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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Captian Tobacco" data-source="post: 5300895" data-attributes="member: 93707">Sorry I’m late guys. Please, don’t get up. It’s ok…Ahem. Like Klaus stated much earlier, there was too much focus on realm specific products. Soat pegged it exactly; once your group had chosen what the setting was you didn’t often get outside of it. Dark Sun, Planescape, Red Steel, Maztica, Kara-Tur, Al-Qadim. Never seen any of these played outside of conventions.  Spelljammer, Birthright, Ravenloft. RL: Mask of the Red Death. Limited in use. People loved it or hated it. I really liked the MotRD; most did not. Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk. Holdovers from the ‘old school’ most of us were hoping for a more dynamic timeline to show change over time but then gnashed our teeth when the latest product jacked with our campaign.Love’em. Hat’em. Doesn’t matter that way. The real problem was not tailoring the product for the public but closer matching of the production runs to the demand. I can’t begin to count the number of times I found a copy (in wrap) of the reprint Palace of the Silver Princess or Quagmire or Curse of Xanathon (or however it is spelled) in the Bargain Bin of KB toys years after TSR closed up on those products.  That was even before KB and the Game Keeper closed for much the same reason. Too much diversification for too few interest groups. Nod to Jester for stating the obvious but here’s another look at the same issue:The problem really looked like a bad pizza party. Imagine inviting 40 people over for a house party. You provide/pay for/order: 5 cheese, 5 pepperoni, 5 meat lovers, 5 ‘Hawaiian’, 5 anchovy, 5 ‘veggie’ (mushroom, olives, bell peppers (red and green), 5 chicken and garlic, and 5 ‘barbeque’. Throw in 20 packets of red peppers, 30 extra cheese ‘stuff’ topping, and 10 mini-cups of dipping sauce. In theory, each person can grab a full pizza and the condiments of their choice during the course of the party. In practice, you can guess the results. Some pizzas get inhaled. Some last an hour or two. A few of these you’ll have for breakfast because you paid for it. A closer attention to what the majority would consume and maybe only one or two of the more specialized tastes would have been the better choice.  Should there have been the same size production run for Birthright as the Greyhawk or the DragonLance HB book? Maybe. But not all products were written in equal quality, but they (at least the main boxes) were mass produced in numbers which were probably far in excess of the demand. Some books proved to be impossible to find only a year after release (2ed Kara-Tur.) But the question of which products were purchased was based on need, interest, cash flow. Most people were very critical (as they should be) of what it is and how useful a product is before they buy it.  Regrettably, the same was for so many supplements and adventures. Looking at my shelf from here I can see a great number of products that have never been played as is; but most of them had an idea or two lifted from them. So I guess that in the end the real question is this: is the cost of that supplement worth the few ideas adopted/incorporated into your game? And this is what toppled a production company which based its income on controlling the creative imaginations of people who were, on the whole, were smarter than those running the company.</blockquote>

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