# Dancey resigns as GAMA Treasurer



## Rasyr (Jul 30, 2004)

From over on gamingreport.com - http://gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=13727&mode=thread&order=0
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Ryan Dancey tendered his resignation as Treasurer of the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA), Thursday. Dancey, who was elected at the Annual Membership Meeting a month ago, disclosed to the board shortly after his election that he had penetrated the GAMA Board of Directors e-mail list and had been reading board e-mails for some time. He certified to the board that

no one else knew about this breach and that information gleaned from the action was not disseminated to any third party.

Last week, the board of directors informed members of the former board. Wednesday, the board informed the Full-Voting Membership at large. In the wake of discussion on the FVM e-mail list, Dancey decided it was best to resign.

"Over the past several weeks it has become obvious to me that the important work the Board was elected to undertake has taken a back seat to dealing with the issue of my access to GAMA's internal communications prior to the election," he wrote in his letter of resignation. "As I am aware of the number and nature of the immediate issues confronting the Board, and as I believe that the Board needs to address those issues as fast as possible, I believe that my continued service as GAMA Treasurer has become an impediment to that work, which must be removed."

"I hope that Ryan's resignation will aid us in moving forward," GAMA President Don Perrin said.

Dancey's resignation became effective at midnight PDT on the 29th. A successor has not yet been selected. Perrin indicated that further information on that subject would be forthcoming soon. 
*********************************


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## Henry (Jul 30, 2004)

Now THAT's interesting. I'm not sure what the full ramifications of this are, other than some privacy violations occurring. I am glad to see him do the honorable thing, though.


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## F5 (Jul 30, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> From over on gamingreport.com - http://gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=13727&mode=thread&order=0
> ************************************
> Ryan Dancey tendered his resignation as Treasurer of the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA), Thursday.





Wasn't Ryan involved in some kind of disagreement with the rest of the Board on the direction GAMA was going in?  I vaguely remember hearing about some unpleasantness on some message board or another, but I don't remember the details...


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## mac1504 (Jul 30, 2004)

It seems everyone at GAMA is always in disagreement with someone else. It should be interesting to see if it goes in a new direction with Don Perrin as president now and a lot of the older members leaving.


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## buzz (Jul 30, 2004)

I'm really curious about the email list thing, as I generally have a lot of respect for Dancey. This sound kind of unscrupulous, though. I'd love to hear more facts.


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## Rasyr (Jul 30, 2004)

Here is a link to a discussion about it on rpg.net

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=137710

I am going to reserve my opinion for the moment but on person mentioned that his actions are obviously unethical, and quite possibly they were illegal as well.

Personally, I don't know. But, I thought that it was interesting enough (especially considering how Dancey repeatedly attacked the old board, and is now resigning for the types of actions that he accused them of) to post over here as well.


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## Jonny Nexus (Jul 30, 2004)

F5 said:
			
		

> Wasn't Ryan involved in some kind of disagreement with the rest of the Board on the direction GAMA was going in?  I vaguely remember hearing about some unpleasantness on some message board or another, but I don't remember the details...




He was treasurer of a group called FixGAMA (http://www.fixgama.org) who I believe were campaigning (successfully, as it turned out) to replace the then leadership of GAMA with their own slate of candidates.


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## Desdichado (Jul 30, 2004)

Henry said:
			
		

> Now THAT's interesting. I'm not sure what the full ramifications of this are, other than some privacy violations occurring. I am glad to see him do the honorable thing, though.



Immediate ramifications are the Dancey lost any credibility in the industry, I bet.  He essentially made himself a non-entity moving forward with this stunt.


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## Rasyr (Jul 30, 2004)

Correction - he started the fixGAMA group cause he did not like the way the old board was doing things (and was not even a member of GAMA in any form at the time that he did so). Most of the current board are persons who supported his plans and proposals on the fixGAMA site.

He was then elected to Treasurer of the GAMA board at Origins (the "slate" arrived with a LOT of proxies that they then used to vote themselves into office).

One of the things that I find missing from the press release is specifics. 

How long had he been reading their emails? 
How did he gain access to them (it was a private list server). 
Why did he not tell the old board (the press release says "for some time", which I take to mean several months)? 
Why did he wait until after HE and HIS friends were elected?  
Did he use the information in his campaign against the old board? 
Did he use it during the election process?
If the board found out last month, why is he only resigning now? Why the month long delay?

There are a lot of unanswered questions revolving around this. What he did was most certainly unethical, and has very likely ruined his professional reputation. The only question remains is whether or not it was illegal?


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## DaveMage (Jul 30, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> What he did was most certainly unethical, and has very likely ruined his professional reputation.




I think "damaged" is more appropriate a word than "ruined" since certainly many of the current d20/OGL companies may not even be in existance if it wasn't for Ryan's professional accomplishments.  (And yes, GAMA is much greater than just the OGL/d20 industry, but there are certainly those who have benefited from Ryan's ability.)

This mistake doesn't destroy all of Ryan's past accomplishments.


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## jmucchiello (Jul 30, 2004)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> I think "damaged" is more appropriate a word than "ruined" since certainly many of the current d20/OGL companies may not even be in existance if it wasn't for Ryan's professional accomplishments.  (And yes, GAMA is much greater than just the OGL/d20 industry, but there are certainly those who have benefited from Ryan's ability.)
> 
> This mistake doesn't destroy all of Ryan's past accomplishments.



People are bailing out of his open gaming mailing lists pretty quickly (according to the rpg.net thread, I'm not at my normal email to read those lists). Damaged may not be strong enough whether you think ruined is too strong.


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## Henry (Jul 30, 2004)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> People are bailing out of his open gaming mailing lists pretty quickly (according to the rpg.net thread, I'm not at my normal email to read those lists). Damaged may not be strong enough whether you think ruined is too strong.




I would wait a month or two to see the true impact of this episode on Ryan's credibility. It was definitely unethical, but I hesitate to estimate damage based on the shockwaves of the first few days.

I wonder if he'll be releasing any sort of statement regarding the incident itself (whys and wherefores)?


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## Rasyr (Jul 30, 2004)

Over on gaming report, one poster has indicated that what Ryan did does, in fact, break the law. He cited (IIRC) the Electronic Communication Privacy Act (title 18), however that post and a number of others (apparently those a bit more antagonistic against Ryan) have dissappeared.


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## Ghostwind (Jul 30, 2004)

IF the members of GAMA wanted to take legal action against Ryan, I am fairly certain they could find enough legal grounds to do so. However, the larger question becomes is it worth the high cost both financially and from a public relations standpoint? Given the incestous relationships that have existed within the organization in the past, I'm not certain the answer to those questions is 'yes' unless all are willing to brush the dust off of buried secrets and expose themselves to intense public scrutiny.


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## Nisarg (Jul 31, 2004)

I would guess there is far more to this story than lets on. If Ryan did this, he had his reasons. 

Nisarg


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## Corinth (Jul 31, 2004)

Apparently there've been more resignations.  The board is disintegrating, and now there is a check to see if Dancey violated Federal Law or not.  If Dancey wanted to render GAMA impotent, even destroyed, then this would do just that.


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## francisca (Jul 31, 2004)

OK, as a non-publisher, regular John Q. Gamer, what does this mean to me?

I'm not being waggish here.  I'm serious.  What impact on the industry will this have, and how will the impact be felt at my gaming table?


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## eyebeams (Jul 31, 2004)

Another one of GAMA's employees has left the organization and rumor has it there has been at least one additional resignation.

The fact of the matter is that Dancey's actions were probably unethical and may be illegal as well. It also means that the current board is essentially without a  mandate, since it appears that Dancey's intrusion of the board list was prior to the election and thus, there is the suspicion of this influencing the process. To salvage things, the board must hold another election.

It is highly unlikely that people will be thrilled to do business with someone who is suspected of a felony related to the industry, no matter how unwarranted or warranted it may be.

What does it mean to the average gamer? GAMA runs Origins and the GAMA Trade Show. These are influential conventions. Games are sold based on interest from hobby distributors, and if the opportunities to present products for a distribution slate is undermined, it means that you just won't get to hear about certain products. Your game store will not order them because they won't appear on catalogues. Independent distribution is difficult and is only viable for very large or small scale companies (the large ones have the book trade and name recognition and the small ones can do fine with direct sales alone).

In wider affairs, it means that there will probably be a review of everything Dancey has touched to determine whether any company doing business with him risks any sort of liability. Given how many things in the industry are determined by ad hoc, informal agreements (such as "gentlemen's agreement" surrounding the products that people like to talk about around here), this may have an effect -- ot it may not.


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## MythosaAkira (Jul 31, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> Over on gaming report, one poster has indicated that what Ryan did does, in fact, break the law. He cited (IIRC) the Electronic Communication Privacy Act (title 18), however that post and a number of others (apparently those a bit more antagonistic against Ryan) have dissappeared.




Actually, Gaming Report has a rating system similar to Slashdot. If articles end up getting rated below your threshold, you won't see them. It's possible that they're not being seen because they're below your threshold value.

I don't know for sure that no deletions have taken place (I just found out about the rating system myself). I'm just suggesting that may be the reason for articles "disappearing" rather than maliciousness.


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## reanjr (Jul 31, 2004)

francisca said:
			
		

> OK, as a non-publisher, regular John Q. Gamer, what does this mean to me?
> 
> I'm not being waggish here.  I'm serious.  What impact on the industry will this have, and how will the impact be felt at my gaming table?




None.  There is no impact whatsoever.  This event is important to only a handful of people.


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## Paradigm (Jul 31, 2004)

Corinth said:
			
		

> Apparently there've been more resignations.  The board is disintegrating, and now there is a check to see if Dancey violated Federal Law or not.  If Dancey wanted to render GAMA impotent, even destroyed, then this would do just that.




This is greatly overstatted. I would expect either an appointment or a special election to replace him.


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## eyebeams (Jul 31, 2004)

Paradigm said:
			
		

> This is greatly overstatted. I would expect either an appointment or a special election to replace him.




As the entire slate was connected to him, it puts their credibility as fairly elected officers into question whether or not they knew what was going on.


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## Maggan (Jul 31, 2004)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> People are bailing out of his open gaming mailing lists pretty quickly (according to the rpg.net thread, I'm not at my normal email to read those lists). Damaged may not be strong enough whether you think ruined is too strong.




As far as I can tell, only Bruce Baugh decided to bail out of the OGF lists. Some other people might have followed suit, but at least for now I'm not seeing mass migration from the lists.

I guess it comes down to whether the OGF lists are seen as Ryan Dancey's private forum.

I will continue to monitor the lists, as I don't see Ryan's actions here changing the fact that many good people are hanging there, at least not yet. I will certainly think hard aboout what he's saying when reading anything Ryan writes on the lists or on the Internet, much as I have before.

I think (hope?) that this will mostly affect Ryan himself, and not rub off on the d20 scene. Only time will tell.

Cheers!

Maggan


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## Nisarg (Jul 31, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> As the entire slate was connected to him, it puts their credibility as fairly elected officers into question whether or not they knew what was going on.




Needless to say I disagree. What happened with Ryan, the actual details of which are yet unclear, does not automatically tar the rest of the board.
It doesn't in ANY way change one fundamental truth: That Ryan, wrong or not about this email business, is still completely right about the problems GAMA had before, and regarding the solutions. 
I hope the rest of the board can continue to work to promote this agenda, and that Ryan finds a suitable role to play, even if it must be behind the scenes.

Nisarg


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## Paradigm (Jul 31, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> As the entire slate was connected to him, it puts their credibility as fairly elected officers into question whether or not they knew what was going on.




There are current board members that were on the board last year. So the entire slate was not connected to him.


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## Pramas (Jul 31, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> It doesn't in ANY way change one fundamental truth: That Ryan, wrong or not about this email business, is still completely right about the problems GAMA had before, and regarding the solutions.




If you believe all the lies that Ryan and his cohorts have been spreading about GAMA for the last 8 months, maybe that's true. But let's just say there are large segments of the game industry that disagree with this "fundamental truth."


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## Nisarg (Jul 31, 2004)

Pramas said:
			
		

> If you believe all the lies that Ryan and his cohorts have been spreading about GAMA for the last 8 months, maybe that's true. But let's just say there are large segments of the game industry that disagree with this "fundamental truth."




Well, see.. this is the one thing I'm feeling bad about, regaring this whole affair: that now the people who were rabid Dancey-haters can point to this incident and say "see? he's eeeeeeevil and therefore all his ideas must be tainted!!"

That's really the worst thing about what he did, that it is inevitably bound to be confused with the rightness or wrongness of the ideas he supports. And the enemies of those ideas will now be able to use his own pecadillo as a weapon against progress.

Nisarg


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## BrooklynKnight (Jul 31, 2004)

For the misinformed, can sombody please post a summary of the "supposed" problems with GAMA that RYAN had, other problems, and so forth?


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## Nikchick (Jul 31, 2004)

Ghostwind said:
			
		

> Given the incestous relationships that have existed within the organization in the past, I'm not certain the answer to those questions is 'yes' unless all are willing to brush the dust off of buried secrets and expose themselves to intense public scrutiny.




What "buried secrets" are those exactly? Do you have any actual information, or is this just speculation that "buried secrets" must exist somewhere because of the environment of innuendo and slander leading up to the last election?

I would welcome a lot more light being shed on things, and have nothing to hide from my four years serving on the GAMA Board of Directors.


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## Rasyr (Jul 31, 2004)

Paradigm said:
			
		

> There are current board members that were on the board last year. So the entire slate was not connected to him.




The "entire slate" is not the entire board. The retailer and distributor divisions appoint their own members to the board (i.e. they are not elected by the FVMs).

As for the rest,  only the secretary was not part of their slate, IIRC. One or more of the board  members who were on the board last year went up for re-election as part of that "slate".  These were also the ones who were with Ryan on the fixGAMA website, supporting his proposed changes to GAMA before he ever became a GAMA member.


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## Rasyr (Jul 31, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> I hope the rest of the board can continue to work to promote this agenda, and that Ryan finds a suitable role to play, even if it must be behind the scenes.




The role he plays *may* be behind bars rather than behind the scenes.

Apparently, his actions *may* have been criminal in nature, at least according to  the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (18 USC 2511) 

Look it up and read it for yourself. I did after a post somebody made over on Gaming Report.


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## Nisarg (Jul 31, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> The role he plays *may* be behind bars rather than behind the scenes.
> 
> Apparently, his actions *may* have been criminal in nature, at least according to  the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (18 USC 2511)
> 
> Look it up and read it for yourself. I did after a post somebody made over on Gaming Report.




I'd judge that the likelihood of his going to jail is pretty slim.

And regardless, as I mentioned before, none of this changes the fact that Dancey's position on GAMA (and so many other things) was fundamentally right.  It will continue to be so even if Ryan is gone.

Nisarg


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## Rasyr (Jul 31, 2004)

Nisarg - just because you like Dancey does not mean that he was "fundamentally right".  You most likely only saw what Dancey showed you in public, which is what the majority of people saw. There was a lot more going on than the public saw. A lot of people disagreed with his views on GAMA. 

As for his position on GAMA, how you restating it for us, all these things that you think are "fundamentally right". Before you start claiming that they are above reproach, please list them out so that folks know what exactly you are referring to so that folks can agree with you on them, or refute them on a case by case basis.

For example, take Dancey's views on the Origins Awards. Everybody agreed that they needed revamping, however most disagreed with Dancey's stance which gave special treatment to products from the largest companies, or based awards for quality on sales numbers rather than the actual quality of products.

Can you list other examples of his "stance" on things pertaining to GAMA? Things that you think are "fundamentally right".


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## eyebeams (Jul 31, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> I'd judge that the likelihood of his going to jail is pretty slim.
> 
> And regardless, as I mentioned before, none of this changes the fact that Dancey's position on GAMA (and so many other things) was fundamentally right.  It will continue to be so even if Ryan is gone.
> 
> Nisarg




What exactly to you know about GAMA? I look forward to a detailed critique that includes mention of their programs, operating expenses and, of course, how your opinion can be derived from this actual data.

I wonder about these things because to a certain extent, people are right that GAMA does not exactly have day to day impact on the lives of gamers. A fish has no use for a bicycle, but bicycles aren't built for fish.


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## eyebeams (Jul 31, 2004)

Paradigm said:
			
		

> There are current board members that were on the board last year. So the entire slate was not connected to him.




As noted, the slate is not the board.  At this point, though, the only way to separate themselves from this unethical and quite possibly criminal situation (which, it apppears, was sat on for at least a month -- not a good idea) is to have new elections.

Naturally, if the slate can stand on their own merits, they'll get their jobs back.


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## eyebeams (Jul 31, 2004)

_Edit:  political comment removed.  Please avoid that subject, please.  --Dinkeldog




			It doesn't in ANY way change one fundamental truth: That Ryan, wrong or not about this email business, is still completely right about the problems GAMA had before, and regarding the solutions.
		
Click to expand...



Again, I look forward to a concrete elaboration of this, assuming one will ever be forthcoming.




			I hope the rest of the board can continue to work to promote this agenda, and that Ryan finds a suitable role to play, even if it must be behind the scenes.
		
Click to expand...



Companies don't like working with cheats and possible felony suspects who've committed an unethical act directly related to their industry. Funny thing about that._


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## eyebeams (Jul 31, 2004)

As a general note, it occurs to me that people's opinions about GAMA bear a direct relationship to their position vis a vis the industry.

The average gamer only feels the effects of the body directly when she hits Origins, thnough indirectly, the GTS and Origins affect what games get to consumer outlets.

Very small publishing outfits are practically in the same boat, as are freelancers. When you get small or independent enough, the distribution and sales system don't matter as much.  Of course, companies that aren't GAMA memnbers who attend the GTS and Origins are benefitting from the organization. This kind of "freeloading," probably requires folks who do it to reexamine their own positions.

Finally, there are large companies who can get a place with distributors and the book trade.

If you are a healthy, but not huge company, GAMA mattters a bit more. The GTS gets you into hobby shops and the scale of the industry makes Origins sales important. Since you're paying the wages of multiple people and don't have access to the book trade, this is a big deal.

The Origins Awards seems to create confusion over GAMA's focus, because in contrast to its work aas a trade body, here we have something intended to focus on creatives and communicate with fans.

The trouble is, perhaps, that GAMA has two different missions directed toward the industry and the public, respectively. Obviously GAMA's mission vis a vis public awareness needs to change, but Origins and the GTS were, by most accounts, successful. I'm sure that even the non-members who freeloaded off of these occasions made money.


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## Dogbrain (Aug 1, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> That's really the worst thing about what he did, that it is inevitably bound to be confused with the rightness or wrongness of the ideas he supports. And the enemies of those ideas will now be able to use his own pecadillo as a weapon against progress.




Well, that's always the question.  Is it enough that someone "made the trains run on time"?


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## Leohat (Aug 1, 2004)

Ok. I have to take a moment and go on anti-Dancy rant. 

{rant on}

Has Dancy ever done anything good for D&D? 
He was part of the WotC group that sold out to Hasborg. Which of course led to WotC laying off or forcing out most, if not all, of their best writers.
He was part of the group that completly screwed the pooch on the whole E/Mastertools thing. I seem to remember him saying something about weekly updates followed by about a year of complete silence.
I'm pretty sure that he pretty much bailed on the whole Open Gaming Foundation thing. Unless I'm mistaken the SRD   has not been updated in over a year.
Didn't he also formulate a take over the RPGA? 
Not that anyone outside the Northwest knows or cares but wasn't Dancy the one that told Norwestcon to get stuffed and started a con the weekend before to draw off Norwestcon members? 
Now, he hacks in to private mailing list. 

He'll promise the moon and the stars but never delivers on anything.

The guy is an Epic level jackass. 

{rant off}


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## pogre (Aug 1, 2004)

Look, I'm no Ryan Dancey fan. Frankly, I think almost everything he has done since leaving WOTC has been counter-productive. However, Dancey did work hard to create the OGL and d20 license and fought an upstream battle to get them out. Without him the d20 market and the hobby would look very different. He deserves credit for that at least.

His latest escapade is so bizarre, I thought I was listening to Art Bell on GAMA conspiracies or something.


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## Henry (Aug 1, 2004)

Leohat said:
			
		

> The guy is an Epic level jackass.




Let's curb the personal insults, please. We can have discussion of the issues without it.

Thank you, everyone.


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## mythago (Aug 1, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> That's really the worst thing about what he did




Well, no, the worst thing about what he (allegedly) did was that he broke into other people's e-mail to eavesdrop on confidential discussions for some kind of perceived advantage in an interpersonal dispute. Anyone knows that's foolish and probably illegal.

I don't know a thing about Ryan Dancey and have no opinion one way or another about what GAMA is doing. However, I do know that hearing a defense like "he's a good guy and they deserved it anyway and the ends justify the means" is _not_ persuading _anybody_ to give him a pass on this one.

(And really, geez, reading e-mail over a GAMA dispute? Get a life! Move out of your parents' basement! WTF?!)


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## Melan (Aug 1, 2004)

[Off topic] Wow, so many banned RPGNetters here!   [/Off topic]

Leohat: Dancey was pretty much the guy who devised the whole d20/open gaming deal and thus presented a workable solution for 3rd party support that didn't revolve around a long and resource-consuming approval process. If he had done just that, he would be canonized in a decade or two. He may still be, but this particular event will not help his case - it will definitely cast a shadow on his character. Because you just *don't do that*.


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## Staffan (Aug 1, 2004)

Leohat said:
			
		

> Has Dancy ever done anything good for D&D?



Yes. Restoring TSR to functionality after WOTC bought it, for one thing. The OGL/d20 thing, for another.


> He was part of the WotC group that sold out to Hasborg. Which of course led to WotC laying off or forcing out most, if not all, of their best writers.



I don't know if Ryan was a stockholder in WOTC at the time, but that's where the pressure to sell out came from (the stockholders, that is). They had invested money into WOTC when it was a wee startup, and found themselves sitting on stock that wasn't publically traded but on paper worth a whole lot. So, they told Peter Adkison to find some way of letting them turn their stock into cash, which meant either making WOTC publically traded, or selling out to some other corporation.


> He was part of the group that completly screwed the pooch on the whole E/Mastertools thing. I seem to remember him saying something about weekly updates followed by about a year of complete silence.



As I recall, Ryan was the one brought in once the project was a near-failure after Fluid had spent a whole lot of time and money creating a mapper feature with sound effects and miniatures-like stuff and things like that, only to have Hasbro sell the electronic rights to D&D to Infogrames (now Atari), forcing them to scrap that part of the Mastertools project.


> I'm pretty sure that he pretty much bailed on the whole Open Gaming Foundation thing. Unless I'm mistaken the SRD   has not been updated in over a year.



The official site for the SRD is http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35 which was updated just a couple of months ago, with the expanded psionics rules and some divine stuff.

All that said, I'm pretty disappointed in him for hacking into a private mailing list which is an immensely ty thing to do, but he *has* done good stuff in the past.


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## Cergorach (Aug 1, 2004)

I've heard some very nasty grumbling in the past about the folks that ran GAMA at the time, at the time i was very suprised and disappointed that such practices where possible within in the RPG/game indusrty. I have the sneakin' suspicion that Dancey's objective was to remove the current the then current GAMA administration _by any means necessary_. I can respect that, especially after he admitted it (without being forced i believe), it would have been so easy to remove all the evidence and just forget the whole incident...

I highly doubt that he's in a lot of legal trouble, i have the impression that this guy knows his legal options very well.

Do i respect him less because what he's done? Not really, if my guess is correct, i'll even respect him more. Does that mean others should think as i do? No, everyone is entitled to his own opinion...


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## Rasyr (Aug 1, 2004)

That very nasty grumbling you heard? It is important to note that it ALL came from Dancey and his friends (from fixGAMA - many of which are on the current board now), and that they never had any shred of proof to back up those "grumblings" (although "unfounded accusations" would be a more correct way of referring to them, I think).

The press release only says that he told the board, it does not go into why he told them. Perhaps somebody found out and he confessed when confronted? Perhaps he told his friends on the board so that they could gloat and laugh over getting away with it?  Perhaps there is some other reason. The point is that right now, we have no way of knowing.

There is also the fact that there is that delay of a month between the time he told the board, and the time of the press release. What happened during that month? Why did it take so long?  Over on rpg.net, one poster speculated that somebody found out about it, and that there was a race to see who could put their spin on it. I don't know if it is true or not, the only ones who do know are the ones actually involved, and they have not given us any more information on the matter.


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## Cergorach (Aug 1, 2004)

Rasyr, the nasty rumblings came from people i don't connect directly to Dancey, mostly because the person who told me is one of those self proclamed 'D20 haters'. It could of course be all from Dancey and friends, but to be honest, we have no way of verifying that.

The same goes for all the other rumours, we just don't know what's going on or even the real motivation behind these actions. But Dancey came through for us in the past (OGL/D20, some insight into WotC, etc.) so unless someone comes along with some pretty damning evidence i'm giving Dancey the benefit of the doubt, he's earned it from my POV.

To be honest, why do we care? GAMA is one of those institutions that has very little direct impact on the regular gamers...


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## Rasyr (Aug 1, 2004)

Rumors - true,  we have no idea what all is going on behind the scenes. Please note, however, that your posts are treating those "grumblings" as if they were true. You are not giving the old board the same "benefit of doubt" that you are wanting to give Dancey. There is no proof as to whether those grumblings are true or not.

Dancey's actions in regards to the "penetration" (the press release's word) of the GAMA Board's mailing list - that is not a rumor, that is established fact as Dancey has admitted to doing it. As to its legality, go look up and read the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. According to that, what he did was a criminal act. Whether or not he will go to jail for it is another matter entirely, but it IS a possibility.

As to Dancey's past public actions - I would say that there is some arguement about whether or not the OGL/d20 licenses are good for the gaming industry in the long run. EN World lists over 1600 d20 products on its publishers pages. There are a number of good products on that list, but there is also a lot of duplication of products (how books on Dragon's does one need?) and there are just as many, if not more, crappy products on that list than there are good ones. The phenomena of the OGL/d20 licenses and its merits/flaws could fill a thread many times the size of this one, I think, and so I won't even attempt to get into it here.

One thing that can be seen from Dancey's statements and proposals is that he tends to want to favor bigger companies over smaller ones, and give preferential and special treatment to those larger companies, rather than treating all companies fairly. This is shown to good effect by his Origins Awards proposals where he wanted to  add products to the post-nomination lists based on sales, rather than on quality (something I argued vehemently against).

As for why we should care about GAMA - No, GAMA does not have a "direct" effect on gamers, but it does have a sizable "indirect" effect through the GAMA Trade Show (which showcases new products to retailers and distributors, which in turn affects what products your FLGS will carry), and through Origins, the second largest gaming convention in the US.


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## Nisarg (Aug 1, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> That very nasty grumbling you heard? It is important to note that it ALL came from Dancey and his friends (from fixGAMA - many of which are on the current board now), and that they never had any shred of proof to back up those "grumblings" (although "unfounded accusations" would be a more correct way of referring to them, I think).
> 
> The press release only says that he told the board, it does not go into why he told them. Perhaps somebody found out and he confessed when confronted? Perhaps he told his friends on the board so that they could gloat and laugh over getting away with it?  Perhaps there is some other reason. The point is that right now, we have no way of knowing.
> 
> There is also the fact that there is that delay of a month between the time he told the board, and the time of the press release. What happened during that month? Why did it take so long?  Over on rpg.net, one poster speculated that somebody found out about it, and that there was a race to see who could put their spin on it. I don't know if it is true or not, the only ones who do know are the ones actually involved, and they have not given us any more information on the matter.





Rasyr, for someone who is constantly admitting he "doesn't know" what really happened, you certainly go out of your way to pick possible examples that make Ryan look bad.  Let me guess: you have something against the guy and always have, and now you're part of the group that are pissing their pants with joy to see Ryan have to resign?

I wouldn't be too happy just yet. There are lots of other "possibilities" we "don't know" the truth about:
Its possible Ryan had planned ALL of this all along, to discredit GAMA completely and make room for starting a new industry association of his own design, or that he came to that conclusion as soon as he found that GAMA's problems were unfixeable.  Granted, he'd have to be a total genius to have thought that far ahead, but then again he IS a total genius.
Its also possible that Ryan simply admitted what happened of his own free will, because he was personally willing to break the rules for the sake of assuring victory for his cause, but honorable enough to take full responsibility for having broken the rules afterwards.  The month long delay was just to make sure the board had time to establish itself and get crucial changes going.

Like you said, we don't know what happened.

Nisarg


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## Prince of Happiness (Aug 1, 2004)

Leohat said:
			
		

> Ok. I have to take a moment and go on anti-Dancy rant.
> 
> {rant on}
> 
> ...




Jeez! I only had vague ideas about Dancey, but that Hasbro deal was disastrous to a good (and hot) friend of mine who got laid off after the acquisition...and so THAT'S where that con came from. Thanks, man, for doing your part in making sure that Norwescon doesn't get any bigger than a regional con.  :\

Edited to snip the personal grrr.


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## Nisarg (Aug 1, 2004)

Hmm.. one of my posts seems to have vanished without being posted, so here goes again:

Regarding the "grumblings", its foolish to say they just came from "Dancey and friends".  Unless you consider "Dancey and friends" to mean ANYONE who agreed with Ryan about needing to Fix GAMA and get the old board out... but then to dismiss those would be eminently silly, since they are the MAJORITY.  The people trying to dismiss the need to fix GAMA are the MINORITY. They lost the election.

Regarding how good or bad the OGL has been: Someone mentioned the problem of "duplication", of the market being flooded by similar products.  This is a problem that will fix itself over time. The OGL has revolutionized the industry. Of course, there are some people that hate the revolution; again, their side lost. 

Someone also said that Ryan Dancey wants to "favour bigger companies" by wanting the Origins Awards to be "based on sales". 

In the first place: The only people who could possibly convince themselves that there is NO connection between sales and quality are people who's products don't sell well.

If a product does sell well in the RPG industry (or any) its because its offering the public something it wants, it has some kind of positive quality.
Second, Ryan was NOT proposing to make the awards based on sales, he just wanted commercial success to be ONE of the qualities for nomination, not the ONLY.  People seem determined to try to ignore that fact. 
All Ryan was trying to do was drag GAMA kicking and screaming into reality, where the games nominated might actually be a game the GAMING PUBLIC actually plays, rather than obscure unplayable games that the critics like, or self-referential pats on the back by board members in the form of nominating their own games.


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## Nikchick (Aug 1, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Rasyr, for someone who is constantly admitting he "doesn't know" what really happened, you certainly go out of your way to pick possible examples that make Ryan look bad.
> Nisarg




Sorry man, I think it was Ryan's conduct himself that makes him look bad.  As one of the parties whose privacy was systematically invaded by Ryan's actions over a SIX MONTH period while Dancey simultaneously launched public, personal attacks on my integrity and worthiness to hold the GAMA position I held... well, let's just say that I don't think Ryan comes out of this smelling like a rose.

I'm entertained by the idea that's been surfacing where Ryan Dancey is some sort of Game Industry Freedom Fighter, breaking the law for the ultimate good.  It's an utterly ludicrous, but amusing, image.


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## Viking Bastard (Aug 1, 2004)

Help for the uneducated.

 Now, I know who Ryan Dancey is. He's the OGL guy. But he left WotC 
 and since then, I've not heard of him. What's GAMA? What's fixGAMA? 
 What did fixGAMA want to fix? Did they?

 How has Dancey been earning a living since he left WotC?


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## BiggusGeekus (Aug 1, 2004)

Viking Bastard said:
			
		

> Help for the uneducated.




http://www.gama.org/
http://www.fixgama.org/


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## Rasyr (Aug 1, 2004)

Here is some food for thought....

Try reading between the lines, and seeing what is actually being said and what specifically isn't, instead of going on blind faith. I know you can do it. Just give it a little try....

The GAMA board could have just made a press release that Dancey had resigned for personal reasons, and saved themselves a whole LOT of controversy and trouble. But they did not. To me, this says that they could not, that there were other pressures being exerted, forcing this to become public. Why make a scandal public if you do not HAVE to? 

When a company puts out a press release talking about something bad that has happened, it does so in order to put a positive spin on things in order minimizethe effect of the bad thing. Make sure to take THAT into consideration....   

As for genius, the OGL is not genius. The GPL, upon which the OGL was based, however, was and is genuis (and the genius would be that of Richard Stallman). Taking another's freely available idea/business model (and a successful one at that) and adapting it to your own needs is not genius, it is merely smart business.

Also, you seem to be supporting the commision of criminal acts - go read the Electronic Communication Privacy Act - and that is totally bewildering. I don't really care how much you worship Dancey, a crime is a crime, and should never be condoned. There is no speculation on this point. Dancey admitted to "penetrating" a private email list server and reading confidential emails. The Electronic Communication Privacy Act says that this is a crime, period, end of story. The reasons for doing so are irrelevant.


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## Viking Bastard (Aug 1, 2004)

BiggusGeekus said:
			
		

> http://www.gama.org/
> http://www.fixgama.org/



 Allright, I think I get what GAMA is, but the fixGAMA link was not of much
 help. It only says they were elected, not what their problems were.


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## Umbran (Aug 1, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> Dancey's actions in regards to the "penetration" (the press release's word) of the GAMA Board's mailing list - that is not a rumor, that is established fact as Dancey has admitted to doing it. As to its legality, go look up and read the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. According to that, what he did was a criminal act. Whether or not he will go to jail for it is another matter entirely, but it IS a possibility.




Rasyr, perhaps you'vew forgotten that in the US, it's "innocent until proven guilty", and trial before a jury?  We have a few lines of press release, a very incomplete description of events.  That's not the same thing as the full details presented before a court, and the devil lies in the details.  

While we might be in a position to call his actions unethical, we are not in a position to determine if his acts were criminal.


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## Nikchick (Aug 1, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Rasyr, perhaps you'vew forgotten that in the US, it's "innocent until proven guilty", and trial before a jury?




I will grant that a court has not "proven him guilty" but neither has Ryan claimed he is innocent. Ryan has _confessed_ to his actions, one can assume in the hope that by confessing he would be treated leniently. And while it's true that the bulk of the internet has not been graced with the complete details of the case, both the wronged parties and the GAMA membership have received enough additional information that it's becoming clear that the issue is not whether Ryan is guilty at all, but _how_ guilty he is and what exactly will be done about it.


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## Rasyr (Aug 1, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Rasyr, perhaps you'vew forgotten that in the US, it's "innocent until proven guilty", and trial before a jury?



Um..... He *admitted* he was guilty of "penetrating" their email list server and reading confidential emails. Reading the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, you can find that doing so is a criminal offense.


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## Cergorach (Aug 1, 2004)

Nikchick said:
			
		

> I'm entertained by the idea that's been surfacing where Ryan Dancey is some sort of Game Industry Freedom Fighter, breaking the law for the ultimate good.  It's an utterly ludicrous, but amusing, image.



Sorry nicole, that's just the impression i have, that impression isn't going to change because of this thread, mostly because all the comments in it (whether positive or negative ar to suspect). There are some fanatical Dancey haters among the posters in this thread (your not one of them, atleast you don't behave that way), there are also some fanatical dancey lovers in here (some of it even made me reach for a barfbag ;-)

I don't know what Dancey said about you and why he said it, to be honest, i don't care. It's a problem that i have nothing to do with and shouldn't concern myself with, he could be right, he could be wrong. All i know is that what i've seen of you on these boards is that your a very pleasant and helpfull person, that's what i'll base my assumptions about you on.

I don't even really care what happened at GAMA (it's on the other side of the world). What i do find highly annoying is that certain people have been comming to these boards in the last half year (due to a number of industry 'problem' discussions), they've been circling like vultures, ready to rip the flsh from anything that's even remotely vunerable. I see a lot of comments here that don't have a thing to do with what Dancey did at GAMA, but a lot of old 'garbage' is being dregged up as if certain people where waiting for it to happen...


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## Cergorach (Aug 1, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> Also, you seem to be supporting the commision of criminal acts - go read the Electronic Communication Privacy Act - and that is totally bewildering. I don't really care how much you worship Dancey, a crime is a crime, and should never be condoned. There is no speculation on this point. Dancey admitted to "penetrating" a private email list server and reading confidential emails. The Electronic Communication Privacy Act says that this is a crime, period, end of story. The reasons for doing so are irrelevant.



Some countries don't have the ECP Act, and the countries legal system might have certain clausules that state that in certain instances of 'penatrating' a e-mail list server it isn't considered a crime. Just because it's a crime in your country, doesn't mean it's a crime in mine, even if it was, it doesn't make a difference. The law is there for a reason, that reason isn't always 'justice', just because someone broke a law doesn't make him/her a bad person.

That doesn't mean that i don't think that someone who has broken the law shouldn't be punished, you knew it was illigal when you started, so now you've got to pay the price.


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## Paradigm (Aug 1, 2004)

There was enough BS thrown at the old board because some folks implied wrongdoing on their part. Looking at the expansion and success of GTS and Origins, I can only assume that the old board did a good job and they were unfairly attacked. Lets not repeat that mistake every year.

We only know that one person did something that forced him to resign. Anything more would require us to make assumptions of wrongdoing and bad motives regarding the remainder of the board.


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## Leohat (Aug 1, 2004)

Prince of Happiness said:
			
		

> Jeez! I only had vague ideas about Dancey, but that Hasbro deal was disastrous to a good (and hot) friend of mine who got laid off after the acquisition...and so THAT'S where that con came from. Thanks, jackass, for doing your part in making sure that Norwescon doesn't get any bigger than a regional con.  :\




As far as know, Dancy either started or took control of "Organized Play" which included the RPGA. The RPGA had been bringing a ton of people to Norwescon but also using up Con resources. About 3 years ago or so, there was a big huff and so Dancy and the RPGA started their own con *on the weekend before* norwestcon so as to draw off members.
*BUT* that is not the main reason that Norwestcon remains just a regional con. That has to do with the Norwestcon internal politics. Among other things it would involve moving the con from SeaTac to downtown which for a number of years was impossible due the manager of the downtown hotel cluster hating anything to do with Sci-Fi/Fanasty. This is the reason that Seattle had to drop their WorldCon bid (which went to San Jose)



> I don't know if Ryan was a stockholder in WOTC at the time, but that's where the pressure to sell out came from (the stockholders, that is). They had invested money into WOTC when it was a wee startup, and found themselves sitting on stock that wasn't publically traded but on paper worth a whole lot. So, they told Peter Adkison to find some way of letting them turn their stock into cash, which meant either making WOTC publically traded, or selling out to some other corporation.




Yes, Dancy was one the people that got involved with WotC very very early, like around 1993-1994 when Magic was just getting started. I remember them asking for people to invest $1000 in WotC at a Con in Spokane in 1993 (I think).
I seem to remember reading that the sellout to Hasborg was a decision by Atkison to make a bundle of cash off Pokemon. There was also a rumor that Atkison or someone high up in WotC was getting a divorce and the private ownership nature of WotC was be counted as an asset and by selling to Hasborg changed it from being an asset. 



> As I recall, Ryan was the one brought in once the project was a near-failure after Fluid had spent a whole lot of time and money creating a mapper feature with sound effects and miniatures-like stuff and things like that, only to have Hasbro sell the electronic rights to D&D to Infogrames (now Atari), forcing them to scrap that part of the Mastertools project.




I remember Dancy and crew giving a impressive demo of a nearly complete e-tools at Gen-Con 2001. Six months later at Norwestcon at the Organized Play Booth, I asked him about it and he went on and on about how great it was gonna be and that it was almost done blah blah blah. I have *NO* idea why the fark it took so damn long to get such a buggy piece of crap released.


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## Pramas (Aug 1, 2004)

Just to clarify a few things for Leohat here:

1) Ryan was not involved in WotC in the early days. He joined WotC in 1997, when his company (Five Rings Publishing) was purchased. This was Ryan's reward for bringing the TSR buyout deal to Wizards of the Coast. He and some associates had tried to buy TSR themselves, but couldn't get enough investors to sign on. This is how WotC entered the picture. 

2) The RPGA existed long before Organized Play and is a separate organization. Oranized Play was a company founded by Ryan after he left WotC. It licensed the Living City campaign from Wizards, but relinquished it at the end of 2003. Story on that here:
http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=11206

3) Peter Adkison was perfectly upfront about his reasons for selling to Hasbro. He was trying to find a way for his stockholders to benefit from WotC's success, especially those who had believed in the company in the early days. 

FYI.


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## Nisarg (Aug 1, 2004)

Leohat said:
			
		

> selling to Hasborg changed it from being an asset..




Just in case you didn't know, the "lets change the name of a company to something that sounds vaguely insulting" thing is neither original, clever, or particularly mature at this point.

Nisarg


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## Umbran (Aug 1, 2004)

Nikchick said:
			
		

> I will grant that a court has not "proven him guilty" but neither has Ryan claimed he is innocent. Ryan has _confessed_ to his actions, one can assume in the hope that by confessing he would be treated leniently.




The press release at the beginning of this thread says nothing about how the "penetration" was done.  If, for example, he'd managed to cajole some sysadmin into slapping his address into the list, or onto a BCC: line where nobody would see it, so that the mails were, in a sense, legitimately sent to him, what would the legal position be?  Or maybe it was somehting else that wasn't strictly illegal.  Who knows?  We don't.



> And while it's true that the bulk of the internet has not been graced with the complete details of the case, both the wronged parties and the GAMA membership have received enough additional information that it's becoming clear that the issue is not whether Ryan is guilty at all, but _how_ guilty he is and what exactly will be done about it.




Well, until such time as those details are revealed to _us_, we are not in a position to judge him.  Even then - there is a reason why we have an actual court system, rather than allowing public opinion to decide legal cases.  He's sujpposed to be able to face his accusers, remember?  Infraction of the law is a matter for the courts, not the masses on message boards and e-mail lists.

Remember the Golden Rule?  If you'd been in the middle of something, would you like others to go proclaiming your guilt before any charges had even been filed?  Probably not.  So stop doing it to Mr. Dancey.


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## eyebeams (Aug 2, 2004)

Paradigm said:
			
		

> There was enough BS thrown at the old board because some folks implied wrongdoing on their part. Looking at the expansion and success of GTS and Origins, I can only assume that the old board did a good job and they were unfairly attacked. Lets not repeat that mistake every year.
> 
> We only know that one person did something that forced him to resign. Anything more would require us to make assumptions of wrongdoing and bad motives regarding the remainder of the board.




That doubt is why they must hold new elections. That doubt is also perfectly reasonable.


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## mearls (Aug 2, 2004)

This entire thread demonstrates why a lot of people just stay the heck away from GAMA and ignore the entire mess it has become. GAMA politics are decisive, polarized, pointless, and ultimately harmful to the aims that GAMA is supposed to work towards. In the long run, all both sides have done is render GAMA a disaster zone that few people are willing to deal with. It would take a Herculean effort, one that would require a team that has nothing to do with either side of the feud, to repair it.

At this point, I'm not sure anyone who doesn't have an emotional stake in GAMA politics could be bothered to take part in reforming the organization.

A lot of people have an axe to grind with Ryan. Some of them have legitimate issues. A lot of people don't - they're just along for the ride, or for the game industry social cred, or because they hate Ryan for the success of d20. I've found that while many people in the game industry like to build worlds with shades of gray, they live in one that they see as awfully black and white. The truth behind this entire mess, not just this situation (Ryan is obviously in the wrong for accessing the list), rests somewhere in between the two sides' views.

Ryan made a terrible mistake, one that is obviously unethical. I suspect that any lawsuits filed against him will, in the end, consume a lot of time, money, and energy that would be better spent elsewhere. The lawyers I've talked to, some of whom specialize in exactly this kind of stuff (hooray for the contacts an Ivy League education gives you...), wouldn't bother prosecuting this case unless there was a clear case of industrial sabotage, one that involved actual monetary damages. That said, I expect we'll see lawsuits and charges filed - there's too many axes to grind for this to just go away.

The current board made a mistake in not immediately calling for Ryan's resignation. Their failure is an obvious blow to their credibility, especially since they promised to bring transparency and accountability to GAMA.

Personally, I think GAMA should sell GTS and Origins to Peter Adkison (if he'd take them... I doubt he'd want to run Origins. Maybe the Gamefest people would take it.) and disband itself. Mike Stackpole's work to correct whacko, fringe charges against gaming could continue under a charitable organization that Stackpole or some other volunteers oversee, funded by a trust created with the money raised by the sale of GTS and Origins. Let the ENnies cover d20 awards, and recruit the GPA (an industry organization for small press companies) to create and manage a body of non-d20 RPG awards.

The only thing that could truly save GAMA is if it comes under the control of a group that can build bridges between disparate groups and form a consensus. The current administration would have to pull off a dramatic turn around to achieve that. I'm hard pressed to name a group of 5 people who have the willingness, never mind the skills and contacts, to do that.


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## Dogbrain (Aug 2, 2004)

Staffan said:
			
		

> As I recall, Ryan was the one brought in once the project was a near-failure after Fluid had spent a whole lot of time and money creating a mapper feature with sound effects and miniatures-like stuff and things like that, only to have Hasbro sell the electronic rights to D&D to Infogrames (now Atari), forcing them to scrap that part of the Mastertools project.




You have things out of order.  Hasbro had already sold all those rights.  The project had overstepped its intent and boundaries.


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## Alzrius (Aug 2, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> This entire thread demonstrates why a lot of people just stay the heck away from GAMA and ignore the entire mess it has become.




Amen to that.


----------



## eyebeams (Aug 2, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> This entire thread demonstrates why a lot of people just stay the heck away from GAMA and ignore the entire mess it has become. GAMA politics are decisive, polarized, pointless, and ultimately harmful to the aims that GAMA is supposed to work towards. In the long run, all both sides have done is render GAMA a disaster zone that few people are willing to deal with. It would take a Herculean effort, one that would require a team that has nothing to do with either side of the feud, to repair it.




Well, only one side had a member that spied on the board.



> At this point, I'm not sure anyone who doesn't have an emotional stake in GAMA politics could be bothered to take part in reforming the organization.




I think matters with GAMA are reflective of problems within the whole industry. For the past few years, there seems to be a terminal failure of the imagination when it comes to honestly confronting our common situation and looking at ways to improve it. When company owners can tell you with a straight face that the shrinking number of gamers is not a problem and they'll recoup it all from collectors, you have a problem. You have a catastrophic failure of vision.



> A lot of people have an axe to grind with Ryan. Some of them have legitimate issues. A lot of people don't - they're just along for the ride, or for the game industry social cred, or because they hate Ryan for the success of d20. I've found that while many people in the game industry like to build worlds with shades of gray, they live in one that they see as awfully black and white. The truth behind this entire mess, not just this situation (Ryan is obviously in the wrong for accessing the list), rests somewhere in between the two sides' views.




GAMA definitely needs changing. At this point, though, I seriously doubt that this is going to require collective effort. Individuals can't really make things better now, but as we've just seen, they can sure as hell make things worse.



> Ryan made a terrible mistake, one that is obviously unethical. I suspect that any lawsuits filed against him will, in the end, consume a lot of time, money, and energy that would be better spent elsewhere. The lawyers I've talked to, some of whom specialize in exactly this kind of stuff (hooray for the contacts an Ivy League education gives you...), wouldn't bother prosecuting this case unless there was a clear case of industrial sabotage, one that involved actual monetary damages. That said, I expect we'll see lawsuits and charges filed - there's too many axes to grind for this to just go away.




Well, we're not talking about a board of idle senior citizens a local library wondering what happened top the coffee fund, here. GAMA moves over a million bucks a year now and is supposed to represent an industry worth as much as half a billion dollars annually.

As for axes to grind . . . well, the hard truth of it is that sometimes, one's suspicions are vindicated.



> The current board made a mistake in not immediately calling for Ryan's resignation. Their failure is an obvious blow to their credibility, especially since they promised to bring transparency and accountability to GAMA.




This is one thing that definitely indicates to me that their mandate is gone. It looks like this took what, maybe a month?



> Personally, I think GAMA should sell GTS and Origins to Peter Adkison (if he'd take them... I doubt he'd want to run Origins. Maybe the Gamefest people would take it.) and disband itself.




GAMA's done a fine job with the STS and Origins, it seems. Where it eoncounters problems is with its work with gamers and the general public, including the Origins Awards.



> Mike Stackpole's work to correct whacko, fringe charges against gaming could continue under a charitable organization that Stackpole or some other volunteers oversee, funded by a trust created with the money raised by the sale of GTS and Origins.




Does anybody still believe that this is still a going concern? This end of things is at best a volunteer operation. This is not to trivialize past concerns, but the industry isn't in any real danger from censors. It's in danger of bleeding away gamers.



> Let the ENnies cover d20 awards, and recruit the GPA (an industry organization for small press companies) to create and manage a body of non-d20 RPG awards.




The Origins Awards suffer from severe legacy issues. Ryan Dancey's suggestions to correct them were inane and self-serving, but that doesn't mean they done't need to be changed. Traditional wargaming should be spun off into its own set of awards. It no longer has industry-wide relevancy. In fact, so many categories bear little relationship any more.

RPGs, though, still crossover between D20 and non-D20 groups in a robust enough fashion that there ought to be a common set of awards for both.



> The only thing that could truly save GAMA is if it comes under the control of a group that can build bridges between disparate groups and form a consensus. The current administration would have to pull off a dramatic turn around to achieve that. I'm hard pressed to name a group of 5 people who have the willingness, never mind the skills and contacts, to do that.




GAMA can't have a consensus because the industry won't willingly go for that. We've spent 5 years operating under the subtext that everybody with money to burn is a "publisher, where" that there's some sort of secret forumla for success involving corpspeak and the idea that unbelievers are chaff in the way of true growth and where overreaching means that we suffer a constant creative brain drain to better-paying fields. The trouble with GAMA is that it really does represent the games industry, warts and all.


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## billd91 (Aug 2, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Someone also said that Ryan Dancey wants to "favour bigger companies" by wanting the Origins Awards to be "based on sales".
> 
> In the first place: The only people who could possibly convince themselves that there is NO connection between sales and quality are people who's products don't sell well.
> 
> ...




Of course, similarly, anyone who thinks that high sales MUST indicate high relative quality probably has too uncritical a view of the free market. 

I think using sales as one of the criteria is a singularly bad idea. For one thing, high sales volume is its own reward. 

Second, sales may well have more to do with the quality of the company's distribution network and marketing as well as past history with it's customer base than the inherent quality of it's product. I would be willing to bet that WotC's worst quality supplement for Forgotten Realms would outsell the best product Bottled Imp Games would have to offer.

Third, by focusing on quality and specifically ignoring the volume of sales, the Origins awards give all products (theoretically) equal footing regardless of the ability of the publisher to move the sales into wider markets or at cut rate prices. It allows the small publisher to compete as equals on a per product basis.

Now, if there are problems of systematic biases among the nominators, then that is a problem worth addressing. But making sales volume part of the equation for nomination is a bad solution for any type of awards. It may be that quantity has a quality all its own, but I think we can find a number of non-game industry examples of inferior quality products outselling and outcompeting their superiors for a variety of reasons linked to factors exterior to the quality of the product (like marketing and price).


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## broghammerj (Aug 2, 2004)

*Stirring The Pot*

This is all a very interesting political bruhaha.  I just thought I would lighten things up a bit.


Consider the pot stirred


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Aug 2, 2004)

*cue the Judas Priest*

...breakin' the law, breakin' the law!!!


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## Nisarg (Aug 2, 2004)

billd91 said:
			
		

> Of course, similarly, anyone who thinks that high sales MUST indicate high relative quality probably has too uncritical a view of the free market.




But no one, not me and not Ryan, are suggesting that. No one. Only the people who have a knee-jerk anti-establishment reaction suggest that we do.  What Ryan was proposing was that it be only one factor, not that "the best selling product wins".



> I think using sales as one of the criteria is a singularly bad idea. For one thing, high sales volume is its own reward.
> 
> Third, by focusing on quality and specifically ignoring the volume of sales, the Origins awards give all products (theoretically) equal footing regardless of the ability of the publisher to move the sales into wider markets or at cut rate prices. It allows the small publisher to compete as equals on a per product basis.




The problem with this point of view, other than the base assumption that sales would be the "only" or even most important factor (it would not, at least not under Ryan's proposal), is twofold:

1. Making  a point of being anti-sales almost guarantees that there will be an inherent bias against the best selling games.. it leads to the mentality that "if it sells well it can't be "art" ".  So high-selling games actually end up excluded.

2. The basic assumption, combined with point #1 above mean that the awards become a marginalized event, totally out of touch with the gaming public.  The average gamer thinks that  (let's say) the "Guide to the Outer Planes" (which sold, let's say, 8000 copies) is a prize-worthy book, but instead the judges end up giving it to "le monde de les petites pommes de terre" by R. Bumquist Unknownguy that sold 8 copies and that reluctantly. It means the awards become irrelevant to the gaming public by completely ignoring the gaming public's taste.  Which is why we have thousands of posts on this thread saying "why should i care about GAMA"?

Origins has to decide whether it wants to be the Oscars of the gaming world, or if it wants to be the East Hoboken Independant Filmfest of the gaming world. It can't claim to be the foremost gaming awards ceremony if it willfully rejects giving awards to the foremost games, the ones people actually play.  It may even be too late, in many ways the ENnies are becoming what Origins always claimed to be and almost never was.

Nisarg


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## Dogbrain (Aug 2, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> The Origins Awards suffer from severe legacy issues. Ryan Dancey's suggestions to correct them were inane and self-serving, but that doesn't mean they done't need to be changed. Traditional wargaming should be spun off into its own set of awards. It no longer has industry-wide relevancy. In fact, so many categories bear little relationship any more.





That there are "so many categories" at all is a screaming need to reform things. There are simply FAR TOO MANY categories in the Origins Awards.  It's so diluted that it means absolutely nothing, anymore.  I say "best wargame product", "best roleplaying game product", "best new product", and that's it.  Yeah, so a lot of "good" products won't get awards every year.  But this is not some sort of preschool, wherein everybody has to get a ribbon for being "special in your own way".  This is a business run by adults, and adults can understand that you can still be darn good without winning an award for it.


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## Grazzt (Aug 2, 2004)

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> *cue the Judas Priest*
> 
> ...breakin' the law, breakin' the law!!!




Settle down Beavis.


----------



## William Ronald (Aug 2, 2004)

> *Originally posted by mearls:
> 
> Ryan made a terrible mistake, one that is obviously unethical. I suspect that any lawsuits filed against him will, in the end, consume a lot of time, money, and energy that would be better spent elsewhere. The lawyers I've talked to, some of whom specialize in exactly this kind of stuff (hooray for the contacts an Ivy League education gives you...), wouldn't bother prosecuting this case unless there was a clear case of industrial sabotage, one that involved actual monetary damages. That said, I expect we'll see lawsuits and charges filed - there's too many axes to grind for this to just go away.*



* 

I just learned about this, and I find it troubling.  I have not followed GAMA or fixGAMA closely.  However, I do agree with mearls comments.  I believe Ryan Dancey may have lessened the damage to his reputation by confessing to his actions.  I would like more of an explanation from Dancey on this.  I can understand why those whose privacy was violated are justifiably outraged.  However, I think Dancey should explain why he acted as he did.  It may help to salvage his reputation.

I have respect for Dancey's actions in helping to purchase TSR.  His essay on how TSR failed by not meeting the needs of its customers can serve as a cautionary tale to many businesses.  I also think that the OGL has helped the gaming industry, and have purchased many fine products from companies like Green Ronin, Malhavoc Press, and others that might not have existed without the OGL.

Mind you, there is room to criticize Ryan Dancey.  The Living City campaign, once the strongest campaign in the RPGA, is supposed to finally come to an official end at Gen Con. 

So, I think everyone in the dispute over Dancey's actions should have their say.  Whether or not legal charges or lawsuits are warranted is up to the authorities and those who were injured by Dancey's behavior.

However, I think several of the posters here do bring up several good points about GAMA and the gaming industry as a whole.  I have started a thread Improving the gaming industry to discuss how gaming companies, organizations, and individual gamers can strengthen our hobby.  Perhaps the wisest thing to do with a bad situation, such as this one, is to learn from it and  have it serve as a spur to do better in the future.*


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## Desdichado (Aug 2, 2004)

William Ronald said:
			
		

> I have respect for Dancey's actions in helping to purchase TSR.  His essay on how TSR failed by not meeting the needs of its customers can serve as a cautionary tale to many businesses.



Slightly O-T...  I've been googling for that article for a while now without success; does anyone have a link to it?


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## herald (Aug 2, 2004)

I wonder if this will affect WOTC's contract with Ryan to but out materials for Living City.


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Aug 2, 2004)

Grazzt said:
			
		

> Settle down Beavis.



Oh a New Kids on the Block fan are we?


----------



## William Ronald (Aug 2, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Slightly O-T...  I've been googling for that article for a while now without success; does anyone have a link to it?




I have had no luck either, Joshua.  I think it was very well written and instructive.  Ultimately, TSR failed on several levels but especially by not meeting the needs of its customers and expanding the customer base. The article might be godo for gaming industry executives to read, and might be good for business administration students to study.  (There was a point during the days when TSR shut down that I thought it might be a very long time for new products.)

Getting back on topic, I think Dancey may have to work hard to restore his reputation. I just wonder why he wanted to gain access to the e-mail accounts of the GAMA board, the impact on GAMA, and where GAMA needs to go from here.  Any suggestions on how GAMA can better serve its members and gamers in general.  I was glad to read that Origins has grown.


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## The Sigil (Aug 2, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Slightly O-T...  I've been googling for that article for a while now without success; does anyone have a link to it?



My google-fu is strong.  I searched for "dancey tsr hear" (remembering that Dancey said WotC was dying because it refused to hear its customers) and this was the first link. 

http://www.atlasofadventure.com/Archive/TSR1997Buyout.asp


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## Desdichado (Aug 2, 2004)

_Muchas gracias_, The Sigil!


----------



## jmucchiello (Aug 2, 2004)

The Sigil said:
			
		

> My google-fu is strong.  I searched for "dancey tsr hear" (remembering that Dancey said WotC was dying because it refused to hear its customers) and this was the first link.
> 
> http://www.atlasofadventure.com/Archive/TSR1997Buyout.asp



It use to be in the ENWorld Articles and Interviews section but it seems to have disappeared from there.


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## William Ronald (Aug 2, 2004)

Thank you, The Sigil!!!

Getting back to the original topic, I hope that the divisions within GAMA can be healed.  It hink that GAMA can try to improve the state of the gaming industry.  Perhaps when the air clears a little, people on different sides can try to find some common ground.  I like to think that what unites people is more important than what divides us.


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## Morrus (Aug 2, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Slightly O-T... I've been googling for that article for a while now without success; does anyone have a link to it?



I'll give you a clue - you don't have to look very far.  Not far at all.  One might say you're almost in danger of tripping over it right now...


----------



## billd91 (Aug 2, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> But no one, not me and not Ryan, are suggesting that. No one. Only the people who have a knee-jerk anti-establishment reaction suggest that we do.  What Ryan was proposing was that it be only one factor, not that "the best selling product wins".




Nor did I say that you and Dancey are saying that the best-selling product should win. But you are doing exactly what you are denying. Based on what you have said, you and Dancey are clearly of the opinion that high sales implies award-worthy quality and that's not necessarily the case. It might indicate that it's not cut-out bin quality, but that's all that can really be inferred from high sales.



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> The problem with this point of view, other than the base assumption that sales would be the "only" or even most important factor (it would not, at least not under Ryan's proposal), is twofold:
> 
> 1. Making  a point of being anti-sales almost guarantees that there will be an inherent bias against the best selling games.. it leads to the mentality that "if it sells well it can't be "art" ".  So high-selling games actually end up excluded.




The point isn't being anti-sales. It shouldn't take sales into account at all. Any set of criteria that doesn't include sales figures doesn't have to be anti-sales in the sense that high sales disqualifies the product for consideration. The products should be considered within themselves and not how well they raked in the cash.



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> 2. The basic assumption, combined with point #1 above mean that the awards become a marginalized event, totally out of touch with the gaming public.  The average gamer thinks that  (let's say) the "Guide to the Outer Planes" (which sold, let's say, 8000 copies) is a prize-worthy book, but instead the judges end up giving it to "le monde de les petites pommes de terre" by R. Bumquist Unknownguy that sold 8 copies and that reluctantly. It means the awards become irrelevant to the gaming public by completely ignoring the gaming public's taste.  Which is why we have thousands of posts on this thread saying "why should i care about GAMA"?




And if "le monde de les petites pommes de terre" is an awesome game, better than the big sellers, but from a company that couldn't afford to print many copies doesn't it deserve to be recognized by somebody? Darn straight it does. I look at the Origins awards to find interesting games that I might have overlooked. So what if Guide to the Outer Planes is prize worthy? World of Little Potatoes might be as well. Why should the little guy get cut out at the expense of the big guy?
Like I said, if there are systematic biases in the selection process, there should be changes made to remove them. Another bias, in favor of larger companies with larger sales, shouldn't be added to the mix.



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> Origins has to decide whether it wants to be the Oscars of the gaming world, or if it wants to be the East Hoboken Independant Filmfest of the gaming world. It can't claim to be the foremost gaming awards ceremony if it willfully rejects giving awards to the foremost games, the ones people actually play.  It may even be too late, in many ways the ENnies are becoming what Origins always claimed to be and almost never was.
> 
> Nisarg




Notice also that the Oscars aren't based on sales either and the Academy sometimes gets very strongly criticized when it does seem to respond to sales. Sometimes the two things happen to mix: high sales and quality. But not always. 
Quality awards shouldn't reflect what's popular in the current gaming market. They should reflect what's GOOD in the gaming market. If the Origins categories are capturing that any more, they can and should be changed. But that's a far cry from rewarding high sales with awards for quality.


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## BiggusGeekus (Aug 2, 2004)

billd91 said:
			
		

> Nor did I say that you and Dancey are saying that the best-selling product should win. But you are doing exactly what you are denying. Based on what you have said, you and Dancey are clearly of the opinion that high sales implies award-worthy quality and that's not necessarily the case. It might indicate that it's not cut-out bin quality, but that's all that can really be inferred from high sales.




My understanding of the sales argument was that the awards were to automatically nominate the top sellers while still leaving slots open for other products.  The idea was to make sure the top selling products were considered.  The percieved problem was that some of the panel members were publishers who were using the awards as an advertising venue for their own products.  There was a rather nasty year when Avalanche Press got six nominations and an award or two for products that were certainly good, but not great.  While this is a subjective measurement, it should also be noted that there were publishers, like Malhavoc, who were completely overlooked which is odd.  Additionally, Avalanche had also told ENWorld reviewers to go jam it when the ENWorld reviewers said that giving them a free product would not automatically merit that product a 5/5.  

Now, this took place before Nikchick signed onto GAMA (IIRC) and she might have had other ideas (I simply didn't follow it closely enough to know).  However, this was Mr. Dancy's solution to the problem of publishers abusing the nomination process.


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## billd91 (Aug 2, 2004)

BiggusGeekus said:
			
		

> My understanding of the sales argument was that the awards were to automatically nominate the top sellers while still leaving slots open for other products.  The idea was to make sure the top selling products were considered.  The percieved problem was that some of the panel members were publishers who were using the awards as an advertising venue for their own products.  <snip>
> Now, this took place before Nikchick signed onto GAMA (IIRC) and she might have had other ideas (I simply didn't follow it closely enough to know).  However, this was Mr. Dancy's solution to the problem of publishers abusing the nomination process.




And a poor solution it is. A far better solution would be to widen the panel that makes and analyzes the nominations or require members to recuse themselves over decisions that involve their own product.
Auto-nominating best sellers just adds another systematic bias to the mix and that isn't right either.


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## Nisarg (Aug 2, 2004)

billd91 said:
			
		

> Quality awards shouldn't reflect what's popular in the current gaming market. They should reflect what's GOOD in the gaming market. If the Origins categories are capturing that any more, they can and should be changed. But that's a far cry from rewarding high sales with awards for quality.




The problem is that the definition of "good" is highly subjective, especially if you remove commercial success from the definition. One judge's idea of "good" might be that all RPGs should have as their underlying theme the study of little potato people.  Another might hate D20. A third might have a beef against White Wolf, and another might want nothing but Naked Shemale Wrestling RPGs.  And of course, you'll have the president of Earthquake Games saying "hey.. i know some rpgs that are good, MY rpgs.. how convenient, let's give the prize to them".

Also, by your logic, there is no way to judge what games get into the running in the first place.  Should a game that has NEVER sold a single copy, and is publically hated by the fans, get a position because a critic thinks its "good"?
What about a game that no one has ever heard of, written by a crazy guy in a shack in Montana, who refuses to ever sell a copy?

But wait, you say, "surely the judges will all be qualified industry professionals". That's great, except how do you qualify what makes an "industry professional"? I would presume that by your logic writing successful RPGs (ie. RPGs that sell well) would NOT be the way to decide who's qualified in the industry?  So hell, in that case why don't we just give the judge position to the crazy Montana shack guy?

Of course, the response to that is that his "industry peers" will determine who's qualified to judge.  Except that if the "industry peer" have no standards by which to judge quality either, where do we get them from? You end up with a tiny group of intellectual elitists who have no relation to the reality of the gaming industry, and thus, are of NO importance to the gaming public.  The Origins you envision becomes an incestuous mutual-patting-on-the-back of pretentious snobs.

And yes, the Oscars are neither a popularity contest, nor are they a sales prize.  But they do always take both those factors into account, which is THE ONLY THING RYAN WAS ASKING TO DO.
The Oscar never goes to a movie made by a pair of drunken boy scouts that no one's ever seen.  "Jedi Kid" doesn't get best actor. 

And the academy has been MORE often criticized (at least, by normal human beings) of ignoring popular choices from time to time, leading to occasions where true classics get passed over in favour of nepotistic choices or artsy but obscure films.

Nisarg


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## Joshua Randall (Aug 2, 2004)

An excerpt from Dancey's essay:







> Our customers were telling us that we produced too many products, and that the stuff we produced was of inferior quality? We can fix that. We can cut back on the number of products we release, and work hard to make sure that each and every book we publish is useful, interesting, and of high quality.



Maybe WotC needs to go back and re-read that paragraph, because, y'know, *cough*CompleteDivine*cough*.  ::

Now back to the regularly scheduled flamewar....


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## billd91 (Aug 2, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Also, by your logic, there is no way to judge what games get into the running in the first place.  Should a game that has NEVER sold a single copy, and is publically hated by the fans, get a position because a critic thinks its "good"?
> What about a game that no one has ever heard of, written by a crazy guy in a shack in Montana, who refuses to ever sell a copy?




If this is what you think of my logic, then you clearly don't understand logic. I didn't say that there was an objective definition of good either. I said that if there are systematic biases in the selection process, then it's worth trying to weed them out. And interjecting nominations based on sales is a pretty systematic bias.



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> But wait, you say, "surely the judges will all be qualified industry professionals". That's great, except how do you qualify what makes an "industry professional"? I would presume that by your logic writing successful RPGs (ie. RPGs that sell well) would NOT be the way to decide who's qualified in the industry?  So hell, in that case why don't we just give the judge position to the crazy Montana shack guy?
> 
> Of course, the response to that is that his "industry peers" will determine who's qualified to judge.  Except that if the "industry peer" have no standards by which to judge quality either, where do we get them from? You end up with a tiny group of intellectual elitists who have no relation to the reality of the gaming industry, and thus, are of NO importance to the gaming public.  The Origins you envision becomes an incestuous mutual-patting-on-the-back of pretentious snobs.




Well now welcome to the real challenge of coming up with a nomination processes. How to take all of this and making something work. Nobody expects it to be perfect but by broadening the nominating group to include all publishers who actually get a product to market that year, having that group pick a subcommittee to finalize the nomination list, and maybe tightening the rules for nominating and making decisions about the nominations, the current situation can be improved without resorting to using the loaded sales factor. 

There could be real solutions to the real problems of the Origins awards that are fair and equitable to the vast majority of game products that wouldn't bias the awards toward the larger companies with stronger distribution and marketing. Dancy's sales suggestion isn't one of them.


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## Nisarg (Aug 2, 2004)

billd91 said:
			
		

> There could be real solutions to the real problems of the Origins awards that are fair and equitable to the vast majority of game products that wouldn't bias the awards toward the larger companies with stronger distribution and marketing. Dancy's sales suggestion isn't one of them.




But you still haven't given any reason, aside from possibly a blanket hatred of either capitalism or successful people, as to why sales shouldn't be A factor? Why should it be almost aggresively excluded as you would wish?

Most other industries, real grown-up industries, consider sales to be a significant factor of a "successful" product, not some kind of boogeyman that kills creativity.  Or are you basically saying that RPG players are a bunch of ignorant rednecks incapable of knowing what's good for them, and need to be "told" what's "quality" games from the tower of the cognoscenti?

Yes, obviously not every book that sells well is automatically the "best" in its field (though it almost certainly has good marketing strategy, which is probably something we should be considering too if this is an INDUSTRY award, and not just a "creative writing contest").  But if its not the best, it wouldn't win the award even if it is one of the nominees.

And you still haven't given me your idea of what "good" is.  In terms of industry success, shouldn't part of "good" mean "liked by the gaming public" or at the very least "known by the gaming public"? Shouldn't it mean "playable and entertaining" rather than "something an english lit masters with a failed author complex thinks is "art""?  Shouldn't part of good mean "has succeeded in generating ongoing sales, representative of interest and appreciation on part of the gaming public", rather than "has succeeded in getting its author on the Origins judging panel"?

Nisarg


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## billd91 (Aug 2, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> But you still haven't given any reason, aside from possibly a blanket hatred of either capitalism or successful people, as to why sales shouldn't be A factor? Why should it be almost aggresively excluded as you would wish?
> 
> Most other industries, real grown-up industries, consider sales to be a significant factor of a "successful" product, not some kind of boogeyman that kills creativity.  Or are you basically saying that RPG players are a bunch of ignorant rednecks incapable of knowing what's good for them, and need to be "told" what's "quality" games from the tower of the cognoscenti?
> 
> ...




Because sales figures don't necessarily reflect quality and for a quality award, that should be enough. The free market can produce some anti-quality results for a variety of reasons that don't have to do with quality as well. Cheap products that aren't as good as more premium offerings, as long as they meet some minimum quality that keeps them out of the cut-out bin, could sell very well by comparison and thus skew the results away from quality offerings. These are some of the very arguments I've been making all along.
Sales may not reward the most playable, most fun, most well-written, best artistically represented product on the market if that product was from a small publisher unable to get their product available from Amazon.com, Borders, Barnes and Noble, and a variety of other large stores that could be the only significant presence of gaming-oriented outlets in the area. THAT'S a systematic bias that rewarding sales can present to the awards. Why should the gaming instustry, in an effort to reward quality products, lean in that direction considering large numbers of sales are their own reward?

If you want to reward good marketing, then come up with a marketing campaign award, but don't lump that in with product quality. A good marketing campaign does not make a good product, even if that marketing camapaign is a success or is, in and of itself, a remarkable achievement in marketing. 

Note also that a "successful" product is also not necessarily one worthy of being awarded by a group of industry peers. Sometimes a less successful one deserves that award more. Sometimes that best sellling, successful product is worthy of awards. But if people feel that it got its nomination just because it was the 800 lb gorilla, isn't that award tainted? Keep the bias of sales out and you won't have that problem. You would have a stronger argument that it made it into the nominations because of its merits, not because it had a sweet discount through Amazon.


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## Twiggly the Gnome (Aug 2, 2004)

I have no doubt that the Origins Awards need some reform, but Dancy's suggestion seems like a poor solution. Call me an elitist, but it doesn't bother me in the slightest that _Dude, Where's My Car_ didn't get an automatic Oscar bid.   

If there is a desire to recognize success in the market place, a separate award patterned after the RIAA's Gold/Platinum/Diamond system seems like a better idea than trying to interject sales data into a qualitative award.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 2, 2004)

billd91 said:
			
		

> If this is what you think of my logic, then you clearly don't understand logic. I didn't say that there was an objective definition of good either. I said that if there are systematic biases in the selection process, then it's worth trying to weed them out. And interjecting nominations based on sales is a pretty systematic bias.



Actually, it seems like just about the only way to attempt to measure empirically that quality of a product.  If your "logic" consists of taking just about the only measurable attribute of quality and automatically disqualifying it, then you're right: I don't understand your "logic."


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## Rasyr (Aug 2, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> But you still haven't given any reason, aside from possibly a blanket hatred of either capitalism or successful people, as to why sales shouldn't be A factor? Why should it be almost aggresively excluded as you would wish?



Actually, he has. Or somebody has. The remark was made that wotc normally sells more of its worst products than a smaller company can of a product that is equal to quality as wotc's best.

When sales enters the picture, in any degree, then you are saying that those companies with bigger marketing budgets deserve more attention or special consideration. The playing field is no longer level, no matter how much


			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> Most other industries, real grown-up industries, consider sales to be a significant factor of a "successful" product,



Operative word there being "successful", not quality. There is a difference. Can a quality product be successful? Yes. Can a successful product be of good quality? Again, the answer is yes. Is a product being successful an automatic indicator that it is a quality product? No. Is a product being of good quality a garuantee that it will be successful? The answer here is no.

There is also different levels of success as well. For many smaller companies, the number of sales that equals success is much much lower than what a company the size of wotc or white wolf would consider a success. Those two companies are at least an order of magnitude larger than just about any other gaming company in business right now.

That difference alone would have tilted the scales in the favor of larger companies - because they have the marketing and distribution channels that smaller companies do not.


			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> not some kind of boogeyman that kills creativity.  Or are you basically saying that RPG players are a bunch of ignorant rednecks incapable of knowing what's good for them, and need to be "told" what's "quality" games from the tower of the cognoscenti?



Well, that was a nice little attack you slipped in there. Nice to know that you can debate a topic without resorting to trying to put words in somebody else's mouth.


			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> Yes, obviously not every book that sells well is automatically the "best" in its field (though it almost certainly has good marketing strategy, which is probably something we should be considering too if this is an INDUSTRY award, and not just a "creative writing contest").  But if its not the best, it wouldn't win the award even if it is one of the nominees.



Note please that the Origins Awards are supposed to be an industry award for QUALITY, not an industry award quality AND SALES.


			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> And you still haven't given me your idea of what "good" is.  In terms of industry success, shouldn't part of "good" mean "liked by the gaming public" or at the very least "known by the gaming public"? Shouldn't it mean "playable and entertaining" rather than "something an english lit masters with a failed author complex thinks is "art""?  Shouldn't part of good mean "has succeeded in generating ongoing sales, representative of interest and appreciation on part of the gaming public", rather than "has succeeded in getting its author on the Origins judging panel"?




Those are all definitions of "sucessful", not definitions of "quality". One of the major fallacies in your theory derives from the way that the distribution and retail channels are setup. If a distributor does not want to carry a product (no matter how good it is), that means it will not get to as many retailers as a crappy product from some company who is carried by the distributor. This can mean that the products carried by the distributors, and thus carried  by the retailers, are the ones the public gets to see more often than not. Thus what is carried by the distributors will often sell better than those not carried by distributors.

Thus, including sales in any capacity favors those products that have the marketing and distribution channels to get their products into the public spotlight.


----------



## billd91 (Aug 2, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Actually, it seems like just about the only way to attempt to measure empirically that quality of a product.  If your "logic" consists of taking just about the only measurable attribute of quality and automatically disqualifying it, then you're right: I don't understand your "logic."




If sales empirically measured quality, then the best movie of all time is Titanic because, according to Box Office Mojo, it ranks as the highest in worldwide gross sales of all time. While many people consider it a good movie, I doubt we'd find all that much agreement on these boards that it's the best of all time. 
Sales can depend too much on the size of the print run, the market penetration of the company, the breadth of the marketing campaign, the price of the product, and so on. These are things important to generating good sales for a product and making a successful company, but they are tangential to the actual quality of the product.


----------



## Nisarg (Aug 3, 2004)

Then please, please, Rasyr, BillD, anyone on the "other side" of this debate, please give us your definition of "quality"!

Note that it apparently cannot include "financial success" as one of its defining terms.
And ideally, for me to take you seriously, it should amount to something more than "the games I like are obviously quality just because i feel they're good".

Why is it that, in almost anything, the crowd that say "quality can never have anything to do with financial success or the public's likes" are typically the ones who are selling something no one is buying?

Nisarg


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## billd91 (Aug 3, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Then please, please, Rasyr, BillD, anyone on the "other side" of this debate, please give us your definition of "quality"!
> 
> Note that it apparently cannot include "financial success" as one of its defining terms.
> And ideally, for me to take you seriously, it should amount to something more than "the games I like are obviously quality just because i feel they're good".
> ...




You're never going to be satisfied with anything we propose, or should I say you're never going to take anything we say seriously, becaues there is no objective definition of quality that everyone will agree on. That's the nature of subjective review. So I'm tempted to ask why I should bother.

But I would say that any nominating committee, picking products for quality-oriented awards, should pick products that reach high levels of clarity of content, entertainment value, editing detail (which may cover need for errata and rules-compliance), interestingness of new ideas, how well it accomplishes any set goals (like simulating the world of Robert E. Howard or representing the politics of Imperial Rome or whatever) and whether the layout and art presented is appropriate for the feel of the product. If the nominating committee, using whatever decision making methods they can come up with to weed out the problems they seem to have now, can agree that product A sets a generally higher standard than product B on those points, they should be more inclined to include A in the list of nominees than B.


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## Nisarg (Aug 3, 2004)

billd91 said:
			
		

> But I would say that any nominating committee, picking products for quality-oriented awards, should pick products that reach high levels of clarity of content, entertainment value, editing detail (which may cover need for errata and rules-compliance), interestingness of new ideas, how well it accomplishes any set goals (like simulating the world of Robert E. Howard or representing the politics of Imperial Rome or whatever) and whether the layout and art presented is appropriate for the feel of the product. If the nominating committee, using whatever decision making methods they can come up with to weed out the problems they seem to have now, can agree that product A sets a generally higher standard than product B on those points, they should be more inclined to include A in the list of nominees than B.




First of all I apologize if I made you think I'd dismiss whatever you said out of hand. That's not my intent. I do get riled up at the attitude that to be "legit" one must be "anti-establishment", and it doesn't help that this attitude is often the underlying motive behind D20-haters, the idea that no D20 product can be quality, just because its successful. 
Consider it a hangover from the relentless D20-attacks on Rpg.net.

Regarding your criteria for "quality", I think most of them are pretty legitimate. The layout/art/content/editing material all comes down to technical criteria, which is definitely an important and relatively empirical way of judging quality. So you and I would certainly agree on these points being important.


Regarding "entertainment value". I would argue that the best way to judge this criteria would be the popular regard for the product. Meaning that this would be a good place for commercial success to play a role.

My main issue is that Origins, if its meant to be THE award for the industry, should in SOME way represent what people actually play and enjoy.  It doesn't mean that I think that games that don't sell as much as a WoTC product should not be considered, it just means that I don't think WoTC products should be excluded just because they're the best selling.  Origins shouldn't be an indie award. Or if it is, it shouldn't try to claim that its THE  industry award.  I fear that keeping commerical success out of the equation amounts to an anti-populist elitism that will also hand Origins into the hands of the ideologists that hate D20 for its success.

This is hardly an unfounded concern. A lot of the people that most strongly opposed Ryan Dancey's vision are also people that think D20 is the antichrist of gaming, and would like to see an industry where a small group of pseudo-intellectuals dictate from on high which games are considered "art".

My ideal would be an award system like the ENnies, where there is a combination of subjective judgement from a group of people in the know, and a popular choice from gamers themselves.  This makes the ENnies a far more relevant award when it comes down to your regular gamer picking a game at his FLGS.

Part of what this thread has become is an analysis of not just what's wrong with Origins, but also what's wrong with the gaming industry as a whole.. part of the biggest problem with the industry today is that there's a great deal of ideological infighting going on among fandom (not just D20 vs. anti-D20, but that's a big one).  Its also that gaming is becoming more and more insular, where fans don't actively recruit new fans, where game companies make games to impress other game designers rather than to generate new market, and where virtually nothing is done to get younger teens into roleplaying at the age where they could either get "hooked" on RPGs or get "hooked" on something else (ccgs, skateboarding, designer drugs, etc).  I sincerely think part of the reason that no one is making these kind of "gateway games" is because too many would rather be making artsy high-definition self-referntial games meant to appeal to the older crowd with more money and to the self-anointed group of "experts" who decide what's "quality".

Nisarg


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Aug 3, 2004)

I have one question, is Ryan Dancey a buisnessman or a game writer?  Has he written anything I should be aware of other the the terms of the OGL?


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## The Sigil (Aug 3, 2004)

Just to throw a thought in here WRT to the issue of sales.

Allow me to posit just for a moment that the "most excellent" or "best quality" (or whatever buzzword you like to use) gaming material can be defined simply... "that which has the greatest impact on the hobby of role-playing in general."

Think about that one for a minute before responding... it stands to reason, at least in my mind, that role-playing games do not exist in a vacuum.  You cannot say that a particular system is empirically better or worse than another system.  You might say that it is better for recreating verisimilitude, or that it is better to learn because the rules are clear, or it is better at defining fantasy/future/your choice of whatever.  But people use role-playing systems for a variety of different things... and no system is optimized for all things, because one of the trade-offs you constantly have to make is "simplicity versus realism."  You can't have something be exceptionally realistic AND exceptionally simple at the same time.

Furthermore, you can't really judge the impact of a role-playing game in a vacuum.  You have to see how it works with your gaming group, with your friends.  On a larger level, you have to see how it works with ALL gaming groups.  The "best" games, at some level, are the ones that impact a large cross-section of gaming groups, because these are the ones that do the most to aid the role-playing experience across the entire set of role-players.

Sometimes, that influence is felt directly.  If a million people pick up a system and start playing it, that system clearly has an impact on the RPG world at large.  This is "Sales."  High sales are not a sure indicator that a game is the "Best" game out there, but in general, sales are a good indicator that a game is not the "Worst" out there.  To return to the example of "Titanic," was it the best movie of all time?  No.  Was it a horrible movie?  Probably not.  The same can be said of all the movies on the top-50 grossing movies (preferably adjusted for inflation) - only one can be the "best," but surely almost all were at least "good" movies, no?

Sometimes, however, the influence of a game is felt indirectly.  It has a small release or a cult following... however, pieces and ideas from it are seen and picked up on by others, and eventually it impacts things "down the road" a few years.  The original might have suffered from poor writing, poor editing, poor production values, etc., but eventually someone comes along, sees the potential, and re-uses/re-works it and we see the impact "ripple" through the RPG industry at a later time.  D&D was not the first system to come up with "Skill Points" or "Open-Ended attribute scores," but it has since incorporated them... the place where they were first developed and put into the collective RPG consciousness, then, was a quality game (sadly, I don't know where these first germinated).

Indirect game influence is rarely seen directly, because it takes so doggone long.  Industry professionals, however, are in a better position to see the potential and judge where the "indirect influences" are likely to come from... because they are the ones who will likely take those influences, meld them into their own products, and eventually mix them into the mainstream of RPG culture.

Thus, both sales and "industry nominations" are important factors, IMO.  Sales is a good way of at least saying, "these products are good."



> The Sigil's Theory of Quality*:
> 
> _High sales volumes for an RPG product are a good indicator of high quality._
> 
> *Quality being defined as the impact the ideas in an RPG have on the hobby as a whole




Note that the reverse is NOT necessarily true... it does *not* follow from the above that low sales volumes for an RPG product are a good indicator of low quality.

Obviously, it's pretty easy to use "sales figures" to at least get a handle on what SOME of the good product is... but it doesn't mean that will find ALL the good products.  Sales figures, however, serve as a useful "starting point."  You can at least look at some of the top-selling products and figure that those products are impacting the hobby as a whole.  It's the work finding the "high-quality, low-selling" products that a nominations board needs to be for.

I would suggest that neither "sales" nor a "nominations board" obviates the need for the other.  Perhaps you take the "top 5 sellers" in a category and the board nominates two of those plus any 3 other products or some such.  But at the very least, throwing sales into the mix helps eliminate the need for the nominations board to read every product that crosses their desk. 

Hope that's coherent, but I think my "Theory of Quality" with the note that the converse is NOT necessarily true is my main point here.  If something sells a lot, it WILL impact the hobby for good or ill, and that means that it WILL influence the games of a lot of people... and that means that it IS an important product.

--The Sigil


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## Desdichado (Aug 3, 2004)

billd91 said:
			
		

> If sales empirically measured quality, then the best movie of all time is Titanic because, according to Box Office Mojo, it ranks as the highest in worldwide gross sales of all time. While many people consider it a good movie, I doubt we'd find all that much agreement on these boards that it's the best of all time.
> Sales can depend too much on the size of the print run, the market penetration of the company, the breadth of the marketing campaign, the price of the product, and so on. These are things important to generating good sales for a product and making a successful company, but they are tangential to the actual quality of the product.



Yeah, I'm aware of all your issues.  I'm not trying to claim that sales are really a good indicator of quality, just that they are the _only_ objective indicator, poor as it is, of quality.  Any other indicator is 100% subjective by default.


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## King of Old School (Aug 3, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> This is hardly an unfounded concern. A lot of the people that most strongly opposed Ryan Dancey's vision are also people that think D20 is the antichrist of gaming, and would like to see an industry where a small group of pseudo-intellectuals dictate from on high which games are considered "art".



The person who is most publicly identified with opposing Ryan Dancey's vision for the industry is the owner of a company that produces d20 content almost exclusively -- very popular d20 content, I might add.  So I would suggest that this charge is largely bollocks.  Likewise, your insinuation that the two sides were "fix GAMA" (Dancey) or "leave GAMA exactly as it is" is entirely bollocks; both sides wanted to institute changes, they just disagreed on the nature of those changes.

KoOS


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## Umbran (Aug 3, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I'm not trying to claim that sales are really a good indicator of quality, just that they are the _only_ objective indicator, poor as it is, of quality.  Any other indicator is 100% subjective by default.




Yes, but since "quality" is a subjective term, I don't see why we should be looking for an objective measure.  Even if objectivity were, in and of itself, a selling point, sales are simply too tainted by historical economics to be useful for measuring the quality of a current product.  

Heck, a good chunk of the advantage WotC now has in sales of D&D products is based on how well Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon sold some years ago.  I don't see how that bears on how good, objectively, Unearthed Arcana is now.


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## Rasyr (Aug 3, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Then please, please, Rasyr, BillD, anyone on the "other side" of this debate, please give us your definition of "quality"!



Quality is a highly subjective term that is hard to describe. No matter how you slice it, each person will have their own standards of quality. My idea of what constitutes quality is different from yours, and from everybody elses.

That is why no one person decides who gets the awards.

Please note that what it boils down to is the following two sentences:

1) High sales are not an indicator of quality, they are an indicator of popularity or of greater marketing and/or distribution.
2) Awards that are supposed to be based upon quality should not be swayed by sales or popularity, but should be judged on its actual quality (writing, rules, graphics layout, etc.) as determined by concensus of those voting for the awards.

Is that so hard to understand?



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> Note that it apparently cannot include "financial success" as one of its defining terms.
> And ideally, for me to take you seriously, it should amount to something more than "the games I like are obviously quality just because i feel they're good".




Now you are just be facetious. heh.



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> Why is it that, in almost anything, the crowd that say "quality can never have anything to do with financial success or the public's likes" are typically the ones who are selling something no one is buying?



You know, people might take things you say a little more seriously if you did not always have to tack on these little snide attacks. It does not matter how you phrase it Nisarg, but comments like these are nothing more than personal attacks upon the people dabating you.


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## d4 (Aug 3, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> Quality is a highly subjective term that is hard to describe. No matter how you slice it, each person will have their own standards of quality. My idea of what constitutes quality is different from yours, and from everybody elses.
> _...snip..._
> 2) Awards that are supposed to be based upon quality should not be swayed by sales or popularity, but should be judged on its actual quality (writing, rules, graphics layout, etc.) as determined by concensus of those voting for the awards.



but as you say, everyone has their own differing opinions of what quality is. therefore, an "award for quality" that is determined by someone other than myself is completely irrelevant to me.

why should i care who wins the Origins Awards, since i have no realistic expectation that it will match my own idiosyncratic idea of "quality"?


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## Rasyr (Aug 3, 2004)

billd91 said:
			
		

> You're never going to be satisfied with anything we propose, or should I say you're never going to take anything we say seriously, becaues there is no objective definition of quality that everyone will agree on. That's the nature of subjective review. So I'm tempted to ask why I should bother.




Of course he isn't, apparently not so long as we have a viewpoint that runs contrary to that of what Ryan Dancey has said. That is something I have noticed...

From everything that I have heard Nisarg say, his opinions vary not a single jot from the source. It is almost fanatical in nature, I think. 

I think that I am just going to stop responding to him now. He half-way concedes that quality is not tied to sales, but then turns right back around insisting that sales should be part of the criteria for quality based awards, insisting that sales = quality.  

I have better things to do than trying to change the mind of somebody who refuses to even consider other viewpoints.


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## Nisarg (Aug 3, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> 1) High sales are not an indicator of quality, they are an indicator of popularity or of greater marketing and/or distribution.
> 2) Awards that are supposed to be based upon quality should not be swayed by sales or popularity, but should be judged on its actual quality (writing, rules, graphics layout, etc.) as determined by concensus of those voting for the awards.
> 
> Is that so hard to understand?




1. popularity and marketing should both be considered, if this is really an INDUSTRY award, not just a "creative writing for failed lit. majors" award.
Part of the quality of a PRODUCT is how it connects with the PUBLIC.

2. How do you propose we choose who is permitted to "vote" for the awards? What's to prevent a single ideology of game design to end up manipulating the voting, or for the president of the association to up and decide that his own products (even if they sell very poorly) have the best "quality"?

Nisarg


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## Umbran (Aug 3, 2004)

d4 said:
			
		

> why should i care who wins the Origins Awards, since i have no realistic expectation that it will match my own idiosyncratic idea of "quality"?




Because sometimes there is some wisdom to be found in other people's opinions, and while your own ideas may be idiosyncratic, they probably aren't so far off in left field that the judgement of others is _completely_ irrelevant. 

Personally, I like the Ennies.  A large group of fans pick a table of judges that they feel have good taste.  These judges apply that taste, pick nominees, and then take 'em back to that same group of fans for voting.  A fairly reasonable way of distilling the collected impressions of the group as I can imagine.  And while sometimes a group can be dumb, sometimes it can also be quite discerning.

I don't know what final voting procedure the Ennies will be using this year, but having seen the system used for the Hugo awards, I think I'd want to suggest it for next year.


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## Rasyr (Aug 3, 2004)

d4 said:
			
		

> but as you say, everyone has their own differing opinions of what quality is. therefore, an "award for quality" that is determined by someone other than myself is completely irrelevant to me.
> 
> why should i care who wins the Origins Awards, since i have no realistic expectation that it will match my own idiosyncratic idea of "quality"?




Ahh.. but if the awards were chosen by a group of individuals whose own work you might know and respect, then that might get you to check it out. The thing with the Origins Awards is that they are peer awards, awards given by other individuals within the rpg industry.

These are the people who create the games you play and enjoy who are saying that the winners are of exceptional quality. If you enjoy their work, wouldn't you think that you just might enjoy something that they think is a very good product?

By your own definition, you should not care what won the Ennies either. You were not part of the panel of judges who selected the nominees. You are only one of possibly thousands who vote for one of the nominees. What are you going to say about the one that wins a category if it is not the one you voted for?

I would like to point out that up until this year, the process for select the Origins Awards was virtually identical to that of the Ennies (and this year it was still extremely similar, with the Gamer's Choice being identical to the Ennies, and only the Peer awards differing by limiting the final voting to the GAMA members). Companies sumbitted products to the Academy (just like companies submit products to the Ennies judge's panel), then the Academy votes on the submissions (just as the Ennie judges do), and final voting is done by a larger corpus of voters. The main difference between the Origins Awards and the Ennies is that the Ennies is more focused on d20 products while the OAs encompass a much wider field of categories.

Did the OAs have problems? Yes, many problems, from companies trying to game the system to Chairpersons who would change some of the underlying rules on a yearly basis. Last year Nicole Lindroos (Nickchick - or however she spells it hehe) became Chair of the Academy and tried to institute changes that would have made the awards much more codified. However, there were several people did their best to obstruct any changes she tried to get implemented, one of the loudest obstructionist being a person who wasn't even a member of GAMA at the time, and who made (at the very least) many damaging remarks about the changes Nicole wanted to make without even waiting to see if they would be an improvement or not.

There is curently a task force (made up of one person) appointed by the GAMA board working on proposals (although he did create a mailing list open to whatever interested people wanted to join - effectively an idea generating list that has no real say in anything) for revamping the awards. Whether or not anything will come of this remains to be seen.


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## Dogbrain (Aug 3, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Slightly O-T...  I've been googling for that article for a while now without success; does anyone have a link to it?




I can't find it.  It may have disappeared.  The gist was that he came to the conclusion that what killed TSR was that it ignored its customers.  It did no consumer research at all.  It invested in massive prints of products that did not sell--and then printed more of them.  It uprooted DragonLance from its home game system.  It also did some really strange stuff, like buying a needlepoint concern.


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## Rasyr (Aug 3, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Personally, I like the Ennies.  A large group of fans pick a table of judges that they feel have good taste.




Hmmm.. did not realize that the judges were voted for. Interesting in that in the discussions for revamping the Origins Awards, we have been discussing the use of smaller panels made of professionals from the industry associated with a given award category, retailers and distributors.

Thus, the final nominations would be selected by those who have a good idea of the standards of quality associated with products in that category.

Another idea batted around is instead of having a public vote make the final decision, have the public make the pre-nomination submissions (i.e. a product requires a minimum number of voted to make it to the nomination panel, and only the top xx are considered), coupled with companies also being allowed to nominate one product per category, and the panel itself (if unanimous) being able to add non-submitted products to the ballot as well. 

There were a number of other ideas floated as well.....


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## d4 (Aug 3, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> Ahh.. but if the awards were chosen by a group of individuals whose own work you might know and respect, then that might get you to check it out. The thing with the Origins Awards is that they are peer awards, awards given by other individuals within the rpg industry.



assuming i did know and respect and agree with the group of individuals doing the choosing.



			
				Rasyr said:
			
		

> By your own definition, you should not care what won the Ennies either. You were not part of the panel of judges who selected the nominees. You are only one of possibly thousands who vote for one of the nominees.



exactly.



			
				Rasyr said:
			
		

> What are you going to say about the one that wins a category if it is not the one you voted for?



that it was the most popular. and given the large number of people voting for the ENnies, that is statistically significant and perhaps relevant to the gaming community (or at least d20 community) as a whole. awards chosen by a small, select group of people can't make that claim.

for what it's worth, i don't think a subjective thing like "quality" can ever be recognized and agreed upon by a large group of people. which is why i think trying to award people for quality is a strange concept.

on the other hand, something like popularity, or as The Sigil said, a game's impact on the gaming community, can in some way be assessed objectively. and sales are definitely one way of measuring that.

basically, all of these things boil down to popularity contests -- what things do the people deciding the awards like the best for their own personal reasons. we want these awards to be meaningful to the community as a whole. the only way to get results that are statistically significant is to make the sample size as large as possible. we can't poll every gamer on what he thinks is best. but starting from the (admittedly not entirely accurate) assumption that what he or she buys is what he or she thinks is good is at least a place to start.

leaving it in the hands of a small group of people is IMO not the right way to serve the community.


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## eyebeams (Aug 3, 2004)

The Sigil said:
			
		

> My google-fu is strong.  I searched for "dancey tsr hear" (remembering that Dancey said WotC was dying because it refused to hear its customers) and this was the first link.
> 
> http://www.atlasofadventure.com/Archive/TSR1997Buyout.asp




This is interesting. Ryan Dancey structures the article as if he was on a mission from WotC to acquire TSR by placing a quote from Adkison in the middle, when, in fact, this is not the order of events. As Chris Pramas has explained, this is not how it happened. Dancey was not hired until he'd already investigated TSR and discovered his own company couldn't afford it.


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## BrooklynKnight (Aug 3, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> My main issue is that Origins, if its meant to be THE award for the industry, should in SOME way represent what people actually play and enjoy.
> Nisarg



THE award for the Industry should be the Ennies.


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## Nisarg (Aug 3, 2004)

d4 said:
			
		

> basically, all of these things boil down to popularity contests -- what things do the people deciding the awards like the best for their own personal reasons. we want these awards to be meaningful to the community as a whole. the only way to get results that are statistically significant is to make the sample size as large as possible. we can't poll every gamer on what he thinks is best. but starting from the (admittedly not entirely accurate) assumption that what he or she buys is what he or she thinks is good is at least a place to start.
> 
> leaving it in the hands of a small group of people is IMO not the right way to serve the community.




You just hit the nail right on the head there. It is always just a popularity contest.
Given that, it means that a popularity contest voted on by a couple of thousand gamers is going to be a much more accurate reflection of what gamers really play and enjoy (and has had a real impact on the industry) than what a handful of self-anointed "experts" think is best.

Nisarg


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## eyebeams (Aug 3, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> 1. popularity and marketing should both be considered, if this is really an INDUSTRY award, not just a "creative writing for failed lit. majors" award.
> Part of the quality of a PRODUCT is how it connects with the PUBLIC.




Tha amusing thing here is that, of course, a sales-based award would feature lots and lots of White Wolf PRODUCT, which -- using your own definition -- connects with the PUBLIC more than the majority of D20 material.

In fact, most D20 products occupy the cheap seats of .pdf and POD. Meanwhile, the evil, industry-destroying stuff I've written sells on a scale that it almost inconceivable to any company short of WotC, so it would get nominated all the time. 

Also, by your own standards, the Ennies are hosed, too.


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## eyebeams (Aug 3, 2004)

The Sigil said:
			
		

> Just to throw a thought in here WRT to the issue of sales.
> 
> Allow me to posit just for a moment that the "most excellent" or "best quality" (or whatever buzzword you like to use) gaming material can be defined simply... "that which has the greatest impact on the hobby of role-playing in general."
> 
> --The Sigil




That's super. That makes Everway one of the greatest games, because it had a significant impact on the hobby. By being a required additional purchase with Magic cards in the mid-90s, it helped drain revenues *and* reduce overall confidence in the hobby. Plus, of course, it had a high initial sales spike, to boot, because you had to buy it! Greatness!

Or alternately, your definition is just too vague.


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## eyebeams (Aug 3, 2004)

Of course, one more thing worth noting is that game companies don't even sell games to the public first. They sell them to distributors. The flaws in this system mean that distributor trends can have a greater impact on sales that what people actually want. For instance, distributors went mad for D20 stuff for two years, but people weren't actually buying a a proprtional amount of it. Now that stores have stopped ordering as much stuff or have gone under by being loaded with stock they can't move, D20 has shrunk to a realistic proportion of sales.

In practical terms, this means that sales don't actually bear a direct relationship to consumer tastes, either. Sales after the first quarter/90 days might, but of course this data is difficult to acquire.

It would certainly be good to have an "evergreen award" for game books that keep selling. This would actually be practical and informative. But initial sales outside of the minority direct market are often a crapshoot when it comes to seeing how popular something actually is.


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## Nisarg (Aug 3, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> In fact, most D20 products occupy the cheap seats of .pdf and POD. Meanwhile, the evil, industry-destroying stuff I've written sells on a scale that it almost inconceivable to any company short of WotC, so it would get nominated all the time.





The downside of believing in public will is that sometimes games I don't personally like might get the award.  I am willing to accept that, if the majority of people express enough support for those books, even though I don't personally care for them. 

It seems, on the other hand, that my opposition is not so open to the will of the people. As in, not willing to care about the opinions of the very people they claim to represent.. I think you yourself had expressed some concerns about that very topic.  I might be wrong, don't know. 
I know Ryan Dancey feels that way, and his essay on TSR is a good example of what happens to companies that think they know what the public wants without asking.

Nisarg


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## Nikchick (Aug 3, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> I know Ryan Dancey feels that way, and his essay on TSR is a good example of what happens to companies that think they know what the public wants without asking.





Perhaps if Ryan Dancey had ASKED my opinion on either the Origins Awards or GAMA rather than deciding it was better to spend six months reading my e-mails without my permission, I'd give a rat's ass how he feels.


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## mearls (Aug 3, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Of course, one more thing worth noting is that game companies don't even sell games to the public first. They sell them to distributors. The flaws in this system mean that distributor trends can have a greater impact on sales that what people actually want. For instance, distributors went mad for D20 stuff for two years, but people weren't actually buying a a proprtional amount of it. Now that stores have stopped ordering as much stuff or have gone under by being loaded with stock they can't move, D20 has shrunk to a realistic proportion of sales.




What's your source for this? It doesn't jive with the information I've collected or the numbers I've seen.


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## eyebeams (Aug 3, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> The downside of believing in public will is that sometimes games I don't personally like might get the award.  I am willing to accept that, if the majority of people express enough support for those books, even though I don't personally care for them.




Actually, your argument was that almost nobody cares for them.



> It seems, on the other hand, that my opposition is not so open to the will of the people. As in, not willing to care about the opinions of the very people they claim to represent.. I think you yourself had expressed some concerns about that very topic.  I might be wrong, don't know.




The connection between sales and actual popularity is not what people assume it to be.



> I know Ryan Dancey feels that way, and his essay on TSR is a good example of what happens to companies that think they know what the public wants without asking.




Ryan Dancey's essay is . . . highly subjective. he didn't check out TSR for WotC; he did it to see if Five Rings could afford it. TSR's chief flaws were related to terrible accounting practices and the wholesale strip-mining of the company by its owners. Rapport with gamers wouldn't have affected things like the massive amount of tax paid on misassessed warehouse items and the appropriation of funds to pay a licensing fee that enriched the owners for their Buck Rogers books at the expensse of their actual business.

Dragonlance game material was martginalized because it wasn't making much money any more; even WotC knows this, which is why they didn't bother with anything besides a one-off for that entire property. TSR failed because it was a floundering, inept behemoth. Knowing what gamers wanted wouldn't have helped it one whit because it would not have been capable of acting on that knowledge competently in the first place.


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## eyebeams (Aug 3, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> What's your source for this? It doesn't jive with the information I've collected or the numbers I've seen.




Scuttlebutt here and there (I know, I know . . .). I also took the time to crosscheck high and low public estimates by Ken Hite and (where available) Ryan Dancey over the past 3 years. You end up with a plateau and a net decline. 2001-2002 are steady (well, there's a 5% drop, or so, but that's too small to count given the variability in the numbers), then 2003 divebombs about 20% (maybe a bit more; Hite seems to have been off in 2002, but opyimistic estimates go from 104 million to 75 million in the 3 year period; I'm being *more* optimistic than that). This is not so bad, since 3e sales in 2001 will probably artificially boost figures, but 2003 is certainly telling. Even 3.5 doesn't seem to slow this deflation. This is just RPGs.

My hypothesis is that 2002 was probably the year stores started to see that, say, Green Ronin and "Dude with a Ripped Copy of Pagemaker Games Co." ought not to be thought of as equals when it comes to stocking shelves and 2003 is the year that distributors, blind idiot gods that they are, started to actually figure this out.

D20 was not a failure by any stretch of the imagination, but looking longitudinally it seems to have made the general decline wavier, not necessarily smaller.


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## mearls (Aug 3, 2004)

OK, the thing about game stores going under or being snowed in with exorbitant amounts of dead stock didn't quite match what I've seen. The dead stock is usually tied to specific game lines. My experience is that the trail of sales declines flowed from retailers, to distributors, back to the publishers. The first cut backs I saw came in early 2001. That's when retailers started cutting back the obvious terrible lines. I don't think things really pushed back up the chain until 2002. However, an exceptional product still can easily beat out sales numbers from the earliest days of d20.

The going out of business thing really caught my eye, since RPGs don't generally make up enough of a game store's revenue for anyone but an utterly insane retailer to drive himself out of business with RPGs.

My current impression of the market is that sales are in a state of flux. There is a very clear connection between reorders, continuing sales, and the general reaction I see to a product. There are a few cases where I see a product that gets lots of good reviews but relatively poor sales, but those are rare and usually tied to the nature of the product. For example, I'd believe that a book of NPCs could be a really good book but suffer from poor sales, but not a core RPG.


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## eyebeams (Aug 3, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> OK, the thing about game stores going under or being snowed in with exorbitant amounts of dead stock didn't quite match what I've seen. The dead stock is usually tied to specific game lines. My experience is that the trail of sales declines flowed from retailers, to distributors, back to the publishers. The first cut backs I saw came in early 2001. That's when retailers started cutting back the obvious terrible lines. I don't think things really pushed back up the chain until 2002. However, an exceptional product still can easily beat out sales numbers from the earliest days of d20.
> 
> The going out of business thing really caught my eye, since RPGs don't generally make up enough of a game store's revenue for anyone but an utterly insane retailer to drive himself out of business with RPGs.
> 
> My current impression of the market is that sales are in a state of flux. There is a very clear connection between reorders, continuing sales, and the general reaction I see to a product. There are a few cases where I see a product that gets lots of good reviews but relatively poor sales, but those are rare and usually tied to the nature of the product. For example, I'd believe that a book of NPCs could be a really good book but suffer from poor sales, but not a core RPG.




Well, I suspect a lot of stuff with game stores really have to do with the economics of keeping square-footage for RPGs. How much of a drop can a store take to be able to carry that dead space? How much cost is incurred in keeping the stock? This is something that would probably answer the question. Looking at a bunch of stores in my region, it looks like the successful ones either have almost no space set aside for RPGs in comparison to the rest of their stock (1-2 display racks in a mall, for example) or pay for variety by selling stock online or at conventions (one store I know of that devotes about 20% of its space to RPG -- and has a magnificent selection -- works this way).

Certainly there is a relationship between consumer satisfaction and success, but there's a wierd intermediary effect there too. I don't think you can always count on absolute sales. Certainly, products where it's harder to assess quality from the rack (NPC books, adventures) would be more prone to this, as would saturated areas (books on Orcs and such, character class guides). On the other side you have books with severe quality control issues (like Conan) that apparently do quite well. All in all, I think it's a complicated, bumpy ride that can't really be counted on to decide awards.


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## Keeper of Secrets (Aug 3, 2004)

I'm someone who does not have much of an opinion on Ryan either way but I hardly see how what he has done will be worth prosecution.  Yes, it is likelt illegal but I am not sure if it is worth the federal government's time to really go after him.  The most I can see him being punished is paying a fine and MAYBE community service.


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## Grazzt (Aug 3, 2004)

Keeper of Secrets said:
			
		

> The most I can see him being punished is paying a fine and MAYBE community service.




And probably not even that.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Aug 3, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> Interesting in that in the discussions for revamping the Origins Awards, we have been discussing the use of smaller panels made of professionals from the industry associated with a given award category, retailers and distributors.
> 
> Thus, the final nominations would be selected by those who have a good idea of the standards of quality associated with products in that category.




That one knocked me out of my chair laughing.

Retailers and distributors are among the least informed segments of this industry. If sales figures are a BAD indicator of quality, then I don't know why you would want to hand over judgement to a group of folks whose involvement with any given product RARELY gets past the balance sheet.

I would describe the average retailer (and certainly distributor) as indifferent, at best, to the details of most of their products (and thus any non-sales-related measure of quality).


Wulf


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## PJ-Mason (Aug 3, 2004)

On Dancy-

So far this is still all a "he said/she said" mess to me. When the whole thing comes out in the open, then i'll see. Assuming i ever care enough to research it myself. What i know for sure about Ryan Dancy is that he did one really great thing for D&D and gaming in general. Does this new fiasco cost him points? Yep. But then, he has some points to burn. 


On Sales factoring into awards-

I think its appropriate for sales to figure in, as long as it doesn't affect the final result more than any of the other factors involved. Sure advertising has its effects, but so does word of mouth by locals who either like or hate a book. M&M was popular because most everyone who got it, loved it, and then told everyone else about it. Like i did. I think that had every bit to do with M&M's success as any marketing schemes GR was using. To exclude the average gamer's say in the matter then makes the matter of no interest to the average gamer. But then, most of these awards seem more like popularity contests among publishers anyway.

On Awards-

Don't need them, don't want them, couldn't afford them if i did. I trust my own judgement, my gamer-friend's judgements, and to a lesser extent my local gaming community (those i can walk up to and talk about a game with). A couple online reviewers also have my trust (or at least i understand their review-style to the point where i can understand how they reflect on my own personal tastes). Beyond that i don't care what others think. I certaintly don't care what the gaming industry and their "hangers on" thinks about their own products.

On Gama-

I've always heard about them but never really cared. I never even noticed they ran Origins until i saw it mentioned recently. i've done some research in the last couple days and I think that all this Dancy fiasco really did was alert a lot of people about Gama and its quagmire of gamer politics, in-fighting, personal wars....basically all the stuff i left behind when i graduated high school. Harsh? Maybe. But i call them like i see them.

I'll also add that Dancy is a pretty smart cookie. He wouldn't fess up to something he didn't have to, unless he thought it made good sense. 
Could be this was all a calculated attempt to drive Gama to its death bed. Lets wait and see if anyone attempts to create their own Gama-like organization sometime in the near future and if they have any direct or indirect relation to Dancy. 

Personally, i like to see a rules provision in any "Award committee" set up that prohibits any product related to one of the committee members own gaming company (or freelancer) from being nominated. Then we'd see how many would still be interested in the job. Without that, i wouldn't trust ANYONES involvement in the process. I don't care who they are, or how good a rep they have.


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## Rasyr (Aug 3, 2004)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> That one knocked me out of my chair laughing.
> 
> Retailers and distributors are among the least informed segments of this industry. If sales figures are a BAD indicator of quality, then I don't know why you would want to hand over judgement to a group of folks whose involvement with any given product RARELY gets past the balance sheet.
> 
> I would describe the average retailer (and certainly distributor) as indifferent, at best, to the details of most of their products (and thus any non-sales-related measure of quality).




The "average" retailer or distributor would not be on the panels. Those on the panels, if this suggestion ends up getting adopted, would be those who are members of GAMA and who attend the various seminars that those divisions of GAMA put on for their members, to make sure that they are more specifically informed about products and such.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Aug 3, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> The "average" retailer or distributor would not be on the panels. Those on the panels, if this suggestion ends up getting adopted, would be those who are members of GAMA and who attend the various seminars that those divisions of GAMA put on for their members, to make sure that they are more specifically informed about products and such.




I'm not convinced that solves the appearance of self-serving, incestuous, self-appointed impropriety.


Wulf


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## herald (Aug 3, 2004)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> That one knocked me out of my chair laughing.
> 
> Retailers and distributors are among the least informed segments of this industry. If sales figures are a BAD indicator of quality, then I don't know why you would want to hand over judgement to a group of folks whose involvement with any given product RARELY gets past the balance sheet.
> 
> ...



And why would they, they have nothing to gain. And no one realy listens to them. Some noises are made to placate them. But rarely does anyone really pay attention to them.


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## buzz (Aug 3, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Tha amusing thing here is that, of course, a sales-based award would feature lots and lots of White Wolf PRODUCT...



:shudders:


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## Wulf Ratbane (Aug 3, 2004)

herald said:
			
		

> And why would they, they have nothing to gain. And no one realy listens to them. Some noises are made to placate them. But rarely does anyone really pay attention to them.




Why would the owner of a business have a vested interest in developing a working knowledge of the products he is trying to sell?

Gee, you got me there. 

You're right, utterly pointless. Far better to just order every damn thing off the new releases list and hope that your reorder of This Month's Hot Card Game can pay for all that shelf space you're wasting on products you know nothing about.

And if a customer asks you about a product, for God's sake don't tell him you don't know, don't tell him you'll find out, just tell him anything to get him to leave your store. "It's out of print..." is a dependable stand-by.


Wulf


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## Umbran (Aug 3, 2004)

The Sigil said:
			
		

> Allow me to posit just for a moment that the "most excellent" or "best quality" (or whatever buzzword you like to use) gaming material can be defined simply... "that which has the greatest impact on the hobby of role-playing in general."




It can be so defined, yes.  But it remains to be seen if that is a useful or desireable definition.

Perhaps the most influential event to ever hit the American financial scene was the Great Depression.  Should we call it the best thing to ever happen to American finance?

In order to figure out what measures of quality ought to be used, we need to figure out what the purpose of the awards are.  If the purpose of the awards is for gaming businesses to recognize success among their number - to pat some of themselves on the back for a job well done, to say to themselves, "this is a good example of gaming business" then influence becomes a reasonable thing to look for.  All the factors that bear on influence - product quality, marketing savvy, and the like - bear on being good in the business overall.  

If the purpose of the award is to  provide consumers with a list of products they might want to buy, then influence really isn't an issue.  The consumer is interested in value to himself.  He cares about the quality of binding and printing and editing and layout.  The consumer cares about interesting ideas, and smooth, flavorful mechanics, etc.  All these things may impact the products influence, but so do many other things the consumer doesn't care about.  How influential the product was is pretty far down the list of consumer interest, compared with the factors that directly impact his own use and enjoyment of the product.

So, if the award is about how good a company is doing in the business, then go ahead and use influence.  But don't expect consumers to give a hoot about the awards.  If the award is about actual quality of product delivered to the consumer, look at the factors the consumer cares about _directly_.


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## Desdichado (Aug 3, 2004)

To be fair, Umbran, your example is a bit of a red herring.  A really bad product doesn't have the same effect on the RPG industry as the Great Depression does on the American financial scene.  A product like Synnibar or F.A.T.A.L. may stir up a flamewar or two on rpg.net, and may even gain a perverse following of folks who want to be kinda campy (Chicago ENWorld Gameday and Synnibar?) but they don't impact the ability of any other product to sell.  They just drop quietly off the shelves, and if they're truly bad, they enter a kind of bad games mythos, and that's about it.  There's no way you can make any correlation between the release of F.A.T.A.L. and the sales of any other product, really.  Influence in this industry by default is probably going to be good influence.

And to your point, it's true that the awards, if they want to mean anything, should look at factors that consumers care about directly.  However, as I pointed out earlier, the only measurable standard by which to judge that is sales.  Everything else is completely subjective.

I'm not really advocating that sales play a factor in the awards, though.  I'm not sure that makes much difference.  Frankly, I think the only consumers who are really interested in what wins Origins awards or not (and by that I mean a connected and informed subset of gamers) have probably lost a good deal of credibility for the awards in recent years due to some fishy selections.  I'm not sure that the Origins awards can come up with a strategy that really undoes the damage, frankly, other than waiting it out.

Or, they can continue to not be about the consumer at all, like they mostly have been in the past.  But if so, they can continue to expect that consumers are largely indifferent to them.


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## Nisarg (Aug 3, 2004)

Rasyr said:
			
		

> The "average" retailer or distributor would not be on the panels. Those on the panels, if this suggestion ends up getting adopted, would be those who are members of GAMA and who attend the various seminars that those divisions of GAMA put on for their members, to make sure that they are more specifically informed about products and such.





That still doesn't explain this sudden wierd inclusion Rasyr.  You've been railing on about how the awards should not be about sales and evil capitalism, and yet you'd want your panel to have people (distributors and retailers) that are almost EXCLUSIVELY interested in the sales end of the industry?  How does that even make sense?

Nisarg


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## herald (Aug 3, 2004)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> Why would the owner of a business have a vested interest in developing a working knowledge of the products he is trying to sell?
> 
> Gee, you got me there.
> 
> ...



And tell me how many FLGS can afford to be a part of an organization that would be able to do that?
And how many FLGS can afford to send someone to Origins. How many can afford to spend time belonging Gama. How many can feel like they have an actual voice? How many have been nickel and dimed to death by Walmart.com?

Why would any FLGS ever want to have anything to do with Gama. How could they thin that any publication from Gama wasn't anything but a shill. To many vendors Gama doesn't mean anything.


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## The Sigil (Aug 3, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> In fact, most D20 products occupy the cheap seats of .pdf and POD.



Not a good comparison.  The Open Game License allows companies - or fans - to create the material that occupies those cheap seats.  If White Wolf opened up its "Storyteller" system under a similar license, do you think there wouldn't be a flood of cheap "Storyteller" PDFs, too?  We both know there would be, and then there would be a large number of "Storyteller" PDFs in the cheap seats.

Compare WW to WotC, the "owner" of d20, and you yourself mentioned sales are comparable.  But you'd rather compare one company (WW) to a multitude of companies, and pick the smallest examples to denigrate d20 as a whole.  Let's stick to comparing apples to apples.  

Again, if the "Storyteller" system were under an OGL-type license, you'd see Storyteller products right next to d20 ones in the "cheap seats," so saying that there are d20 products in the cheap seats is somewhat disingenuous.  _Somebody_ will be there, the OGL just makes it easier for small companies to do d20 rather than come up with a new system whole cloth (i.e., to use an existing system without fear of getting sued).

/rant

Finally, I really don't have any opinions one way or the other about Dancey except one... I am incredibly glad he managed to get the OGL to pass muster among the suits, as it puts D&D into a place where it can never be fully killed.  If (worst case scenario) someone with a whole lot of cash were to buy up WW, decide they hated the products, and just shut down the company and litigate anyone who came up with anything compatible with the Storyteller system, that would be the end of WW's stuff.  The OGL ensures that there can always be SOMEONE out there supporting D&D.  That, to me, is worth of admiration.  Not the person, but the act.

--The Sigil


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## Umbran (Aug 3, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> To be fair, Umbran, your example is a bit of a red herring.




To be accurate, I think it classifies better as an absurd argument - taking an example from way out on the fringe to prove a point of logic: that influence does not really equate to quality.

If you prefer examples that are easier to handle and are closer to home...

The influence of the TV show _Survivor_ cannot be ignored.  It has impacted the shape of the television landscape for years.  It has "sales" out the wazoo.  I dare anyone to argue that it is "quality" programming with a straight face.  I double dog dare them to make the argument and not get laughed at 

Hemingway - by all measures an influential author, but his books really aren't all that good to read.  How is that "quality"?  Or, if you'd like me to bring up one even closer to the genre: Laurell K Hamilton.  She's got solid sales these days.  She's got influence.  But her books are horrible, stilted, cliched _tripe_.



> And to your point, it's true that the awards, if they want to mean anything, should look at factors that consumers care about directly.  However, as I pointed out earlier, the only measurable standard by which to judge that is sales.  Everything else is completely subjective.




I reject your assertion.  Just because sales are the only measure that has natural quantifiers does not mean it is the only measure.  I in return assert that a measure that is as dependant (or arguably more dependant) on other factors than the one you actually want to explore is a useless measure.  "Influence" and sales are simply too laden with other concerns to reasonably measure quality.  

If you really want to reject subjectivity - any scientist will tell you that there are _two ways_ to approach objectivity.  One is to use a measure that is as objective as possible.  The other is to use a carefully selected measure that is known to be subjective, but to take the measurements many times so that individual subjective components get averaged out.  

The Nebula Awards and the Hugo Awards have for decades reliably pointed consumers of science fiction literature towards the best of the craft.  Not that you'll like every story that wins an award, but the vast majority of those that win are really quality products.  However subjective they may be, they work pretty darned well.  Subjectivity is not leprosy, to be avoided at all costs.


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## Nisarg (Aug 3, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Hemingway - by all measures an influential author, but his books really aren't all that good to read.  How is that "quality"?  .




Thank you for playing, and thank you for giving the perfect example of how "quality" is a totally subjective concept.

Hemmingway is considered by many to be both influential and of high quality, there are a lot of university professors, not to mention millions of fans, whose definition of "good" and "quality" are obviously very different from yours.

Nisarg


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## Wulf Ratbane (Aug 3, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> The influence of the TV show _Survivor_ cannot be ignored.  It has impacted the shape of the television landscape for years.  It has "sales" out the wazoo.  I dare anyone to argue that it is "quality" programming with a straight face.  I double dog dare them to make the argument and not get laughed at




Heck, I'd argue it. Survivor was masterfully conceived. As a form of entertainment, based on its ability to draw viewers (no matter how contrived the drama), its quality cannot be denied. It performs admirably. It outperforms.

You seem to be suggesting that mere entertainment-- even in an industry that is 100% entertainment based such as television or RPGs-- is not a measure of quality.

You could argue that Hemingway's quality is predicated on the fact that literature aims beyond mere entertainment-- but that is only frequently, and obviously not universally, true of publishing.

I don't think that sales figures are necessarily a good measure of RPG quality, but neither would I suggest that something that neither sells well, _nor_ entertains well, has "quality" of any validity in this industry-- I don't care if Hemingway himself wrote it.

Wulf


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## Desdichado (Aug 3, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> The Nebula Awards and the Hugo Awards have for decades reliably pointed consumers of science fiction literature towards the best of the craft.  Not that you'll like every story that wins an award, but the vast majority of those that win are really quality products.  However subjective they may be, they work pretty darned well.  Subjectivity is not leprosy, to be avoided at all costs.



Bah!  Humbug!  They do no such thing.  Hugo and Nebula awards mean very little except as a pat on the back from your peers.  They suffer from the same type of problem that the Origins awards do, but not as acutely because at least the population affected is larger than for games.

Heck, the Oscars are in the same boat.  The only reason the Oscars matter is because they are extremely high profile and even Joe Blow Americans like to celebrity watch, and the Oscars are the best forum for that.  Although Oscar buzz may stimulate some additional short term sales, they don't stand the test of time.  There's no strong correllation between Oscar winners and movies that are later considered to be the true classics (although ColonelHardisson, if he were still around, would be better able to address that, having made a point of studying it).  In the long run, the Oscars are meaningless.

The Origins awards, being relatively small potatoes, catering to a much more restricted audience, and lacking any strong dissemination method, such as the Oscars broadcast, can't help but he burdened by the same problems, only magnified to the point that the awards are largely pointless to consumers entirely.


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## mearls (Aug 3, 2004)

Allowing the members of GAMA's retail division to select the award nominees makes tremendous sense. They're the only segment of the market that has experience with all of the varied game categories that make up the adventure game industry (CCGs, boardgames, minis, RPGs). Retailers would also have a greater opportunity to craft the award's public face, increasing gamer awareness. The retailers would pick the games that would make the final ballot that gamers would vote from.

More importantly, it would give companies the ability to directly interact with retailers. As part of the proposal I'm working on for the OAs, members of GAMA would have the opportunity to ship samples of their games to all of the retailer members of GAMA. This would provide small press companies, or those that have been unable to get Alliance to pick up their products, with a priceless opportunity to show off their product to retailers.

Finally, my proposed system would include a panel of game designers specifically charged with presenting a yearly list of large and small press products (5 each) that they consider notable for design and quality. These notable products would automatically be entered into the final voting, along with the games that the retailers nominate.


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## The Sigil (Aug 3, 2004)

An interesting argument, Umbran.  Here, though, is the reason I gave the theory that I did.

The purpose of existence for a role-playing publication is to aid role-players in enjoying themselves.

In order for a role-playing publication to aid role-players in enjoying themselves, it must be used by role-players; if it is not, it cannot be the cause of their enjoyment.

A "good" thing of any stripe is that which most accomplishes its purpose for existence.

I think the quibble here comes in defining "most accomplishes."  Some people say that means that is does an excellent job on the "micro-scale" - i.e., it is an excellent product because it helps my group enjoy itself due to (a) good writing, (b) good rules, (c) good flavor text, (d) good art, (e) good other, (f) all of the above.  This is what I think a lot of people want to mean when they say something is "quality" - it does a "good job" describing a game (or a setting, or whatever) that the person saying it is "quality" would like to play in - whether that is for setting, rules, elegance, simplicity, and so on.  This is a valid definition of "most accomplishes" but is horribly subjective because it is almost impossible to get any two people to agree upon exactly what set of rules is best.  (Hence, the great abundance of house rules, not to mention different RPG systems).  Other people say that "most accomplishes" should be looked at on a "macro-scale" - i.e., it is an excellent product because lots of people are using it (even if my particular group isn't) and thus the total enjoyment it is responsible for is high.  The problem, of course, is that role-playing is a "personal" endeavor, and most people like to think of their own way of gaming as The One True Way, and anyone using any other rules isn't having "as much" enjoyment as they might have if they gamed using the One True Way. Of course, he's over there looking at you thinking you'd have much more fun if you'd subscribe to his One True Way.  

At the end of the day, even sales aren't the best indicator of what is actually being played - I've bought a lot of things I've never played.  But it seems to be true that in order for a product to be played, and thus aid in providing enjoyment to gamers, on either a micro- or macro-scale, and thus serve its purpose for existence, and thus be a "good" product, _it has to be bought first_.  And that's the bottom line.

"Micro-scale" judging of quality is in many ways useless because, as I mentioned, no two people think exactly alike.  What I think is "the bomb" might be the exact opposite of what you like.  Thus, we're left looking at "macro-scale" judging - i.e., not "what do I play" but "what are most people playing?"  Sales do not perfectly reflect play, but a low-selling product can't have a high number of people playing it.

Again, my theory is simply: _High product sales indicate a high quality product._  High sales imply high rate of play.  High rate of play implies high enjoyment among RPGers derived from the product.  By my own definition, that is (macro-scale) quality, QED.

It's not perfect, because what I really want to say is "high rate of play indicates a high quality product."  But since it's almost impossible to quantify rate of play and since rate of play is a function of rate of sales, I go to the measureable quantity - sales.

And again, this is not to say that a high quality product necessarily means high sales (especially when we talk about a "micro-scale" of quality).  It also does not mean that low sales indicate low quality.  It means exactly what it says.

I would posit, however, that "high rate of continued sale" (i.e., sales volume over time when removing the "spike" of sales in the first 30 days of release) is the *best* indicator of quality - it indicates that a product stands the test of time and continues to appeal to gamers.  That means it works on a macro-scale - lots of people are using it, and on a micro-scale - continued sales imply that many people find it quality and are finding it by word of mouth.

There's no "perfect" definition of quality, but again, I'm trying to reconcile two definitions taht may or may not work together.

--The Sigil


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## billd91 (Aug 3, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Thank you for playing, and thank you for giving the perfect example of how "quality" is a totally subjective concept.
> 
> Hemmingway is considered by many to be both influential and of high quality, there are a lot of university professors, not to mention millions of fans, whose definition of "good" and "quality" are obviously very different from yours.
> 
> Nisarg




But there's nothing wrong with subjectivity. All you have to do for the awards is collectively agree as a nominating committee that something has enough quality to be included in a list of nominees. I think we have to jettison the notion that there has to be some kind of objective measurement of quality and accept that decisions involving subjective criteria are appropriate when such subjectivity is handled well and appropriately. 
With respect to Hemmingway, his works have been judged as having quality by a broad and diverse group of critics, experts, and fans through entirely subjective methods, but by such a diverse group that there's no reason to expect any systematic bias underlying their opinions. Well, there may be Europeans who think he gets higher esteem from American fans simply because he's American, but that's probably not a major bias.
If the nominating process polls a sufficiently broad base, you weaken specific biases.


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## Rasyr (Aug 3, 2004)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> I'm not convinced that solves the appearance of self-serving, incestuous, self-appointed impropriety.




There was also discussion of including those who do product reviews on a regular basis as part of the judging panels.

So far there has been lots of various ideas thrown about (including one by Nisarg's hero of having ONLY retailers judge the awards).

However, the one of the more welcomed suggestions was to create a judges panel from all portions of the gaming industry (retailers, creatives, distributors, editors, reviewers, etc..). Another suggestion was to require each judge to provide a short bit of reasoning for voting why he did, and making his voting record public. Yet another suggestion was to make the voting totals public but not who voted for what.

In short there has been many various suggestions on how to handle the future Origins Awards. One thing that everybody could agree on was that the rules and guidelines need to be codified in a solid manner, so that no matter who is Chair, impropiety cannot be claimed.

In the past, there was too much that was arbitrary to the will of the Chair, that is one thing that will definitely be changing. What the final form of the awards for next year will be, I don't know yet, nobody does. 

The Origins Awards Task Force (all one of him), has called for full-fledged proposals on how the awards will be administered and overseen and how they will work in the future. The task force list (with lots of non-task force members) will then debate the positives and negatives of each proposal before the task force selects the required 3 proposals to submit to the GAMA Board. The Board is then supposed give feedback, before they select the one to put to a vote before the GAMA members.

Still a long ways to go....


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## billd91 (Aug 3, 2004)

The Sigil said:
			
		

> <snip>
> 
> I think the quibble here comes in defining "most accomplishes."  Some people say that means that is does an excellent job on the "micro-scale" - i.e., it is an excellent product because it helps my group enjoy itself due to (a) good writing, (b) good rules, (c) good flavor text, (d) good art, (e) good other, (f) all of the above.  This is what I think a lot of people want to mean when they say something is "quality" - it does a "good job" describing a game (or a setting, or whatever) that the person saying it is "quality" would like to play in - whether that is for setting, rules, elegance, simplicity, and so on.  This is a valid definition of "most accomplishes" but is horribly subjective because it is almost impossible to get any two people to agree upon exactly what set of rules is best.  (Hence, the great abundance of house rules, not to mention different RPG systems).  Other people say that "most accomplishes" should be looked at on a "macro-scale" - i.e., it is an excellent product because lots of people are using it (even if my particular group isn't) and thus the total enjoyment it is responsible for is high.  The problem, of course, is that role-playing is a "personal" endeavor, and most people like to think of their own way of gaming as The One True Way, and anyone using any other rules isn't having "as much" enjoyment as they might have if they gamed using the One True Way. Of course, he's over there looking at you thinking you'd have much more fun if you'd subscribe to his One True Way.
> 
> ...




The trouble with relying on your macroscale style of judging quality is that there are many products out there that never have an opportunity to get on the macroscale because of issues completely tangential to the microscale quality of the product. And that's the main reason I object to using it as critiera for industry-wide awards. It biases the awards toward companies capable of getting more product out into more hands whether that product is particularly high quality or not on a microscale. 

I think another problem we're running into in all of this is the point behind the awards at all. Awards can play a variety of roles, not all relevant to the buying public and that's fine. They can be peer recognition, they can try to play the role of buying guide, and they can be people's choice.
Should the industry have peer-oriented awards? Awards decided solely by game designers for other game designers? Heck yes. Game designers should be able to take pride when they are nominated and win an award from other people who walk the same walk they do. If that's all the Origins Awards really aspire to be, then so be it. Good for them. That's a perfectly legitimate way to run awards.
If they want to play the role of buying guide, then I don't think I'd necessarily change them too much from peer recognition. These would be awards that specifically seek out things worth buying, whether the public has adopted them yet or not. They can report stuff that a lot of people seem to be having success with AND things that people might have missed but would probably see a lot of success with. These would probably have to rely more on reviews rather than actual sales figures though because sale of a product doesn't necessarily mean that the buyer had any success with it. Think of a set of awards like this as the Games 100 in Games Magazine for an example of this style.
People's Choice awards would probably be the type of awards best served by looking at sales figures. But like the People's Choice awards in the entertainment industry, these awards would probably not be as prestigious in comparision to the others as just being a numbers game, not really reflecting care in the craft as much as just resonating well with consumers, and smaller publishers would find it hard to crack into these awards.

Now, which direction should the Origins Awards take? One of these, or should it try to incorporate elements of all three? If all three, the one thing I would really want is for the categories to be utterly and completely separated. I don't want people's choice style selection going into peer or buying guide style award categories.


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## Umbran (Aug 3, 2004)

Hm.  Seems like I've got a lot to answer for... 



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> Thank you for playing, and thank you for giving the perfect example of how "quality" is a totally subjective concept.




Yes, it is, as I've stated a number of times already.  

As a complete aside, there's a strong argument (made to me by a numberfo college professors) that college professiors of literature fit our bill exactly - they tell you about the influence a work has, but not it's quality.



			
				Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> Heck, I'd argue it. Survivor was masterfully conceived. As a form of entertainment, based on its ability to draw viewers (no matter how contrived the drama), its quality cannot be denied. It performs admirably. It outperforms.




Okay, so as to not fall down on my own dare, I must laugh - ha! 

By that logic, McDonalds is the finest quality food that the United States has to offer, hands down.  It certainly performs.  Performance is a laudable thing when you're interested in how many dollars the thing rakes in.  Good for an award from a collection of businessmen to other businessmen for doing good business.  But as a consumer, how well it performs in the marketplace is far second to how it performs in my grubby paws.   



> You seem to be suggesting that mere entertainment-- even in an industry that is 100% entertainment based such as television or RPGs-- is not a measure of quality.
> 
> You could argue that Hemingway's quality is predicated on the fact that literature aims beyond mere entertainment-- but that is only frequently, and obviously not universally, true of publishing.




Actually, what I argue is that a true quality product must be entertaining and accessible, while still having artistic merit.  Survivor and McDonalds have the entertainment value, but lack artistry.  Hemingway has artistry, but is boring to read unless you are a college professor into critiquing artistry.  James Joyce's influential book _Finnegan's Wake_ is so artful that it is completely inaccessible to the normal reader - one requires a college professor to tell you what the bloody book means!  Thus, none of these are works of truly high overall quality.



			
				 Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> They do no such thing. Hugo and Nebula awards mean very little except as a pat on the back from your peers.




That argument might be made for the Nebulas, which are an award given by the Science Fiction Writers of America to one of their number.  However, it clearly doesn't hold for the Hugos, which are a fan award.  The contention that the awards are "meaningless" is not supported by sales of winners after they are announced.  

The proof, however, is in the pudding.  You can go to the websites I linked, and look at past winners.  If you want to claim that they're completely off the mark, then you only support my contention that "quality" is a subjective term, such that we shouldn't worry about objective measures in the first place 



			
				 The Sigil said:
			
		

> The purpose of existence for a role-playing publication is to aid role-players in enjoying themselves.




I'm sorry, Sigil, but you're starting yoru argument with a false premise.  If the above were the case, they'd offer the products to us free or at cost.  You mistake the means for the end.

The primary purpose for professional role-playing publication is to make money.  The _method_ these guys use to go about fulfilling that purpose is soemtimes aiding role-players in enjoying themselves.  



> Again, my theory is simply: High product sales indicate a high quality product.




If we lived in a world in which brand-name recognition, economy of scale, and marketing overhead and other factors had no influence, then your theory might be true.  But, we don't live in the land of Theory.  In practice, sales are too strongly impacted by other factors for one to be able to extract the quality information within.  

You say that micro-scale judging is flawed due to variations in personal taste.  That's true.  But you go awry when you say that macro-scale is the only thing left available to us.  This isn't a digital case, with only two extremes.  Think about finding somethign in the broad middle ground.


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## Arnwyn (Aug 3, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> If we lived in a world in which brand-name recognition, economy of scale, and marketing overhead and other factors had no influence, then your theory might be true.  But, we don't live in the land of Theory.  In practice, sales are too strongly impacted by other factors for one to be able to extract the quality information within.



_Exactly_. And that's what people have to realize when they try to tout the idea that sales is a good indicator of quality. It's not. One might say that it's the only "empirical" (and thus, objective) method of determining quality, but that it's not a very good method. Indeed. If it's not a poor method, then being "objective" is irrelevant, since you get the same (poor) results.

In the end, judging RPG products (and any other form of entertainment) will be subjective. But I think everyone knew that deep down anyways. (Since most other such awards makes no bone about it.)

As for the whole Dancey fiasco, I can only speak as a normal average joe consumer: "Who cares?".


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## eyebeams (Aug 3, 2004)

The Sigil said:
			
		

> Not a good comparison.  The Open Game License allows companies - or fans - to create the material that occupies those cheap seats.  If White Wolf opened up its "Storyteller" system under a similar license, do you think there wouldn't be a flood of cheap "Storyteller" PDFs, too?  We both know there would be, and then there would be a large number of "Storyteller" PDFs in the cheap seats.




It's a comparison made all the more apt by your attempted refutation, since it shows that the sales of a product can be divorced from its quality along another axis: niche versus broad distribution.



> Compare WW to WotC, the "owner" of d20, and you yourself mentioned sales are comparable.




I said nothing of the sort. WW has about 50% of WotC's marketshare in the RPG industry.



> But you'd rather compare one company (WW) to a multitude of companies, and pick the smallest examples to denigrate d20 as a whole.  Let's stick to comparing apples to apples.




Wow, you mean it's unfair to note that one company sells more stuff than another company in a discussion about sales?

White Wolf's Storyteller lines outsell their D20 lines. Their D20 lines outsell almost everybody else's D20 lines. Vampire seels more than Darwin's World *and* Spycraft. Exalted sells more than Deeds Not Words *and* Midnight.

Since highly acclaimed *and* big-selling White Wolf books are passed over for Origins Awards quite a bit, a sales-based award would ensure that you wouldn't really see many of the more innovative D20 games around. You'd see D&D and then some games that Nisarg despises. The people have spoken -- and a lot of really cool D20 content wouldn't even be considered.

/rant



> Finally, I really don't have any opinions one way or the other about Dancey except one... I am incredibly glad he managed to get the OGL to pass muster among the suits, as it puts D&D into a place where it can never be fully killed.




If there wasn't a D20 RPG game called Dungeons and Dragons around, it is highly unlikely there'd even be the shabby number of gamers there are now.



> If (worst case scenario) someone with a whole lot of cash were to buy up WW, decide they hated the products, and just shut down the company and litigate anyone who came up with anything compatible with the Storyteller system, that would be the end of WW's stuff.




Can't happen. White Wolf is privately held.



> The OGL ensures that there can always be SOMEONE out there supporting D&D.  That, to me, is worth of admiration.  Not the person, but the act.




It's a fine idea, but a PHB twice as goood as D&D's called Warriors and Warrens wouldn't sell very well.


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## M.L. Martin (Aug 3, 2004)

Dogbrain said:
			
		

> It uprooted DragonLance from its home game system.




      Actually, it was that very quote--about DL being a "successful" line that was moved to an untried system--that has kept me from taking Dancey entirely seriously for several years.   (Irrational, perhaps, but there it is.)

      AD&D DL _died_.  The last new product was released at the end of 1993; there was a game product in 1994, but it was just a reprint of the last four modules in the original series.  After that, there was no game support until the Fifth Age game and SAGA System launched in September of 1996.

      Now, I've heard rumors about licensing concerns being part of why TSR Management demanded the setting be relaunched as a non-D&D game, but still, if the line had been 'successful', why the heck did it lie dormant for two years?

     Matthew L. Martin


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## The Sigil (Aug 3, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Since highly acclaimed *and* big-selling White Wolf books are passed over for Origins Awards quite a bit, a sales-based award would ensure that you wouldn't really see many of the more innovative D20 games around. You'd see D&D and then some games that Nisarg despises. The people have spoken -- and a lot of really cool D20 content wouldn't even be considered.



In my original post, I didn't think I suggested that sales be the only factor put into consideration.  But if the top sellers in every category never even come up for awards, then "Joe Gamer" wonders why the awards even exist.  Myself, I would be for something to the effect of the "top x sellers" (probably with x=3) get "automatic bids" and then a selection committee of industry pros selects y other products (y probably equal to 5).  Or even has one "vote" by fans, one "vote" by retailers, one "vote" by game designers, and one "vote" by sales, or whatever "weight" you prefer to use (Fans 1, Retailers 2, Designers 5, sales 1 for instance).


> If there wasn't a D20 RPG game called Dungeons and Dragons around, it is highly unlikely there'd even be the shabby number of gamers there are now.



We seem to agree on more than we disagree on. 


> Can't happen. White Wolf is privately held.



It could happen... everyone has a price.  I'm sure if I had $10 billion and walked up to the owners of White Wolf, I could swap my $10 billion for ownership of the company.  I don't, but it makes for an interesting hypothetical example. 


> It's a fine idea, but a PHB twice as goood as D&D's called Warriors and Warrens wouldn't sell very well.



Maybe not in the current environment, but imagine for a moment what might happen if WotC, for whatever reason, got imploded and folded and the d20STL was withdrawn, and someone wanted to lock WotC's IP away forever.  It is possible that Warriors and Warrens could eventually be recognized as the "successor" to D&D despite every attempt by new ownership of WotC to lock down WotC's IP.

*shrugs*

None of my scenarios are LIKELY, I suppose, but all are possible.  I think I've said my peace on this thread, there's really not much new to respond to.

I think sales can't be relied upon to unfailingly show the "best in gaming" but at the same time, I don't think they can be casually discarded, either.  If everyone is buying product line X, something must be "right" about the product line.

--The Sigil


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## Umbran (Aug 3, 2004)

Matthew L. Martin said:
			
		

> AD&D DL _died_.  The last new product was released at the end of 1993; there was a game product in 1994, but it was just a reprint of the last four modules in the original series.  After that, there was no game support until the Fifth Age game and SAGA System launched in September of 1996.




The thing is, the fact that it died does not exclude it from having been successful.

The first Dragonlance novel and module came out in 1984.  The last game product in 1993.  I've no data on how the game products sold, but the novel and short story anthologies seemed to do pretty darned well.  That's nine solid years.  That's far, far longer than most TV series last.  It's about one third of the time that RPGs have existed!  Sounds successful to me.


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## mearls (Aug 3, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> It's a fine idea, but a PHB twice as goood as D&D's called Warriors and Warrens wouldn't sell very well.




What about one just as good? Because Arcana Unearthed sold pretty damn well. It was probably the top selling non-WotC d20 book from last year.


----------



## The Sigil (Aug 3, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, Sigil, but you're starting yoru argument with a false premise.  If the above were the case, they'd offer the products to us free or at cost.  You mistake the means for the end.



I didn't say that was the reason that GAME COMPANIES exist.   I said the purpose of a RPG publication - i.e., the tangible book (or e-title) itself is to aid roleplayers in entertaining themselves.  


> The primary purpose for professional role-playing publication is to make money.  The _method_ these guys use to go about fulfilling that purpose is soemtimes aiding role-players in enjoying themselves.



This is correct.  Which means the gaming product - the book itself - is supposed to aid role-players in enjoying themselves.  If it accomplishes that purpose, it will (hopefully) make money for the company that produced it.  If it does NOT accomplish that purpose, the company will die because no one will want the book.

In other words: (a) game companies want money, (b) role-players want to be entertained.  The game company creates a product with a purpose of entertaining the role-players.  The role-players give the game company money.

The product, in this case, serves two goals - (a) it makes money for the game company and (b) it entertains the role-player.

Kind of a chicken-and-egg thing, no?

Well, it's not.  I will posit that you can have successful role-players without any gaming companies (example 1: Arneson & Gygax circa 1973).  But - and this is an important point - you can't have successful gaming companies without any role-players.  Thus, the "highest purpose" of a publication (the thing itself, not the company that created it) *must* be to enhance the enjoyment of the role-players, else the entire thing falls apart because the gamers stop spending money and the publisher collapses.

You may not agree with that, but that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. Because you can have a gamer without companies but you can't have a company without a gamer, the "highest purpose" has to serve the GAMER, not  the COMPANY.  Now, I'll grant that most of this is lost on modern corporations, which think of people as "consumers" but they fail to realize that with few exceptions, people are not forced to consume, and if you don't deliver ENOUGH quality, eventually, they'll stop buying and your company will slowly asphyxiate (it may take a long time, but it will happen).  Not to wax political here, but I think this is a problem endemic to MOST industries today - they've forgotten that "the customer is always right" because you can't continue to run a company if you run off all your customers.  

Isn't philosophy fun? 

--The Sigil

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned that way, but my proudest moments as a RPG Writer have been when I've read e-mails that said, "I used X and it was just great!  We did Y and Z with it and it was so much fun!  Thanks for putting out your product, I appreciated it."  While the money is nice, I just sink it back into RPG products anyway... but the praise... that's what makes me all mushy inside.  And if I ever start worrying about the money, that's the day I close my "virtual shop" because this is a labor of love for me.


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## Nisarg (Aug 3, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> The thing is, the fact that it died does not exclude it from having been successful.
> 
> The first Dragonlance novel and module came out in 1984.  The last game product in 1993.  I've no data on how the game products sold, but the novel and short story anthologies seemed to do pretty darned well.  That's nine solid years.  That's far, far longer than most TV series last.  It's about one third of the time that RPGs have existed!  Sounds successful to me.




I think that the only respect in which Ryan's comment on DL was wrong is that DL had stopped being successful by then, but he could easily have pointed out that the reason it had stopped being successful as a D&D product was because, after the initial relatively well-received novels, TSR released a slew of mediocre and downright awful DL novels, and tied the "metaplot" of the novels to the development of the setting, in a way that alienated gamers. 

So, TSR ran DL into the ground first, and the SAGA fiasco was just the nail on the coffin of bad decisions. WoTC hasn't done much with it since because its seen as almost unrecoverable, that's how much damage was done to it.

Nisarg


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## M.L. Martin (Aug 4, 2004)

I always took it as meaning that he thought DL was successful when the changeover was made, but I could have misunderstood.  

  I admit, something about Dancey's online persona has always set me on edge, and I'm not entirely sure what.  

    Matthew L. Martin


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## eyebeams (Aug 4, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> The thing is, the fact that it died does not exclude it from having been successful.
> 
> The first Dragonlance novel and module came out in 1984.  The last game product in 1993.  I've no data on how the game products sold, but the novel and short story anthologies seemed to do pretty darned well.  That's nine solid years.  That's far, far longer than most TV series last.  It's about one third of the time that RPGs have existed!  Sounds successful to me.




That's it, really. It had an excellent run as a game setting, but these things do eventually run out of steam.


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## eyebeams (Aug 4, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> What about one just as good? Because Arcana Unearthed sold pretty damn well. It was probably the top selling non-WotC d20 book from last year.




I love AU and consider it to be superior to D&D in many ways. Let's say, though, that D&D ends and you come out with a full AU core line. Let's say you even make the classes more generic is some spots and plug back in some trad races. Even then, you're missing name recognition from, well, non-scene D&D players. It's sometimes difficult to remember that there are lots and lots of gamers who own some core books and play totally isolated from the broader hobby of gaming. D&D, Vampire, Rifts and, occasionally Shadowrun are games I've noticed get played a lot by folks who have no contact with other gamers except to grab new books from an FLGS. To be a viable successor, AU would have to have FLGS owners aware of the game and ready to flog it as the Next Thing.


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## eyebeams (Aug 4, 2004)

> In my original post, I didn't think I suggested that sales be the only factor put into consideration. But if the top sellers in every category never even come up for awards, then "Joe Gamer" wonders why the awards even exist. Myself, I would be for something to the effect of the "top x sellers" (probably with x=3) get "automatic bids" and then a selection committee of industry pros selects y other products (y probably equal to 5). Or even has one "vote" by fans, one "vote" by retailers, one "vote" by game designers, and one "vote" by sales, or whatever "weight" you prefer to use (Fans 1, Retailers 2, Designers 5, sales 1 for instance).




I don't think it needs to be that complex. Just give every Full Voting Member 3 free Academy slots and cap other Academy memberships at 200% of these. You might want to dole out a bunch of the remainder to pundits.



> It could happen... everyone has a price. I'm sure if I had $10 billion and walked up to the owners of White Wolf, I could swap my $10 billion for ownership of the company. I don't, but it makes for an interesting hypothetical example.




If you were being that general, then the guy with 10 billion dollars could simply tie up every OGL publisher in frivolous lawsuits that would destroy them even if they should have won. One of the things about the OGL is that it's always been legal to rip off D&D's rules so long as you used the rioght nod and wink. The licensing scheme is pretty much a promise on WotC's part not to punish such a move with unwarranted, but effective legal action.



> Maybe not in the current environment, but imagine for a moment what might happen if WotC, for whatever reason, got imploded and folded and the d20STL was withdrawn, and someone wanted to lock WotC's IP away forever. It is possible that Warriors and Warrens could eventually be recognized as the "successor" to D&D despite every attempt by new ownership of WotC to lock down WotC's IP.




My reply to Mearls is relevant here.



> I think sales can't be relied upon to unfailingly show the "best in gaming" but at the same time, I don't think they can be casually discarded, either. If everyone is buying product line X, something must be "right" about the product line.




I think that if Origins is going to be the Oscars of gaming (and how many unsuccessful films get one of those?), then, it just needs to broaden the Academy. These formulae for sales strike me as too rigid. If there are 3 great low-selling games for 1 slot, then you're going to have problems.


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## eyebeams (Aug 4, 2004)

More details about Steve Nicewarmer's resignation and its relationship to the issue at hand has been reported here:

http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/5429.html


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## rgard (Aug 4, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> <snip>
> 
> If a product does sell well in the RPG industry (or any) its because its offering the public something it wants, it has some kind of positive quality.
> Second, Ryan was NOT proposing to make the awards based on sales, he just wanted commercial success to be ONE of the qualities for nomination, not the ONLY.  People seem determined to try to ignore that fact.
> All Ryan was trying to do was drag GAMA kicking and screaming into reality, where the games nominated might actually be a game the GAMING PUBLIC actually plays, rather than obscure unplayable games that the critics like, or self-referential pats on the back by board members in the form of nominating their own games.




Here here.


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## frankthedm (Aug 4, 2004)

Dogbrain said:
			
		

> It also did some really strange stuff, like buying a needlepoint concern.




Would that be related to the Cloth map of Athas from the first Dark*Sun box set?


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## mearls (Aug 4, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> I love AU and consider it to be superior to D&D in many ways. Let's say, though, that D&D ends and you come out with a full AU core line. Let's say you even make the classes more generic is some spots and plug back in some trad races. Even then, you're missing name recognition from, well, non-scene D&D players. It's sometimes difficult to remember that there are lots and lots of gamers who own some core books and play totally isolated from the broader hobby of gaming. D&D, Vampire, Rifts and, occasionally Shadowrun are games I've noticed get played a lot by folks who have no contact with other gamers except to grab new books from an FLGS. To be a viable successor, AU would have to have FLGS owners aware of the game and ready to flog it as the Next Thing.




Actually, I think you were on to the problem, but then took a wrong turn.

The key to the casual gamers is the book trade. The book trade is where WotC sells lots of D&D books. My theory right now is that the problem with the book trade lies in re-orders. I'd be surprised in any d20 book receives orders beyond the initial allotment from Borders. OTOH, the core D&D books remain in stock.

The book trade is too difficult for d20 publishers to really break into, plus you need to have a really sharp product because of returns.

However, if D&D was to suddenly disappear from shelves, in time something would take its place. Remember, in 1974 the D&D basic set sold all of 1,000 copies. It takes time to build up a player network, and it takes just as long for it to die off due to attrition and turn over. The key is, you want those kids who would be into RPGs to pick up your game.

Name recongition isn't what sells D&D to new players. Other players are what sells D&D to new players. The gaming market isn't shrinking. It's pretty much been in stasis since 1989. The key is, the number of people who buy games tends to fluctuate based on what the market has to offer.


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## Umbran (Aug 4, 2004)

The Sigil said:
			
		

> I didn't say that was the reason that GAME COMPANIES exist.   I said the purpose of a RPG publication - i.e., the tangible book (or e-title) itself is to aid roleplayers in entertaining themselves.




I stand corrected.  Partially. 

You did address the role of the publication, the physical object.  However, I don't agree that in all cases the purpose of the publication is to aid roleplayers in entertaining themselves.  The purpose of the publication is to earn money for the publisher.  Sometimes the publisher means it to be an aid, sometimes they don't. 



> Thus, the "highest purpose" of a publication (the thing itself, not the company that created it) *must* be to enhance the enjoyment of the role-players, else the entire thing falls apart because the gamers stop spending money and the publisher collapses.




In a world where the publishers and the gamers act in enlightened self-interest, with full and open knowledge of what other gaming materials exist, this may be true.  But again, you wander into the mystical nationof Theory.  In our country of Reality, things are not so simple.

Take late-stage TSR as an example.  As I understand what Mr. Gygax has reported, TSR was not killed by bad products.  It was killed by some upper managers who had no interest in running a game company.  They wanted to earn a few bucks off the thing, and then toss it aside like an empty Capri Sun drink pouch.  This meant that TSR published a number of books whose purpose was really to earn a few more bucks before the managers jumped ship.

The gamers, however _continued to buy_ this mediocre product.  In its day, this stuff still sold well, realatively speaking, and was influential for the game and gamers everywhere.  But it is now widely recognized as mediocre product, at best.  For quite some time, TSR continued merely on the strength and loyalty of the fanbase.  

In theory, a gamer should pick and choose his materials carefully, and only buy those that are good, and cease buying things from publishers who consistently create poor products.  But, many gamers don't buy out of informed, thoughtful, enlightened self-interest.  Some buy materials like some players buy Magic or Pokemon cards.  It's new, it's official, therefore it must be purchased, period.  They don't thoughfully weigh it against other similar products.  They may not even know other products exist!  You still this sort of behavior in gamers today who refuse to play with anything that is not "official", and gamers who buy anything published by a specific publisher, whether they need it or not, whether the product is good or not.  Gamers who refuse to even try games by publishers they've never heard of before, and so on.      

Sometimes, even when the publisher is acting out of enlightened self-interest, the purpose of a product is more to earn money in the short term than to entertain.  Some third-party publishers run on a hair-thin budget.  They have bills to pay, and if the next thing in the pipeline needs a lot of revision because it isn't good, that's just too darned bad.  If they delay, their debts catch up with them, and they'd fold anyway.  Better, then, to ship out a mediocre product to earn money now, in the hops of being able to cover the bills and have the next one be better.

Sometimes, even a gamer acting in enlightened self-interest buys product that isn't so hot.  They dont' have a chance to fully review the material in a store.  They glance at the cover, and a bit of the interior, and make a quick decision to buy without fully knowing what they are getting.  They get it home, realize that it is mediocre, but are not upset enough to return it.  It sits on the shelf unused.

However you slice it, the world ain't perfect.



> You may not agree with that, but that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.




Sorry.  While I'm basically an optimistic person, I'm not idealistic enough to think that our world operates as if it were an Ideal, Well Informed, Free Market System, where there are no barriers to good products and bad products always sell poorly.

You seem to argue about the way the world _should_ be.  I'm talking about how it actually is.


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## barsoomcore (Aug 4, 2004)

Came a little late to the "Awards Should Be Based On Sales" party, but here's my three cents:

Industry awards are marketing tools. They're intended to either market the products and companies receiving the awards, or they're intended to market some other set of products by trading on the popularity of the products being awarded. The Oscars are meant to market movies. The People's Choice Awards are meant to market the advertiser's products through association with the movies getting nominated.

As such, using sales figures as a formal criteria for nomination is just kind of dumb. You want some big sellers in there, otherwise nobody will pay attention to your awards, but you also need to have small sellers, too, otherwise there's very little advantage to the awards in the first place.

People tune in to the Oscars because they want to see the stars from the year's big blockbuster, but the real marketing advantage is to the smaller films that get to share the spotlight with those big boys. The big boys have already made their money, but just getting nominated can have a big impact on a small film's income.

You need some sort of association, reasonably broad, to examine the year's products and select a bunch of nominees, and then some winners from among them. Assuming you have a reasonable mix of brains and common sense you'll GET lots of the big sellers -- because they're probably pretty good books, if they sold so well. Hopefully you'll also get a few quirky things from small publishers, too, because they could really use the lift from a win. But ultimately you want a mix -- enough big boys to attract public interest, and enough small fry to make the awards worthwhile to the industry as a whole.

But it's not rocket science. And there's not some magic formula that will guarantee meaningful awards. To heck with the Origins Awards -- it's the ENNies that actually mean something.


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## LightPhoenix (Aug 4, 2004)

Just want to throw in a comment on awards.  Well, more like just add an additional comment to barsoomcore's comments.

I would agree that awards tend to have very little impact on the sales of whatever it is that's winning the award.  In some cases it will bring a dark horse to light, and something will gain popularity after the fact.

However, that argument is incomplete because it doesn't take into account _future_ sales of a product.  Being able to say that your company/actor/director/designer/what-have-you has won an award, let alone a number of awards, gives you a good degree of credibility which _will_ drive sales of future products.  That's why on TV there's all those commercials about how X person won or was even nominated for Y awards.  

So in the end awards shows are quite important, especially to the lesser known companies in the business.  Discounting them because of their short-term use is vastly short-changing them... even something as big as the Oscars.


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## eyebeams (Aug 4, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> Actually, I think you were on to the problem, but then took a wrong turn.
> 
> The key to the casual gamers is the book trade. The book trade is where WotC sells lots of D&D books. My theory right now is that the problem with the book trade lies in re-orders. I'd be surprised in any d20 book receives orders beyond the initial allotment from Borders. OTOH, the core D&D books remain in stock.
> 
> ...




I think that without a rallying point, current gamers are not really going to push a single new game or even push a new game at all. If D&D tanked, you'd have a lot of people who'll play with their 3.0/3.5 books. I think the demographic of folks playing alternatives is not going to be in their early teens, and that's the group that starts D&D. Hitting the book trade isn't necessarily even going to be a question until, as you say, that fanbase builds up. I'm just not sure we can bank on the kind of growth we saw when D&D was brand new. Reorders are definitely a problem for booksellers, I think, given that my experience with shopping in book chains confirms the idea.

I do think the number of people both buying and playing games is shrinking, but not necessarily in direct proportion to each other.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 4, 2004)

I'm sorry, Umbran, but your argument seems full of unprovable (and unlikely) assumptions that ultimately sinks it.  You hold out late era TSR as a company that wasn't sunk by poor sales, yet offer no concrete example of why it did sink.  You also state that the products were indeed poor, and it's common knowledge (although also an assumption, at the end of the day) that TSR's market share was being rabidly eaten away by the likes of White Wolf and others in the early/mid 90s.  You also ignore the statements made by WotC personnel about the demise of TSR based on their due dilligence done when they bought them.

Granted, that analysis was mostly done by Dancey, and given the original topic of the thread, you may have reason to doubt his credibility.  But then, in place of his evidence, you quote Gary Gygax, who was not involved in TSR management at the time and has no reason to know if they were making golden parachute strategies, or if their product was what sank them.  In addition, as the ousted former head guy, he _certainly_ has questionable credibility when expressing his opinion on the management strategies at TSR.

I think it a fair assumption, based on industry professionals who were involved in the sale of TSR at the time, that TSR indeed sank itself due to product that was either poor in quality or at least poor in terms of meeting customer needs.

And ultimately, that's what this whole discussion, tangents aside, has been about for the last several pages.  The Origins Awards have been notorious amongst those who pay attention to them as being a bit of a fake award in a way; it doesn't mean anything other than you were able to play the GAMA politics games very well.  

I've already stated my doubts about using sales as a substitute, but certainly GAMA could do worse than to start with the big sellers when nominating games for awards; usually there's a reason they're big sellers, and despite the many claims to the contrary here, the external factors do not completely wash out the correllation between high sales and a good product.

Also, you state (correctly) that free market economic theory doesn't play out in reality, citing a number of short term examples.  However, in the long run, typically free market economic theory _does_ show itself.  Gamers may buy poor product not really knowing what it is, but after a while they won't continue to do so.  In the long run, market inefficiencies correct themselves.


----------



## mearls (Aug 4, 2004)

Awards are tricky. For them to have any value, they have to have value with the fans. The absolute worst thing that an award can hear from the public is "I don't recognize many of these games."

The problem is that all of the industry awards are Internet based. The 'net has a tremendous leveling effect. It tends to draw out extreme opinions and muffle common ones. It also doesn't take much for a meme to catch hold and roll through a forum, particular since most online RPG discussion boards are dominated by a hardcore of 50 or so users. So, by using the Internet to conduct voting you have a skewed image of what gamers actually use and buy.

On top of this, RPG awards have no effect on sales for large or small companies. The typical RPG book sees most of its sales on the first 2 or 3 months. A publisher should expect to move about 75% of his print run in the first month and the rest in the next few months. A few exceptional products continue to sell well over the course of the long term.

By the time the award comes out, it's too late. On top of that, chances are that anyone who pays attention to the awards has already been exposed to the product. There's not much of a sales bounce to be found there. For years, the Origins Awards have recognized plenty of small press games. The ENnies have done the same. Yet, those nominees and winners are still decidedly small press or fringe.

What RPG awards really come down to is this - they're a chance for creators to feel good about themselves. The small companies with poor sales need them to justify their continued effort with little monetary gain. The big companies have nothing but trouble to gain from taking part in the process. They either win, which is what everyone expected so it doesn't mean anything, or they lose, which makes them look bad.

I'm not surprised that WotC didn't take part in the ENnies. I'm curious to see if they enter next year, and I'm very curious to see how this hurts the awards. It's very odd to note that ENnie related threads have drawn more interest on RPG.net than here on EN World. If you compare it to other threads on this site in terms of views and unique users taking part in the discussion, it's very interesting.

I am willing to bet, though, that when the average D&D gamer looks at that list of nominees and sees very little that they recognize and nothing from WotC, that they're far more likely to write off the awards than to start hunting down the nominees.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 4, 2004)

Yes, but that interest at rpg.net is either nominated authors/publishers "thanking the Academy" so to speak, or ENWorld regulars, including the judges, chiming in on the choices.  I'm not sure that interest at rpg.net is all that relevent, as I haven't seen how it affects folks other than those two groups really.


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## mearls (Aug 4, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> I do think the number of people both buying and playing games is shrinking, but not necessarily in direct proportion to each other.




This is the key - in it's first year, AU has sold as many copies, if not more, than Twilight 2000 and Paranoia in their first years. There are plenty of people willing to buy games, but few games they want to buy.

This is the key to understanding the d20 market - Atlas and Green Ronin had d20 modules available the day D&D 3e entered the market. Green Ronin is still in the d20 business. Atlas got out. Finding the line that separates those two is the key to finding the foundation of what makes d20 tick. And after that, you need to look at Mongoose and Malhavoc, the two big d20 companies that got into the game relatively late, yet surged past everyone else. Those are your other two big d20 companies. Again, you have to ask yourself what separates them. The answers are all out there. It's just a matter of finding the data and slicing it up the right way.

The key to any game that would arise after D&D lies in the player networks. Right now amongst d20 companies, I'd say that Sword & Sorcery, including Malhavoc and Necromancer, is probably in the best position to step into that hole. They key would be finding designers who understand what makes D&D tick.

The really funny thing is, when you look at what's out there, AU is really the only popular non-D&D fantasy game. Every other big d20 company either has a non-fantasy game or a setting for D&D. Nobody else has a complete fantasy game that's been a breakout hit.

What surprises me is that more people don't think that's really weird. Then again, I thought it was really strange that nobody did class books until Mongoose released them in 2002.


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## MerricB (Aug 4, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> Then again, I thought it was really strange that nobody did class books until Mongoose released them in 2002.




Q.Fighter was released in 2001, I think.

Cheers!


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## Umbran (Aug 4, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, Umbran, but your argument seems full of unprovable (and unlikely) assumptions that ultimately sinks it.




At that, I must shrug.  Believe Dancey, believe Gygax, believe who you wish.  As far as I've seen, everyone who has written on the subject has a reason for doing so, and therefore the testimony is suspect.  Only their barbers know for sure.



> I think it a fair assumption, based on industry professionals who were involved in the sale of TSR at the time, that TSR indeed sank itself due to product that was either poor in quality or at least poor in terms of meeting customer needs.




The point was that the poor product was actually not the root issue.  Gygax's testimony about events _before he left the company_ strongly suggests that the folks who wound up in charge didn't have the company's long-term best interests as their primary motivation, and the mediocre product was merely one resulting symptom.  And that's all my argument really requires - the occasional company that doesn't act in it's own best interests.



> Also, you state (correctly) that free market economic theory doesn't play out in reality, citing a number of short term examples.  However, in the long run, typically free market economic theory _does_ show itself.




In the long run, meaning multiple years.  In larger industires it can be a decade or more.  For purposes of discussing yearly awards, this is not meaningful or useful.  On the short term, economic advantage from being big can and does swamp the signal.


----------



## eyebeams (Aug 4, 2004)

> This is the key to understanding the d20 market - Atlas and Green Ronin had d20 modules available the day D&D 3e entered the market. Green Ronin is still in the d20 business. Atlas got out. Finding the line that separates those two is the key to finding the foundation of what makes d20 tick.




There will always some saleable things that are going to be less saleable than other saleable things. Dynasties and Demagogues just isn't going to seel as well as a book about a PC race. Sometimes, taking thid direction can reap a reward. Sometimes it can't. I'd Say GR had a commitment to serving D&D's conventions on their own terms. Naturally, this would be a prerequisite for any D&D successor.



> And after that, you need to look at Mongoose and Malhavoc, the two big d20 companies that got into the game relatively late, yet surged past everyone else. Those are your other two big d20 companies. Again, you have to ask yourself what separates them.




Malhavoc had name recognition and built a reputation with smaller, solid products before putting AU out. I'll be polite about Mongoose for now.



> The key to any game that would arise after D&D lies in the player networks. Right now amongst d20 companies, I'd say that Sword & Sorcery, including Malhavoc and Necromancer, is probably in the best position to step into that hole. They key would be finding designers who understand what makes D&D tick.




Sure.



> The really funny thing is, when you look at what's out there, AU is really the only popular non-D&D fantasy game. Every other big d20 company either has a non-fantasy game or a setting for D&D. Nobody else has a complete fantasy game that's been a breakout hit.




Exalted sells quite nicely, but I don't think any other company could pull that off.



> What surprises me is that more people don't think that's really weird. Then again, I thought it was really strange that nobody did class books until Mongoose released them in 2002.




I think the assumption was that WotC's thin classbooks would be the go-to for that kind of niche. WotC has beeen quite good about not trumping these specialized class books and such; even the new hardcovers seem to be sufficiently different to allow the niche products to survive.


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## Nisarg (Aug 4, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> I'm not surprised that WotC didn't take part in the ENnies. I'm curious to see if they enter next year, and I'm very curious to see how this hurts the awards. It's very odd to note that ENnie related threads have drawn more interest on RPG.net than here on EN World. If you compare it to other threads on this site in terms of views and unique users taking part in the discussion, it's very interesting.
> 
> I am willing to bet, though, that when the average D&D gamer looks at that list of nominees and sees very little that they recognize and nothing from WotC, that they're far more likely to write off the awards than to start hunting down the nominees.




I would say the lack of WoTC would have a decidedly negative effect on any awards for gaming or industry professional association.

Incidentally, WoTC isn't in GAMA. Neither is Steve Jackson Games, or Palladium.  I don't recall if White Wolf is or not, but if they aren't that means that NONE of the 4 major gaming companies are in GAMA, supposedly "the" industry association.  That's a little bit like having a US TV networks association that doesn't include ABC, CBS, NBC or FOX in its membership.

Nisarg


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## eyebeams (Aug 4, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, Umbran, but your argument seems full of unprovable (and unlikely) assumptions that ultimately sinks it.  You hold out late era TSR as a company that wasn't sunk by poor sales, yet offer no concrete example of why it did sink.  You also state that the products were indeed poor, and it's common knowledge (although also an assumption, at the end of the day) that TSR's market share was being rabidly eaten away by the likes of White Wolf and others in the early/mid 90s.  You also ignore the statements made by WotC personnel about the demise of TSR based on their due dilligence done when they bought them.




Dude, you can read about what TSR did to hose themselves all over the place. For example, the company paid for the Buck Rogers license on multiple occasions to line the pockets of CEO's family, who owned it. They overspent to attract venture capitalists that never appeared and miscalculated their assets and liabilities as a matter of course. They didn't keep the core books for D&D in print and jumped on misbegotten collectible games.

Despite all of this, TSR still brought in more money than most companies do today. The sales ranks I have from the mid-90s always have TSR products in them. Sure, it was way less than they could have made if they'd planned their lines properly, too, but most companies at the time were not going to be much smarter in that area. Plus, the fiction department remained successful. But that money just wasn't going to do it.

Plus, White Wolf didn't reqally "eat away" at anything. There has always been a tremendous crossover between D&D players and WoD players.


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## Nikchick (Aug 4, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Incidentally, WoTC isn't in GAMA. Neither is Steve Jackson Games, or Palladium.  I don't recall if White Wolf is or not, but if they aren't that means that NONE of the 4 major gaming companies are in GAMA, supposedly "the" industry association.  That's a little bit like having a US TV networks association that doesn't include ABC, CBS, NBC or FOX in its membership.




It would be more accurate to say that these companies are not *currently*  in GAMA.  And even that is not as damning a statement as you might think, as most do take advantage of GAMA's benefits (by attending or sponsoring the trade show and Origins, by exhibiting at Origins, by participating in the Origins Awards, by sponsoring events through GAMA,) and have, at various times in the past, had principle members (including Steve Jackson and Peter Adkison) seated on the board of directors.

The participation of each unique company in the trade organization ebbs and flows depending on politics, the general health of both the companies and the industry, satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with the programs and policies, and the individual owners and employees involved.  Involved, paying, voting members of the organization are not the only stakeholders served by GAMA's policies and programs; one of GAMA's gifts to the industry at large (and perhaps one of its weaknesses as a representative organization) is that one need not be a member to enjoy many (most?) of the best benefits of the association.  

Dancey's position has long been that the organization can't be important if a certain laundry list of companies weren't members and that it must do whatever necessary to attract them.  My position for just as long has been that must build a worthwhile organization and provide benefits to joining (as opposed to benefits freely shared with members and non-members alike); do that and many companies, including those considered premium by Dancey, will join and will be happy to do so.


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## mearls (Aug 4, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Exalted sells quite nicely, but I don't think any other company could pull that off.




That's right - my quote should've been the only *d20* fantasy game aside from D&D. Exalted is an excellent example of a game that is fantasy, but offers significant departures from D&D that make it appealing. AU is in the same boat, though mechanically it's much closer to D&D.

Exalted is a good example, too, because it shows how important it is that game designers remain in touch with their audience. I'm not sure I'd say that Exalted is an anime game, but I think it draws enough cues from it that it's relevant to today's audience. For whatever reason (OK, I have theories but I don't have the time to get into them) that's a big problem with RPG development today.

Merric - I think you're right. I remember writing Quint. Wizard and Rogue in late 2001, early 2002. Rogue may have come out in late 2001, though, and in any case Q. Fighter came before that.


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## MerricB (Aug 4, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> Merric - I think you're right. I remember writing Quint. Wizard and Rogue in late 2001, early 2002. Rogue may have come out in late 2001, though, and in any case Q. Fighter came before that.




I'm terrified at how quickly these past four years have gone!  The Q books have seemed to be around 'forever'!

Just for a reminder of the timeline for the Wizards class books:

January 2001: Sword and Fist
May 2001: Defenders of the Faith
July 2001: Tome and Blood
December 2001: Song and Silence
February 2002: Masters of the Wild
November 2003: Complete Warrior
May 2004: Complete Divine
November 2004: Complete Arcane
January 2005: Complete Adventurer

One thing to take into account with the 3E class books from Mongoose and suchlike is that the writers (like yourself, of course!) had to become properly familiar with the rules and options before such a project could be attempted! I'm sure we all well remember the problems with both _Sword and Fist_ and _Defenders of the Faith_!

I see writing for D&D as a continual learning process - the game develops as more people write for it (and not always to make it more complex, I add!)

Cheers!


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## Staffan (Aug 4, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> What surprises me is that more people don't think that's really weird. Then again, I thought it was really strange that nobody did class books until Mongoose released them in 2002.



Probably at least partially due to taking time to "build up to" class books. Most of the d20 companies started out by "dipping the toes," so to speak, releasing an adventure or two to gauge response. The exception would be Sword & Sorcery, who got a monster book out even before the Monster Manual (albeit a buggy one).


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## Desdichado (Aug 4, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> For whatever reason (OK, I have theories but I don't have the time to get into them) that's a big problem with RPG development today.



For what it's worth, I'd be real interested in those theories.  I, for one, am glad this discussion has moved away from Ryan Dancey's alleged activities and on to the problems with the industry as a whole; that's a much more interesting (and relevent, IMO) discussion anyway.


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## Dogbrain (Aug 4, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Despite all of this, TSR still brought in more money than most companies do today.




Obviously, not enough money, or TSR would still be independent.  Big overhead and stupid management mean that big sales mean nothing.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 4, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Dude, you can read about what TSR did to hose themselves all over the place. For example, the company paid for the Buck Rogers license on multiple occasions to line the pockets of CEO's family, who owned it. They overspent to attract venture capitalists that never appeared and miscalculated their assets and liabilities as a matter of course. They didn't keep the core books for D&D in print and jumped on misbegotten collectible games.



True.  Good point.  But according to all accounts, this mismanagement was coupled with _declining sales_.


			
				eyebeams said:
			
		

> Despite all of this, TSR still brought in more money than most companies do today. The sales ranks I have from the mid-90s always have TSR products in them. Sure, it was way less than they could have made if they'd planned their lines properly, too, but most companies at the time were not going to be much smarter in that area. Plus, the fiction department remained successful. But that money just wasn't going to do it.



That's not really the comparison here, though.  I'm talking about sales versus prior years' sales, not sales vs. their competition.  And naturally, sales  vs costs and overheads looks like a worse picture year over year as well.


			
				eyebeams said:
			
		

> Plus, White Wolf didn't reqally "eat away" at anything. There has always been a tremendous crossover between D&D players and WoD players.



I did mention that my source for that was mostly allegorical.  But it's still "common knowledge."  I'll believe it until I see some more compelling evidence to the contrary.


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## WizarDru (Aug 4, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> True.  Good point.  But according to all accounts, this mismanagement was coupled with _declining sales_.



 I'm curious, do we have any indication as to the nature of some of those sales?  For example, it may be likely that D&D was selling as well as it ever did, but things like Spellfire and Dragon Dice (and their subsequent lack of sales) were as responsible for those declining sales figures for TSR as a whole.  I honestly don't know either way...by that time, TSR had become a company I once patronized, more than a decade earlier.  I do recall the stacks of Spellfire boxes sitting, gathering dust at my local game shop, and the poor sales of Dragon Dice, as well.


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## buzz (Aug 4, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> I'm not sure I'd say that Exalted is an anime game, but I think it draws enough cues from it that it's relevant to today's audience. For whatever reason (OK, I have theories but I don't have the time to get into them) that's a big problem with RPG development today.



For some reason I am reminded of the huge backlash to the original covers proposed for GURPS4e, and how it took the whining of a bunch of fans to get SJG to realize that, no, people don't want books that look like this anymore.

Add me to the list of people who want to hear your therioes, sir.


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## Umbran (Aug 4, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I did mention that my source for that was mostly allegorical.  But it's still "common knowledge."  I'll believe it until I see some more compelling evidence to the contrary.




Bit of a double standard, there.  You'll accept hearsay for one side, but only accept compelling evidence for the other?  The fact that it is "common" in no way indicates that it is anywhere near factually correct.  It was once common knowledge that the world was flat, and all that.


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## Desdichado (Aug 4, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Bit of a double standard, there.  You'll accept hearsay for one side, but only accept compelling evidence for the other?



Not really.  What hearsay am I not excepting for the "other side?"  The only example I can think of is that I think Ryan Dancey's quotes on the state of TSR are probably more credible than Gary Gygax's, but I acknowledge that both are hearsay.


			
				Umbran said:
			
		

> The fact that it is "common" in no way indicates that it is anywhere near factually correct.  It was once common knowledge that the world was flat, and all that.



And the common knowledge wasn't updated until some compelling evidence came forward to show that it was wrong.  Anything we "know" might be wrong, but that's no reason to not believe anything at all.  I made a judgement based on the information at hand, and until further information is available, I'll continue to stick to that judgement.  That's pretty much my strategy with everything I believe.


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## Umbran (Aug 4, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Not really.  What hearsay am I not excepting for the "other side?"  The only example I can think of is that I think Ryan Dancey's quotes on the state of TSR are probably more credible than Gary Gygax's, but I acknowledge that both are hearsay.




Okay, first off, as I understand it, Dancey and Gygax aren't part of this.  I thought we were discussing:



> it's common knowledge (although also an assumption, at the end of the day) that TSR's market share was being rabidly eaten away by the likes of White Wolf and others in the early/mid 90s."




and



> But it's still "common knowledge." I'll believe it until I see some more compelling evidence to the contrary.




Dancey and Gygax have yet to be mentioned in regards to this factoid.

The double standard is that you accept one side's hearsay as basis for an assumption, but require the other side to provide "compelling evidence". The different sides are required to meet different standards of evidence.  That's not solid logical ground.



> Anything we "know" might be wrong, but that's no reason to not believe anything at all.




Ah, yes.  But for anything we "know", there's a level of confidence in the fact.  We "know" that the force of gravity will cause an object to fall, and we've got a pretty high confidence in that fact.  We assume it holds and rely on it.  We generally don't question it at all.

The hordes of folks leaving TSR for WW, however, is something we "know" with very little (I'd say almost zero, personally) confidence.  You yourself have little enough confidence that you mention it is an assumption.  If we have so little confidence in it, should we use it, even if it seems to us to be most likely



> I made a judgement based on the information at hand, and until further information is available, I'll continue to stick to that judgement.  That's pretty much my strategy with everything I believe.




When trying to create a model of how the world actually works, including beliefs for which we have little evidence is usually unwise.  It leads to faulty models. 

Mearls here is talking about how the gaming market has historically worked.  He's at least got some evidence from which he can infer his beliefs.  You've got "common knowledge".  Should we combine those, or should we hold your assumption to the standard Mearls is setting?


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## Desdichado (Aug 4, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> The double standard is that you accept one side's hearsay as basis for an assumption, but require the other side to provide "compelling evidence". The different sides are required to meet different standards of evidence.  That's not solid logical ground.



I don't see how that's a double standard.  I haven't really been trying to convince anyone to my point of view, I've merely stated that it is my point of view based on allegorical "evidence" I've seen and heard for years.  You and others have told me that you don't believe that, and that's fine; but since you're trying to convince me to your point of view and not the other way around, then yes, I require a more compelling argument than "I say so."  Otherwise, the two positions are equally (un)compelling, and I see no reason to change positions to one that's equally supported.  At least, in the case of the opinion I already hold, it's based on allegorical evidence that is personal rather than on someone elses.


			
				Umbran said:
			
		

> The hordes of folks leaving TSR for WW, however, is something we "know" with very little (I'd say almost zero, personally) confidence.  You yourself have little enough confidence that you mention it is an assumption.  If we have so little confidence in it, should we use it, even if it seems to us to be most likely



It doesn't seem unlikely to me, and the "we" you mention that has so little confidence in it is quite a logical leap.  As I said, I don't see how your position is any better supported, and in that case, I'll stick with what I have, thank you very much.


			
				Umbran said:
			
		

> When trying to create a model of how the world actually works, including beliefs for which we have little evidence is usually unwise.  It leads to faulty models.



Which is hardly a compelling reason to accept your position, since we have little evidence for it as well.  So the alternative is to accept a model that is equally likely to be faulty, or simply to not model reality at all and be able to make no judgements whatsoever?


			
				Umbran said:
			
		

> Mearls here is talking about how the gaming market has historically worked.  He's at least got some evidence from which he can infer his beliefs.  You've got "common knowledge".  Should we combine those, or should we hold your assumption to the standard Mearls is setting?



I don't recall that mearls said anything at all about market share of D&D vs White Wolf in the early/mid 90s.  All I have is eyebeams comments that White Wolf did not steal market share from D&D, which include no implication of being data based.


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## William Ronald (Aug 4, 2004)

Nikchik, whar are some ways you think that GAMA can better serve the gaming industry, its members and the gaming public? Also, where do you think GAMA should go from here?  

From my perspective, many of the latter TSR products did not appeal to me as a gamer.  Much of it was badly edited, or seemed to strongly refer back to other products.  (This was especially true of many FR products.)  Also, the Buck Rogers game was a disaster on several levels -- especially on a financial level.  (I remember seeing Buck Rogers products just sitting on store shelves...and being ignored by everyone.)


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## Dogbrain (Aug 5, 2004)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> For example, it may be likely that D&D was selling as well as it ever did, but things like Spellfire and Dragon Dice (and their subsequent lack of sales) were as responsible for those declining sales figures for TSR as a whole.





Not just those losers.  The D&D "line" was also a net loser.  The core rules were still a solid property.  But the market was oversaturated with a bunch of essentially identical D&D settings, with D&D modules that could not be sold to make a net profit, and with similar stupid moves.


----------



## eyebeams (Aug 5, 2004)

> True. Good point. But according to all accounts, this mismanagement was coupled with declining sales.




To really qualify as "all accounts," you have to hear 'em from more than one guy. In the early-mid 90s *everybody* had declining sales. Declining as in "polaxed in the head and tumbling." The classic example is Mayfair's Underground, which was considered a failure at 15,000 sales. For a company in Mayfair's tier these days, 20% of that would be considered a success. Gehenna -- a book for Vampire that outsold the 3.5 PHB for a few weeks on Amazon -- had an initial print run of 10,000.

The reason for this is a highly contentious topic. Ryan Dancey essentially blamed White Wolf and TSR's fiction department, but the timeline doesn't really support this. Hell, Dancey's discovery that Vampire players play D&D too doesn't really back it up, either.

The question is whether or not TSR's sales were declining at a comparable rate to everybody else's, or more so. Looking at published sales rankings in 1994, we see a mix of TSR and WW product, with TSR generally slightly higher up.



> That's not really the comparison here, though. I'm talking about sales versus prior years' sales, not sales vs. their competition. And naturally, sales vs costs and overheads looks like a worse picture year over year as well.




See above. Other companies weathered the storm. TSR did not. From the Buck Rogers debacle to the use of TSR as junk property in larger business deals (I recall that they were entangled with the near-collapse of Marvel).



> I did mention that my source for that was mostly allegorical. But it's still "common knowledge." I'll believe it until I see some more compelling evidence to the contrary.




Sure. You can read Ryan Dancey's market research, which talks about cross-penetration. People weren't abandoning D&D for Vampire. They were adding Vampire to D&D.


----------



## mearls (Aug 5, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> To really qualify as "all accounts," you have to hear 'em from more than one guy. In the early-mid 90s *everybody* had declining sales. Declining as in "polaxed in the head and tumbling." The classic example is Mayfair's Underground, which was considered a failure at 15,000 sales. For a company in Mayfair's tier these days, 20% of that would be considered a success. Gehenna -- a book for Vampire that outsold the 3.5 PHB for a few weeks on Amazon -- had an initial print run of 10,000.




This is one of the most persistent death magnets in gaming - the rumor that Underground sold 10,000+ copies and was considered a failure.

If Underground really did sell that many, the margins on RPG books are big enough that the book itself must have been so expensive to produce that they needed to sell more than that to turn a profit. That points to a failure in vision, budgeting, and planning, not a sales failure. Considering that the book was published in a binder, I could see that as a possibility. I can only attribute it to the self-deluded design precepts of the 1990s that a game like Underground could be considered a viable game.

Furthermore, I seriously doubt that Underground sold that many copies into the distribution network. They may have printed that many, but I doubt that many ended up in game stores or on distributor shelves. If Underground really did sell that well, it would've been a hit at any point in the hobby's history.

You also seriously distort Ryan's stance. Vampire and the TSR novels did not kill TSR. TSR's inability to produce RPG books that were relevant or useful killed them. The company was, as a whole, unable to connect with its audience.

Personally, I think 2e killed TSR. It took a few years, but I think the player network slowly crumbled and gamers slowly converted from active purchasers to hobbyists who spent nothing on RPGs.

IMO, the failure of the industry as a whole can be attributed not to Vampire, but to the legion of designers who slavishly followed the Vampire model of design. The 1990s are a graveyard of dead games that followed the story-first paradigm. It's funny in that a designer can produce a D&D clone and everyone wants to laugh at him or ignore his work. But if he produces a Vampire clone, or throws in vague references to story, foreshadowing, and other literary tools in his work, suddenly he's a visionary.

That's the failing of the industry, and it goes far deeper and is a far bigger problem than most people realize.

Which reminds me, I can talk at length about this, but not right now. I have a boatload of work to do....


----------



## Dogbrain (Aug 5, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> This is one of the most persistent death magnets in gaming - the rumor that Underground sold 10,000+ copies and was considered a failure.
> 
> If Underground really did sell that many, the margins on RPG books are big enough that the book itself must have been so expensive to produce that they needed to sell more than that to turn a profit.




I have a copy.  It was obviously a very expensive book.  It was printed on high-quality semi-glossy paper, with not only full-color illustrations but full color TEXT!  The text was a sort of pseudo-hypertext, with lots of sidenotes that were indicated by the color of the text.  It was way too ambitious a physical product for the company.  The lone supplement was the more conventional black-and-white, but it's the core book that usually spells life or death for a stand-alone game.  To stay competitive, the profit margin on individual core rulebooks had to have been microscopic.  In many ways, it was the RPG equivalent of a DeLorean.


----------



## eyebeams (Aug 5, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> This is one of the most persistent death magnets in gaming - the rumor that Underground sold 10,000+ copies and was considered a failure.
> 
> If Underground really did sell that many, the margins on RPG books are big enough that the book itself must have been so expensive to produce that they needed to sell more than that to turn a profit. That points to a failure in vision, budgeting, and planning, not a sales failure. Considering that the book was published in a binder, I could see that as a possibility. I can only attribute it to the self-deluded design precepts of the 1990s that a game like Underground could be considered a viable game.




Underground was not actually that daring a game. It emulated a very, very popular genre in comics from the period, as exemplified by the work of Dan Brereton and Frank Miller. It used a highly-regarded supers system. With the passage of time, people have begun to think that it was an alienating arthouse game, but it was nothing of the sort.



> Furthermore, I seriously doubt that Underground sold that many copies into the distribution network. They may have printed that many, but I doubt that many ended up in game stores or on distributor shelves. If Underground really did sell that well, it would've been a hit at any point in the hobby's history.




Not so sure about that. Underground's problem, from what I can gather was the number of reorders: Almost none. It is probably one of the most common pieces of backstock I see in game stores. If it behooved me to do so, I could probably hop on a bus to Toronto and score a few copies with supplements right away.



> You also seriously distort Ryan's stance. Vampire and the TSR novels did not kill TSR. TSR's inability to produce RPG books that were relevant or useful killed them. The company was, as a whole, unable to connect with its audience.




I've heard him say various things at various times. He's mentioned Birthright as a setting that came from the influence of the fiction department. He's also pretty mcuh all but described Vampire's approach as exemplary of games that hurt the industry.



> Personally, I think 2e killed TSR. It took a few years, but I think the player network slowly crumbled and gamers slowly converted from active purchasers to hobbyists who spent nothing on RPGs.




I'm not inclined to think that 2e was exceptionally hated. It, like 3e, came about with lots and lots of moaning about the spirit of the game and alleged consultation with fans. The main problem with 2e is that it's an example of a closed design which actively thwarts the possibility of followup products. It was designed so that it was hard to add anything to it.



> IMO, the failure of the industry as a whole can be attributed not to Vampire, but to the legion of designers who slavishly followed the Vampire model of design. The 1990s are a graveyard of dead games that followed the story-first paradigm. It's funny in that a designer can produce a D&D clone and everyone wants to laugh at him or ignore his work. But if he produces a Vampire clone, or throws in vague references to story, foreshadowing, and other literary tools in his work, suddenly he's a visionary.




Y'see, I actually took a look at this claim by looking at the games that were released throughout the mid-1990s to see how many Vampire/WoD clones I could actually find. I decided on checking out John H Kim's site and going from 93-98 (basically, the advent of the decline to the release of Vampire Revised). The English language RPGs that seemed relevant were:

Kult
Whispering Vault
Immortal
Nephilim
Psychosis
Shattered Dreams
World of Bloodshadows
Don't Look Back
Everway
The 23rd Letter
Fading Suns
Witchcraft
Armageddon
Everlasting
In Nomine
Dark Conspiracy
Deadlands
Heaven and Earth
Warlock: Dark Spiral
Unknown Armies

Several of these games are translations of games that were contemporaries of or predated Vampire. Several of these games are still successful or are considered to be good games anyway, like Unknown Armies. There are a few duds in there, to be sure, like Immortal and (sorry Chip, I call em as I see em) The Everlasting, but we're not tyalking about a list that's all B-games.

Now here's the thing. This list of 20 games may look big, but it's probably outnumbered at *least* 2/1 by fantasy heartbreakers of one sort of another. There are an equal number of fairly straightforward (not "storyish") SF games and almost as many supers games. But you don't see people blaming those.

Could it just be something as simple as there being a hell of a lot of crappy games that folks are willing to toss good money after bas to produce? Ockham's Razor suggests that maybe this is it.


----------



## baseballfury (Aug 5, 2004)

It's funny to see all the anti-2E sentiment around here. Riddle me this then. If 2E was so horrible, why did so many d20 fans buy a line of books that slavishly ape the 2E Complete series (Mongoose's Quintissential series, which are generally more poorly designed and edited than the books they imitate)? And why is that not a week goes by without a thread about wanting Planescape or Birthright or some other discontinued 2E campaign setting to come back? 

Sure, there were bad 2E products, just like there are bad 3E and d20 products. But there were some very good ones too and it's revisionist history to pretend that 2E was nothing more than a dark age.


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## Nisarg (Aug 5, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Underground was not actually that daring a game. It emulated a very, very popular genre in comics from the period, as exemplified by the work of Dan Brereton and Frank Miller. It used a highly-regarded supers system. With the passage of time, people have begun to think that it was an alienating arthouse game, but it was nothing of the sort.
> 
> Now here's the thing. This list of 20 games may look big, but it's probably outnumbered at *least* 2/1 by fantasy heartbreakers of one sort of another. There are an equal number of fairly straightforward (not "storyish") SF games and almost as many supers games. But you don't see people blaming those.
> 
> Could it just be something as simple as there being a hell of a lot of crappy games that folks are willing to toss good money after bas to produce? Ockham's Razor suggests that maybe this is it.




Regarding the first paragraph above:  Underground was not essentially a very "challenging" (as in challenging the norms) game, hell, system-wise it was a rip-off of DC heroes.  But it tried very hard to sell itself as an "arthouse" game.. so any rep it may have gained as being unapproacheable in that regard is self-earned. Their ads in the gaming magazines were very artsy.

Second, regarding the Vampire-clones issue: there's two different considerations to be made.
The first is the "Fangstasy Heartstakers", ie. games that ripped off Vampire setting-wise; in the broad sense of wanting to also be "dark angsty games of personal horror". These are no worse and no better an impact on the industry than the Fantasy Hearbreaker D&D-clones. And there were certainly less of the straight-out Vampire copies than there were straight-out D&D copies.  Clones of either kind tended to suck at roughly equal levels.
The second, however, was the number of games that weren't essentially like Vampire setting or tone-wise, but jumped on the "story-based" bandwagon.  With these you would have a MUCH bigger list, and would have to include things like Heavy Gear (which tone wise isn't very angsty or gothic at all), and AD&D2nd Ed. itself.   There was a while there where you literally couldn't find a book on the "what's new" shelf of your FLGS without bumping into either metaplot, artsy story-focused systems, or both.

Nisarg


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## Maggan (Aug 5, 2004)

*Ratio*



			
				baseballfury said:
			
		

> It's funny to see all the anti-2E sentiment around here. Riddle me this then. If 2E was so horrible, why did so many d20 fans buy a line of books that slavishly ape the 2E Complete series (Mongoose's Quintissential series, which are generally more poorly designed and edited than the books they imitate)?




The ratio of sales comparing Mongoose Q-series and WotC own books is something like 1 to 50. That is, for every 1 book Mongoose sell, WotC probably sells 50. Of the core rules, the ratio is probably even higher in WotC:s favour.

This is probably why there are a larger proportion of people harping in 2nd ed, because maybe 95% or more of current D&D customers aren't buying the Q-series.

That does not mean it's a bad series, or that it sells badly, it's just that... well, many bought the Q-series, but many, many, many more didn't.

Cheers!

M.


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## Rasyr (Aug 5, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Could it just be something as simple as there being a hell of a lot of crappy games that folks are willing to toss good money after bas to produce? Ockham's Razor suggests that maybe this is it.





eyebeams, how do you figure the frontlist syndrome fits into all of this?


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## Acid_crash (Aug 5, 2004)

Man, people sure do like to argue.   

I had a bunch of time to kill, can't sleep, it's almost 0400 hrs where I'm at right now, read this thread because I found it funny and rather ludicrous in what people do and how people react to things.  

I don't know what GAMA is, and never been to a game convention (which is something I want to rectify next year), but I do know about the game awards that happen at Origins (it is at Origins, right?) and the last four years, primarily after d20 came out, I have see products that won that I thought was utter crap, distasteful, and I wondered who it was that not only nominated for these products, but felt the need to give them an award despite the fact that I never heard of some of them, and others I did hear of, I remember not liking or buying for a specific reason...and now I know why this is the case.  

Nothing too personal to those who are on this board who nominate the games for those awards, but you guys don't have a clue as to what most general gamers like.  

You pick products that you feel deserve them, and maybe in your subjective eyes they do, but not in mine.  You pick products that fit niche areas that are less known and less popular, and sometimes I get the feeling that you flat out ignore the more popular products because of the fact that they are, indeed, popular.  At least with ENnies, I understand the process better, and I can select who I want to pick the products up for nomination.  Heck, if I become a popular board member on these threads I could become a judge myself, but for that to happen I would probably have to become, well, popular, and that won't happen because even the ENnies have it's flaws (some judges get picked every year just because of name recognition within the threads) and some other people get overlooked because we might have 200 or so posts and others have 5000 posts and therefore is looked upon with more respect by others.  Sorry, got off on a small tangent, but no system is perfect, and yours at GAMA is flawed more than most.  I'lll never be a judge of the ENnies, that's fine, at least I can still vote on which product within the category I find more choosing, and I can honestly say that if the one I vote on doesn't win, at least my vote did count.

You pick products based on quality...stop because you can't define quality, it's one of those philosophical terms with no real meaning because it's so subjective...it's like trying to tell someone what Good is, or Virtue, or anything of that sort, and the only ones you are pleasing are the ones who have the same style of quality that you do.  

But, above all of this crap I have read over the last 11 pages, there is way way too much politics going on and NOT enough gaming going on...and that is what we are supposed to be doing, right?  

------------- about the d20/anti-d20 peoples -------

This is getting just worse each year from my very small and apparently insignificant view.  I am just a gamer, I spend some money on products that I like in the hopes to eventually play them.  I spend money on anything that catches my eye, d20 or not.  I am an all round gamer (I'll play ccgs, computer games, board games, rpgs, video games...but not larps).  I have been on these bards since late 1999 using different names when one name gets boring to me I resign up under a different name, but I've been around from the beginning of d20.

I am the type of person that you game designers and industry people should be wanting to catch...I have money to spend, so make products that will catch my eye.  There's more of me than of you, more people like me who wants variety than the same.  

When d20 first came out, that was the first time I ever liked D&D.  I hated it up until then.  Just how many class books, race books, spell books did 2e need to have?  As far as I'm concerned, we only need the core boooks for all that.  d20 was fresh, new, and exciting.  We had feats to give us variety, prestige classes to give us focus, and new classes and a new experience/leveling system.  Now, it's boring as hell.  How many class books, race books, spell books, feat books do we really need for 3.5?  It's the same thing all over again, and it's amazing that history is going to repeat itself over the next couple years until D&D 4.0 is released.  Then history will repeat itself again because for some reason D&D is so popular and people are so easily manipulated by the name that for many it's the only game to play.  

But we have our d20gamers, and our antid20gamers, and whenever two are in the same room sparks begin to fly.  Arguments occur over which system should be played, which is better, how much d20 sucks, or how good d20 is.  People explain that only d20 should be played because of all the support for it, others say that d20 shouldn't be played at all because it's driving so many game companies and publishers and game authors to writing so many similar books for a single game system that it's going to cause a great stagnation to the point where nothing will get sold just because of too much stuff being printed under a single d20 logo.  

The way things are going, there is going to be two roleplaying industries in a few years...we will have the d20 game industry, and we will have the anti d20 game industry.  d20gamers will only play d20, or play it the majority of the time and anti-d20gamers will not play it at all and will constantly look for something else to play.  This split in the industry is because of so many of you game designers pushing one game system over others that you will be forcing people to really make a choice, and one that isn't good for gaming in the long run.  But, I guess, as long as you get your money, why should some of you designers care, right?  

This year, there are at least three games I know of that will be pretty darn good... Fireborn, Weapons of the Gods, and A/state that is neither d20 or Storyteller, but the WoD 2.0 looks pretty darn good as well.  

I don't know if I made any points at all, or just rambled, but I don't really care.  I am just a lowly gamers who plays these games for the enjoyment of the game, and it sickens me to see established designers, publishers, and whatnot who have no clue what general gamers know, think, and like to play, and you assume you know what we want when you might not have a clue.


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## Staffan (Aug 5, 2004)

Dogbrain said:
			
		

> The lone supplement was the more conventional black-and-white



Underworld had at least three supplements. I know, because my friend has them on his bookshelf ("Fully Strapped, Always Packed", "Techno", and "Player's Handbook"). 


			
				Mearls said:
			
		

> Personally, I think 2e killed TSR. It took a few years, but I think the player network slowly crumbled and gamers slowly converted from active purchasers to hobbyists who spent nothing on RPGs.





			
				Eyebeams said:
			
		

> I'm not inclined to think that 2e was exceptionally hated.



I know *I* spent a lot of money on 2e. I don't think the failure was 2e in itself, but what WOTC folks have referred to as "fragmenting the fanbase". In the 90s, TSR were routinely putting out nearly a hundred game books per year (this doesn't count novels and the like) spread over plenty of product lines (core AD&D, Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, Birthright, Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, Planescape, Mystara, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Ravenloft - not all of these were supported simultaneously, but 6-7 or so at once was pretty average). In 2004, WOTC are releasing 2 books for d20M, 18 books for D&D (not counting dice, DM screen, character sheets, and map folios, neither of which requires all that much development), and 2 books for Star Wars. That's a significant reduction of production (though it does seem like it's on the rise again), which means that each book is more likely to be bought, thereby being more profitable.

Still, I miss many of the wonderful 2nd ed settings.


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## WizarDru (Aug 5, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Underground was not actually that daring a game. It emulated a very, very popular genre in comics from the period, as exemplified by the work of Dan Brereton and Frank Miller. It used a highly-regarded supers system. With the passage of time, people have begun to think that it was an alienating arthouse game, but it was nothing of the sort.



 Well, let's look at the facts: Underground was hyped on two things: it's Peter Chung artwork (who was and is still most famous for his MTV series, Aeon Flux) and it's 'Supers Punk" attitude and style. A game in which the main characters, afaik, were genetically-altered former super-soldiers from a war in South America trying to survive on the mean streets in a Shadowrun-esque oppresive world, working towards the overthrow of the government. There appears to have been quite a few supplements, as it turns out.

 I mean, look at these pictures...does this strike you as mainstream superhero stuff that's not attempting to apply the vampire design-ethic to the 4-color genre?











			
				Acid_crash said:
			
		

> You pick products that you feel deserve them, and maybe in your subjective eyes they do, but not in mine. You pick products that fit niche areas that are less known and less popular, and sometimes I get the feeling that you flat out ignore the more popular products because of the fact that they are, indeed, popular.





			
				Acid-crash said:
			
		

> This year, there are at least three games I know of that will be pretty darn good... Fireborn, Weapons of the Gods, and A/state that is neither d20 or Storyteller, but the WoD 2.0 looks pretty darn good as well.



 I'm not terribly enthused with Origins, as it happens, but these two statements strike me as conflicting. Winners at Origins this year included Indy Heroclix, Savage Worlds, Dragon Magazine, Mechwarrior, Dork Tower, Shadowrun, A Game of Thrones and .hack. Those are hardly unknown or unpopular products....whereas I've never heard of the three games you mention, before. I investigated Fireborn and Weapons of the Gods and discovered _they aren't even out YET._ A|State came out in February, it's true...but where?  It's a little RPG from the UK and I have no idea where it's available or how big a print run it's had. A little unfair to peg the awards show for that, IMHO.


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## Desdichado (Aug 5, 2004)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Y'see, I actually took a look at this claim by looking at the games that were released throughout the mid-1990s to see how many Vampire/WoD clones I could actually find. I decided on checking out John H Kim's site and going from 93-98 (basically, the advent of the decline to the release of Vampire Revised).



I think he specifically referred to the Vampire business model, not any Vampire setting elements, i.e. "Vampire clones."


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## Desdichado (Aug 5, 2004)

baseballfury said:
			
		

> It's funny to see all the anti-2E sentiment around here. Riddle me this then. If 2E was so horrible, why did so many d20 fans buy a line of books that slavishly ape the 2E Complete series (Mongoose's Quintissential series, which are generally more poorly designed and edited than the books they imitate)? And why is that not a week goes by without a thread about wanting Planescape or Birthright or some other discontinued 2E campaign setting to come back?
> 
> Sure, there were bad 2E products, just like there are bad 3E and d20 products. But there were some very good ones too and it's revisionist history to pretend that 2E was nothing more than a dark age.



All the anti-2E sentiment?  Are you referring to the forum in general, or this thread?  'Coz so far on this thread, _one_ guy accused 2e of killing TSR, which is difficult to interpret as "all this anti-2e sentiment."  But I'll add some; I never bought a single 2e product, and until 3e came out, I wouldn't touch D&D again with a ten-foot pole.

Besides, I think your comparisons are flawed.  Mongoose's books only slavish aping of 2e books was in the cover design, and although I don't know how many people bought them, it's hardly like their the definitive class books or anything like that (probably FFG's Path of... series belongs there, or hey! Howabout the Complete xxx series by WotC?).  Also, some of the 2e settings are the _only_ things that people want to revive.  Nobody's clamoring to bring anything else back from 2e.  And of course there were some good products; but that's not really the point.  We're talking about an aggregate of the entire system, not a piecemeal comparison of product by product.


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## Numion (Aug 5, 2004)

Kudos for this very interesting and informative thread! It's been a good read, mostly. 

As for my input . . 3E was the first time I really like D&D. I started with basic D&D or somesuch, but soon got tired of the limitations and incoherent rules. 12 Years later I came back to D&D, and it was good.


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## BruceB (Aug 5, 2004)

A couple belated comments:

I am one of the primary vectors for the info about Underground's sales, and my source is Ray Winninger himself. Those who've dealt with Ray know him to be an honest and forthright guy. I trust him to be informed and to tell me straight. So it's not just random unsourced rumor at work.

I've heard, but would have to hunt around for confirmation, that the things that most hurt TSR were 1) unexpectedly high levels of returns on fiction sold to the chain bookstores and 2) high-cost items like Dragon Dice that simply didn't sell in sufficient quantity. The abundance of separate D&D settings and lines probably didn't help, but I recall being told by people who actually had access to TSR data that it wasn't anywhere close to being the big problem. But here I'm on fuzzier ground, and mostly mention it in hopes of spurring someone else with more reliable info.


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## Desdichado (Aug 5, 2004)

BruceB said:
			
		

> I've heard, but would have to hunt around for confirmation, that the things that most hurt TSR were 1) unexpectedly high levels of returns on fiction sold to the chain bookstores ...



That's unusual.  Any idea what drove that?  Chain stores couldn't sell them, or something?  After all, a jaunt to my local Borders or Barnes & Noble still shows a mighty big shelf of D&D fiction.


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## WinningerR (Aug 5, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> This is one of the most persistent death magnets in gaming - the rumor that Underground sold 10,000+ copies and was considered a failure.
> 
> If Underground really did sell that many, the margins on RPG books are big enough that the book itself must have been so expensive to produce that they needed to sell more than that to turn a profit. That points to a failure in vision, budgeting, and planning, not a sales failure. Considering that the book was published in a binder, I could see that as a possibility. I can only attribute it to the self-deluded design precepts of the 1990s that a game like Underground could be considered a viable game.




UNDERGROUND did, in fact, sell 15,000 copies within its first six months of life. And no, it wasn't published "in a binder" (one of its supporting products was).

It's also true that at just 15,000 copies sold, we were a little disappointed in UNDERGROUND. Instead of the SHADOWRUN-sized hit we were hoping for, it was just a DARK CONSPIRACY-sized hit. In those days, sales of 15,000 (over the course of a year) were only "okay" for a core game book. The year that UNDERGROUND was released, for instance, MAGE sold its initial print run of 25,000 copies in two weeks. The fact that UNDERGROUND was essentially put out to pasture a year or so after its debut wasn't a direct result of its sales, which were certainly high enough to keep the line running -- there were other factors at work.

No one ever said that UNDERGROUND wasn't profitable (the core book anyway), though it wasn't nearly as profitable as Mike Mearls believes it must have been. The world has changed substantially since the early 90s: 1) new technology has made it *much* cheaper to produce full-color books; but most importantly, 2) the standard RPG publishing operation is a lot leaner these days, reducing overhead. Back in those days, Mayfair -- a mid-tier RPG publisher, probably akin to a Green Ronin today -- had twenty full-time employees plus (relatively) spacious offices and its own warehouse. That wasn't exorbitant or uncommon in those days. Today, most mid-tier RPG publishers run on a relative shoestring. In some cases, again, better technology has made this possible.

In any case, the meta-point--that sales of an "average" RPG product are much lower today than they were in the early (pre-M:tG) 90s--is certainly true. I don't think there are any "old timers" with first-hand knowledge of both eras who would dispute it.




			
				mearls said:
			
		

> Personally, I think 2e killed TSR. It took a few years, but I think the player network slowly crumbled and gamers slowly converted from active purchasers to hobbyists who spent nothing on RPGs.




That's a pretty eccentric theory. I did a lot of work for TSR (in both the 1st Edition and 2nd Edition eras) so again, I had something of an inside view.

When the 2nd Edition was launched, it was an enormous hit--every bit as big as the 3E launch. Players loved it; sales were incredible and they stayed that way for years. Five years later, the average mid-list D&D sourcebook was still selling in numbers that WotC would kill for today (and those numbers were significantly better than TSR was racking up at the end of the 1st Edition era). I received royalties on a couple of TSR projects so I had a good idea of exactly how well they sold.

So, what do I believe "killed" TSR? A number of things:

1) Dwindling market. I'm in the camp that believes that the CCG boom *did* have an enormous impact on the RPG market at the distribution, retail and consumer tiers. TSR's numbers were steadily dwindling as the market moved in this direction. TSR's overhead was enormous--the company was built to operate at a relatively high cash flow. As sales started to shrink, they didn't do a good job of managing the transition to a leaner operation. 

2) Failed, expensive attempts to reach a broader market. TSR launched a number of very expensive assaults aimed at getting its products into the mass market (DRAGON STRIKE is perhaps the most notorious example; but you can also consider the expensive DL and Buck Rogers board games and even things like the Rocky & Bullwinkle RPG). All of these efforts failed and drained savings that could have been used to weather storms down the road.

3) Failed, expensive attempts to go head-to-head with WotC. (Spellfire, Dragon Dice).

3) Channel mismanagement. TSR's evenutal problems with the book trade are now well known. It should be noted, though, that the book trade was an incredibly lucrative sales channel for TSR for several years before the crash. The problems really arose when sales started to rapidly shrink and TSR couldn't properly adjust.

4) Perhaps most importantly, TSR waited to long to release a new edition of D&D. A high-profile, well-marketed new edition of D&D that continued to modernize the game for a new generation of players might have restarted TSR's economic engine.




			
				mearls said:
			
		

> IMO, the failure of the industry as a whole can be attributed not to Vampire, but to the legion of designers who slavishly followed the Vampire model of design. The 1990s are a graveyard of dead games that followed the story-first paradigm. It's funny in that a designer can produce a D&D clone and everyone wants to laugh at him or ignore his work. But if he produces a Vampire clone, or throws in vague references to story, foreshadowing, and other literary tools in his work, suddenly he's a visionary.




There, I actually agree with you.


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## WizarDru (Aug 5, 2004)

Ray, thanks for you insights, and welcome to the boards.  It's always nice when an industry professional stops by to shed some light on things.

 A factor I'm curious about is the U.S. economy itself.  I can't speak for others, but I know that my income became much more constrained when I went to college, and stayed that way from 1986-1991, roughly.  I still didn't purchase as much until about 1998 or so.  I didn't drop much coin on RPGs again until 2000, with the advent of 3E, and stayed that way until my unemployment in 2002.  With my remployment in late 2002, things reversed and now I drop a good chunk on RPGs...moreso as the economy has improved.

 My point being that I wonder if the meta-factors of economy had an effect on sales, at all?  I remember (perhaps wrongly) that the early 90s (after the first gulf war) were relatively prosperous...and then around 2000, the economy really bottomed out.  Did this have a chilling effect on the industry?  What about the changing demographics of the players?  How many gamers dropped off the radar when they turned a certain age, and moved on to other pursuits?  Most of the gamers from the big push of the 80s are settling down and having families, now...and their gaming expenditures usually lower, when that happens, I would guess.

 I just think the equation isn't a simple one, I suppose.


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## Desdichado (Aug 5, 2004)

Just out of curiousity; is someone flagging people to this thread?  We're sure getting a lot of attention from "non-forum regulars".  I recognize some names as either game designers or rpg.net regulars, but I'm just wondering if this thread is being pointed out by folks?


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## buzz (Aug 5, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Just out of curiousity; is someone flagging people to this thread?  We're sure getting a lot of attention from "non-forum regulars".  I recognize some names as either game designers or rpg.net regulars, but I'm just wondering if this thread is being pointed out by folks?



Because ENWorld has the highest odds for maintinaing a useful, rational discourse about subjects like this.


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## BiggusGeekus (Aug 5, 2004)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> My point being that I wonder if the meta-factors of economy had an effect on sales, at all?




Well, RPGs are a low-cost luxury product so you're in a tricky area from the get-go.  $30 for a typical product (to say nothing of the 2,000+ pages WotC gives away on their site) is not that much, but it's a luxury so you have to have that $30 to burn risk and guilt free.

It is much, much cheaper to develop now than it was in the 1990.  However, it is also more expensive to _print_ given the paper-price shock in 1994/5.  Oh, irony!  I can pull together a document that would blow the socks off the 2e core books for the cost of an artist and an intern, but I don't have a prayer of printing and distributing it.

So people have to be rich enough to waste money on a product that is not typically associated with being a high-end item.  To determine that I'd look at economic growth rates and cost of living increases over the past 10 - 15 years.  It's hard and these are number people love to spin, so good luck!


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## Nisarg (Aug 5, 2004)

buzz said:
			
		

> Because ENWorld has the highest odds for maintinaing a useful, rational discourse about subjects like this.




well put. If this was rpg.net, this thread would be covered in flames by now.  As a refugee from the aforementioned, this place doesn't cease to astound me.

Nisarg


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## Desdichado (Aug 5, 2004)

Yeah, I occasionally like to go slumming there when I don't mind the harsher tone, but here I'm certainly more at home.

Well, that wasn't off topic, was it?


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## WinningerR (Aug 5, 2004)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Ray, thanks for you insights, and welcome to the boards.  It's always nice when an industry professional stops by to shed some light on things.




Glad to be here, thanks.



			
				WizardDru said:
			
		

> A factor I'm curious about is the U.S. economy itself.  I can't speak for others, but I know that my income became much more constrained when I went to college, and stayed that way from 1986-1991, roughly.  I still didn't purchase as much until about 1998 or so.  I didn't drop much coin on RPGs again until 2000, with the advent of 3E, and stayed that way until my unemployment in 2002.  With my remployment in late 2002, things reversed and now I drop a good chunk on RPGs...moreso as the economy has improved.




It's certainly possible that the macro economy has had an impact on RPG sales, though I think there are more significant factors. Think about the internet, for instance. It's hard to imagine today, but back in the late 80s and the early 90s, places like EN World or RPG.NET didn't exist. Sure, there was some discussion of RPGs on usenet and AOL, but it was low-traffic and cumbersome. If you were really consumed with RPGs in those days and wanted fresh ideas, wanted to know what other RPG enthusiasts were thinking and so forth, your only option was to purchase RPG products (magazines like DRAGON, sourcebooks, adventures, whatever). These days, whatever system you play, you can easily fill up dozens of hours each week discussing the game on line, trading ideas, downloading variant rules, and so forth. That's certainly had an impact. 

Similarly, I think it's safe to say that some of the money that goes to CCGs, collectible miniatures and other relatively new product categories used to go to RPGs. Yes, I know that some people deny this, but to me it seems almost self-evident. For years, the old wargame crowd denied that their waning fortunes were partially due to the rise of RPGs, too. Undoubtedly, RPGs have a lost a few dollars to various computer/console games as well.

You also have to look at what's been happening at the other tiers of the industry. There aren't nearly as many FLGSs or comic book shops these days as there were during the early 90s -- that too has had an impact.

Perhaps most importantly, I think the industry does an increasingly poor job of recruiting new gamers. D&D 3E is far less accessible to new players than the old TSR offerings and nobody has picked up the slack.


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## William Ronald (Aug 5, 2004)

WinningerR said:
			
		

> Glad to be here, thanks.
> 
> 
> It's certainly possible that the macro economy has had an impact on RPG sales, though I think there are more significant factors. Think about the internet, for instance. It's hard to imagine today, but back in the late 80s and the early 90s, places like EN World or RPG.NET didn't exist. Sure, there was some discussion of RPGs on usenet and AOL, but it was low-traffic and cumbersome. If you were really consumed with RPGs in those days and wanted fresh ideas, wanted to know what other RPG enthusiasts were thinking and so forth, your only option was to purchase RPG products (magazines like DRAGON, sourcebooks, adventures, whatever). These days, whatever system you play, you can easily fill up dozens of hours each week discussing the game on line, trading ideas, downloading variant rules, and so forth. That's certainly had an impact.
> ...




Ray, thanks for your insights.  I would argue that TSR failed on mnay levels, and I recall collectible card games being very popular in the late 1990s.  What are some of the ways that the industry can change to recruit new gamers, and what can we individual gamers do? I have participated in several EN World game days, and two of the FLGS owners I know try to do a lot in recruiting new gamers.  There are times when I worry that we might have the hobby shrink as more of us get older. (I even started a thread, Improving the gaming industry, on the topic.)

Any advice on the future of GAMA?

Joshua Dyal: I recognize a lot of the names on this thread from the D20 publisher's forum.  Many of the gaming industry professionals who posted have been associated with GAMA, Nikchik being the most prominent example.


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## The Sigil (Aug 5, 2004)

WinningerR said:
			
		

> Perhaps most importantly, I think the industry does an increasingly poor job of recruiting new gamers. D&D 3E is far less accessible to new players than the old TSR offerings and nobody has picked up the slack.



Some of us are trying. 

Personally, I think it's interesting to see the (vocal) views of so many current gamers... "we don't want something that's watered down to the level that it's accessible for n00bs."  ALL of us were once "n00bs" and according to a poll I ran here on ENWorld, we often were introduced to the hobby in our pre-teen years.  

I think the pre-teen years is actually the ideal time to expose people to ANY hobby you want them to really incorporate into their lives... by the time they hit high school, they're being pulled in too many directions (getting a car, getting a job, hitting the books, making career plans, boyfriends/girlfriends, sports, clubs, and other concerns).  When they hit their teen years, they start getting incredibly self-conscious... and may be wary of things that are "geeky" or even "immature make-believe" - while younger children don't have that sense of self-consciousness and are more readily able to play at "make believe" - and thus, inherently more receptive to gaming.

There is a large portion of the audience of RPGers that have "grown up" with RPGs, and they now have a certain comfort level with them and - more important - a certain body of "back knowledge" that they can draw on.  New players simply don't have that.  The reason you saw (excellent) introductory products in the early 80's was that nobody was that experienced and could make the assumption that ANYONE would know this and that and thus take for granted an understanding that a newbie just doesn't have.

I have been saying for a long time that we need to bring "new blood" into the hobby... because all of us "older folks" don't have the time to game that we used to (I remember spending weeks at a time in my summer vacations doing little else).  Family responsibilities, economic circumstance, ill health, or a million other things can take us "out" of gaming - temporarily or permanently.  If we're not "refilling the pool" with younger gamers, eventually there will not be enough gamers out there to sustain the companies.

Often I am met with an attitude among current gamers of, "tough crap!  I want stuff published to suit ME, the experienced gamer - I can't waste my time with stuff that isn't 'adult-themed' or 'rules-complex' to the degree I want it so as to make it accessible to the darn kids."  Nobody expects that gamers will always stay innocent and naive... but to demand that NO "kid-friendly" products be made is just as bad as demanding that no "kid-unfriendly" products be made (a notion these folks find appalling at best and anathema at worst).  

A little enlightened self-interest will go a long way here... can you imagine what our hobby would look like today if there had been something "easy-to-learn" in the early-to-mid-90's?  I'm not saying ALL of those kids who started on Pokemon or Magic and have since graduated to Yu-Gi-Oh (or whatever they're playing now) would have found D&D, but I'm convinced that if there had been something available (there wasn't - everything catered to the experienced player), there would be a lot more younger players in D&D today - and imagine the RPG industry getting even a tenth - or a twentieth - of the money that's currently being thrown at Yu-Gi-Oh cards by the under-15 crowd.  The RPG industry would be a LOT healthier financially than it is today, I guarantee you.

I feel an introductory product is necessary on two fronts, then.  (1) I feel we as the gaming community have an obligation not to "pull up the ladder behind us" - we need to take the effort and time to teach new gamers - and we have to "sacrifice" by allowing ourselves to play in an "inferior, watered-down, kiddie-fied system" for a while when doing it.  (2) While the effects might not be felt until 5 years down the road, it will be incredibly helpful to the long-term growth - or possibly even survival - of the industry.

I have done an introductory product.  I want to do more.  I know it's not the best product that could be out there, and I know its exposure is limited because it's a PDF, but at least I'm TRYING in whatever way I can.  I *truly* hope WotC's upcoming "Basic Set" or whatever is that introductory package the hobby needs.  We'll see.

Someone needs to do it.  And if someone needs to do something, and I'm capable, I have always asked, "if I don't do it, who should?  If I don't do it, who will?"

--The Sigil


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## William Ronald (Aug 5, 2004)

The Sigil said:
			
		

> Some of us are trying.
> 
> Personally, I think it's interesting to see the (vocal) views of so many current gamers... "we don't want something that's watered down to the level that it's accessible for n00bs."  ALL of us were once "n00bs" and according to a poll I ran here on ENWorld, we often were introduced to the hobby in our pre-teen years.
> 
> ...




First, thanks for the great post.  More importantly, thanks for the efforts to recruit new gamers.

I played RPGs for the first time in high school, and I would argue that recruiting pre-teen and high school students are effective.   I have seen gaming stores in the Chicago area and a local RPGA club try to be open to younger gamers.  I think we have to be willing to set aside some of our preconceived notions.  I think that everyone has something to contribute, and much of the "clannishness" of too many gamers tends to isolate them and harm our hobby.


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## barsoomcore (Aug 6, 2004)

Observation from one who has introduced not just pre-teen nephews but also cool raver kids and stewardesses to this hobby:

Character generation is what keeps people out. When I'm running a game for a new group, my number one concern is providing them with pre-generated characters, and printing them out on relatively simplified character sheets.

To ask someone to start this game by sitting down with the Player's Handbook and a handful of dice is really to bypass most of what's fun about the game -- solving problems on the fly, acting out fantasies and anticipating the fall of the dice.

Playing the game is something pretty much everyone I've ever tried has enjoyed. Making characters is a process not quite for everyone. Improve character generation (or remove it completely) and you make it much easier for new people to get excited about the hobby.

WinningerR's point about the internet is significant, I think. You can get so much material for free, and most of it is of a level of quality pretty much equal to most printed/professional material, that there's not much incentive to spend lots of money buying stuff. It's the same problem faced by all content creation/distribution industries such as music recording and film distribution -- as distribution costs approach zero, the barrier to entry drops, and you get more and more people willing to contribute for free, which lowers the value of the entire market.

Not sure what can be done about it other than to, as the successful publishers appear to have done, tighten one's operations, maintain high quality product and manage cash flow carefully.


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## Acid_crash (Aug 6, 2004)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> I'm not terribly enthused with Origins, as it happens, but these two statements strike me as conflicting. Winners at Origins this year included Indy Heroclix, Savage Worlds, Dragon Magazine, Mechwarrior, Dork Tower, Shadowrun, A Game of Thrones and .hack. Those are hardly unknown or unpopular products....whereas I've never heard of the three games you mention, before. I investigated Fireborn and Weapons of the Gods and discovered _they aren't even out YET._ A|State came out in February, it's true...but where?  It's a little RPG from the UK and I have no idea where it's available or how big a print run it's had. A little unfair to peg the awards show for that, IMHO.




I might have been misread above.  My comments on the awards and then listing those games were about two seperate issues and I didn't intend to imply that those games should have been a part of the awards comments I made.

I simply listed the games as upcoming games that I find really intriguing and so far enjoyable to read about and get hopes for simply because they are different and seperate in not only dice mechanics, but emphasis on game design and how people are and I brought them up in my statements of the two categories of game industries that this Industry is splitting into.  Listing of the games had nothing to do with the awards but I don't think that came across all too well and for that I apologize.

I just see things splintering off into the d20 game industry and everything else game industry and game companies only supporting one side and not the other, and I don't see it getting any better.


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## M.L. Martin (Aug 6, 2004)

I spent some years in contact with some people who were working for TSR during the last days and the transition period, and most of what I heard matches up well with what Bruce and Ray are saying--it was a combination of novel returns, overproduction, and bad pricing that killed TSR.  (Lots of products had misestimated costs and were sold at a loss--the Encyclopedia Magica, the Birthright box, the original Dragonlance:  Fifth Age box.)  

   But maybe I just don't want to hear that because I like and supported things like Ravenloft and DL:5A, I helped kill the hobby.    

  Matthew L. Martin


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## buzz (Aug 6, 2004)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> WinningerR's point about the internet is significant, I think. You can get so much material for free, and most of it is of a level of quality pretty much equal to most printed/professional material, that there's not much incentive to spend lots of money buying stuff.



DEVIL'S ADVOCATE: This may be a bad thing for the publishers' pocketbooks, but is it necessarily a bad thing for gaming?

And heck, communities like ENworld get me exposed to a LOT of product, and consequently I spend a LOT on gaming books. Am I alone?


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## Son_of_Thunder (Aug 6, 2004)

*Hello Ray!*



			
				WinningerR said:
			
		

> Perhaps most importantly, I think the industry does an increasingly poor job of recruiting new gamers. D&D 3E is far less accessible to new players than the old TSR offerings and nobody has picked up the slack.




Hello Ray!

First I'd like to say that I've always enjoyed the Dungeoncraft articles you wrote for Dragon. Those, more than anything, shaped how I approached campaign design. I still pull those issues out and read them. It was a sad day for me when someone else took over the column.

Second, as pertaining to the above quote. Do you have any ideas on how to recruit newer players? I've gotten good ideas from The Sigil but wonder if there is something else. I would agree to approach the early to mid-teen age groups. It was pointed out above that there is an attitude of "I'm a mature gamer and want mature products". Sure a company could do those, but not WotC.

I feel that the old 'comic book code' approach to design and art should be re-instituted by WotC specifically and other publishers as well.


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## Son_of_Thunder (Aug 6, 2004)

*Ancient Lore!*



			
				Matthew L. Martin said:
			
		

> I spent some years in contact with some people who were working for TSR during the last days and the transition period, and most of what I heard matches up well with what Bruce and Ray are saying--it was a combination of novel returns, overproduction, and bad pricing that killed TSR.  (Lots of products had misestimated costs and were sold at a loss--the Encyclopedia Magica, the Birthright box, the original Dragonlance:  Fifth Age box.)




I just love coming here and finding out about these things from the past. I'm really glad people are willing to share.


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## The Sigil (Aug 6, 2004)

Son_of_Thunder said:
			
		

> I feel that the old 'comic book code' approach to design and art should be re-instituted by WotC specifically and other publishers as well.



I don't know that we can go that far - it would make a huge amount of negative feedback.

However, if there were a system, such as "entry-level d20" or somesuch, THAT might want to have a "comic book code" attached - mature players know that some subjects are handled with "kid gloves" and if they know that going in, I think it helps immensely.  FWIW, I've tried to have ALL of my products adhere to the CBC but it's certainly not for everyone - and some of the existing fan base may get annoyed if that's ALL that's out there, because they may feel like they're being "talked down" to.

It's probably not healthy to have just CBC-safe products.  It is not healthy IMO to have just not-CBS-safe products.  You need to have both, because tastes run the gamut; it would just be nice to have an easy way of marking the CBC-safe stuff for easy reference (that's not to say that CBC-safe book is useless for "mature" gamers - many books will be CBC-safe but also appealing to "mature" gamers, depending on content and subject matter).

To wit, I'm not thrilled that the Book of Erotic Fantasy exists.  I would have hoped Valar had chosen to direct their energy elsewhere.  That doesn't mean I would FORBID Valar to publish; it just means I won't buy it and will actively discourage others from doing so.  If someone tried to forbid its publication, I would be right there fighting for its publication... "I may not agree with what you {publish} but I will defend to the death your right to {publish} it."

--The Sigil


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## Son_of_Thunder (Aug 6, 2004)

*Excellent Reply!*



			
				The Sigil said:
			
		

> I don't know that we can go that far - it would make a huge amount of negative feedback.
> 
> However, if there were a system, such as "entry-level d20" or somesuch, THAT might want to have a "comic book code" attached - mature players know that some subjects are handled with "kid gloves" and if they know that going in, I think it helps immensely.  FWIW, I've tried to have ALL of my products adhere to the CBC but it's certainly not for everyone - and some of the existing fan base may get annoyed if that's ALL that's out there, because they may feel like they're being "talked down" to.
> 
> ...





Thanks for the reply The Sigil. Looking at my post it does read that I wanted all publishers to go the the CBC. I didn't mean that. I think WotC should, for brand recognition alone, but not every publisher. Don't slap the D20 logo on and many publishers could certainly publish what they wanted.


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## WinningerR (Aug 6, 2004)

Son_of_Thunder said:
			
		

> Hello Ray!
> 
> First I'd like to say that I've always enjoyed the Dungeoncraft articles you wrote for Dragon. Those, more than anything, shaped how I approached campaign design. I still pull those issues out and read them. It was a sad day for me when someone else took over the column.




Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed them.




			
				Son_of_Thunder said:
			
		

> Second, as pertaining to the above quote. Do you have any ideas on how to recruit newer players? I've gotten good ideas from The Sigil but wonder if there is something else. I would agree to approach the early to mid-teen age groups. It was pointed out above that there is an attitude of "I'm a mature gamer and want mature products". Sure a company could do those, but not WotC.




I don't really have any ideas on how to recruit new players on an individual level. But on the publisher level, the market could really use a strong intro product right now. I understand that WotC has a new intro product in the pipeline. I'm very interested in seeing what they're going to do with it.


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## Maggan (Aug 6, 2004)

WinningerR said:
			
		

> 4) Perhaps most importantly, TSR waited to long to release a new edition of D&D. A high-profile, well-marketed new edition of D&D that continued to modernize the game for a new generation of players might have restarted TSR's economic engine.




Hmmmm... I've never thought about that before. In all the furor over the timing of the 3.5 release and such, the longevity of 1st and 2nd ed almost always are considered a positive thing, the signs of a good rules set.

This is for me at least, a new and interesting perspective.

Cheers!

Maggan


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## BruceB (Aug 6, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> That's unusual.  Any idea what drove that?  Chain stores couldn't sell them, or something?  After all, a jaunt to my local Borders or Barnes & Noble still shows a mighty big shelf of D&D fiction.




As I understand it, selling to the chain stores just is a brutal business. You see a big shelf, but you don't see the turnover in it - how much gets whisked off and shipped back to make space for the next batch, and how much the stores expect the publisher to give them credit toward the cost of that next batch. It's apparently really, really easy to get into a situation where you always owe them money, and if revenue ever dips, you end up suddenly flat-out taking a loss. 

This doesn't just apply to TSR, or to gaming companies, but to anyone selling to the chain. I've heard comparable horror stories from small-press publishers in various fields. TSR undoubtedly made a few mistakes that helped it be worse than it had to be, but it's never good until you're a very, very large publisher.


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## Desdichado (Aug 6, 2004)

barsoomcore, that's a very insightful observation, and one that I've come to independently in my efforts to get my wife to play.  We did just that for her; gave her a pregenerated character so she could jump right into playing.  Because of her nature, however, even that was frustrating.  She's the type of person who doesn't like playing a game and not understanding _all_ the rules.  She gets a bit competitive in other games, and if she's making a move, she wants to make sure it's the "best" move, and she never feels like that when she doesn't know what any of the rules are.  I tried to explain that the "best" move was an in-character thing that she would do in real life if she were that person, but she still struggled conceptually with the thought that I had books and books of rules and yet I was trying to explain that there were no rules that applied to what was "best" for her to do.

So, from my experience, a rules lite game engine is a perfect vehicle for introducing new gamers not only because it's easier for them to play, but also because conceptually it's a simpler paradigm to grasp.

If I can be permitted a small tangent from this already tangential discussion, I've been thinking about getting my kids into it as well.  My oldest is 8 and the next is 6, about to start 1st grade, where she'll learn to read.  Once she's old enough to read a little bit, I'm thinking I can run them through a Star Wars or Spy Kids, or something like that type of game.  My engine of choice for introducing new gamers like this is The Window.  Now, The Window is odd; it tries to push itself as a conceptual leap into the next generation of roleplaying, and therefore comes across as fairly elitist.  I think, though, that the extremely rules light nature of the game (and the fact that evey type of dice I own will come into use, which is a bit of a novelty), and it's focus on roleplaying rather than gaming per se, makes it a perfect introductory product.  And if my kids (or my wife!) gets into the concept from The Window, they can potentially move into D&D or something like that as they get older, if necessary.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Aug 6, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> If I can be permitted a small tangent from this already tangential discussion, I've been thinking about getting my kids into it as well.  My oldest is 8 and the next is 6, about to start 1st grade, where she'll learn to read.  I think that the extremely rules light nature of the game and it's focus on roleplaying rather than gaming per se, makes it a perfect introductory product.




Congrats! I'm really envious as I look forward to someday teaching my own kids to play. 

But-- I dunno-- I'm just really hoping my kids are gamists.


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## Desdichado (Aug 6, 2004)

Yeah, well, if I use The Window, they'll never get the chance to turn into gamists!


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## buzz (Aug 6, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> So, from my experience, a rules lite game engine is a perfect vehicle for introducing new gamers not only because it's easier for them to play, but also because conceptually it's a simpler paradigm to grasp.



This sentiment does make sense, conceptually, but I think it's a slippery slope that can lead to a common (and, as I see it, fallacious) argument that gaming would be hellaciously popular if only the industry made lots of rules-lite, collaborative storytelling type games marketed to Joe Average.

I think that it's more often the case that newbies have an easier time grasping games like, well, D&D, because it has clearly defined goals and is based on strong archetypes. The simple fact that it does have a lot of rules (and uses minis, and lots of dice) makes it more obviously a "game" and thus more easily grokked by the newbie.

This isn't to say that there don't need to be good *introductory* products that ease newbies into the hobby. However, I don't know if I would want a newbie's first experience to be _Nobilis_ or _Everway_ ("This isn't going to end with us toching each other's bottoms, is it?").

I think maybe the key is it tap into RPG-friendly trends and offer games that attract people who are interested in said trends, sort of like WW did with the goth subculture. It's too bad Decipher did such a shoddy job with the LOTR license...


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## Wulf Ratbane (Aug 6, 2004)

buzz said:
			
		

> This sentiment does make sense, conceptually, but I think it's a slippery slope that can lead to a common (and, as I see it, fallacious) argument that gaming would be hellaciously popular if only the industry made lots of rules-lite, collaborative storytelling type games marketed to Joe Average.




I've been reading too many good threads lately to remember, but wasn't it this very thread where someone suggested that the pre-d20 market trend towards storytelling was misguided?

Rules-lite collaborative storytelling game = mass market dud.



> I think that it's more often the case that newbies have an easier time grasping games like, well, D&D, because it has clearly defined goals and is based on strong archetypes.




I think d20 settled this argument... _decisively_. 

Now, there may come a time when our external gaming/leisure influences are not so gamist, but that time is definitely not now. Americans certainly aren't wired this way. 

Anecdotal for sure, but I've just introduced the game to 3 new players, and every single one of them has not only embraced the game thanks to its concrete gamist underpinnings, but (more telling) was the fact that their apprehensions about D&D and roleplaying in general were rooted in prejudices against "storytelling." I had to work to convince them to play.

(Though of course, kids 8 and under haven't had a chance to be exposed to that prejudice yet.)

Now, maybe my own tendencies made me subconsciously seek out gamist players-- folks who were already on my wavelength.

But my hunch is that the majority will grasp (and enjoy) a gamist experience faster and easier than a "storytelling" one. That D&D 3.0 also seems to have tapped into this same realization is a strong reinforcement of my hunch.

Wulf


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## Nisarg (Aug 6, 2004)

buzz said:
			
		

> This isn't to say that there don't need to be good *introductory* products that ease newbies into the hobby. However, I don't know if I would want a newbie's first experience to be _Nobilis_ or _Everway_ ("This isn't going to end with us toching each other's bottoms, is it?")...




Disclaimer: I LIKE Everway. Contrary to the assumptions of some of my detractors on rpg.net, I actually like a lot of rules-lite games.  Over The Edge is one of my favourite games ever. End of disclaimer.

Its interesting that you bring Everway up, because it was actually MEANT to be an "introductory game" for non-roleplayers.  On that account it failed miserably.
There has never, in fact, been an introductory game that was "ultra rules-lite" that ended up being successful.

The kids ARE gamist. They want structure (don't all child psychologists say that?). 

What they need is a rules system that has set mechanics. Very simple skill resolution, a combat system that is based on a few simple rolls of the dice but that allows for modifiers to situations. Most of all they need a few VERY structured classes and races (that would be the biggest barrier to new roleplayers in a truly rules-lite system).  They need identifiable classes, and not too much "freedom" (read: confusion) in having to allocate abilities etc. 

In other words: they need D20 with a stripped down combat system, no feats, simplified (ie. rigid) skills allocation, and very archetypal classes.  Or, in other words, they need the old D&D basic set.  That was, after all, THE most successful introductory roleplaying game ever made.

Nisarg


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## Arnwyn (Aug 6, 2004)

The Sigil said:
			
		

> Often I am met with an attitude among current gamers of, "tough crap!  I want stuff published to suit ME, the experienced gamer - I can't waste my time with stuff that isn't 'adult-themed' or 'rules-complex' to the degree I want it so as to make it accessible to the darn kids."



And there's nothing wrong with that attitude, either. A consumer has every right to hope and demand products that he/she wants - and nothing else.

Whether that happens, though, is for the market to decide. The neat thing is that the market will sort itself out in the end. If the "accessible to kids" games are in demand, they will be produced. If they're not in demand, then the point is moot.


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## buzz (Aug 6, 2004)

Everway is great, BTW. It's just not about newbies, really.



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> In other words: they need D20 with a stripped down combat system, no feats, simplified (ie. rigid) skills allocation, and very archetypal classes.  Or, in other words, they need the old D&D basic set.  That was, after all, THE most successful introductory roleplaying game ever made.



I think this might have more to do with the heyday of the hobby's early years, but I dunno.

Ultimately, I think gamers are born, not made. There is a certain type of person for whom RPGs just "click". The key is to make sure that the hobby gets exposed to as many people as possible so that you make sure to catch the nascent gamer.


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## Umbran (Aug 7, 2004)

arnwyn said:
			
		

> If the "accessible to kids" games are in demand, they will be produced. If they're not in demand, then the point is moot.




This isn't precisely true.  The free market isn't perfect.  There are demands that never get filled.


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## King of Old School (Aug 7, 2004)

Not to be overly pedantic, but...



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> Underground was not essentially a very "challenging" (as in challenging the norms) game, hell, system-wise it was a rip-off of DC heroes.



You do realize that Underground was published by Mayfair, right?  As in the _Mayfair_ Exponential Gaming System (MEGS) that powered DC Heroes, also published by Mayfair?

Or are you just carelessly using the term rip-off?  Because in North America it has a rather negative connotation (someone taking something they aren't entitled to) that is definitely undeserved in this instance, but maybe you're one of them furriner types...

KoOS


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## Arnwyn (Aug 7, 2004)

Umbran said:
			
		

> This isn't precisely true.  The free market isn't perfect.  There are demands that never get filled.



True, of course. But (usually) there are good reasons for that (the biggest being "not profitable" or "too risky"). Whether that's true for "D&D products accessible to kids" is unknown unless heavy market research is done. The only way to know is to conduct such market research, or (as The Sigil is doing) take a risk and bring out such a product.

My point remains though - the consumer has every right to hold the attitudes mentioned by The Sigil in the previous post(s).


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## Nisarg (Aug 7, 2004)

King of Old School said:
			
		

> Not to be overly pedantic, but...
> 
> 
> You do realize that Underground was published by Mayfair, right?  As in the _Mayfair_ Exponential Gaming System (MEGS) that powered DC Heroes, also published by Mayfair?
> ...





Ok, "spin-off", then. It wasn't meant to mean anything other than that the system for Underground wasn't even anything original or innovative. 
I certainly did NOT mean they were commiting some kind of intellectual theft, just that they had nothing innovative in the game, system-wise.

Nisarg


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## Gregor Hutton (Aug 7, 2004)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> A|State came out in February, it's true...but where?  It's a little RPG from the UK and I have no idea where it's available or how big a print run it's had.




It's true that Contested Ground Studios is a small company from Scotland, _but_ the game was printed in Canada with fulfillment from Osseum in the US. In the UK distribution is through Esdevium. So the game should be widely available in US, UK and European game stores.

I think it would be very difficult in the current market to print and distribute a game from the UK. (That's not to say that people haven't done this recently ... but it's hard, hard work and with a considerably reduced profit margin. Games like Principia Malefex and Crimson Empire have considerably less name value in the US than a/state.)

However, I'm not foolish enough to think that a game like a/state should be instantly well known. Being nominated for ENnies will hopefully give the game more exposure.

Also, I agree with Ray Winninger's post. (I bought Underground at the time it came out, and it had what would now be considered very strong sales, but expectations were far higher in those days.) There was a considerable slump in sales of RPGs in the mid-nineties as card games filled shop shelves and ate up more of gamers' cash. Mixed with the unrealistic expectations of publishers and inflated overheads it's not surprising in hindsight that so many companies went to the wall or had severe financial problems.

I figure that companies these days run in a far more efficient manner, but it's hard, hard work.


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## Umbran (Aug 7, 2004)

arnwyn said:
			
		

> My point remains though - the consumer has every right to hold the attitudes mentioned by The Sigil in the previous post(s).




*nod*.  Yes, the consumer has the right to whatever attitude they want.  But as a practical matter, some attitudes may be better at getting you what you want than others.


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## MerricB (Aug 7, 2004)

WinningerR said:
			
		

> I don't really have any ideas on how to recruit new players on an individual level. But on the publisher level, the market could really use a strong intro product right now. I understand that WotC has a new intro product in the pipeline. I'm very interested in seeing what they're going to do with it.




Here's what I've gathered on it so far:

http://www.3rdedition.org/merricb/basicset.htm

Cheers!


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## Nisarg (Aug 7, 2004)

MerricB said:
			
		

> Here's what I've gathered on it so far:
> 
> http://www.3rdedition.org/merricb/basicset.htm
> 
> Cheers!





hmm, it looks like rather than actually providing a complete game, with simplified versions of the rules, they're just giving the same rules as standard 3.5 but only up to level 2.

That's totally the wrong way to go.. people need an EASIER version of D20, not an ultra-limited version of D&D that will feel like a rip-off with a couple of "how to play Rpgs" essays tacked on.

I mean hell, even the D&D basic set went to level 3!

what were they thinking??? 

Nisarg


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## Corinth (Aug 8, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> what were they thinking???



They were thinking of using the Basic Set as an easy lead-in product to point people to buying the PHB.


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## BiggusGeekus (Aug 8, 2004)

Hmmm.

I think "Introductory" or "Starter" would have been better than "Basic", but WotC marketing stopped returning my calls long ago and have taken to issuing restraining orders, so I wasn't exactly consulted.


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## MerricB (Aug 8, 2004)

Consider that the original Basic set was the first three levels and then pointed people to AD&D. 

Personally, I think the idea of creating an entirely different product line is something that should be avoided at all costs.

Cheers!


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## William Ronald (Aug 8, 2004)

MerricB said:
			
		

> Consider that the original Basic set was the first three levels and then pointed people to AD&D.
> 
> Personally, I think the idea of creating an entirely different product line is something that should be avoided at all costs.
> 
> Cheers!




MerricB, I seem to recall that having both the Dungeons and Dragons line and the _Advanced_ Dungeons and Dragons line tended to divide TSR's resources, and maybe confuse casual gamers.  

Now, a separate one shot product that leads to other RPGs might work.  (The new basic set could work, or possibly something with elements of an RPG and a more familiar type of game -- such as board games.)  It might also be good to have an introductory product with some character creation rules but with pregenerated characters as well.


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## Nisarg (Aug 8, 2004)

MerricB said:
			
		

> Consider that the original Basic set was the first three levels and then pointed people to AD&D.
> 
> Personally, I think the idea of creating an entirely different product line is something that should be avoided at all costs.
> 
> Cheers!




But the ONLY "basic" D&D version that ever worked was the D&D basic set, because it was a complete rules-set by itself.

With what WoTC is proposing now, the risk is that the buyer will feel its a "rip off".  First of all, the price is what, $24.95? That's not enough of a savings from the $30 the PHB costs to make it worthwhile, especially if in a week and a half they already have to buy the PHB anyways because they're at level 2.

Second, the reason (besides price) that the PHB itself is a bad "introductory" book is because the D&D 3.5 rules are far too complex as they stand.  What they need to do is not a seperate system altogether, but a vastly simplified system: no feats (except completely rigid and set feats as class bonuses), probably no skills (skill "checks" made on a basic roll of the appropriate attribute bonus + level), probably just the four basic classes, no prestige classes, probably no multiclassing.  Everything very basic, very archetypical, letting the gamer learn all the skills he needs to then eventually jump to regular D&D, but without having to make any complex calculations or hard choices.  The sort of thing where he could roll up the six stats, pick a class, and be ready to go because all the classes start exactly the same.

As for levels, it should let you get to something like 5th at least. Something where a kid who doesn't have a lot of money could get a LOT of mileage out of playing the game without having to buy anything else.

The goal of something like a D&D basic set is NOT to make money in and of itself (though it shouldn't be designed to lose money either), it should not even be intended to make its money back by having people buy the PHB a month or two months later. The goal is to make back its money by creating people satisfied with the roleplaying experience so that they will be gamers for life. You need to make their experience as easy as possible, and give them as much bang for their buck as possible.

Nisarg


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## pogre (Aug 8, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> With what WoTC is proposing now, the risk is that the buyer will feel its a "rip off".  First of all, the price is what, $24.95? That's not enough of a savings from the $30 the PHB costs to make it worthwhile, especially if in a week and a half they already have to buy the PHB anyways because they're at level 2.
> Nisarg




The original basic - blue cover sold for $10.00. At the time the new Advanced D&D Player's Handbook was selling for $12.00. The original basic did go to third level though.


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## Nisarg (Aug 8, 2004)

pogre said:
			
		

> The original basic - blue cover sold for $10.00. At the time the new Advanced D&D Player's Handbook was selling for $12.00. The original basic did go to third level though.




Hmm. Point taken. 

Ultimately, more important than if it goes to 2nd, 3rd or 5th level is the question of whether WoTC will be able to sell the basic set in Toys R Us or Sears.  If it can, then we may see a huge gain of fan base.  If it can't, then I suspect this basic set will make little difference in the gaming hobby.

Nisarg


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## BiggusGeekus (Aug 8, 2004)

fyi

What cost $10 in 1980 would cost $24.17 in 2003. 
What cost $12 in 1980 would cost $29.01 in 2003. 

 source: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi


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## buzz (Aug 8, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> What they need to do is not a seperate system altogether, but a vastly simplified system: no feats (except completely rigid and set feats as class bonuses), probably no skills (skill "checks" made on a basic roll of the appropriate attribute bonus + level), probably just the four basic classes, no prestige classes, probably no multiclassing.



This is effectively what the new Basic set is, but without making the incredible mistake of creating a whole separate game. The Basic set presents players with a limited menu of options to use with a set of pregenerated PCs while still being essentially 3e D&D. This is good, because *options confuse newbies*. This also very close to what the original blue-book Basic set was back in 1977.

Then, once they move on to full-on D&D, they will have passing familiarity with the basic components of the system, rather than having to be taught a whole new way of doing this ("Feats? What are those?").

The core of d20's D&D is, IMHO, pretty simple. Your class defines your role. Your abilities tell you who you are. Your skills define what you know. Your feats are unique powers. I don't see any need to make a special, even simpler version of it specially for newbies.

The new Basic set will be good. I only hpoe that we'll see it grace the shelves of Toys R' Us.


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## pogre (Aug 8, 2004)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Ultimately, more important than if it goes to 2nd, 3rd or 5th level is the question of whether WoTC will be able to sell the basic set in Toys R Us or Sears.  If it can, then we may see a huge gain of fan base.  If it can't, then I suspect this basic set will make little difference in the gaming hobby.




I agree.

I am looking forward to the Basic Set as a way to introduce new people to the game. I plan on buying it and using it with my son when he gets a little older. I hope the Basic Set is also a tool for current gamers to introduce new folks to D&D as well as gaining new adherents through mainstream channels.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Aug 8, 2004)

pogre said:
			
		

> I plan on buying it and using it with my son when he gets a little older.




Dude. 

You have miles and miles of Master Maze in your house and thousands of beautifully painted miniatures. 

If that's not enough to light the fire in your son, ain't nothin' Wizards is going to release that will do the trick.


Wulf


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## MerricB (Aug 11, 2004)

buzz said:
			
		

> This is effectively what the new Basic set is, but without making the incredible mistake of creating a whole separate game. The Basic set presents players with a limited menu of options to use with a set of pregenerated PCs while still being essentially 3e D&D. This is good, because *options confuse newbies*. This also very close to what the original blue-book Basic set was back in 1977.
> 
> Then, once they move on to full-on D&D, they will have passing familiarity with the basic components of the system, rather than having to be taught a whole new way of doing this ("Feats? What are those?").
> 
> ...




I have anecdotes from my FLGS owner about children who have been introduced to 3E through the D&D Adventure Game at parties and the like, and who have then gone on to buy the Core Books.

There are two big differences between the D&D Adventure Game (3E) and the D&D Basic Game (3.5E): 

One is that it uses miniatures rather than counters. Don't underestimate how much of an impact miniatures can have on a set.

The other is that it provides simple character generation rules! The Adventure Game was only pre-generated characters. The Basic Game will have both pre-generated characters _and_ char-gen rules.

Cheers!


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## William Ronald (Aug 11, 2004)

MerricB said:
			
		

> I have anecdotes from my FLGS owner about children who have been introduced to 3E through the D&D Adventure Game at parties and the like, and who have then gone on to buy the Core Books.
> 
> There are two big differences between the D&D Adventure Game (3E) and the D&D Basic Game (3.5E):
> 
> ...




I am glad to hear about the pre-generated characters and char-gen rules for the Basic Game.  I think this will let people quickly have a feel for the game by using pre-generated characters, and then can create their own characters for an adventure.  It might be the best of both worlds.


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