What's up with the Zeb Cook hatred?

[JLowder]

By 'insight' I mean any additional information that you might have on how the D&D line was perceived by TSR at the time, including how it was perceived by those who mainly worked on it (as far as I can tell, it seems that both Allston and Heard liked Mystara, etc.).

Aaron was a freelancer, but Bruce Heard, who was the scheduling manager, loved Mystara and championed it wherever he could. Unless you had a couple spare hours, staff knew better than to get Bruce started on why Mystara was great. In fact, many people in house thought very highly of the line and of the D&D books released even in the late 80s and early 90s. I recall a lot of people holding up the Rules Cyclopedia as an example of not just a good, but a fantastic rules set.

I personally enjoyed Mystara, though I never ended up working on the game line directly. I did some work on a couple of D&D game products, though--editing B11 and B12 was my first freelance gig for the game department.

Cheers,
Jim Lowder

[Chgowiz]

Lastly, in my past experience, hardcore 2e players tend to ignore trivial and mundane things like personal hygiene since they're much too busy delving into the mysteries of another supplement book, so how many air freshener cans did the DM go through before the night was out?

Dude, I was playing D&D in 1976 and I can assure you that the personal hygiene-challenged were present even back then.

Don't think of it as dust. Just think of it as the dirt and dust of far-off lands blowing over here and settling on "Pig-Pen!" It staggers the imagination! He may be carrying the soil that was trod upon by Solomon or Nebuchadnezzar or Genghis Khan!

[JCBoney]

^

Dude, I was playing D&D in 1976 and I can assure you that the personal hygiene-challenged were present even back then.

Oh, okay... I'm guessing I'm spoiled then from playing 1e over the years with people who actually bathe. Who knows.

[Flambeaux]

^

Dude, I was playing D&D in 1976 and I can assure you that the personal hygiene-challenged were present even back then.

Oh, okay... I'm guessing I'm spoiled then from playing 1e over the years with people who actually bathe. Who knows.

Did the hygiene practices have anything to do with being aboard ship? Just thinking out loud...

[JCBoney]

^

Dude, I was playing D&D in 1976 and I can assure you that the personal hygiene-challenged were present even back then.

Oh, okay... I'm guessing I'm spoiled then from playing 1e over the years with people who actually bathe. Who knows.

Did the hygiene practices have anything to do with being aboard ship? Just thinking out loud...

Interesting point, but I started in the early 80s as a kid, so it's not just Navy experience but high school and college as well as now.

Anecdote, though: we had a guy who wanted to run a game back in the Navy. He was cranking in the galley at the time, and when he finally got off work, we met in the lab in the medical area. About five of us crammed into this small area, and he reeked to high heaven of sweat and leftovers. It was immediately apparent, and after about two minutes, we all chimed in on him and told him to take a shower and change... we'd wait for him.

[Akrasia]

By 'insight' I mean any additional information that you might have on how the D&D line was perceived by TSR at the time, including how it was perceived by those who mainly worked on it (as far as I can tell, it seems that both Allston and Heard liked Mystara, etc.).

Aaron was a freelancer, but Bruce Heard, who was the scheduling manager, loved Mystara and championed it wherever he could. Unless you had a couple spare hours, staff knew better than to get Bruce started on why Mystara was great. In fact, many people in house thought very highly of the line and of the D&D books released even in the late 80s and early 90s. I recall a lot of people holding up the Rules Cyclopedia as an example of not just a good, but a fantastic rules set.

I personally enjoyed Mystara, though I never ended up working on the game line directly. I did some work on a couple of D&D game products, though--editing B11 and B12 was my first freelance gig for the game department.

Cheers,
Jim Lowder

Thanks, Jim!

Do you know why TSR decided to end the D&D line altogether around 1994 (iirc)?

[Zotster]

I don't want to see "2e is not so bad!" "Oh yes it is!" back-and-forths anymore. That issue is already decided, as far as this forum is concerned. Respect that or get out. 2e is off-topic. D. Cook is off-topic, 99% of the time. M. Breault is off-topic.

People may disagree on how to handle this issue, but the rules and the history of the site are on my side. Now we've lost a long-time, iconic poster and contributor, and we've gained his polar opposite. If things continue the way they are, I'm going to follow him. Jeer if you want.

First of all, I posted in response to the "Zeb Cook is a Liar" thread and Gene's rant in there about Zeb. Did you complain about that thread being OT? Be sure to let me know.

I assume the lost poster is Gene. In what ways am I his polar opposite? I assume you meant that as an insult, but the differences I see are that I can write a coherent English sentence, that I was actually there and don't just pretend to have been, and that I don't scatter ill-informed delusions of vast conspiracies throughout my posts.

[blackprinceofmuncie]

Guys, Trent has already asked that no one continue to harp on Gene in absentia. Let's let it drop.

[Zotster]

I remained interested in the Basic D&D line, and think that the best TSR gaming products during this era were for that line (the Gazetteers, B10, the RC, etc.). I find it ironic that designers at TSR considered this line undesirable, given the superior quality of the products (IMO).

Since this is a 1e AD&D site, I understand if discussing such products in this thread is considered inappropriate. If not, I'd be grateful into any insight either of you might have into the main designers responsible for Basic/Expert/RC D&D line, including the Gazetters, etc. (i.e., folks like Bruce Heard and Aaron Allston). Thanks!

EDIT: By 'insight' I mean any additional information that you might have on how the D&D line was perceived by TSR at the time, including how it was perceived by those who mainly worked on it (as far as I can tell, it seems that both Allston and Heard liked Mystara, etc.).

During my time there, D&D was definitely the red-haired bastard stepchild. FrankM preferred to work on the line and I think Bruce Heard did too, but most others had to be coerced to take on a D&D project over an AD&D one. Bruce (who was primarily our acquisitions editor, coordinating scheduling and such for freelancers, and who didn't do many projects during work time) did several of the Gazeteers and I worked on one.

Aaron was a freelancer; not sure if I ever worked with him or not.

[Akrasia]

...
During my time there, D&D was definitely the red-haired bastard stepchild. FrankM preferred to work on the line and I think Bruce Heard did too, but most others had to be coerced to take on a D&D project over an AD&D one. Bruce (who was primarily our acquisitions editor, coordinating scheduling and such for freelancers, and who didn't do many projects during work time) did several of the Gazeteers and I worked on one.

Aaron was a freelancer; not sure if I ever worked with him or not.

Thanks for the info!

Which Gazetteer did you work on?

[T. Foster]

It's interesting that Aaron Allston was a freelancer and never an actual employee of TSR, because he (along with Bruce Heard) is really the Face of the Classic D&D branch post-Mentzer -- between GAZ1, the Dawn of the Emperors and Hollow World boxed sets, editing the Rules Cyclopedia, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting (but that Akrasia could surely fill me in on ). To take it a step further, I begin to wonder if in some sense the genrally high quality of his material (even if not necessary in line with my personal tastes) is in some sense a direct consequence of his NOT being an actual employee of TSR (and thus being more insulated from the daily travails of dealing with the crazy management and such)?

[JLowder]

Do you know why TSR decided to end the D&D line altogether around 1994 (iirc)?

I don't know all the details. I left TSR as a fulltimer in '92 and broke with them even as a freelancer in '94. But sales was part of it. If the line had been selling really well, they would have kept it going. There was also the market confusion issue. Some fans new to the game and certainly some of the sales reps at Random House were confused by the presence of two versions of D&D in the catalog. On the latter, we are talking about mostly non-gamers, so that's no surprise; some of the sales reps had trouble keeping the Realms and Ravenloft and Dark Sun apart. (I "pitched" the book lines to one RH sales conference and was surprised how little some of the reps knew, or cared, about the products.)

During my TSR tenure, the D&D line never had the company support AD&D enjoyed, and the wild success of the Forgotten Realms, both in games and novels, made it really hard to keep settings like Mystara and even Greyhawk going. From a short-term financial perspective, it makes sense to fill the schedule slot held by a Mystara product with a similar Realms product, and sell 10,000 more units. There are long-term problems with that approach, but in the short term it makes sense.

As Mike said, the line had its supporters, but the company overall never gave it the front line support that AD&D or the Realms received. Individual designers could hold up the Rules Cyclopedia as a great product, but they weren't the ones making the decisions to create a novel line or give the line the sort of marketing and PR support other lines were getting.

Cheers,
Jim Lowder

[T. Foster]

the wild success of the Forgotten Realms, both in games and novels, made it really hard to keep settings like Mystara and even Greyhawk going.

I don't suppose either you or Mike were at a high enough decision-making level to be able to shed any light on why TSR didn't just quietly retire the World of Greyhawk line once Gary was out of the picture (and especially once the Forgotten Realms came fully online). Doing so would surely have saved a whole lot of people a whole lot of grief and spite. Maybe it's just an accidental consequence of how resources were allocated and such, but from an outsider's perspective it seems like the unremittingly bad products released for Greyhawk in the late 80s (Rose Estes novels, really terrible RPGA-originated modules, the joke Castle Greyhawk module, Jim Ward's utterly vacuous hardback, etc.) were almost a deliberate attempt to sabotage the "Greyhawk" brand (which, in later years, after we'd learned about all the back room politics, seemed to fit together logically -- that TSR was deliberately sullying Greyhawk to spite Gary (and, perhaps, decrease the commercial viability of him doing a pseudo-Hawk on his own?).

I have no doubt you guys will deny that any such conspiracy existed, at least at the level you were working at, but if the really awful quality of so much of the post-Gygax Greyhawk content (it wasn't until the 2E era -- with the City of Greyhawk boxed set and accompanying modules -- that anything even marginallt decent was released under that brand, and even then it felt more like a crypto-Forgotten Realms and that what was charming and appealing about the original was being lost amid an attempt to "copy what works") is entirely coincidental to any malicious intent and truly just represents a shortage of resources -- that TSR wasn't able to do Forgotten Realms AND Dragonlance AND Mystara AND Greyhawk well so they prioritized, used the best stuff for FR, farmed DL and Mystara out to freelancers, and gave the leftovers to GH -- why not just kill the line? Because titles had already been announced and sales already solicited via Random House?

[Falconer]

First of all, I posted in response to the "Zeb Cook is a Liar" thread and Gene's rant in there about Zeb. Did you complain about that thread being OT? Be sure to let me know.

The point of my post was that I'm calling now for it all to stop. It wasn't specifically aimed at you. However, since you asked: The difference is that the participants in the other thread were all people who have been regular and constructive participants in this forum for years. I don't mind the occasional off-topic rant among friends.

To quote the forum rules again, "We make no excuses and no apologies for other game systems not being supported here. Our game focus is our choice. This is a privately owned forum. You are guests in our home." YOU, sir, are a guest in OUR home.

It's traditional for a new member of any forum to lurk for a while to get a sense of the group, and when he does start posting, to follow the forum's rules and post on topic. What you did, Mr. Breault, is known as trolling.

I assume the lost poster is Gene. In what ways am I his polar opposite? I assume you meant that as an insult, but the differences I see are that I can write a coherent English sentence, that I was actually there and don't just pretend to have been, and that I don't scatter ill-informed delusions of vast conspiracies throughout my posts.

Troll.

Picture this scene. It's late. After a long day's work, soberly building this house, tilling our fields, and wrastling cattle, we're sitting around the table drinking ale and talking smack about them folks from that other village yonder. Suddenly, Mike, you burst in without knocking, shoot my brother in the leg, and then take his seat at our table. "Hi, I'm from the village yonder. I can tell you all about it, and with better grammar than the lout who was sitting here before, to boot!"

And I'm sitting there saying, "I don't like what you done to my brother. But as long as you hand over your gun, you're welcome to grab a plow. There's plenty of work to be done around here. You're even welcome to our ale. But you can keep your opinions on the village yonder to yourself!"

[JLowder]

To take it a step further, I begin to wonder if in some sense the genrally high quality of his material (even if not necessary in line with my personal tastes) is in some sense a direct consequence of his NOT being an actual employee of TSR (and thus being more insulated from the daily travails of dealing with the crazy management and such)?

There are advantages to being a full-time freelancer. I resigned my fulltime job with TSR in 1992, but kept editing the same number of novels for them. But it took me a lot less time--which I filled up with freelance writing and editing gigs--because I didn't have to worry about meetings. I drove down to Lake Geneve once every 10 days or so.

That was one of the really big changes in TSR from the late 80s to mid 90s. The number of meetings and the levels of bureaucracy involved in any project increased dramatically.

However, employment status is not the defining factor. Yes, Aaron was freelance and did that fulltime, I believe, but most freelancers have day jobs and only freelance in their spare time. And Bruce was creating great stuff for Mystara even though he was one of the guys, because he was schedule/freelance coordinator, involved in all the meetings. It has a lot more to do with passion and skill. Bruce never looked at Mystara projects as just assignments. He really cared about the line. It showed in his work.

Of course, the publisher needs to be set up in a such a way as to allow the passionate people to shine. Nothing will blunt great designs or drive away people with creative passion faster than a design-by-committee structure, where ten people get to review and revise every bit of text. Poor pay and bad contracts will do the same, but they usually take a little longer to poison a creative relationship.

Cheers,
Jim Lowder