Mearls talks about his inspiration for the 4e classes

[Erik Mona]

You think there's enough hardcore D&D players to put someone at the top of NYT's best seller lists, repeatedly?

Yes.

Don't kid yourselves. Dungeons & Dragons (and especially the associated novels business) is one of the most reliable, steady publishing operations in the science fiction and fantasy field today.

It doesn't get nearly the critical reception other "mainstream" novels receive, but it doesn't need it, because it is swimming in money.

How many other companies can you think of that have an entire shelf in almost every Barnes & Noble in the country filled top to bottom with their products? In science fiction and fantasy?

The only one that is even close (and growing increasingly closer) is Games Workshop's Warhammer novel line, which is patterend entirely off the Wizards of the Coast (really TSR) business model.

--Erik

 

[Hussar]

LOL Erik. Thanks for that.

 

[pawsplay]

I suggest you read more RPG books.

I'm not sure to whom this post is addressed, but I suspect this suggestion is probably misaimed toward the majority of participants in this thread.

 

[Erik Mona]

I'd go as far as saying that pre-2001 Tolkien himself was reasonably obscure outside fans of the genre. Less so than any other genre author you'd care to name certainly, but really to "outsiders" we're a pretty marginal bunch at the best of times. There's a whole wide world out there of people who have no idea (or who know but don't care) that Lord of the Rings was a book first.

From the LoTR Wikipedia page:
"In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the century."

Not sure that trilogy is as marginal as you think.

--Erik

 

[Hussar]

I'm not sure to whom this post is addressed, but I suspect this suggestion is probably misaimed toward the majority of participants in this thread.

It was addressed to you. You asked to name two names that have been mentioned in RPG books. I name four or five RPG books that namedrop.

 

[pawsplay]

It was addressed to you. You asked to name two names that have been mentioned in RPG books. I name four or five RPG books that namedrop.

I said to name two authors that have had role-playing products dedicated to them, that were not licensed RPGs of their works. For instance, The Chronicles of Talislanta says, "Dedicated to Jack Vance, pre-eminent author of science-fiction and fantasy."

 

[Hussar]

I said to name two authors that have had role-playing products dedicated to them, that were not licensed RPGs of their works. For instance, The Chronicles of Talislanta says, "Dedicated to Jack Vance, pre-eminent author of science-fiction and fantasy."

Ahh, apologies, misread that. I'll certainly grant that one.

Hey, look, I LIKE Vance. I do. I find reading Vance a true joy.

But, I'm still going to stand here and say he's a pretty obscure figure in the genre.

 

[Midnight Dawns]

Just adding my own two cents here. I think Vance is obscure to both the casual and to the new players. I hadn't even heard the term vancian magic until OotS mentioned it, at which point I also learned of Vance. That was after several years of playing DnD. I have friends whom have played longer than me that don't know how Jack Vance is. From my experience gamers from my age demographic (collage-age) see Vance as obscure and half of th etime haven't heard of him where as it seems that to gamers in their thirties and older that ihe is a familiar name.

BTW I had read all five books in the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe.

 

[AllisterH]

I tend to disagree with Erik M about Conan though.

Conan (along with Star Wars) SAVED marvel from Bankruptcy in the 70s and was easily outselling anything from either marvel or DC (excluding Star Wars).

We're talking about when Superman had a circulation figure of roughly 400k a month, Conan was easily besting this at closer to 600k.

There were a lot of people who never once touched a Conan novel but still read the pretty faithful Conan stories (and I think since those stories all had "Conan created by Robert E. Howard" at the beginning, more people definitely I can see remembering REH than say Vance)

 

[Storminator]

I'd go as far as saying that pre-2001 Tolkien himself was reasonably obscure outside fans of the genre. Less so than any other genre author you'd care to name certainly, but really to "outsiders" we're a pretty marginal bunch at the best of times. There's a whole wide world out there of people who have no idea (or who know but don't care) that Lord of the Rings was a book first.

According to the infallible Wikipedia (infallible I say!) Tolkien has the 8th best selling book of all time List of best-selling books - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and also the 13th.

PS