Where did it all go so wrong?

[Murtak]

Shadzar, why are you even interested in using any rules at all? You are rambling quite a bit, but by now it seems like any rule at all is a bad rule in your eyes. Well, free-form storytelling does not restrict your freedom at all, does it? And it is free to boot. Should be a blast! So if rules = bad and less rules = bad, why isn't magical tea party the best game ever?

[tussock]

Just to clarify some history and shit: Ryan Dancy was pretty damned clear about why 2nd edition failed, in that TSR did not so much as know how many books they were selling, lot alone who was buying them or how they were used.

Like, they made books, they printed books, they warehoused books, and they cashed checks, but no one in the company actually checked what was selling and what wasn't. They had no idea what was in their own warehouses. Print runs were pure guesswork. When WotC took over, there was a whole warehouse full of 1st edition hardcovers that hadn't been available for sale in about eight years.

Not to mention that company policy said playtesting was forbidden (though some designers did a little at home), Lorraine hated the game and the people who played it, and their basic design strategy of world after world through 2nd edition drove an growing set of wedges into their own market.

WotC's survey when they took over was the first that tried to find out who actually played D&D, and what they might want to buy. Later, unfortunately, Hasbro came along, and so we got 3.5, and so on. Can't say I've bought many books since.

[fbmf]

I've seriously been playing D&D since 1990 and have no clue who Lorraine is. Anyone care to catch me up?

Game On,
fbmf

[RobbyPants]

I think she took over TSR for a while when it was running into trouble.

[tzor]

I've seriously been playing D&D since 1990 and have no clue who Lorraine is. Anyone care to catch me up?

Lorraine Dille Williams is an American businesswoman who was in charge of the gaming company TSR, Inc. from 1986 to 1997. Williams is notable in the games industry for taking control of TSR by forcing co-founder Gary Gygax out of the company in 1985. For several years after that, TSR was the games industry leader; however, in the mid-1990s, a combination of poor inventory control and over-extension into the publishing industry brought the company to the brink of bankruptcy and Williams was forced to sell TSR to Wizards of the Coast in 1997.

I think this quote explains the Wicked Witch well.

She also continued to try to thwart Gary Gygax's attempts to stay in the games industry. Upon leaving TSR, Gygax had founded New Infinities Productions, Inc., and subsequently developed a new fantasy role-playing game spanning multiple genres called Dangerous Journeys. When the product was released by Game Designers' Workshop, Williams immediately sued, believing that it infringed on TSR's intellectual property. The suit was eventually settled out of court, with TSR buying the complete rights to the Dangerous Journeys system from New Infinities and then permanently shelving the entire project. With no product to sell, Gygax's new company was driven out of business.

Not mentioned in the above quote was the fact that, "The game was originally announced as Dangerous Dimensions but was changed to Dangerous Journeys in response to a threat of a lawsuit from TSR, Inc."

This all took place in the 1990's, by the way. I won't fault you for failing your spot check.

Gary almost made a comeback in the mid 00's with another company, but unfortunately, he died. I have a signed supplement in my room from that system.

[Judging__Eagle]

I'll be honest, the problems of lazy designers, poorly imitating other sources is a key problem.

The real problem with 4e is not that it is inspired by electronic games; but rather that it is built only upon the inspiration of computer games, and that it is not based on accurate study of electronic games.

You need to kill every sacred cow if you want to make a game that is table top, and plays as "fast" as an electronic game; even then, good bloody luck.

[shadzar]

Just to clarify some history and shit: Ryan Dancy was pretty damned clear about why 2nd edition failed, in that TSR did not so much as know how many books they were selling, lot alone who was buying them or how they were used.

Time for this insanity to stop.

Ryan Dancy was not looking at D&D AD&D or a particular edition, but the WHOLE of TSR operations, and I would like you to point out where he states that 2nd edition failed, rather than stating why TSR failed under dopey bitch?

The management of the entire company is not the fault of 2nd edition, nor was 2nd edition a failure because of overprinting books by mismanagement of the company.

You, like many others are trying to read what you want, or others had said wrong about his statement.

TSR was MORE than D&D, but he focuses a lot on D&D as that is what TSR was wanted for by WotC and the major aspect of the TSR properties WotC and Adkinson wanted.

What the statement you made that he said reflects is that the management of TSR was shitty, not that 2nd edition was a failure, and THAT is why TSR failed.

None of that proves that 2nd edition failed, only that TSR failed.

So get your history, facts, and shit right before you preach them please.

Lorraine didn't give two shits about gamers as they were sub-human to her, so she didn't care about it and let the management be fucked over for the game.

The game didn't fail the company did.

If 2nd had failed so badly, WotC wouldnt have continued to put material out for 2nd edition for nearly 3 years before releasing 3rd edition.

So don't confuse the two things, or make other people confused by your misunderstanding that report.

TSR was more that D&D, and the other things lead to its demise and failure MUCH more than 2nd edition the game.

fbmf:

as i just mentioned she also despised gamers en masse, was the grand-daughter and inheritor of the Buck Roger creator. She forced TSR to buy licenses to Buck Rogers so that she would get more money than being the CEO, by producing games for it. Got pissed when gamers wouldnt by the shitty Buck Roger property because she didnt know the difference between space fighting and castles and dragons.

Gary brought her into TSR as a friend to help get rid of the Blumes controlling interest after they starting taking over when his original partner died. Lorraine however sided with the Blumes and sent Gary to Hollywood to make the D&D cartoon, so he couldnt have say in running the company, even before pretty much throwing him out in 1985 as Tzor mentions.

Basically her and the Blumes created T$R, then embezzled it into failure.

I think she was also akin to the Black Widow. A widow of a millionaire, that sought out others to inherit their money and so on to get rich from, and after nobody wanted her leathery reptilian hide any longer, she looked to companies to become the widower of.

I think the Lady of Pain is based on her actually.

[Psychic Robot]

This thread went wrong in that shadzar is still allowed to post.

[Finkin]

Giant bunch of bullshit

Enough. TSR was mismanaged into the ground, that's for certain, so yes you may be correct in saying that 2E wasn't a failure that drove the company into near bankruptcy, but it wasn't the pinnacle of game design that you like to wank to either. On any level of comparison 3.x is a better game than 2nd edition.

The FACT is that 3.0/3.5 absolutely destroys 2E when you do a direct comparison of their sales. People were purchasing materials and playing RPGs in record numbers.

The FACT is that 3.x did this during a time when there was more competition in the RPG market than ever before. 2E had the luxury of basically being the only donkey for sale in the market.

I have some nostalgia when looking through my old 1E and 2E stuff too, mind you, but you seriously need to stop deluding yourself that those old, defunct games are BETTER than what came after.

[sabs]

I know that I was an avid D&D and D&D 1st Edition guy.
2E came out, and I played for a while, and hated it.
I hated forgotten realms, I hated so much of 2nd edition, that I stopped playing D&D.

I switched to Earthdawn, Shadowrun, Ars Magica, oWoD, V&V (not in that order). Mostly I switched to Earthdawn as my longest played regular rpg. (I ran a campaign for about 4 years).

When 3E came out, I was hesitant, but I gave it a go. I liked 3E (mostly) though I wanted to tweak somethings. What I didn't like about 3E had more to do with the type of people who think that playing 1/2 dragon celestial template orc shamans is cool and 'balanced'.

[tzor]

The FACT is that 3.x did this during a time when there was more competition in the RPG market than ever before. 2E had the luxury of basically being the only donkey for sale in the market.

You're going to have to back that up. I remember the 90's. Magic the Gathering was going to destroy all RPG. The entire rise and (whatever you want to call it) of White Wolf. Multiple super hero games being published at the same time (DC Heroes starting in 1985 and Champions in 1981 both going against Marvel SUperheroes which was under the TSR banner). GURPS was a viable alternative during this time as well.

Now it was true that the best alternative to AD&D was bought out by TSR in a lawsuit. But then again Gygax sued the pants off of the man who tried to push his Arduim Grimore so turnabout is fair play.

So what happened with 3.x ("we have met the enemy and they is us")? Well WoTC met the "enemy" and made them a part of WoTC through the open game license. It was easier to work with them than work against them. All those sales that went for non AD&D products in 2E went for d20 products in 3E and that was a good thing for 3E when it was a bad thing for 2E.

[shadzar]

The FACT is that 3.0/3.5 absolutely destroys 2E when you do a direct comparison of their sales. People were purchasing materials and playing RPGs in record numbers.

Yes because 1989 ending the Reagan years and beginning the Papa Bush years continuing Reaganomics and that recession until 1993 had nothing to do with affecting any sales during that period.

Nor did Clinton fixing the economy a HELL of a lot before leaving office in 2001 could have led to an edition being about to be bought better because of the stronger USD either right?

$20 in 1989 compared to $20 in 2000 were vastly different amounts of money due to inflation over that time, so 3rd edition was cheaper than 2nd edition, and those other factors have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with, as well population growth due to birth and immigration (including illegal) had nothing to do with it either.

I love the failure in people trying to compare sales of things based on eras, that think all other things are equal within the eras.

Also "better" is a subjective term and not objectifiably provable, so your claims are useless. There are people that have played 1st/2nd edition since it came out and either never played 3rd, or played 1st/2nd while playing 3rd edition.

I have some nostalgia when looking through my old 1E and 2E stuff too, mind you, but you seriously need to stop deluding yourself that those old, defunct games are BETTER than what came after.

You need to take the wool off your eyes, that WotC has pulled your sweater over your head with so they could get a look at your tits, and then realize they had ulterior motives with that company line you are buying.

Again you use a useless term of "better" with nothing to back it up, save for this forum prefers 3rd edition D&D over any other.

None of your post quoted in portion here refutes my statement that 2nd was a failure except you throwing around 3rd edition warring such as happened prior to 3.5 when came out and shoved a cock down the throats of those claiming 3rd was the best ever, only to be gotten rid of the instant it came out for its ".5" to be worked on right away, and the original swept under the floor.

Remember you asked for the fight about 3rd and 2nd here, I was only pointing out the Dancy report aid nothing about 2nd edition failing, only that the mismanagement of 2nd edition in small part was a caontributor to the whole of T$R failing.

Tzor fucks you up pretty bad on that other point, but you might need to check the list of RPGs available from 1989-2000 prior to 3rd edition to see what competition 2nd edition had, and how it still survived.

The fact so many other games existed is what HELPED keep stock in that warehouse that went unsold, because people had other choices BESIDES D&D and chose them, so the store shelves had to have space for them and only gave the same space to ALL RPGs shared, and few increased the shelf space for RPGs, so the stock couldnt reach the shelves. Check some reports of the era and again look at the Dancy report to notice this.

3rd came out during a time of great competition because 2nd was still alive through that competition. If 2nd edition hadn't survived it, T$R wouldn't have been sought to buy at that time, and WotC would have waited to get it for a lower price. The fact that D&D was still selling was WHY it was wanted, and 3rd just replaced 2nd in competing with all those things 2nd had competed with for those 11 years.

Did I mentioned 2nd edition was around for 11 years, while 3.0 lasted just under 3, and 3.5 about 5 years on the market?

3.5 lasted less that half as long competitively on the market as 2nd edition did.

3.0 lasted just a little over a fourth as long competitively on the market as 2nd edition.

Yeah, seems those claims of "better" are working REAL well for you huh?

Least we also not forget... ALSO...that with 3rd there was no more parallel edition of D&D on the market, as 2nd edition was pulled right away and support ended when the FIRST 3rd edition book came out on shelves, unlike 2nd that was still vying for position within D&D against 1st, and D&D. 3rd was the first to be the ONLY edition of D&D that could purchase new things, as mentioned was going to happen in the Dragon Magazine, when 3rd was announced.

Oh yes, that sounds SOOOO strong to me, that it couldn't stand well enough to compete with its predecessor on the market at the same time!

So yes 3rd edition was so much better, it had to cancel the previous editions all together to even stand on the market form the beginning, and lasted in its 2 combined editions less time than 2nd edition did.

I guess you consider Pathfinder to be able to boost/substantiate your claim since we are in year 11 of some sort of 3rd edition on the market, thanks to the OGL, right? That means at least 3rd edition in one of its 3 forms survived (thrives using Paizo terms) as long as 2nd edition did.

Now put the tweezers away and stop fapping with them as you attempt to gloat on your failed example, and back to the crux of this thread, that the design philosophy in general has shifted to a manner that does NOT put the TTRPG at the forefront of designing D&D.

The report claims made in this thread have nothing to do with the concept, as has been mentioned before, it isn't about failure of an edition, because NONE did, they were just phased out by the newer one due to the designers, and WotC even put out material FOR 2nd edition, which makes the thread not about TSR v WotC, but 20th century v 21st century design, that is causing that movement to design for the TTRPG of D&D seemingly as an afterthought of designing it to work for other things, and the TTRPG becoming weaker because of it.

[shadzar]

I know that I was an avid D&D and D&D 1st Edition guy.
2E came out, and I played for a while, and hated it.
I hated forgotten realms, I hated so much of 2nd edition, that I stopped playing D&D.

I switched to Earthdawn, Shadowrun, Ars Magica, oWoD, V&V (not in that order). Mostly I switched to Earthdawn as my longest played regular rpg. (I ran a campaign for about 4 years).

When 3E came out, I was hesitant, but I gave it a go. I liked 3E (mostly) though I wanted to tweak somethings. What I didn't like about 3E had more to do with the type of people who think that playing 1/2 dragon celestial template orc shamans is cool and 'balanced'.

Do you see this as part of the design concept to try to attract those people from other areas, rather than stick to areas the TTRPG held strong ground/footing in? Or maybe jsut a surge or retro movement to play D&D since people had more chances under decent management that put it in stores where people could get to it better, than having D&D only being sold in niche stores that weren't everywhere? IE Walmart carrying D&D books and every town having a Walmart nearly....that allowed more people access to 3rd than previous editions that created the multitudes of celestial dragon playing persons.

[sabs]

Yes, the 'popularity' and unwashed masses thinking roleplaying games were cool(er) with 3E probably had a lot to do with it. We always had wankers who wanted to play oddball broken stuff. But definitely the Templates stuff added in by the Monster Manuals and the Manual of the Planes seriously added creeping mondoism into the mix.

But what I personally loved about 3E.
The combat system was a huge improvement, specifically:
BAB - I like putting my bonuses together and adding my d20
AC - I liked the simple, I add up all my AC bonuses and that's m AC. No need to figure out if I have a 3,2,1,0,-1,-2 AC
Feats: I love the idea of the feats, and I even like some of the actual feats. I liked that you could make Fighters with different Primary stats. That a high Int Warrior was actually viable.
Skills: The game had actual skills, and with that, I could add skills of my own in houserules. Some of the skills were bullshit broken (Diplomacy) but most of them were not. Hide/Move Silently/Climb/Jump/Track/Craft Skills/Knowledge Skills These all made me so much happier with D&D.
Prestige Classes: I loved this, although I felt they didn't go far enough with it originally. Rangers and Paladins are both clearly Prestige classes, compared to fighters. Wizards/Clerics almost never wanted a Prestige class that did not give them Spell Levels. But the /idea/ of Prestige Classes was good. Some classes are just flat out better, and that's okay.

3E gave Iron Kingdoms a decent system to use. L5R too, although I admit I liked the original L5R system better. The d20 system made it easier to do pick up games that were not always 'fantasy'. And yes, Fighters sucked, taking a fighter to level 20 was dumb. But Fighters at low level were awesome, and they let you upgrade to some nice Prestige Classes.

[sabs]

As for more competition for 3E than 2?
I think that's complete rubish.

Just off the top of my heads the games that were competing with D&D 2nd Edition:

Gamma World
Traveller
GURPS
TORG
Shadowrun
Earthdawn
Paladium Fantasy
Paladium Rifts
World of Darkness
Rolemaster
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game
Twillight 2000
In Nomine
Aberrant
Teenagers from Outerspace
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Champions
it Came from the Late Late Night Show
Call of Cthullu
Paranoia
Cyberpunk2020
Villains and Vigilantes
Marvel SuperHeroes
Dark Conspiracy
DC Heroes
Legend of the Five Rings
DragonQuest
Elric
Elfquest
Fading Suns
HERO System
Millenium's End
Mutants and Masterminds
Nephilim
Tales from the Floating Vagabond

And that's just the ones I've personally played.
EVERY single one of these is first published in the 80's or 90's. They're all contemporaries of 1st AND 2nd edition. So saying that 3E had more competition and sold more is just bullshit.

(I still maintain 2e was crap and 3e was a much better game, though I miss 1st)

[talozin]

The FACT is that 3.x did this during a time when there was more competition in the RPG market than ever before. 2E had the luxury of basically being the only donkey for sale in the market.

You're going to have to back that up. I remember the 90's. Magic the Gathering was going to destroy all RPG. The entire rise and (whatever you want to call it) of White Wolf. Multiple super hero games being published at the same time (DC Heroes starting in 1985 and Champions in 1981 both going against Marvel SUperheroes which was under the TSR banner). GURPS was a viable alternative during this time as well.

2nd edition had about a 4-year window before Magic came out and started to devour the earth. And yes, there was huge competition in the market back then. Vampire came out in 1991 and was already eating much of 2E's market by the time Magic arrived. GDW and FASA and West End were still going concerns for at least the early part of the '90s. Games Workshop had stopped pushing Warhammer as an RPG by then, but the notion that there was any shortage of competitors is not historically accurate.

As a game, 2E was not remotely a "failure." It was a better game than 1E, better organized, cleaner mechanically, less arbitrary, more clearly written, even somewhat better balanced.

From an economic standpoint, it's fair to call it a "failure", but that's entirely because of of TSR's larger failings. 1990s TSR set fire to a bunch of cash trying to sell things that people didn't want and trying to sell more things than people did want. The flaw wasn't in the product line.

[sabs]

It's funny, I liked 1st edition so much better than 2nd. Although I admit my mind is blurry on the change over, it was so long ago. I played Red Box Set from 1984 till 1988/89. I played AD&D from 89-91 or so.. But I played so many different games from 90-94 it's hard to remember exactly.

[Zinegata]

Strictly speaking, isn't the TSR era still the most successful time for D&D with like a 20 million player base, as opposed to 6 million for 3E?

Going by memory here, but I'm fairly certain that we proved in another thread that the D&D base was in fact shrinking from edition to edition since 2E. Magic and other competing tabletop games, plus the advent of video games, had a lot to do with this.

[violence in the media]

It's funny, I liked 1st edition so much better than 2nd. Although I admit my mind is blurry on the change over, it was so long ago. I played Red Box Set from 1984 till 1988/89. I played AD&D from 89-91 or so.. But I played so many different games from 90-94 it's hard to remember exactly.

I remember playing the Red Box (and up through the color wheel) sets too. I played very little 1E before this, and it was all of the variety of "here's a character sheet, try to keep up." So, playing primarily with the Red Box, it always struck me as odd that Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling were both races and classes. I liked that 2e broke those out, so you could have Dwarf Clerics and Elf Thieves. It felt less weirdly racist.

[sabs]

No, what it said was that World Wide, by about 2004 20 million people HAD played some version of D&D. As many as 6 million were playing the game in 2007 (Thats' clearly 3E). D&D had earned from 1974-2004 $1Billion in revenue from it's products.

1st, 2nd and 3rd Edition were powerhouses in the industry, they had a majority of the system. While I hated 2nd edition and it drove me away from the game until 3rd edition came out. I would not agree that 2nd was a failure. D&D games were still on a 4 to 1 ratio to anything else. Even though there was literally a metric ton of other roleplaying games out there.

[sabs]

It's funny, I liked 1st edition so much better than 2nd. Although I admit my mind is blurry on the change over, it was so long ago. I played Red Box Set from 1984 till 1988/89. I played AD&D from 89-91 or so.. But I played so many different games from 90-94 it's hard to remember exactly.

I remember playing the Red Box (and up through the color wheel) sets too. I played very little 1E before this, and it was all of the variety of "here's a character sheet, try to keep up." So, playing primarily with the Red Box, it always struck me as odd that Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling were both races and classes. I liked that 2e broke those out, so you could have Dwarf Clerics and Elf Thieves. It felt less weirdly racist.

Honestly I did too. 1st Edition fixed that though, (but had level limits for certain race/class combinations.) I loved 1st edition, even though there was a brief period where the first thing I would do when making a 1st Edition character was roll for my psionics. And if I failed, I'd just 'kill' the character and make a new one. (What can I say, I was 15)

[talozin]

It's funny, I liked 1st edition so much better than 2nd. Although I admit my mind is blurry on the change over, it was so long ago. I played Red Box Set from 1984 till 1988/89. I played AD&D from 89-91 or so.. But I played so many different games from 90-94 it's hard to remember exactly.

I much preferred 1st edition at the time, and if I were picking one to play for nostalgia value today, that's clearly the one I'd pick. But objectively, it's hard for me to argue that 1st is actually a better game. It's more fun for me because it has the quirks and bits of color and bizarre, somewhat nonsensical flourishes that 2E got rid of, but speaking strictly mechanically, 2nd is the better game.

[Josh_Kablack]

And that's just the ones I've personally played. EVERY single one of these is first published in the 80's or 90's. They're all contemporaries of 1st AND 2nd edition. So saying that 3E had more competition and sold more is just bullshit.

While your general point about th number of competing game systems stands, I gotta point out some errors in your list:

Mutants and Masterminds wasn't released until 2002 and even uses the d20 engine - it was in no way competing with prior editions.

Aberrant wasn't released until 1999, which was before 3e, but after 2e had gone bankrupt.

And counting HERO System and Champions as two entries is kinda questionable.

[tzor]

Did I mentioned 2nd edition was around for 11 years, while 3.0 lasted just under 3, and 3.5 about 5 years on the market?

Minor nitpick since you mention sub editions whcih really is a WoTC thing. 2E exists from 1989 to the bankrupcy in 1997 ... the WoTC years should not be considered an extension of the edition period because it was a complete company transition. Normally one got the change to work on the next edition during the run of the previous edition. 2E, for example used material from various campaign worlds and supplements from the 1E days.

But. One can technically consider the release of the options series in 1995 as a new minor edition and is still referred to today as 2.5 So that gives us ...

2.0 6 Years
2.5 2 Years
Transition Period 3 Years (3E is released in 2000)

This has all the books of the editions with publication dates

Looking at that timeline and the events therein it is a miracle that D&D even survived at all.

[sabs]

HERO and Champion are different systems. One maybe a subset of the other, but they are different.

I also forgot Runequest.
You're right about Mutants and Masterminds, for some reason I thought it was older. Still, there is a LONG list of games that competed directly with 2nd Edition. 2nd Edition might have been bankrupt in 1999, but it's not like it wasn't being played the WORLD OVER. People were still playing the shit out of it. It's not like people stopped playing D&D because TSR declared Bankruptcy.