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Thread : Surprising comment from Jeff Grubb
Started at 03-30-06 04:19 PM by Thorf
Visit at http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=613393
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[Post 1]
Author : Thorf
Date : 03-30-06 04:19 PM
Thread Title : Surprising comment from Jeff Grubb

I've been researching details on OD&D and Mystara authors tonight, and I've come up with lots of interesting stuff - as well as a lot of surprising stuff.

But perhaps most surprising was this (the part in question needs no emphasis):

Date:   03-02-2001 09:55

Good story. Too bad its wrong.

I designed the first TSR Buck Rogers boardgame (The one with lots of plastic). Kept my job after it came out. Wrote the world bible for the first Buck Rogers roleplaying game (The D&D clone). Kept my job after it came out. Designed the Buck Rogers HIgh Adventure RPG. Kept my job after it came out. Left company under my own steam to go freelance about two years late. Spent three years on the outside before coming back to the siren call of TSR, then nestled in the bosum of Wizards of the Coast.

Got to work on my Project X's before Buck Rogers. Got to work on them afterwards. Impact of Buck Rogers on my career - negligable (in fact, The Buck Rogers High Adventure game got four puppy-paws from the White Wolf magazine, which I appreciated greatly). Buck Rogers was fun (Just don't talk to me about Mystara - THAT was a pain).

And actually, I got the assignment to do Buck because I showed up at the first meeting with my wife's copy of the Complete Buck Rogers comic strips. There was little competition from the other designers since it would BE under the watchful eye of the boss.

Jeff Grubb
Designer
Buck Rogers and lots of other stuff.

You can read the original here (http://www.rpg.net/forums/phorum/pf/read.php?f=19&i=236&t=186); you might want to read the first post there to understand his reply in full.

 :eek:  :confused:  :weep:

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[Post 2]
Author : Cthulhudrew
Date : 03-30-06 04:59 PM

I'm not entirely sure what he might be referencing in regards to Mystara, though I suspect it has something to do with what Grubb wanted to do regarding the 2nd-editionification of our beloved world. 

I heard some of the Grubb story from Geoff, who heard it from James "Mystaros" Mishler (who heard it from Grubb himself), and then later got some more information on the situation from James (again, who had heard it from Grubb). I don't recall all the specifics, though I believe I've got some email correspondences about the situation that could help shed light, but the situation as I understand it was thus:

For the 2nd Edition version of Mystara, Jeff Grubb wanted to do essentially a Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk/Dark Sun Campaign Setting style of product- something comprehensive, that would cover the Known World in general, and provide character creation tips, etc. Essentially, one big boxed set that could serve as a "basis" for later products- the same model that TSR generally used for its various campaign settings, and that tends to be used by most other companies (notably WotC) to this day. 

Unfortunately, a decision was made to instead release individual boxed sets for each nation of the known world (like we got with K:KoA, G:KoM) and put those out instead. So Jeff Grubb's initial idea was sunk. 

To further muddy things, Grubb's plans included advancing the timeline of the set that he was working on (Karameikos)- among other things, he was going to deal with the death of Oliver Jowett and the war among the Church of Karameikos- but it was decided that he shouldn't mess with things, and the end result of what came out was essentially just a reprint of what we OD&Ders got with Gaz1.

Those are just the details I recall, but I think that was the gist of it, and could very well be what Grubb was referring to. I know that he was really jazzed about being tapped to do the 2nd edition of Mystara, and had big plans that were forcibly scrapped by his bosses. 

I will look and see if I still have any of the relevant reporting when I get home, but Mystaros would be a better person to contact about it (or, alternatively, Grubb himself- I think James mentioned he still talks to him every once in a while), as opposed to my "further-removed-than-even-third-party" self. :)

[EDIT] Some other people to contact for more information on history of Mystara-

Monte Cook (http://www.montecook.com) (who is the main designer of Glantri: Kingdom of Magic). He has his own message boards on his site, and might be able to provide some information. He is generally pretty good and genial about responding to people over there. I noticed recently that he has some interviews with former TSR employees up there for the 30th anniversary of the game. I didn't see anything Mystara specific referenced in the entries of people I know were associated with Mystara (such as William W. Connors), but you might be able to find something.

Steve Miller (http://www.geocities.com/nuelow/bugs.html) has his own messageboards over at his site. I asked him some questions about Mystara years ago (sadly, his site doesn't have archives, and I didn't save the messages). He had run some Mystara campaigns while with TSR, and was rumored to be involved in the vaporware Wendar/Denagoth gazetteer. In any case, he had some insights and comments that he shared, and was pretty open about it. He wasn't directly involved in the Mystara line as I recall from our correspondences, but again, might have been down the road, and certainly had some knowledge of what was going on with it.

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[Post 3]
Author : Cthulhudrew
Date : 03-30-06 05:09 PM
Thread Title : Found something

From the Mystara-L Archives (Feb 23, 2003):

<<Do you, James, (or anyone else here on the list) know anything about this? IE, was Jeff Grubb constrained from doing certain things in the KoK boxed
set by editorial mandate, or something? And does anyone know any specifics
of what he would have liked to have done?

I know exactly what he would have done; I carpooled with him when I worked at WizKids, and talked with him extensively about it. He was working on a
"world book," much as we are doing with the Hacklopedia Mystarica (and was
done with the Forgotten Realms in 3E D&D.) Had it almost done, in fact, when
the suits at TSR (in those days) decided that they wanted to go with the
boxed set, kingdom-by-kingdom format. So they scrapped the world book and
did a revamp of the Gazetteer; that's why it is almost word-for-word a copy
of the Gaz, even down to the mistakes. They had no time to do it, as the
suits changed their mind at the last minute.

Pity, really, I think Mystara would have done much better, and been a going
and growing concern for AD&D, had he had his way.

James

I expect this may be what Jeff Grubb was talking about- or at least part of it.

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[Post 4]
Author : Thorf
Date : 03-30-06 05:32 PM

Wow...  That's pretty depressing.  But it's good to know that Jeff Grubb's comment probably wasn't aimed at Mystara in general, as I first thought.

Thanks for sharing!

Hmm, all this searching about for ex-TSR authors tonight, and now your comments about James, have made me realise how different the situation is for roleplaying nowadays - compared to how it was back when Mystara was actually being published.  We can actually talk with and quiz up the authors, find out stuff that other people have asked them, and so on.

It's just a shame that Mystara only exists now for our small Internet communities.

Reading through old Dragon magazines (yep, I had a busy night tonight!) also made me think about the state of roleplaying today - which is something I am very much distanced from, because here in Japan it seems to be almost dead.  I haven't really thought about the future of our hobby seriously in all the time I've been back on this board.  But it seems that there are lots of issues, and things are not all rosy.

For the first time, I have a desire to pick up the 3rd Edition books and have a read, just to see what they're like.

And while I'm on these random thoughts: for a while now I have noticed that I don't really enjoy shopping much any more.  Why?  Because the things I want to buy are not available in normal shops.  I can go into a computer game shop here and not see one game I'm even remotely interested in.  The same is true when I go home to Scotland.

Doesn't this mean that I am an RPG customer whose potential revenue is being wasted?  I can't be the only one of us who feels this way.  How could the RPG companies tap into these players?

Is the current strategy of avoiding "dead" campaign settings really all that it's made out to be?

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[Post 5]
Author : Cthulhudrew
Date : 03-30-06 06:09 PM

For the first time, I have a desire to pick up the 3rd Edition books and have a read, just to see what they're like.

If you're mostly curious about the new system, save yourself a couple of bucks and look over the D20 System Reference Document (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35), or the hypertext (http://www.d20srd.org/) version of it. It should get you familiar with the concepts/system, and let you get a better idea of whether you want to purchase or not. (Not trying to dissuade you- I like 3E, in some ways better than OD&D, in some ways not as well; just before you buy, you should give it a look over.)

If you are curious about the quality of new products in terms of presentation, descriptive elements, etc., then I'd recommend checking out some of the Forgotten Realms books that have come out recently. In particular, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (even though 3.0) is a very good and comprehensive look at that world, and there is relatively little information within that is rules-dependent (it's mostly a sourcebook). Some of the regional books for FR are good as well- I really like Unapproachable East and Underdark. Serpent Empires is a really good one, too- less a geographic sourcebook than it is sort of a basis for an ongoing epic campaign based around serpentines/lizardmen/reptilekin as bad guys (a lot of material in there could easily be adapted to Carnifex/Serpentines, etc. for Mystara). 

Is the current strategy of avoiding "dead" campaign settings really all that it's made out to be?

I don't know. I don't know enough about marketing and economics, but it seems to me that, particularly with the ease of desktop publishing, that a good business model could be made by (say) WotC or someone to produce online products- .pdfs, etc.- that could be purchased and downloaded for a nominal fee that could be offered to "fringe" groups, such as those of us who frequent the Other Worlds boards. Even just providing free downloads- such as updated versions of "classic" modules (like the recent White Plume Mountain and Tomb of Horrors) might be a good idea- I know that I'd love to see a 3rd edition version of, say, X2: Castle Amber, and ideas like that might be enough to tempt even diehard OD&Dphiles to give the new edition of the game a look see, and potentially garner some more customers for WotC.

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[Post 6]
Author : Agathokles
Date : 03-31-06 02:15 AM

I know that I'd love to see a 3rd edition version of, say, X2: Castle Amber, and ideas like that might be enough to tempt even diehard OD&Dphiles to give the new edition of the game a look see, and potentially garner some more customers for WotC.

Uhm, not this diehard (A|O)D&Dphile!
Which is to say, we are too much of a diverse crowd, and a small one to begin with. Not exactly an inviting market, I suppose  ;)

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[Post 7]
Author : Arcanda
Date : 03-31-06 12:24 PM

Uhm, not this diehard (A|O)D&Dphile!Here too ;)

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[Post 8]
Author : JohnBiles
Date : 03-31-06 09:43 PM

Is the current strategy of avoiding "dead" campaign settings really all that it's made out to be?

It's like this--for a company like WOTC, you have to have pretty good sales in order to pay for the work that goes into a product.  Now, to some extent, a PDF does cut the cost of producing something.  But it innately lowers your sale base because many gamers don't want PDFs, and it doesn't reduce the cost of labor--you still have to buy art and pay someone to write it and they have to invest time in it.  Time which could be spent on something which will turn a higher profit.

Furthermore, one of the components of the collapse of TSR financially was supporting too many worlds at once and thus shrinking the potential buyer base for each product.

Sure, there are people who would buy various dead world stuff, but if there were enough people to support new product, those worlds would probably not have been killed to begin with.

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[Post 9]
Author : Thorf
Date : 04-01-06 04:35 AM

It's like this--for a company like WOTC, you have to have pretty good sales in order to pay for the work that goes into a product.  Now, to some extent, a PDF does cut the cost of producing something.  But it innately lowers your sale base because many gamers don't want PDFs, and it doesn't reduce the cost of labor--you still have to buy art and pay someone to write it and they have to invest time in it.  Time which could be spent on something which will turn a higher profit.

I don't think that PDF publishing is the way of the future - as far as I'm concerned, PDF publishing is primarily a tool of amateur designers, like most of us.  As you say, gamers don't want PDFs.  It's going to take some leaps in technology before we are all reading books from data pads, a la Star Trek.

Furthermore, one of the components of the collapse of TSR financially was supporting too many worlds at once and thus shrinking the potential buyer base for each product.

I know that this is touted around a lot nowadays, but I don't think it is a simple matter of black and white, one setting good, many settings bad.  The other side of the coin is that TSR embraced minority interests while WotC is only supports the majority.

I'm not saying that what they are doing is wrong, but isn't it better to snag both audiences?  All I am really saying is that there is a potential audience out there which is not being exploited.

Sure, there are people who would buy various dead world stuff, but if there were enough people to support new product, those worlds would probably not have been killed to begin with.

It's not just a matter of releasing "dead world stuff" - that would obviously fail in a heartbeat.  If they were to re-release old campaign worlds, they would clearly have to give them a full relaunch.

As for your last comment, well that is really a different subject altogether.  The demise of Mystara is intrinsically linked with the demise of the D&D game, and of course with its botched conversion to AD&D.  It's not simply a matter of saying that it was "killed" because there weren't enough people buying the products.  On the contrary, I have always had the impression that Mystara was killed at the height of its popularity.

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[Post 10]
Author : Agathokles
Date : 04-01-06 09:19 AM

It's going to take some leaps in technology before we are all reading books from data pads, a la Star Trek.

More than technology step, it's matter of changing habits -- even with my 6 years old handheld, I can bring with me a dozen or so large books (in compressed plain text, thanks to the Gutenberg project): modern handhelds have more than enough memory for some pdf books (and the smallest laptop is only 12cm long!)

The only real technology issue is that lcd screens are unreadable in sunlight, but even that will be solved in a few years.

The real problem is that up to now, most (commercial) ebook providers have tried to lock ebooks on dedicated hardware (to prevent people from copying the books, most likely) -- not a smart move, since the people's pockets are already full with cells and mp3 readers and the like.

Also, ebooks are not that cheap to produce. 
While republishing existing OD&D or AD&D stuff is almost cost free (especially the newer AD&D books, where there might have been no OCR cost), it is not the same with new books -- I just had a look at some recent rpg books that were published both as paper and e-books, and the price reduction is less than 50%.

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[Post 11]
Author : maddog
Date : 04-01-06 02:13 PM

I know that I'd love to see a 3rd edition version of, say, X2: Castle Amber

Just do what I did....OCR/Scan the text, maps and images from X2 into the word processor of your choice then go get the conversion document from http://www.enworld.org/downloads/index.php?cid=9 and paste in the 3e stats.  It took me about 3 or 4 days but I now have my 3e Castle Amber.

--Ray.

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[Post 12]
Author : JohnBiles
Date : 04-02-06 11:19 PM

I know that this is touted around a lot nowadays, but I don't think it is a simple matter of black and white, one setting good, many settings bad.  The other side of the coin is that TSR embraced minority interests while WotC is only supports the majority.

I'm not saying that what they are doing is wrong, but isn't it better to snag both audiences?  All I am really saying is that there is a potential audience out there which is not being exploited.


Several things come into this:
1) It costs Amount A for the labor for a book of length B, regardless of how many copies are sold.  And it takes X hours of work to produce it.
2) It costs Amount C to print D copies of a book of length B.  As D increases, C increases slower than D; in other words, it costs less per book to print 10,000 copies of a book than 3,000.  This is because 1) There's a fixed startup cost to set up the press to do the printing, 2) printers offer you a better deal on big purchases than small ones.    What this means is that you can afford to charge less for each volume of a 10,000 copy run than a 1,000 copy run.  This is a big chunk of why academic monographs cost way more than a hardback fiction book of the same length.  
3) Only part of a given audience will buy a product. Subdividing your audience the way TSR did means that only part of each sub-audience will buy a given product.  

Results:
1) This means smaller print runs, because you don't want to end up with unsold product.  This means higher prices, because smaller print runs cost more per volume.  
2) It also means that, if it takes, say, 200 hours of work to produce a 32 page module for Mystara, and the same 200 hours of work to produce a 32 page module for Forgotten Realms, the Mystara module is going to have to sell more copies just to break even than the Forgotten Realms one, because the Mystara audience is smaller and thus you can't print as many or you'll end up with a huge backlog of unsold product.  But a higher price is going to itself hurt sales.  
3) Companies invest their money where the highest profit is found.  The subdividing of the audience for D&D reduces the profitability of D&D products by robbing the publishers of economies of scale.  It becomes harder to make a profit off the products for the smaller sub-audiences.

Now, all that being said, sometimes it might be profitable to continue producing product for a smaller sub-audience if your larger audiences are saturated and there's no room for growth there.  Or if you can reduce the actual cost of your product for the smaller audience to change the profit ratio.  This is where the shift to PDF can be a big boon for niche games because it cuts out the whole problem of economies of scale in printing.

Probably our best hope for more Mystara products would be PDFs.



It's not just a matter of releasing "dead world stuff" - that would obviously fail in a heartbeat.  If they were to re-release old campaign worlds, they would clearly have to give them a full relaunch.

As for your last comment, well that is really a different subject altogether.  The demise of Mystara is intrinsically linked with the demise of the D&D game, and of course with its botched conversion to AD&D.  It's not simply a matter of saying that it was "killed" because there weren't enough people buying the products.  On the contrary, I have always had the impression that Mystara was killed at the height of its popularity.

Yeah, Mystara was, to my knowledge, doing pretty well.  Although ultimately,  it was killed because of the desire to exploit economies of scale by reducing the level of subdivision of TSR's audience.

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