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FMguru posted:My favorite example of TSR overproduction was a series of linked adventure modules for the Maztica setting, where you would have products that TSR paid full price to write, edit, layout, art design, print, market, ship, warehouse, and account for, but were only bought by 1) DMs (not players) who 2) bought pre-pack adventure modules, who 3) played in the Forgotten Realms and, more specifically, 4) played in the Maztica sub-region of FR, and who had 5) already played through the first module and wanted to continue on to the second. Someone who didn't meet ALL FIVE of those requirements would not pick or even look for more than a few seconds at the product. Spending all that money to make something that literally 98% of your target audience had zero use for or even the ability to use. Multiple that times a dozen products every month, month after month, year after year, and it's easy to see how TSR drove itself into the ground. Yeah, there's a reason the edition after, WotC was like "ok, we'll just make a license situation where we pawn these books off on other people so we can just sell stuff that sells" and, you know what? It worked.
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Jul 21, 2022 17:59
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OA was also an AD&D 1E core book at a time when there weren't many of those, and unlike a lot of its contemporaries (Wilderness Survival Guide, Manual Of The Planes, etc.) it was full of usable (and official) crunch (new races, new classes, new spells, new monsters, new magic items, etc.). Plus, pretty decent cover art. No surprise it sold a ton of copies.
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Jul 21, 2022 18:01
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FMguru posted:OA was also an AD&D 1E core book at a time when there weren't many of those, and unlike a lot of its contemporaries (Wilderness Survival Guide, Manual Of The Planes, etc.) it was full of usable (and official) crunch (new races, new classes, new spells, new monsters, new magic items, etc.). Plus, pretty decent cover art. Definitely- OA was a lot more unique when it came out. It was dumb, but it actually fit a lot better into how people played than the other stuff.
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Jul 21, 2022 18:05
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PeterWeller posted:Forgotten Realms even had its own comic for a bit there (Dragonlance too). That'll be at least part of the appeal of any setting, though. I'm sure plenty of people played in Eberron, but I'm guessing at least as many just played Artificers and Warforged in their existing games. Obviously that's thrown off significantly by the words "samurai" and "ninja" but generally I think it's impossible to separate a D&D setting from the rules that it adds.
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Jul 21, 2022 18:12
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Hey, I'm still really confused as to how it was even possible for Neo-TSR to publish anything Star Frontiers related. Are they just blatantly violating copyright while WotC already has a lawsuit pending?
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Jul 21, 2022 |
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Jul 21, 2022 19:01
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Halloween Jack posted:Hey, I'm still really confused as to how it was even possible for Neo-TSR to publish anything Star Frontiers related. Are they just blatantly violating copyright while WotC's already has a lawsuit pending? Sure seems that way.
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Jul 21, 2022 19:02
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Panzeh posted:Good post, yeah, it's one of the things that has me wanting to get into it on a paid basis- just a more engaged group of players who are here for it. Megazver posted:I'm very interested in the topic, so that was great, thanks! Currently I run 2 games a week, Almost all of my players come from startplaying games listings but I do post them on reddit just to get some more eyes on them. I charge 10$ per session, per player for my current games but I'm gona be testing 20$ for a game I'm starting up in august. Tuxedo Catfish posted:given how many times i've compared (my ideal of) GMing to heel wrestlers it's pretty cool to hear this from someone who actually worked in that sector glad the post was helpful!
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Jul 21, 2022 19:07
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Halloween Jack posted:Hey, I'm still really confused as to how it was even possible for Neo-TSR to publish anything Star Frontiers related. Are they just blatantly violating copyright while WotC already has a lawsuit pending? Yes. It seems like they're trying to generate some cash for the legal battle, or maybe get while they still can.
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Jul 21, 2022 19:13
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Gynovore posted:Holy poo poo, I could write a book on 'stuff I found at KB toys over the last 30 years'. From what I gather, their policy is to never send stuff that won't sell back to the warehouse, but rather to put in on the back shelf and mark it down repeatedly. I once bought two BOXES of Steve Jackson's Battlecards there for $10 each. I bought ten copies of Siege of the Citadel at ten bux each. That set me up for a serious Algaroth army for Warzone...Ten Ezoghouls alone!
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Jul 21, 2022 19:15
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Halloween Jack posted:Hey, I'm still really confused as to how it was even possible for Neo-TSR to publish anything Star Frontiers related. Are they just blatantly violating copyright while WotC already has a lawsuit pending? They've been pushing Star Frontiers as a line they're "reviving" since last June, right after the press release that started the running chain of embarrassing social media meltdowns and legal slapfights. They claimed to have a print run of books that sold out immediately in October 2021, and picture showing a stack of Star Frontiers books that looked photoshopped: https://www.enworld.org/attachments/sfng_stock_manipulated-jpg.157197/ It seems like the only game they're actually trying to publish right now, after Giantlands split off into its own company. The WotC lawsuit started in March of this year and Star Frontiers is one of the IPs named as one the two companies are fighting over. A copy of the countersuit from WotC is listed in this ENWorld write up from when the prior nazi allegations came out on Dave Johnson in May. NuTSR filed a trademark for Star Frontiers, but WotC is pretty unambiguously the owner of the IP right now. So yeah, they are trying to publish a book written by a white supremacist for a game line they most likely don't have the legal rights to. Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jul 21, 2022 |
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Jul 21, 2022 19:38
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Thank you! I knew it had to be more convoluted than it seemed to be, since nuTSR is involved. Maybe there will be some kind of silver lining, like WotC will want to publish some Star Frontiers related stuff for 5e to get the bad taste out of everyone's mouth. Maybe somebody's already doing that on DM's Guild, Idunno. Edit: That's a lame cover for Star Frontiers, by the way. Not that it's a bad illo in itself, but you'd think they would want something reminiscent of the Larry Elmore covers for the rulebooks and the Endless Quest books. But that's...an orc stepping out of a portal? Lame. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Jul 21, 2022 |
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Jul 21, 2022 19:43
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I think they’re using Star Frontier species in Spelljammer 5e stuff?
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Jul 21, 2022 20:09
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https://mobile.twitter.com/CHofferCBus/status/1550104271236071424 (D&D movie poster has stolen art from Pathfinder rulebook...)
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Jul 21, 2022 20:44
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Thranguy posted:https://mobile.twitter.com/CHofferCBus/status/1550104271236071424 Isn’t that just a grell? I swear I could find similar art going back through random books I’ve had since I was a kid. Regardless, that’s not really “stolen art”. It’s art of a similar concept which is a much more difficult legal thing ; “i drew this specific brain with a beak” vs “nuh uh I invented beak-brain.
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Jul 21, 2022 21:14
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Xiahou Dun posted:Isn’t that just a grell? Turn on your monitor
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Jul 21, 2022 21:15
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Xiahou Dun posted:Isn’t that just a grell? It's literally traced. Like the whorls on the brain are identical.
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Jul 21, 2022 21:16
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admanb posted:That'll be at least part of the appeal of any setting, though. I'm sure plenty of people played in Eberron, but I'm guessing at least as many just played Artificers and Warforged in their existing games. Yeah, that's a good point. But also, the setting part of Oriental Adventures is secondary to the mechanics in a way that Eberron or, say, Dark Sun isn't. There are about 5 pages covering Kara-Tur out of the entire 144 page book.
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Jul 21, 2022 21:18
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I didn't realize goon faceblindness could extend to things without faces.
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Jul 21, 2022 21:19
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Xiahou Dun posted:Isn’t that just a grell? Grell are the beaked brains that float around with a mass of tentacles below like flying jellyfish. That's an Intellect Devourer. Got to get your brain ducks in a row.
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Jul 21, 2022 21:23
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Xiahou Dun posted:Regardless, that’s not really “stolen art”. It’s art of a similar concept which is a much more difficult legal thing ; “i drew this specific brain with a beak” vs “nuh uh I invented beak-brain. 
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Jul 21, 2022 21:24
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According to Twitter the poster is by Boss Logic, famed photoshopper.Nuns with Guns posted:Like has anything come out for Cortex since they finished the handbook and the really broad overview website? Or any licensed game settings it was promising? I guess this is getting into actual industry talk now though.
I thought #3 was interesting, because along with Fandom's Cortex (and Cypher, I think), we're seeing kind of a third stage of "using other people's stuff". First, you couldn't make D&D stuff without talking to TSR, Vampire stuff without talking to [whomever], etc. Then came the OGL, and you had games like 3.X and Fate and Blades. Now, we're in this third stage, where companies are releasing rules text and encouraging you to use that rules text to sell your own setting, your own IP, but they get a cut because it's their system. I just thought that was kind of fascinating.
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Jul 21, 2022 21:28
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Leperflesh posted:It's literally traced. Like the whorls on the brain are identical. Ah. Phone-posting. Sorry, those images don’t have that much fidelity when they’re postage stamp sized. My bad.
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Jul 21, 2022 21:30
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Xiahou Dun posted:Ah. Phone-posting. Sorry, those images don’t have that much fidelity when they’re postage stamp sized. They are a literal copy and paste, yes.
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Jul 21, 2022 21:51
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Halloween Jack posted:Hey, I'm still really confused as to how it was even possible for Neo-TSR to publish anything Star Frontiers related. Are they just blatantly violating copyright while WotC already has a lawsuit pending? Trademark law, not copyright, but otherwise yep.
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Jul 21, 2022 21:59
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Art Thieves
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Jul 21, 2022 22:02
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FMguru posted:As far as I can tell, the double money fountains of Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novels meant that TSR spent the 90s trying to create another broadly popular fantasy world that they could use to sell novels and trading cards and computer games and wall calendars. Whether they made any sense as gaming settings or as gaming products wasn't something they cared that much about - they were all about trying to get lightning to strike a third time, which is why they kept cranking out new world settings. OK, not quite, they added new plot. But it wasn't as attention-grabbing as the original stuff, and still felt like showing up after the party's over if that was your first Dark Sun product (as it was for me, I missed the boat on the original box). It makes sense that for 4E they rewound to the original status quo almost entirely (they have the first of the city-states overthrow their sorcerer-king, but that makes sense because it gives your PCs a home base to start from which the original box admittedly lacked).
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Jul 21, 2022 22:09
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The 4e book did have some good additions and thoughtfully included a rule variant to remove the loot treadmill which doubled as a bonus to people who didn't wanna hand out magic items in other games. I like the setting stuff that establishes a good starting point for the characters with a free city that also has a power vacuum that makes for a good source of conflict and intrigue for players to get involved in. Good stuff
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Jul 21, 2022 22:13
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Glagha posted:The 4e book did have some good additions and thoughtfully included a rule variant to remove the loot treadmill which doubled as a bonus to people who didn't wanna hand out magic items in other games. I like the setting stuff that establishes a good starting point for the characters with a free city that also has a power vacuum that makes for a good source of conflict and intrigue for players to get involved in. Good stuff
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Jul 21, 2022 22:51
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FMguru posted:As far as I can tell, the double money fountains of Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novels meant that TSR spent the 90s trying to create another broadly popular fantasy world that they could use to sell novels and trading cards and computer games and wall calendars. Whether they made any sense as gaming settings or as gaming products wasn't something they cared that much about - they were all about trying to get lightning to strike a third time, which is why they kept cranking out new world settings. I think this is key to understanding what was going on at the time. While a lot of the old setting boxes did poorly as money-makers (TSR lost money with every Planescape Campaign Setting box they sold, for example, because the msrp was less than what it cost them to manufacture and ship), the raw numbers in terms of sales and profit per unit were deceptive because by the late 80's TSR had realized that the real money was in the tie-in novels. Those were incredibly cheap to produce, and the Drizzt novels alone sold more than 30 million copies. Ravenloft may not have done as well as even Greyhawk, but the novel sales numbers were quite respectable. It's likely at least some parts of the company came to see new settings something like the way Disney views Marvel comic books - it may not be very profitable, but it's a great place to set up and mine for content for the real product.
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Jul 22, 2022 00:06
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https://twitter.com/BrainClouds/status/1549500278763929605 I think "YOU ARE SUDE AND YOU ARE DONE!!!!" is a candidate for a new thread title.
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Jul 22, 2022 02:25
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Warthur posted:They are also, other than Oriental Adventures, the ones which had multiple "core setting releases". Dragonlance had the 1E hardcover and the Tales of the Lance box in 2E; Greyhawk had the original box and a 2E repackaging; Forgotten Realms had several core releases; Ravenloft had three (original box, revised box, Domains of Dread hardcover). Dark Sun had 2. The original link has more charts showing Dragonlance and FR different core set sales, and the only one that grew compared to its predecessor was the 2e introductory hardcover Forgotten Realms Adventures. Even for TSR's big tentpole lines they were selling less and less. So the chart that's listed here is solely the first box set for DL and FR.
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Jul 22, 2022 02:35
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Kurieg posted:I think "YOU ARE SUDE AND YOU ARE DONE!!!!" is a candidate for a new thread title. 
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Jul 22, 2022 02:51
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ok
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Jul 22, 2022 02:58
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...lmao gently caress, I said "sude" allowed when I saw the title changed and realized that I gave the Nazi way too much credit by reading it as "suicide" as in "kill yourself" and not "sued". I forgot he's from the argument school of legal threats and not the internet school of arguing online.
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Jul 22, 2022 03:04
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CitizenKeen posted:According to Twitter the poster is by Boss Logic, famed photoshopper. So for Modiphius that would be 2d20 system things? It makes some sense because that's what's been sustaining D&D 5e. Put out one or two big tent pole "official" books per year, open a storefront for "second party" supplements done with no labor on your end beyond hosting the storefront, and take a decent bite of each sale and the line feeds itself for years. It seems like a lot of the major tabletop RPG companies have been shifting to that, if they aren't releasing OGLs for free like Blades did. If they can work in ways to integrate their licensed products into the storefront, something like Star Trek, Fallout, or Dune would be a huge draw for people itching to apply their setting knowledge to fan splats and all the variant rules they've already cooked up to make the ideal versions of those settings for their game groups. I do imagine Fandom is planning something like that, too. It'll be interesting to see how all these bids for what amounts to community-managed game lines turns out.
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Jul 22, 2022 03:04
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My understanding is that Fandom is supposed to be allowing you (one day, some day) to use their licensed material (Dragon Prince and He-Man), while Modiphius is not. Fandom (at least, Adam Bradford) are/were awesome at pursuing licenses, as I understand it.
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Jul 22, 2022 03:09
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Thranguy posted:https://mobile.twitter.com/CHofferCBus/status/1550104271236071424 Less sexy lead: D&D movie *may* have licensed art found in Pathfinder rulebook.
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Jul 22, 2022 03:41
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Eastmabl posted:Less sexy lead: D&D movie *may* have licensed art found in Pathfinder rulebook. sure, definitely two different pictures and not just one they slightly squashed
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Jul 22, 2022 03:56
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Yeah that poster was made by Boss Logic specifically for the SDCC "Experience" thing. This isn't the first time something has been plagiarized that they have done. This is the poster that has been around for the actual movie. https://twitter.com/CHofferCBus/status/1550211250159849472 
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Jul 22, 2022 04:18
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So is the Boss Logic poster directly connected to WotC, or whatever studio is making the movie, or is it some semi-official third-party thing? I'm really unclear on this art thief's relationship to the actual license and business.
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Jul 22, 2022 04:27
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