So, what was the first product where D&D's soul was sold?

[Raven Crowking]

If it has a soul it can be found in each of us every time we sit down to play our favorite game, each time a d20 is rolled, each time someone cracks open his/her books to create a new character, write an adventure or just to check out what the newest D&D book they just purchased at their FLGS contains.

QFT

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Can't believe no one's made a Bill Gates comment yet...

 

[Ourph]

I would have to say that the 86-87 trio of Wilderness Survival Guide, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide and Manual of the Planes were the turning point for me. IMO, up to that point, the books published by TSR seemed to be the result of someone saying "OK, we've got a great idea for a book and enough good content to fill it up, let's publish.", whereas the three above seemed to be based more on someone saying, "OK, we've got to publish a book. We don't have a great concept or any good ideas for new rules but we'll bang something out and have it ready to go by the end of the month.". I'm not saying that IS what happened, but it's how the books come across to me, lots of content with no real creativity or inspiration.

All of the 2e rules and much of the stuff published for Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk in the 2e era left me with the same impression. It was either a rehash of what had been done before or something new that seemed flat and uninspired to me.

3e changed that somewhat with a complete revamp of the core rules, but seems to have fallen back into the same pattern with the release of 3.5 where so much stuff got regurgitated in a new format and with the releases in the last few years where so much of the content is just recombined rules or unoriginal extensions of old rules. Even the completely new, "outside the box" stuff (like Tactical Feats from CW or some of the new base classes) isn't, IMO, particularly innovative or inspired. If I had to pick a single word to describe my opinion of the content I'm seeing from WotC's current line of products, "forced" would probably be the one I'd pick.

 

[tx7321]

Someone posted a link about this (at DF I think) need to keep publishing vs. other games that can live off one system and a smaller amount of support material. The short of it was that they are using more of a publishing business model (rather then the game business model). Publishers have to be churning new stuff out constantly, and it has to sell in volume to get the profit ratio right.

 

[MerricB]

Someone posted a link about this (at DF I think) need to keep publishing vs. other games that can live off one system and a smaller amount of support material.

Hmm. I really don't think there are many companies that make just one game product (and a small amount of support) and stay in business for long.

You either diversify - make a lot of different games - or produce a lot of support for one game.

Cheers!

 

[mearls]

But if you and I start talking, rules agnostic, about things GREYHAWK or that one time in B2 KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS when the thief backstabbed the owlbear and saved the party, or sneaking in to Nosnra's hideout, or painting up minis, or dice collections, or meeting Gary for the first time (with the caveat that you're not a hater), or your first GenCon (gotta go to that someday, if only to shake my cane at you young punks see what it's like)...then DUNGEONS & DRAGONS hasn't sold out, regardless of what some idiot in a suit in the Corporate Office says or does (and I don't think Gary Gygax, Peter Adkinson or Ryan Dancey were idiots in suits).

AMEN!

 

[tx7321]

Merric, what I'm talking about are game makers like "Front Porch Games" that establish one game, and move on to another. They do not experiance the sudden drop off in sales often linked to book sales. Here is that companys link: http://www.frontporchclassics.com/ This company comes out with different games, rather then changing the core system of one. They do not follow the small book publisher model with a bunch of material being released, rather they focus on growing their market and distribution. "Splat books" is a term thrown around to describe books published with nothing really of value within them, just a pretty cover and hash. TSR learned quickly, there is always a portion of the market who would buy literally anything they published. Generating new versions of D&D allows the publisher to create a new generation of support material (rehashing yet again old modules, old source books etc). I'm sure 4E will do this once again.

 

[Waldorf]

OD&D(1974). Satan's not fussy.

LOL

 

[Storm Raven]

Someone posted a link about this (at DF I think) need to keep publishing vs. other games that can live off one system and a smaller amount of support material. The short of it was that they are using more of a publishing business model (rather then the game business model). Publishers have to be churning new stuff out constantly, and it has to sell in volume to get the profit ratio right.

I can't think of any rpg company that has had continued success that just publishes a game and nothing that supports it. SJGames, White Wolf, Palladium, and so on and so forth have all published supplements and additional material for their flagship games on a regular basis.

I don't call that a "publishing business model" I call it a "staying in business" model. The "game business model" you allude to strikes me as being a "going out of business" model for a company.

 

[CaptainChaos]

I had a Horst Wesel in my house once, took the allies nearly four years to get rid of the damn thing.

Did it sing its own song all day and night?