Laffs: Mike Stackpole on 3E, ca 1999

[hong]

This was dug up by a poster on rgfd from the Pyramid archives.

When I Own TSR

 

[EricNoah]

That is interesting, funny, scary, sad, and weird all in one!

 

[Ranger REG]

I wonder what is his opinion now.

Too bad he didn't buy FASA ... for a million and change.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I particularly loved the "Systems don't sell, Worlds sell," part.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I particularly loved the "Systems don't sell, Worlds sell," part.

It's particularly ironic given that it's hosted on SJ Games, home of GURPS.

Brad

 

[Numion]

Hindsight is always 20/20, but boy was he wrong.

Od course he didn't have the access to WotC's marketing research, but he was patently wrong about Worlds, not Systems selling. Because thats what sold 3e : 900 pages of rules. The d20 system.

Well, anyway, whos Stackpole anyway? RPG gurus aren't usually business gurus (quite the opposite sometimes), so if he's an RPGer it explains something.

 

[EricNoah]

I don't think he (or anyone besides maybe Ryan D. himself) could have predicted the Open Gaming movement, though. That really changed the RPG landscape. It really did make it possible for a "system" to sell -- maybe not on its own merits per se, but on the strength of its network potential.

 

[Ranger REG]

I don't see the irony. Their worldbooks are selling better than their GURP rulebook, and that's because the material themselves are so good (actually more hits than misses), most of us adapted them to our favorite system and game.

 

[Darkness]

I particularly loved the "Systems don't sell, Worlds sell," part.

Yeah. Either can sell - or not.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I don't see the irony. Their worldbooks are selling better than their GURP rulebook, and that's because the material themselves are so good (actually more hits than misses), most of us adapted them to our favorite system and game.

It's because a great proportion of GURPS worldbooks *are* generic, without a setting attached. In other words, extensions of a system, not setting.

Brad