Stray RPG stories

[Martok]

Interesting, indeed.  Apparently I'm part of the 9%, although I wonder just how accurate that number is, especially when you consider players across all editions. 

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I haven't played pen and paper D&D in more than 20 years but when I did, I was definitely in the 91%.  We did a couple of campaigns where we got up to level 18-20 or so but I found that I got the most enjoyment out of the game when the characters were level 4-8 or so.  Once they got above level 10, the gameplay fell pretty flat as magic users and clerics pretty much dominated the gameplay and things became very uneven.  For fighters especially, combat seemed to devolve into a dice chucking grind with saving throws replacing HP damage as the only real threat.

We've were dabbling at RPGs again just prior to COVID (hopefully we can get things going again soon) but we went with The Dark Eye rules system and the Warhammer FRP world. 

[bayonetbrant]

well, shit....

 


from Designers & Dragons

HISTORY.

1. The publication of OD&D is closer to the start of the Great Depression than it is to the modern day.

2. The Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia all existed when OD&D was published. Yemen and Germany were divided, and the Iron Curtain stretched across Eastern Europe.

3. Gary Gygax was at TSR for 12 years, a quarter of D&D's history.

4. Wizards of the Coast has owned D&D (1997-2022+) for longer than TSR did (1974-1997).

5. The publication of Delta Green (1996) is closer to the publication of OD&D (1974) than the modern day.

6. ICE published Middle-earth RPGs for 15 years. That ended 25 years ago; three more publishers have since taken up the mantle.

7. The first unofficial adaptation of Middle-earth for D&D happened in 1974 with OD&D; the first official adaptation happened in 2016, 42 years later.

8. A college freshman starting at university last fall has never seen AD&D published, except in a few collector's editions.

9. That same college freshman never played in a D&D game  where the sorcerer or warlock weren't either an option, or obviously missing.

10. That same college freshman never saw new products from FASA, GDW, the original Hero Games, or the original West End Games.

[Martok]

^  This could (should?) have been posted under the "Feeling Old" thread.   

[bayonetbrant]

pretty good story here

[Martok]

Ha!  Yeah, that's a fun little read.   

[bayonetbrant]

Benjamin Riggs
56m  ·
Behold! Some actual D&D sales numbers!

While working on my book #SlayingtheDragon I got a ton of primary source documents containing sales data for D&D. With the book coming out, I've been looking for a way to get that data out into the wide world. I'm going to start making charts, and simply posting them. If people want the raw data, I can post that too, but obviously, charts are prettier.

I'm starting with AD&D 1st ed Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide. You'll notice a crash in the mid-80s, and then the sales peter out with the release of 2nd edition.

The sales point to a fact that I believe hasn't been given enough play in our hobby. Namely, TSR was in a tight spot when Lorraine Williams took over the company from Gary Gygax. If it weren't for Lorraine, D&D may have died in the mid-80s.

Just an idea for your consideration...

Oh, and if you haven't preordered my book on D&D history yet, I'll put a link in the comments.

link:  https://read.macmillan.com/lp/slaying-the-dragon/

[bayonetbrant]

More actual D&D sales numbers!

Below you will find the sales numbers of Basic D&D, and then two charts comparing those to the sales of AD&D 1st edition. For those who don’t know, early in its life, the tree of D&D was split in half. On the one side there was D&D, an RPG designed to bring beginners into the game. It was simpler, and didn’t try to have rules for everything.

On the other side there was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax’s attempt to throw a net around the world and then shove it into rulebooks. The game was so detailed that it provided rules on how Armor Class changed depending on what hand your PC held their shield in. (It may also have been an attempt to cut D&D co-creator Dave Arneson out of royalties…)

I am frankly shocked at how well Basic D&D sold. Having discovered AD&D 2nd edition in the 90s, I thought of “Dungeons & Dragons” as a sort of baby game of mashed peas and steamed potatoes. It was for people not ready for the full meal that was AD&D. (I have since learned how wrong I was to dismiss the beauty of what Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, Cook, et al created for us in those wondrous BECMI boxed sets…)

I figured that Basic D&D was just a series of intro products, but over its lifetime, it actually outsold AD&D 1st edition. (Partly because 1st edition was replaced by 2nd edition in 1989. I’ll start rolling out the 2nd ed numbers tomorrow FYI.) These numbers would explain why in a 1980 Dragon article Gygax spoke of AD&D not being “abandoned.” 

Still, between 1980 and 1984, Basic outsold AD&D. The strong numbers for Basic D&D prompt a few questions. Where was the strength of the brand? Were these two lines of products in competition with each other? Was one “real” D&D? And why did TSR stop supporting Basic D&D in the 90s?

The only one of those questions I will hazard is the last one. A source told me that because TSR CEO Lorraine Williams did not want to generate royalties for Gary Gygax or Dave Arneson, Basic D&D was left to wither on the vine.

I will also say this: TSR will die in 1997 of a thousand cuts, but the one underlying all of them was a failure of the company to grow its customer base. TSR wanted its D&D players to migrate over to AD&D, but what if they didn’t? What if they wanted to keep playing D&D, and TSR simply stopped making the product they wanted to buy? What if TSR walked away from what may have been hundreds of thousands of customers because of a sort of personal vendetta?

Tomorrow, I’ll post numbers for 2nd edition AD&D, and comparisons for it with Basic and 1st edition.

And if you don’t know, I have a book of D&D history coming out in a couple weeks. If you find me interesting, you can preorder in the first comment below!

Also, I'll post raw sales numbers below for the interested.

[Martok]

Interesting.  I'm not sure I'm all that surprised by any of it, though I concede I might not have guessed "Basic" D&D outsold AD&D. 


As for the previous post, I'm pretty sure just about any D&D gamer born prior to 1980 is at least vaguely aware that Gygax almost ran TSR into the ground, or at the very least, badly mismanaged it. 

[bayonetbrant]

As for the previous post, I'm pretty sure just about any D&D gamer born prior to 1980 is at least vaguely aware that Gygax almost ran TSR into the ground, or at the very least, badly mismanaged it.

those prior to 1980 sure

those post 1990 probably hardly at all and don't understand why the perpetual reverence for the game that started it all

[mcguire]

those post 1990 probably hardly at all and don't understand why the perpetual reverence for the game that started it all

...because it wasn't a very good game.     

[bayonetbrant]

https://www.wired.com/2022/07/history-of-dungeons-dragons/winamp/

[bob48]

Interesting.

[Martok]

Interesting, indeed.  I may need to check out that book. 

[bayonetbrant]

https://www.rpg.net/columns/advanced-designers-and-dragons/advanced-designers-and-dragons69.phtml