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General Tabletop Discussion
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When TSR Passed On Tolkien
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<blockquote data-quote="Lord_Blacksteel" data-source="post: 7808252" data-attributes="member: 53082"><p>The idea that a LOTR RPG from TSR wouldn't have sold well in the 90's because MERP didn't sell as many copies as D&D is ridiculous. Nothing ever has until the misstep with 4E and the ascension of Pathfinder. There have always been other fantasy RPG's that sold well alongside D&D. Making it "official D&D" would have added to that, not reduced it. </p><p></p><p>Take the biggest RPG in the world, add on a boxed set like only TSR could do with the name "Lord of the Rings" on it with the books and maps and cards like those sets had and it would have sold better than any of their other campaigns of that era. Because, as someone else pointed out, beyond buying things to run or play, people buy a lot of RPG books because they're a nice object that relates to something they are interested in. A whole lot of people would have bought those books just to have them.</p><p></p><p>That said the novel thing is a real issue though because TSR at the time was big into the cross-media thing. All of their settings had a boxed set, supplementary books, novels, and computer games - yes Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Birthright all had these, not just the Realms - so not being able to go nuts with Middle Earth in the same way makes sense as a deal-breaker for management at the time. </p><p></p><p>It's an interesting what-if though. Imagine if it had worked out with say a ten-year license that ended up tying into the movies and a new edition of D&D around that time.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lord_Blacksteel, post: 7808252, member: 53082"] The idea that a LOTR RPG from TSR wouldn't have sold well in the 90's because MERP didn't sell as many copies as D&D is ridiculous. Nothing ever has until the misstep with 4E and the ascension of Pathfinder. There have always been other fantasy RPG's that sold well alongside D&D. Making it "official D&D" would have added to that, not reduced it. Take the biggest RPG in the world, add on a boxed set like only TSR could do with the name "Lord of the Rings" on it with the books and maps and cards like those sets had and it would have sold better than any of their other campaigns of that era. Because, as someone else pointed out, beyond buying things to run or play, people buy a lot of RPG books because they're a nice object that relates to something they are interested in. A whole lot of people would have bought those books just to have them. That said the novel thing is a real issue though because TSR at the time was big into the cross-media thing. All of their settings had a boxed set, supplementary books, novels, and computer games - yes Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Birthright all had these, not just the Realms - so not being able to go nuts with Middle Earth in the same way makes sense as a deal-breaker for management at the time. It's an interesting what-if though. Imagine if it had worked out with say a ten-year license that ended up tying into the movies and a new edition of D&D around that time. [/QUOTE]
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