WotC GenCon Announcement: A New Campaign Setting?

[TerraDave]

TSR Mistakes

It's amazing how many people cite so many different aspects of TSR's business model as "great mistakes." To hear people talk, you'd think that every single book they put out was the greatest mistake since Columbus named the Native Americans "Indians."

You want to know what TSR's mistakes were? It's quite simple.

1) Books/settings that competed with each other for the same dollar.

2) Using the profits of one line to support other lines that were failing.

And investing in a needlepoint bussiness,

And never letting people go--regardless of how little or much work they did--until the company was in crisis,

And (mulitple times) having people in Hollywood to chase media deals that never happened,

And threating any of their customers who posted anything online

And having their online presence be AOL exclusive

And producing too many hard back novels,

And too many spellfire decks (and putting staff on the cards...)

And too many dragon dice (and doing these last three at almost the same time)

And yes, in the 30th aniversary book, they also confirm that the Complete line (the splat books) was a mistake...

And the list goes on, and on, and on

The hard part is finding something in TSRs bussiness model that really worked.

They survived as long they did because D&D was a license to print money for years (people bought a lot of those basic sets and AD&D books, I wonder if the majority where ever actually used in play?)

Are WotC repeating those mistakes? Many no. -In Hollywood, yes--at least from what I have seen that is relevant. In terms of splatbooks it may be early to tell (diminishing returns is key here). But I haven't heard of any needlepoint investments.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I'm not sure WHO thought that D&D movie was a good idea. We listened to the commentary for a few minutes and it seems like the author of the screenplay spent over a decade trying to get that steaming pile made.

They should have got Dead Gentlemen Productions to do it. (Guys who did "The Gamers".) Woulda done it cheaper, too, I imagine.

Sorry. That movie is one of my great beefs. I laughed with sadness for two full minutes as the credits rolled.

I think WotC's doing okay - in fact, I think they're doing sneakily well. The OGL allows them to shift non-profitable elements to 3rd party publishers. During the time they were producing core books, they let others take up the slack in other areas. Now that the core market is saturated they can move to "splatbooks". While class options and feats have been done to death by 3rd party publishers, in my community at least, the Complete line is selling very nicely just because it has the WotC stamp on it. When adventures become a good product for sales again I'm sure WotC may produce a few more modules. Right now I'd like to see another adventure path series from them for running at the college game group (where I like stuff I don't have to prep. We're currently using and re-using Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil because it's big enough to take a year or two and there's a community out there that has already converted it to 3.5).

--fje

 

[MetalBard]

I'm not sure WHO thought that D&D movie was a good idea. We listened to the commentary for a few minutes and it seems like the author of the screenplay spent over a decade trying to get that steaming pile made.

They should have got Dead Gentlemen Productions to do it. (Guys who did "The Gamers".) Woulda done it cheaper, too, I imagine.

Sorry. That movie is one of my great beefs. I laughed with sadness for two full minutes as the credits rolled.

I think WotC's doing okay - in fact, I think they're doing sneakily well. The OGL allows them to shift non-profitable elements to 3rd party publishers. During the time they were producing core books, they let others take up the slack in other areas. Now that the core market is saturated they can move to "splatbooks". While class options and feats have been done to death by 3rd party publishers, in my community at least, the Complete line is selling very nicely just because it has the WotC stamp on it. When adventures become a good product for sales again I'm sure WotC may produce a few more modules. Right now I'd like to see another adventure path series from them for running at the college game group (where I like stuff I don't have to prep. We're currently using and re-using Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil because it's big enough to take a year or two and there's a community out there that has already converted it to 3.5).

--fje

Paizo (with WotC blessing) is putting their first Dungeon adventure path out in hardback this July. That series was pretty well-liked and it should make for an awesome mega-adventure.

 

[wingsandsword]

The hard part is finding something in TSRs bussiness model that really worked.

They survived as long they did because D&D was a license to print money for years (people bought a lot of those basic sets and AD&D books, I wonder if the majority where ever actually used in play?)

Are WotC repeating those mistakes? Many no. -In Hollywood, yes--at least from what I have seen that is relevant. In terms of splatbooks it may be early to tell (diminishing returns is key here). But I haven't heard of any needlepoint investments.

Yeah, the only thing that was "good" about TSR was that they tried to produce so much stuff (including a huge number of lame introductory products), sanitize the core materials and produce go-nowhere products so much that they weren't paying attention when the writers got actual creative ideas so they weren't there to squash them. The success of Planescape, Al Qadim, Dark Sun and such wasn't so much because of TSR, as it was in spite of them, because they were off thinking that the "next big thing" that needed their attention was Dragon Quest, First Quest, or Buck Rogers XXV.

WotC needs to be mindful of TSR's failings and know that if they are foolish it could happen to them The moral of the tale of TSR is that no company in gaming is so powerful that it can ignore it's fans and ignore it's own products. However. they are the exact opposite of TSR with their relations with fans and other gaming companies, they've been pretty good about keeping to their core business (almost to a zealous extent, notice the lack of support for their non D&D games) and they haven't launched any gimmicky product lines like SAGA or Dragon Dice.

 

[Methos]

I'm not sure WHO thought that D&D movie was a good idea. We listened to the commentary for a few minutes and it seems like the author of the screenplay spent over a decade trying to get that steaming pile made.

I think a steaming pile might have actually smelled better than that rotter!

Sorry. That movie is one of my great beefs. I laughed with sadness for two full minutes as the credits rolled.

Crying? Or laughing? It was a fine line indeed!

I think WotC's doing okay - in fact, I think they're doing sneakily well. The OGL allows them to shift non-profitable elements to 3rd party publishers. During the time they were producing core books, they let others take up the slack in other areas. Now that the core market is saturated they can move to "splatbooks".

I think many of the points you have made are spot on. I also think that you may see a significant uptick in the sales of "core" D&D products with the release of D&D for Dummies. It is interesting how they have decided to come out with such a product about 2 years after 3.5 was released and with the success of the LOtR films, fantasy has probably never been more popular with the average person.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Yea. I think D&D For Dummies is a great idea. It's something I'll probably buy, and I'd go so far as to call myself a hardcore RPG geek already. But it sounds like a utility that would be useful for introducing new people to the game, attracting players, AND ... as a college grad student ... it sounds like something that might just get picked up by libraries. Very few libraries carry RPG books, but a quick and easy place to find out about anything, especially on a college campus, is at the library. If somebody who is contemplating stopping by a gaming club at their local college can unobtrusively and without confrontation with "real" people get some data on what D&D is and how to play it? Maybe they'll be a little more comfortable stopping by.

When everybody turned into sparklies and shot off at the end of D&D I just ... started laughing. Couldn't stop. Couldn't help myself. People were looking at me as they filed out of the theater. I almost had a handle on it and a couple of fanboys walked past and one was saying: "It wasn't all that bad. I think it captured alot of the flavor of the game and how it feels to play it." and that was it, set me off for another round of howling.

Just the other day it was on TV somewhere and I caught the end of it, and the last scene still gave me the giggles.

That Shackled City hardback from Paizo looks interesting. I know one of the groups associated with the gaming club here has been running Shackled City as their main campaing for a while now. I stopped my subscriptions to Dragon and Dungeon ages and ages ago so I haven't seen any of it. Which is great, as it'll all be fresh to me.

--fje

 

[teitan]

Ahhh, WOTC are producing new modules for D&D, there are 3, yes THREE, in the upcoming catalogue including Son of Gruumsh for FR, Fane of the Drow and another one set in a prison. I don't think the latter two are complete adventures considering they are 16 pages but they also feature mini support like the Clone Strike and Rebel Storm books for the Star Wars minis. Poster maps etc. I don't think this format will last long but it sounds kind of neat and a great way to support BOTH lines. They should think of that when they do the next SW Minis book.

Jason

 

[Ranger REG]

WotC needs to be mindful of TSR's failings and know that if they are foolish it could happen to them The moral of the tale of TSR is that no company in gaming is so powerful that it can ignore it's fans and ignore it's own products. However. they are the exact opposite of TSR with their relations with fans and other gaming companies, they've been pretty good about keeping to their core business (almost to a zealous extent, notice the lack of support for their non D&D games) and they haven't launched any gimmicky product lines like SAGA or Dragon Dice.

So, do you think they overextend themselves with regards to non-D&D RPG lines, like Star Wars and d20 Modern?

 

[Telas]

I have never seen the D&D movie, although I have a DVD I picked up for under $5. I'm waiting for a dark and stormy night when I can get trashed on something painful (cheap wine? Milwaukee's Beast?) and watch it....

Anyway, does anyone know a site that follows the internals at WotC? I'm curious as to their corporate structure, which products fall where, and such. Thanks.

Mouseferatu: What's up? I ran into you at the HPB on 183 a while back. What a strange disconnect (or is is connect?), mixing real people with web forums....

Telas

 

[Mouseferatu]

And investing in a needlepoint bussiness,

And never letting people go--regardless of how little or much work they did--until the company was in crisis,

And <snip>

You're absolutely correct, and I wasn't sufficiently clear in my initial statement.

The two mistakes I cited are the root of all problems directly relating to the publishing of D&D books. They're not the only mistakes the company made.

(I haven't seen the comments on the 2E splatbooks. While there may have been mistakes regading how they were done, I cannot imagine that their very existance was a mistake. Otherwise, to put it bluntly, WotC wouldn't do it. They're not idiots, and they're the ones who put the 30th Anniversary book together in the first place. )

In the context of what I was responding to, however, mistakes made with publishing specifically were the relevant ones.