Knights & Knaves Alehouse

AxeMental wrote:Foster, I remember you mentioning some time back that you believed after Gygax departed the number of people playing D&D decreased, but those that remained purchased more (making up the difference). Do you think this is the case? I remember most of us AD&Ders back in the day only had the 3 core books, about 1/3 had the MM2 or FF, and only a handful of dungeons. The average 2E players seemed to have a shit load more books and modules (at least the ones I new).

It seemed that when the model switched over to a fad based one (ie new books constantly) sales increased but market size (actual players) continually decreased. Is that a fare statement?

I absolutely believe that's true -- starting c. 1983 and continuing to grow through the mid-90s TSR released vastly more products, but with smaller print-runs for each one (and even so, according to WotC, they were massively overprinting and had warehouses filled with unsold stock), so as many or more total books were being sold (or at least printed) and the company was making as much or more money (at least on paper), but fewer and fewer people were playing. Like you say, in the early-mid 80s the average D&D player owned at most 1 to 3 books (and many didn't own any books at all) and even the DMs probably had no more than a dozen, including modules & accessories, whereas in the 90s the average D&D player likely owned at least a dozen books (full set of core rulebooks, class & race splats, setting books) and DMs might well have 100+ if they were following multiple settings or wanted a copy of every splatbook that every player owned. That's the same strategy that seemingly persists at WotC to this day -- it's not about selling a rulebook to a player, it's about selling a rulebook to that player every month, and the D&DInsider subscription model is just a more efficient means of accomplishing that.

Brad wrote:A related question for those old enough to remember: when and why did rpgs move from massive presence to nearly nothing? Around 1981-82, I can remember going to Toys-R-Us looking for new video games, passing the massive wall of D&D books. Nearly every hobby shop in the mall sold D&D in some form, as did all the major bookstores. Around the time I got to high school, I saw less and less of the product, although there were two comic book shops that sold a lot of rpg materials, with one store in town being completely devoted to rpgs. Years pass, harder to find anything related to rpgs anywhere.

In the 70s rpgs were sold in specialty shops -- model railroad and rocket shops, headshops, dedicated game stores (who also sell stuff like craps tables and fancy chess sets, and usually have a back room for minis players), and independent sf/fantasy-oriented bookstores.

In the early 80s TSR (and other companies like I.C.E. and Mayfair to a lesser extent) made a big move into mainstream retail -- bookstores, toy stores, department stores, hobby/craft stores, etc. that seemed to last up to about 1987 (I remember picking up a bunch of D&D modules at deep discount when the local KB Toys liquidated their D&D section in about '86 or '87). Bookstores continued to carry rpg stuff (and still do) but in a much smaller section -- usually only a single shelf with the most recent WotC and White Wolf releases -- but they disappared completely from all the other places -- past about 1987 you're not going to see rpg books at Sears, or Toys R Us, or Ace hardware, but they were once sold in all those places and more. I suppose this is just a natural result of the fad ending -- sales slowed to the point where stores no longer found it worthwhile to stock this stuff, so eventually they stopped distributing to them -- but it seems like a wasted opportunity -- almost all of those stores still stock games like Monopoly and Scrabble, an evergreen D&D set could easily fit in there as well.

Comic shops picked up the slack when they had a big boom in the early-mid 90s (my local comic shop c. 1990-93 had as big an rpg section as most dedicated game stores), but by the late 90s they were also cutting back on their rpg sections (Ghul could probably provide more detail here, but I suspect the cause is the comic business itself falling off a cliff around that time -- the store owners suddenly had a lot less money and had to focus on the profitable core business of comics and cards and let the more marginal rpg business drop) and by about 2003 most comic shops seemed to have about the same rpg selection as mainstream bookstores -- that shelf or two of the latest WotC and WW stuff, and maybe a couple dusty boxes in the back of old stuff from the 90s (all still marked at full MSRP, of course) -- if they continue to carry rpgs at all, which most don't.

Nowadays, except for that shelf of WotC and WW stuff at some bookstores and comic shops, we're back to the situation of the 70s, except the model railroad and rocket stores and headshops don't carry rpg stuff anymore (because nobody was buying it from them in the 80s and 90s when they could get it elsewhere) and the dedicated game-stores and quirky independent bookstores, which were never very profitable even in good times, are dropping like flies with, ironically, the nastiest ones -- the cramped, musty places with surly staff and creepy customers; no place you'd ever want to go -- hanging on best, like roaches (presumably because they have the lowest overhead). Thankfully now we've got the internet.

Don't forget the tie-in toys which gave credence to them being at Kay-Bee once they were cycled out then "big D&D" went with them.

I just saw a new Starter Set at Toys R Us, the kids were like "Wow" and I picked it up and pretended to make the sound of a conchshell horn which they "got" immediately!

Foster: "past about 1987 you're not going to see rpg books at Sears, or Toys R Us, or Ace hardware, but they were once sold in all those places and more. I suppose this is just a natural result of the fad ending -- sales slowed to the point where stores no longer found it worthwhile to stock this stuff, so eventually they stopped distributing to them -- but it seems like a wasted opportunity -- almost all of those stores still stock games like Monopoly and Scrabble, an evergreen D&D set could easily fit in there as well."

Given your stated scenario (of short print runs and lots of books) do you think its reasonable that TSR simply outpaced its market? Just as the "masses" were getting used to the AD&D core books, wamo there gone. It'd be like all the sudden Monopoly turned into something completely different, I doubt Monopoly fans would have continued playing. Sure, its a tight rope act (changing enough to keep trendy, but not changing enough to loose the classic identifiable feel), but TSR just went in a 180 degree different direction (as SKA pointed out railroads and vast dramas swamped the average person that actually just wanted to play a game (not read a horribly written romance nove in module form.)

Many of us personally don't like it, but many people have stated that Dragonlance and the 'drama' subset of Forgotten Realms actually sold very well in the eighties at least. I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is, it does complicate the narrative a little bit from the one Axe suggests (and which I suspect many of us would prefer to be true). I think a lot of people actually like the character-immersion/railroaded story style of play, especially if the GM is just slightly more flexible than we often caricature him/her as being in those kinds of games. I think the success of Dragonlance kind of shows that, unfortunately.

Which doesn't mean we have to play that way of course, but it does suggest that the stylistic shifts of the eighties aren't necessarily by themselves responsible for the company's financial downfall.

T. Foster wrote: ironically, the nastiest ones -- the cramped, musty places with surly staff and creepy customers; no place you'd ever want to go -- hanging on best, like roaches (presumably because they have the lowest overhead).

My guess is you're talking about a certain store in Burbank . . .

And you're right: I bought a copy of the MM at Captain Ed's smoke shop. They wouldn't sell me a bong though, I was too young.

- Wheggi

Calithena wrote:Many of us personally don't like it, but many people have stated that Dragonlance and the 'drama' subset of Forgotten Realms actually sold very well in the eighties at least. I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is, it does complicate the narrative a little bit from the one Axe suggests (and which I suspect many of us would prefer to be true). I think a lot of people actually like the character-immersion/railroaded story style of play, especially if the GM is just slightly more flexible than we often caricature him/her as being in those kinds of games. I think the success of Dragonlance kind of shows that, unfortunately.

Which doesn't mean we have to play that way of course, but it does suggest that the stylistic shifts of the eighties aren't necessarily by themselves responsible for the company's financial downfall.

Cal, I think what Foster had postulated was that TSR sold far more product to a smaller actual number of people (ex. 100 people buying 1 or fewer books (ie. early 1E) is less then 10 people buying 50 books each (late 1E, 2E, and 3E/4E). Back in the early to mid 80s a majority of people were playing, then 5 years later it tanked.

I know for a fact that with the inseption of 2E we lost at least 80-90% of the gamers I new, who were for the most part, normal guys...perhaps a little geeky, but most dated, played sports etc. (the average 2Eer was a supergeek, or played because it was the only supported alternative (usually due to their age).

Also the quality of this stuff absolutely sucked (As others have stated) and much of it was obvious filler (for instance, I remember these colored monster cards you were supposed to buy and stick in some expensive folder rather then just using the MM...junk, and expensive junk at that).

Axe-

I assume you mean the 2nd ed cards. I thought the 1st edition monster cards with the Elmore/Dee/Willingham/etc. color art were pretty cool, IIRC they came out before the MM2 did.

I never saw those, yep these were 2E and in the late 80s.

2E came out in late 1989.

It may have been then, the late 80s early 90s a bit of a blur to me. After Jefferson Starship's crapfastic "We Built This City on Rock & Roll" I just stopped keeping track.

Just for clarification, they weren't cards you're all referring to for 2e it was the MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM and had folios with loose punch-holed pages with a full page monster on each side too but in an official binder that didn't fit them all. I know I had eveything single one of them. There was Spelljammer ones, a few Forgotten realms ones, Outer Planes, Kara-Tur, etc. They were horrible. The artwork in some wasn't bad but the vast majority had this art that made you just want to flip a table over on Lorraine Williams's head and keep jumping and jumping...

Just kidding!

Plus I had all the original AD&D MONSTER CARDS which are very superior. Full color. Beautiful. I used them for years and enjoyed but there whereabouts are unknown i had them forever though so they may just pop up again.

Then in the mid-90's 2e came out with a hardcover of "the best" called MONSTROUS MANUAL. It still came out even more half-baked and dweeby than the COMPENDIUM binders because this time thye had a real major dweeb contributing the art with glammy caricaratures and created the look of the dweeb kobold that survived into 3e and 4e (the "dweebold"?). After the MONSTROUS MANUAL hardcover they went softcover with more setting specific stuff. I had all of these for years but they were never used. Ever. I found so many errors plus the illustration just were so atrocious that they fucked with my mood as a DM. I had to throw them all out to get purged. It felt great.

By the late 80's most of my friends and I still played some AD&D, but had left the game for other systems (Beasts, Men & Gods, Palladium Fantasy, Champions and Warhammer FRP). There was a brief resurgence in 1990-91 when 2E was fresh and our group met up with some other guys in Topeka who were playing it, but the post-college diaspora ended that and even prior to then the new, amalgamated group spent some time playing Palladium Fantasy. By 1992 though almost everyone I gamed with in the Lawrence/Topeka area was playing Werewolf/Vampire/Mage or Call of Cthulhu and thought D&D was silly and hated T$R because it/they seemed focused almost exclusively on the 12-14 year old market.

Around that time I started playing with an entirely new group and a DM who had written his own game/world that was largely based around the Harn setting with some stripped-down MERP stuff thrown in. When that group ended in 1995 or so, I only went back to AD&D because it was a common denominator...everyone who wanted to play fantasy/S&S-type games was familiar with the basic (not Basic) rules. I had been working on my own campaign setting since 1989 and over the years had house ruled 1E with some 2E stuff and a bunch of other rules from other games that we liked (Fate points, armor absorption of damage, split hit points, the Luck ability score, etc).

I don't know if this is a typical evolution common to other gamers, but at least in my experience AD&D was cool from about 1980 (when we started) through about 1985-86, then dropped onto the back burner except for a brief resurgence in 1990-91 when 2E/Forgotten Realms was fresh, then only came back again later when it was too hard to find players for more esoteric/archaic systems.

This is a summary of my D&D buying habits which continued way past what I now believe was the end for "TSR":

I started in 1981 and it started a push for playing it wasn't until 1982 that I started getting into the full swing of playing regularly and making new ideas. Hardcore years were 1982-1987 and it didn't really matter what was coming out because I always did my own thing. It was other players that insisted that i play the legitimate stuff so I just grabbed it all at the comic store (I was buying every comic that was coming out from 1987 to 1995 so what was the big deal about grabbing things called D&D?) In 1991 I was feeling disappointed in this stack of crap that I acquired that I wasn't getting around to and DARK SUN came out and I didn't want to touch it. I got a birthday present from my cousin..DARK SUN. Hey, passive-aggressive hostile gifts! So I had to "entertain that" by getting stuff to round it out unfortunately Iwas way over $100 into that crap alone before I stopped. 1992 was the wake up call CITY OF GREYHAWK may have disappointed me but FROM THE ASHES was like, these people don't know what they're doing. Thats when I started slowing down. I cut off FR, DL, OA, DS, SJ and most other crap. I still held out on "GH", monster books and then I got another "gift" in 1994...PLANESCAPE. Then it was the same situation from DARK SUN. "Hey, Gene, this looks awesome but you need to round it out." ...AGAIN!!! Unfortunately this time around it was huge boxed sets filled with nothing but YAppity yap text and heavily annoying page designs. By the time I had finished with that I was fired up over GH not being anything near what it once was then I started writing angry letters to TSR/DRAGON to get Gary Gygax back (I was unaware of the reasons why he wasn't there.). I was "out" when players off the street convinced me into getting PLAYERS OPTIONS and then I had more crap. During the PO era (1995 I think) I became convinced that 2e was not 1e despite what the hoi-polloi thought. One long time player was always saying how he couldn't match his illusionist up anymore, etc. (Years later I would prove my theory in (2002?)) By the late 90's I started throwing out 2e in the trash once that I heard Gary Gygax was working on 3e which turned out to be a lie then it stretched out into maybe he'd be doing Greyhawk which didn't happen either which stretched out into hey he'll do D20 well that didn't last either in a good way.

Today I pretty much buy nothing. I did check out MONSTERS OF MYTH and it was a nice little monster book. These days I don't know what else to buy as I think everybody is afraid of what I'll say...

geneweigel wrote:Today I pretty much buy nothing. I did check out MONSTERS OF MYTH and it was a nice little monster book. These days I don't know what else to buy as I think everybody is afraid of what I'll say...

Considering that I contributed a very small number of monsters and illos to that book, I take this as high praise!

Much better than "I read it, and now leave it in the back yard so that stray tomcats can spray it, improving the smell" . . .

- Wheggi