doubt, seasoned with that of freelancers.

I remember the TSR days, but I was not in a position to buy much back then (Strict parents and little disposable money) and in some ways I'm glad there is not that much available now, as I frequently spent more than I should.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

1) SInce TSR was very damn tight on it's IP, there was very little published for AD&D that was not from TSR
what does this mean?
To keep the community going, to keep things "bubbling" as I said, they HAD to create their own content and lots of it.

• No internet (not for 99.99% of folk) so you didn't have ENworld to keep things buzzing and making communities for D&D,
• no scads of 3rd party books on Amazon or pdfs to buy,
• etc

so TSR simply had to create enough material to LINK to people and encourage their "baby"
because D&D isn't simply sales of books, is it people?


Take sports, each major sport has a huge community and associated industries/communities with it. It's not merely the person/persons on the field, is it?
See what I'm saying? They were trying to make a new genre, befoe the days of the big PC and console MMORPGs etc it was hard to get the "idea" into the public consciousness

Sort of example of this is one big reason why D&D Online has failed: at the end of the day, it didn't have enough content, this made it BORING. Who wants to do the same dungeon all the time?
AD&D had so much variety that it was exciting.

Please also remember folks, not every DM/player out there is hard core Enworld-mega genius, fun, hip, super-dooper
In otherwords, not every player/DM was hard core or capable of making their own homebrew mega fun adventures, and needed external input, or they'd get bored and not play.
This seems to be totally forgotten here at times. Not everyone is a hard core fan or skilled.

Yes I know there were some non-TSR magazines, adventures etc in the early days but TSR clamped down on them or they folded by lack of support/profit



2) Hey, don't dis Spelljammer or I'll have Wooly Rupert cheek pouch ya!
now with Pirates of Caribbean more folk can "grok" Spelljammer, alas too many folk have such closed minds about what is acceptable as space travel because of Star Trek/Star Wars kludging up our damn cultureal perceptions, both of which were actually lousy for reality of such if you want to be picky, and SW is NOT scifi to be even pickier, hehe.

Castle Greyhawk was a hoot! ROCK LOBSTER!
Alas there's a few too many folk who can't laugh at either themselves or our hobby, tsk tsk!



3) 2nd Ed TSR art stomps the butt out of 4th ed art and to lesser extent 3rd ed art. Fred Fields, Jeff Easley, Keith Parkinson, Larry Elmore, Clyde Caldwell, Brom etc. Oh to have been there to watch 'em work (those that were in-house), sigh!!!
that was important for DEFINING what AD&D was.
Will folk remember 4th ed art in future? I seriously doubt so.
Lot of the recent artists are fantastically skilled, it just doesn't "grab" folks I talk to, compared to older stuff.



4) Yeah the "Historic" books in 2nd ed were a great idea!
Agree that some of the "Complete" books were sucky for what they gave, but I still treasure my Complete Gladiator and Spacefarer's. I was a DM so I can't say on in-game personally if the Complete books were hot or not, just by my tastes, of course, but I know my players liked a few of the books, alas I can't recall which ones now.



5) I did say TSR had problems with how it was run, Dragon Dice (extra production line?) and book issue.
what's tragic is they BURNED all those stock piled boxed sets, books etc...ye gods....*cry* guess it was tax purposes but oh wow, what tragedy



6) Those carping at 2nd ed...hey, that WAS when the hobby expanded hugely, like it or not. Wasn't perfect, what is in life? I started with 1st ed but still think 2nd ed was best time for the game in terms of innovation, breadth of items, gorgeous art etc.
I have kept vastlymore 2nd ed stuff than 3rd ed, and I bet that's the case with many other folk, that should tell you something.

7) I agree spellcasters were broken even though I too love playing wizards!
*taps his nom deplume' *"Ench...anter"
Been playing Baldurs gate2: Time Stop, Spell Sequencer, Chain Contingency...just...ow!! ow!!

 

[LurkMonkey]

I have a deep sympathy with the OP's assertion, but I think the point of disconnect is what is good from a business point of view vs. a fan point of view.

Let's take my all-time favorite 2ed setting: Planescape. I LOVE Planescape. I own everything ever put out for Planescape except for the conceptual artist sktechbook (and that's pretty much a collector corner item). I am even so much of a completionist the I have the entire Ral Partha 11-6XX Planescape miniature series and the four mini box sets.

Now, since I am obsessive about the setting, it would be reasonable from a fan point of view to assume that everyone else is, and that my love of it would translate into a massive win for anything put out in a Planescape theme. Unfortuantely, I am enough of a realist to know that is not true.

Although I would love it if everyone had my same love of Planescape, over the years I have found that actually very few people do. Some don't like the planes as adventuring sites. Some feel that Sigil is to gonzo. Some even hate the whole 'Cager Cant' thing (what yeh flappin yer bone-box over, berk?). Some just plain didn't like it.

So, although TSR had an excellent customer in me, I doubt there were many like me. At least, not enough to justify all the material they DID produce, like half-a-dozen $40 box sets and scads of $15 suppliment books. So, from a business point of view, it was stupid. From a fanboi point of view, it was sheer Mt. Celestia.

And while I was a fervent fan of Planescape, I didn't care for Dark Sun. Oh, I dutifully bought the intro box set, but the setting didn't gel for me. I didn't like the tropes, and I didn't like the stories. So, even while I was gulping down Planescape, the Dark Sun material got passed right by when I went to the FLGS.

Looking back, I am very glad that TSR put out so much stuff during the 2E days. I am also glad that WotC swooped in and saved the brand from TSR's business stupidity. Now that it is all safely in the past, I can mine all that wonderful 'fluff' at my leisure, and not have to worry that the company that produces it is going down the crappper.

As Charles Dickens once said in the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times."

 

[Hussar]

so TSR simply had to create enough material to LINK to people and encourage their "baby"
because D&D isn't simply sales of books, is it people?

This does not follow.

1e had nowhere near the material that 2e did. There are more 2e hardcovers than total AD&D products. Ok, that's an exageration and probably not true. But, it is true that 1e had significantly less published material than 2e. Yet, by all accounts, it was at least equally commercially successful to 2e. At the very least.

Amount of material =/= healthy hobby.

Heck, look at the number 2 boys of the time, White Wolf. Again, fraction of books published (although they did have lots) and they managed to eat away a pretty big chunk of the RPG market. If you were right, and more books = more players, then there's no way that White Wolf would have been able to compete. They simply didn't publish enough to not get totally overwhelmed by TSR.

"Let's keep churning out crap" is a piss poor business model. While it might be nice if everyone got a book just for them, from a business standpoint, it's a losing horse. You simply cannot make everyone happy. Can't be done. Shouldn't be done either.

Stick with what you're good at, make the occassional foray into some new direction, with the proper amount of research beforehand and your business should, barring catastrophe, remain relatively healthy.

Oh, and let's not forget economics here either. The cost of pushing a book out the door (never mind those bloody boxed sets) was considerably less in 1994 than in 2004. Distributors are a LOT more demanding and rigid. Print costs are fantastically higher. Shipping costs are significantly higher. And, lets not forget that production values have risen considerably in the meantime as well. WOTC can't get away with two color, soft cover books anymore. They'd get crucified if they tried.

The TSR model might have given fans lots of choices, but it was a very, very bad model for business. And while the health of the business is not everything, an unhealthy business is certainly not good for the hobby.

 

[the Jester]

The problem here is that the OP is confusing what he likes with what was good for the game. Anyone that seriously maintains that TSR did a good thing by releasing stuff that they couldn't make money on suffers from a fundamental lack of understanding on how business works. It doesn't matter if you love everything they put out if they don't make the money to keep in business, and that is not good for the game at all.

 

[Greg K]

1) SInce TSR was very damn tight on it's IP, there was very little published for AD&D that was not from TSR
what does this mean?
To keep the community going, to keep things "bubbling" as I said, they HAD to create their own content and lots of it.

• No internet (not for 99.99% of folk) so you didn't have ENworld to keep things buzzing and making communities for D&D,
• no scads of 3rd party books on Amazon or pdfs to buy,
• etc

By the early to mid-nineties, there was a decent size community online sharing ideas. TSR had forums on AOL, rec.games. frp. dnd. There were also other bbs sites and frp sites for downloads as well.

But TSR also its draconian crackdown on online fan stuff.

2) Hey, don't dis Spelljammer or I'll have Wooly Rupert cheek pouch ya!
now with Pirates of Caribbean more folk can "grok" Spelljammer, alas too many folk have such closed minds about what is acceptable as space travel because of Star Trek/Star Wars kludging up our damn cultureal perceptions, both of which were actually lousy for reality of such if you want to be picky, and SW is NOT scifi to be even pickier, hehe.

I love Pirates of the Carribean. I also like the Sinbad movies and pirate movies. I also like airships. Spelljammer, for some reasn, just never did it for me, but one of my ex-roommates loved it. He just could not find anyone else that felt the same way. The rest of us preferred Darksun, Ravenloft and Al-Quadim.

3) 2nd Ed TSR art stomps the butt out of 4th ed art and to lesser extent 3rd ed art. Fred Fields, Jeff Easley, Keith Parkinson, Larry Elmore, Clyde Caldwell, Brom etc. Oh to have been there to watch 'em work (those that were in-house), sigh!!!
that was important for DEFINING what AD&D was.

Yep, I am a big fan of Parkinson, Caldwell and Easley. I also liked Elmore (except for the eyes of his characters) and Brom (for Darksun).

6) Those carping at 2nd ed...hey, that WAS when the hobby expanded hugely, like it or not. Wasn't perfect, what is in life? I started with 1st ed but still think 2nd ed was best time for the game in terms of innovation, breadth of items, gorgeous art etc.
I have kept vastlymore 2nd ed stuff than 3rd ed, and I bet that's the case with many other folk, that should tell you something

Despite prefering 3e mechanically, there is a lot of 2e stuff that I would rather have than 3e WOTC material. Then again, there are few WOTC 3e supplements that I consider worth owning. Of the few non core books that are, Unearthed Arcana and Fiendish Codex 1 top the list. Stormwrack and Heroes of Horror follow next as do both MM2 and Fiend Folio (for some of the monsters missing from the MM1), Lords of Madness, and BovD (as a DM sourcebook) .

 

[Greg K]

The problem here is that the OP is confusing what he likes with what was good for the game. Anyone that seriously maintains that TSR did a good thing by releasing stuff that they couldn't make money on suffers from a fundamental lack of understanding on how business works. It doesn't matter if you love everything they put out if they don't make the money to keep in business, and that is not good for the game at all.

I agree that releasing stuff they are not going to make money on is bad. However, there are several steps they could have taken to improve things for the company.

1. kept better records on their sales for the different settings. Then, they could have controlled the print runs based upon hard data rather than basing sales on guesses of how many people were playing D&D and buying their stuff.
2. Reduced the number of products sold as boxed sets if they are more expensive to produce
3. Smaller print runs of their novels
4. not buying a needlepoint company
5. determining if their fans wanted products like Dragon Dice, Amazing Engine, and Buck Rogers.
6. not suing people and partners left and right
7. Allowing their people to playtest material.

 

[Hussar]

3) 2nd Ed TSR art stomps the butt out of 4th ed art and to lesser extent 3rd ed art. Fred Fields, Jeff Easley, Keith Parkinson, Larry Elmore, Clyde Caldwell, Brom etc. Oh to have been there to watch 'em work (those that were in-house), sigh!!!
that was important for DEFINING what AD&D was.

I missed that one the first time around.

Wow. Really? You're going to put up 2e books against 4e books in terms of art? Open your 2e PHB and then open a 4e PHB. Tell me which one is prettier.

While I'm not happy about the recycled art in 4e, I'm pretty willing to say that the 4e books have been pretty darn pretty. There's some very, very high quality art there.

2e had great pieces too. Don't get me wrong. But it was just so bloody hit and miss. Do we really want to go back to the black and white line art for the Monster Manual? Remember, the Monstrous Manual didn't come out until 93, about five years after the release of 2e. There were all those loose leave binder pages first. Blech.