Make It Yourself

[Thomas Shey]

As I remember it, there were two: deadly exploration (wilderness or dungeon), and storytelling.

Where would Champions land? Chill?

 

[Micah Sweet]

How it matters: basic economics.

Remember, the company is spending money to make those products, and those products have to sell. If people ignore them and don't buy them, the profit margin on the work drops. Keeping your product offerings focused on what sells maximizes return on the work to produce the product.

People buy different things, because people want different things. Just don't make things nobody wants.

 

[John Dallman]

People buy different things, because people want different things. Just don't make things nobody wants.

Sadly, there is a significant difference between games nobody wants, and games that only a few people want. The latter are not commercially viable, but tempt a company to carry on losing money by trying to find a way to tweak their game into selling better. You can end up losing more money that way.

 

[Reynard]

Where would Champions land? Chill?

I was answering as if this were about D&D, not broadly.

 

[Umbran]

There was still a much wider one than you can get out of a single game system.

I'll accept that as an arguable point. But, even so, it isn't like there was an internet to turn to for information about games, or what was possible.

 

[Umbran]

Sure, but it was still a playstyle. ThT lack of support would give rise to various late 80s and early 90s attempts at storytelling games,of course. But we should remember that storytelling was a playstyle goal from very early on in the hobby.

Sure, but also kind of missing the point.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'll accept that as an arguable point. But, even so, it isn't like there was an internet to turn to for information about games, or what was possible.

I guess it depends on how much of the D&D playing populace was separate from more general gaming culture. The latter certainly had ways to hear about other games, but its not going to be parallel to people who only knew about D&D from more conventional sources, and the latter certainly existed. Where they a big part of the D&D playing populace at the time? I don't know that anyone knows.

 

[aramis erak]

I'll accept that as an arguable point. But, even so, it isn't like there was an internet to turn to for information about games, or what was possible.

Let us not forget the vast array of fanzines, one of which is apparently still going since the 70's... (Alarums and Excursions)... Dragon, A&E, TSG/TFG, JTAS, White Dwarf, and several other widespread distribution got news out. The second tier game companies usually had their own house organ, which also usually had a catalog page or two of their own, plus paid-for adverts for dozens of other games.

As for the Internet
Technically, Usenet's been going since 1979.... Fidonet since 1984... DARPANet since the 60's

D&D was discussed on fidonet since at least as far back as 1987, when I discovered fidonet via local BBS. I suspect earlier.

And almost all the local BBSs (except the city library's) in Anchorage in 1985 to 1996 (when I was active in the Anchorage BBS community) had some gaming discussion. I found a lot of information available. Lots of bad advice, a few gems, and a whole lot of jerks threadcrapping. Funny, that sure sounds like the early internet... Truth be told, once WWIVnet was going, and .QWK packets common, it was very common to have actual discussions with significant volume... FidoNet was able to (slowly) propagate discussions and shareware across the country. And did so about the same speed as the US Postal Service.


And at least one BBS in 1988 had a full-text retype of the rules book for Moldvay D&D Basic Set. Dude couldn't get it in Nome, and his village didn't have a post office, which made mail order problematic (few were willing to ship to a "General Delivery" address), so a bunch of people posted chunks in a thread, and then someone else collated it all into a text file... Eventually, someone mailed him a boxed set. Dude had been introduced to D&D during AIT...

Oh, and I had full internet dialup from Jan 1988... via University of Alaska. I also had access via FidoNet bridge through Fredbox.cojones.com - a UUCPNet, UseNet, and Fidonet connected local BBS, which was also internet accessible, from about 1990-1995...
More than once I telnetted into Fredbox via the Uni...

Between Mags and BBS Networks there was a lot of available information. But there was also a huge lot of gatekeeping.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Between Mags and BBS Networks there was a lot of available information. But there was also a huge lot of gatekeeping.

I ran a BBS myself in the early 1990s. The number of people who were active in the predecessors of the World Wide Web was miniscule. The information being out there online by no means meant it was widely available.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I recently said in some other thread, that during my adult life, I'm pretty sure I have not ran an any RPG without some houserules, sometimes rather significant amount. I once basically rewrote all the charms for Exalted the Dragon-Blooded. I have also written couple of (rather simple) systems from scratch. I don't think I have time or energy for anything super extensive these days, but to me it seems like a normal part of the hobby to customise stuff. Some distant game designer is never going to give you exactly what you want. So choose the game that is closest to your ideal and then customise until you're happy.