12-10-2011, 04:45 AM
chirine ba kal Wrote:My personal take on the lawsuits is that Gary wanted very badly to be a 'respectable' author and publisher; the trade dress and format for what became AD&D was based primarily on what the largest bookseller in the US at that time, B. Dalton's, was dictating for their in-store display format. Boxed sets like the original D&D, were 'too crude' for the mass retail market, and any new products had to be either up to the standards set by Avalon Hill for boxed games or be 8 1/2" by 11" hardbound books. Period. Another driver in the marketing of AD&D was the tournament game, which was a direct follow-on from the historical miniatures world that both Gary and Dave came from. (Ancients were the worst of this trend; see also the WRG sets of rules, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. I have an opinion about tournaments and tournament players, and got entirely out of historical miniatures as a result.) The modules that these Gen Con tournaments generated provided new products, as they could be easily produced and shrink-wrapped to fit B. Dalton's retail format.
I do think that the newer formats work better. I even prefer the WotC-era hardbacks to the AD&D-era boxed sets. When I buy second hand boxed sets, I need to do a ton of research to make sure I know what is supposed to be in the box, before I can buy it. And boxed sets get squished a lot easier than hardbacks.
Ironically, the smaller sized books (like Suppliment II) are now much cheaper to obtain via Print on Demand technology, than the large hardback sizes that TSR started with and WotC focused on. Perhaps a return to the older ways of doing things will help minority settings to continue to be sold to a core-fanbase during the times when less people are buying stuff.
chirine ba kal Wrote:Once the game took off, the money started rolling in, and people got a little goofy. My personal experience, as well as my conversations with both Dave and Gary, was that both of the Blume brothers got just a little too greedy and thought themselves just a little too clever; the result was their cutting Prof. Barker and EPT off, as they were able to play on the fact that EPT out-sold D&D to persuade Gary to agree to drop Tekumel. (I've seen all the letters back and forth, between TSR and Prof. Barker; it makes for both interesting reading and a classic case of how to start a war by provocative letters.) When TSR refused to pay Dave a royalty on AD&D, Dave had no option but to sue, and Prof. Barker was only too happy to help him out. The Blume brothers made asses of themselves in court during their testimony, Gary was made to look like an idiot, and that was pretty much that after a lot of time and money was spent by the Blumes to try and wriggle out of a very bad business decision.
Erm, let me get this straight. TSR had the rights to sell Empire of the Petal Throne and it was more successful than D&D and they didn't want to pull in as much cash as possible from it? That seems like insanity to me. :?
Do you know if Kara-Tur was an attempt to make an "in-house" copy of Tekumel?
chirine ba kal Wrote:*Sigh*. Not pretty to watch, and not at all helpful to the game hobby / industry...
It is kind of ironic that Gary got pushed into shafting Dave and then got shafted himself a couple of years down the line. The people that did that were kind of cutting the heads off of the geese that were laying the golden eggs.
I never really followed any of those politics at the time, but it seems to me that the internal politics that have pushed several setting creators away from their product lines has cost TSR a ton of potential cash.