catsclaw227
First Post
This certainly makes sense of the regular and steady release of D&D products each month by WotC.
The End of the Gaming Renaissance
- Thread starter Hussar
- Start date
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
Doesn't this describe all of the Hero System products too? Or are they printed with color art on the interior now?
Soft cover and b&w is still pretty normal.
Nikosandros
Golden Procrastinator
It used to be true, but the new sixth edition (which just came out), is in full color.
Huh?
4e's release schedule is on the LOW END historically of the D&D monthly output. Hell, I think you have to go back to 1987 for the last year that had less releases than 4e and all the way back to 1983 for multiple years with less releases.
catsclaw227
First Post
All I am saying is that there's a regular monthly cycle of hardback books from WotC for D&D. This meshes well with Arisoto's statement that distributors like Big Splash products. High, short cycles instead of long steady sales.
I am not comparing current WOTC release schedules with past schedules. More products doesn't necessarily equate more splash products and I would even go far as to make a wild guess that too many products each month cannibalizes sales from other "key" products the same month.
So one or two may have more boom for the first month than 4 products.
pawsplay
Hero
I think the mild retail doldrums in the early 90s have been overconsidered rather than just considered a general fluctuation. Likewise, the d20 boom, while considerable, was not a make or break event except for third party publishers of D&D sourcebooks. I think most of the fluctuations have to do with the economy in general, and the reponse of consumers to specific RPG products, rather than a trend within the RPG industry.
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Did the games Jim is talking about really sell any more than that? What I remember of the 80s and early 90s is that people were playing games from TSR, Chaosium, SJG (GURPS) and Palladium (Rifts or Heroes). I think the only games I even knew about that weren't from those companies were the ones I saw advertised in Dragon like Bushido, En Garde and a few others, but I never heard of anyone actually buying or playing those games. I certainly never saw them in distribution at a gaming or book store.
I think the 1990s small RPG writer always had a problem getting picked up by publishers. It sounds like there was a short-term change in that pattern during the 3e OGL glut, but otherwise breakign into the market has always been difficult. I also think that there's a whole mess of small "indie" games out there, rather like there were in the 1990s. So, in terms of the market, no, I don't think he's got it right at all.
And... well, I am not so sure we are post-modern in the sense of, "Everyone and their brother has the tools to deconstruct a game, pull apart its every little detail and judge it with a critical eye." We have always had that ability - which is why house-rules proliferated so in the early years of D&D. Even when there was only one game, people were ripping it apart, and putting it back together differently. So, again, no.
And, as Mr. Mona points out, "Renaissance" is "Rebirth" - the original is a reference to a resurgence in learning at the end of what we usually call the "Dark Ages". Gaming has never had a real "Dark Age". So, strike three.
I agree that "the end of the gaming renaissance" is just nonsense as terminology.
The RPG biz was already slowing in the late '80s. RPGs were (apart from D&D in the UK, perhaps, when GW had that) not the hot sellers for Games Workshop, and when Citadel Miniatures took over the synergy was sealed. Fiction lines (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms) seemed as I recall to bring in the big bucks for TSR, but I don't know the numbers.
Judges Guild lost traction partly because of losing the TSR licenses, I think, and partly because JG's cheap production fell out of favor. They had been selling a lot at one time, with a "scatter-shot" approach; if one product fell flat, another might be a hit, and none too many eggs were in one basket.
There was a time when the really small press couldn't even match that. Even "cheap" was expensive unless you were doing runs of thousands. You needed a big capital investment up front, and you needed margins profitable not only to the retailer and distributor but to you (or at least return enough to keep the loss down to your budget for a hobby).
Advances in "desk-top" publishing, and in commercial printing, now allow us more easily and less expensively to turn out a final product that would have been quite "professional" looking, even impressive in 1979. The trouble is that expectations (at least in one segment of the market) have risen to expect a new top notch that may be even more costly than the old one.
I don't have such expectations. Hardbound books are nice for oft-used reference volumes, not so worth it to me for works of short-term or occasional interest. Full color and glossy paper are as easily annoying as attractive, and even in the latter case there's the question of cost versus value. My guess is that utility tends more often to take precedence for those of us who buy game manuals to use.
The RPG biz was already slowing in the late '80s. RPGs were (apart from D&D in the UK, perhaps, when GW had that) not the hot sellers for Games Workshop, and when Citadel Miniatures took over the synergy was sealed. Fiction lines (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms) seemed as I recall to bring in the big bucks for TSR, but I don't know the numbers.
Judges Guild lost traction partly because of losing the TSR licenses, I think, and partly because JG's cheap production fell out of favor. They had been selling a lot at one time, with a "scatter-shot" approach; if one product fell flat, another might be a hit, and none too many eggs were in one basket.
There was a time when the really small press couldn't even match that. Even "cheap" was expensive unless you were doing runs of thousands. You needed a big capital investment up front, and you needed margins profitable not only to the retailer and distributor but to you (or at least return enough to keep the loss down to your budget for a hobby).
Advances in "desk-top" publishing, and in commercial printing, now allow us more easily and less expensively to turn out a final product that would have been quite "professional" looking, even impressive in 1979. The trouble is that expectations (at least in one segment of the market) have risen to expect a new top notch that may be even more costly than the old one.
I don't have such expectations. Hardbound books are nice for oft-used reference volumes, not so worth it to me for works of short-term or occasional interest. Full color and glossy paper are as easily annoying as attractive, and even in the latter case there's the question of cost versus value. My guess is that utility tends more often to take precedence for those of us who buy game manuals to use.
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Hussar
Legend
But, what characterizes the historical Renaissance? Yes, if you want to get pedantic, it's rebirth, but, what elements do we generally (and I'm using a pretty broad brush here) in art from this period?
Is it characterized by highly trained, professional artists who go to schools in order to learn their craft after years of training under a teacher? Or is it characterized by highly talented individuals banging out loads and loads of material, the vast majority of which is forgotten (or only remembered by very small numbers of art experts) and a small number of talents rising to the top above the crowd?
I'd say it was the latter.
Look at how design has changed from before about 1995 (give or take) and post. In the early days, it was one or a small number of people putting together a game, almost in the absence of any marketing or any other outside input. Heck, TSR never bothered to ask anyone how the game was being played for the entire time they published. I can't imagine FASA or anyone else did either.
Now compare that to how games are put together today. Not just 4e and 3e D&D, but, generally any game that hits print. You have marketing teams, you have legal teams, and various other hangers on putting this game together and getting it onto a shelf. ((now, team might be one guy, that's true, sometimes there really is an "i" in team.
))
Erik Mona and Pathfinder is a perfect example. Compare how Pathfinder evolved from 3e D&D using the OGL, bringing in tons of people, and Palladium, a game that evolved from 1e D&D and used about one guy.
Note, through all of this, I'm really not trying to make any judgements. It's not old=bad, new=good or the other way around. Renaissance art is not better or worse than modern art except in the eye of the beholder. In the same way Renaissance games (pre-early 90's) are not better or worse than Post Modern ones. Please, don't try to see this as a criticism in any form. It's not meant to be.
Is it characterized by highly trained, professional artists who go to schools in order to learn their craft after years of training under a teacher? Or is it characterized by highly talented individuals banging out loads and loads of material, the vast majority of which is forgotten (or only remembered by very small numbers of art experts) and a small number of talents rising to the top above the crowd?
I'd say it was the latter.
Look at how design has changed from before about 1995 (give or take) and post. In the early days, it was one or a small number of people putting together a game, almost in the absence of any marketing or any other outside input. Heck, TSR never bothered to ask anyone how the game was being played for the entire time they published. I can't imagine FASA or anyone else did either.
Now compare that to how games are put together today. Not just 4e and 3e D&D, but, generally any game that hits print. You have marketing teams, you have legal teams, and various other hangers on putting this game together and getting it onto a shelf. ((now, team might be one guy, that's true, sometimes there really is an "i" in team.
))Erik Mona and Pathfinder is a perfect example. Compare how Pathfinder evolved from 3e D&D using the OGL, bringing in tons of people, and Palladium, a game that evolved from 1e D&D and used about one guy.
Note, through all of this, I'm really not trying to make any judgements. It's not old=bad, new=good or the other way around. Renaissance art is not better or worse than modern art except in the eye of the beholder. In the same way Renaissance games (pre-early 90's) are not better or worse than Post Modern ones. Please, don't try to see this as a criticism in any form. It's not meant to be.
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