Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by AsenRG

Isn't the OSR helping there?


Tell us, oh, Chirine, the tale(s) of Turshaz Arrio...

And tell us, oh mighty Gronan, of MARB's play in your campaign. So far, you've told us one fact that I presume was about it: that when Phil told you the monsters in your dungeon wouldn't have a place to eat, you've added a McD for monsters to the dungeon's lower levels!


I really, really hope you're kidding there.

No, probably not. I'm sure I'll get in trouble for saying this, but the OSR seems to be a different market then the 'mass market' that Hasbro is selling to. From what I have seen, there isn't a lot of OSR material available in the FLGS market.

Well, Phil wanted to play a bit along the way, so he rolled this guy up in order to be able to participate. Dave Arneson would GM those bits, and I think I did as well on a couple of occasions. Phil was very good, and very much into being a Livyani. I'll try to remember more; I also did him as a miniature, and I'll try to get a photo for you - he's still in the game room.

No, I'm not kidding. Dave was quite probably the nicest guy I've ever known, but TSR and the people in Lake Geneva were his personal demons. (When I talked to Luke Gygax, back in March, he said the folks there had the same view of Dave as he had of them.) AGI was a stick to beat TSR with, and Tekumel and I were the sharp end of that stick. Publishing Phil wasn't a business decision for Dave, it was a way to twit the Blumes, and having the Akbar and Jeff Show as the big, noisy, bright, loud circus act was worth hauling us around; it made the TSR efforts at marketing look pedestrian in comparison - this guy in steel armor attracted all the crowds, and got all the girls. (Origins in Dallas, 1982; three of them. I have the photo that Dave took of all of us in costume in front of the booth.)

The other thing Dave was trying to do with Adventure Games was, in his own words, "turn gaming back into what it should be." In other words, an extension of campaign rules for adult wargamers.

Even in 1982-83 several of AGI's products had a "retro" feel, before "retro" was a thing. First Fantasy Campaign is a lot closer in style and spirit to the three little brown books than anything being published in the 80s. "Mutant" was just AGI's version of "Gamma World". (Did it ever actually get published?) And the large SF rule set I can't remember the name of (Chirine and I rather satirically called it "Star Thing" because of its sheer size) would have been a world beater in 1976. But by 1981 you had Traveller, Star Frontiers, and FASA's incredibly good STAR TREK game, and the "generic SF build your own universe toolkit" was an obsolete product.

It's also why the straight wargames AGI published were excellent. I don't know enough about the 18th century to criticize "Compleat Brigadier," but it sold very well, as did "Jonny Reb."

Pretty much EVERYBODY mocked TSR for their marketing to kids, and for the goofy "D&D" cartoon show. But really, they knew what they were doing; another "thing I learned in business school" is that the 11 to18 demographic is a juicy one. Those little varmints have a lot of discretionary income.

Lseeon Learned... Don't scoff at what the biggest by far company in the business is doing.

Of course, it meant that when TSR sales started to fall the entire market deflated faster then a punctured whoopee cushion. I saw the first signs of the collapse but didn't know what I was looking at... in 1981 I was working at a bookstore when the G series of modules was rereleased as one module. Since we still had several copies of each of the old ones I advised against buying any. Rereleasing old modules in new packaging in the bookstore trade, where returns are a real thing, eventually turned around and bit TSR in the nuts.

I may not be back for several days. Have fun.

The other place I've always felt that Games Workshop had an easy in was that TSR moved away from anything horrific or occult-looking in their games. Sure they were selling to kids, but the older fans often shifted to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay in the late eighties because its tone was closer to the older D&D material. Games Workshop was edgy and humorous and later TSR tended to be apologetic and dry. I've always thought the removal of the cartoons in the DMG to have been a huge mistake.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

No, probably not. I'm sure I'll get in trouble for saying this, but the OSR seems to be a different market then the 'mass market' that Hasbro is selling to. From what I have seen, there isn't a lot of OSR material available in the FLGS market.

Well, Phil wanted to play a bit along the way, so he rolled this guy up in order to be able to participate. Dave Arneson would GM those bits, and I think I did as well on a couple of occasions. Phil was very good, and very much into being a Livyani. I'll try to remember more; I also did him as a miniature, and I'll try to get a photo for you - he's still in the game room.

No, I'm not kidding. Dave was quite probably the nicest guy I've ever known, but TSR and the people in Lake Geneva were his personal demons. (When I talked to Luke Gygax, back in March, he said the folks there had the same view of Dave as he had of them.) AGI was a stick to beat TSR with, and Tekumel and I were the sharp end of that stick. Publishing Phil wasn't a business decision for Dave, it was a way to twit the Blumes, and having the Akbar and Jeff Show as the big, noisy, bright, loud circus act was worth hauling us around; it made the TSR efforts at marketing look pedestrian in comparison - this guy in steel armor attracted all the crowds, and got all the girls. (Origins in Dallas, 1982; three of them. I have the photo that Dave took of all of us in costume in front of the booth.)

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

The other thing Dave was trying to do with Adventure Games was, in his own words, "turn gaming back into what it should be." In other words, an extension of campaign rules for adult wargamers.

Even in 1982-83 several of AGI's products had a "retro" feel, before "retro" was a thing. First Fantasy Campaign is a lot closer in style and spirit to the three little brown books than anything being published in the 80s. "Mutant" was just AGI's version of "Gamma World". (Did it ever actually get published?) And the large SF rule set I can't remember the name of (Chirine and I rather satirically called it "Star Thing" because of its sheer size) would have been a world beater in 1976. But by 1981 you had Traveller, Star Frontiers, and FASA's incredibly good STAR TREK game, and the "generic SF build your own universe toolkit" was an obsolete product.

It's also why the straight wargames AGI published were excellent. I don't know enough about the 18th century to criticize "Compleat Brigadier," but it sold very well, as did "Jonny Reb."

Pretty much EVERYBODY mocked TSR for their marketing to kids, and for the goofy "D&D" cartoon show. But really, they knew what they were doing; another "thing I learned in business school" is that the 11 to18 demographic is a juicy one. Those little varmints have a lot of discretionary income.

Lseeon Learned... Don't scoff at what the biggest by far company in the business is doing.

Of course, it meant that when TSR sales started to fall the entire market deflated faster then a punctured whoopee cushion. I saw the first signs of the collapse but didn't know what I was looking at... in 1981 I was working at a bookstore when the G series of modules was rereleased as one module. Since we still had several copies of each of the old ones I advised against buying any. Rereleasing old modules in new packaging in the bookstore trade, where returns are a real thing, eventually turned around and bit TSR in the nuts.

I may not be back for several days. Have fun.

Okay...thank you, both of you! That's a part of gaming history I completely ignored. Books on gaming history don't help here even if you buy them, unless you read them...and they've been sitting on another PC for what should be ages now.

Not that I disagree completely with Arneson's views on the matter, as presented, but I also don't find myself agreeing completely...and it was probably even more complicated than you could describe in forum posts. Humans often are these complex, interesting little buggers, and then we discuss them on forums, reducing them to whatever we can write...

I think I'd better stop delving on this topic now.

Originally Posted by David Johansen

The other place I've always felt that Games Workshop had an easy in was that TSR moved away from anything horrific or occult-looking in their games. Sure they were selling to kids, but the older fans often shifted to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay in the late eighties because its tone was closer to the older D&D material. Games Workshop was edgy and humorous and later TSR tended to be apologetic and dry. I've always thought the removal of the cartoons in the DMG to have been a huge mistake.

Thank you for putting in words the tonal shift. I was trying to remember what bugged me when reading "late TSR" for the first time. And yeah, I migrated to other systems as well, mostly because of it...also because the only DM for "late TSR" I knew was atrocious in more than one way, but the books themselves were part of it.

The sadder part is, lately I've been getting the same feeling from lots of the books of big game publishers.


Anyway, enough with dwelling on this! Chirine, I asked you about the Saving Gordon Dickson's Books last, right? Can you tell us more about his writing?

Whatever you think is relevant and not often mentioned would be fine.

And a short follow-up question, if I may: I'm sure you knew of a short little game named Dragon Warriors, given you solved the author's judicial case...but was it known among gamers in the USA, or was it mainly popular in the UK?

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

The other thing Dave was trying to do with Adventure Games was, in his own words, "turn gaming back into what it should be." In other words, an extension of campaign rules for adult wargamers.

Even in 1982-83 several of AGI's products had a "retro" feel, before "retro" was a thing. First Fantasy Campaign is a lot closer in style and spirit to the three little brown books than anything being published in the 80s. "Mutant" was just AGI's version of "Gamma World". (Did it ever actually get published?) And the large SF rule set I can't remember the name of (Chirine and I rather satirically called it "Star Thing" because of its sheer size) would have been a world beater in 1976. But by 1981 you had Traveller, Star Frontiers, and FASA's incredibly good STAR TREK game, and the "generic SF build your own universe toolkit" was an obsolete product.

It's also why the straight wargames AGI published were excellent. I don't know enough about the 18th century to criticize "Compleat Brigadier," but it sold very well, as did "Jonny Reb."

Pretty much EVERYBODY mocked TSR for their marketing to kids, and for the goofy "D&D" cartoon show. But really, they knew what they were doing; another "thing I learned in business school" is that the 11 to18 demographic is a juicy one. Those little varmints have a lot of discretionary income.

Lseeon Learned... Don't scoff at what the biggest by far company in the business is doing.

Of course, it meant that when TSR sales started to fall the entire market deflated faster then a punctured whoopee cushion. I saw the first signs of the collapse but didn't know what I was looking at... in 1981 I was working at a bookstore when the G series of modules was rereleased as one module. Since we still had several copies of each of the old ones I advised against buying any. Rereleasing old modules in new packaging in the bookstore trade, where returns are a real thing, eventually turned around and bit TSR in the nuts.

I may not be back for several days. Have fun.

Miss? Another beer for my General, please? Thank you!

Yeah, I'd agree with this premise; neither Dave nor Gary nor Phil were ever simple one-dimensional people. Yes, Dave really did want to turn back the clock, and we had some pretty darn good products in that vein: "Compleat Brigadier", "Rails Through The Rockies", and "Harpoon" all fall under that aegis. "Mutant" never made it our of playtesting; the boxes looked lovely, but were eventually donated to the local F/SF convention for use as registration packet containers. "Star Thing" - what was it formally called? I can't recall, as I never got a look at the manuscript - never made it through typesetting, let along playtest.

When AGI stayed on historical grounds, they did very well; with the exception of Ken Fletcher, all of them were Dave's buddies from the First Minnesota Volunteers, so I think it was built-in. They never found their feet with RPGs; "Adventures in Fantasy" was about it, and of course us 'Tekumel Boat People' (1). And they never could figure out why we could sell the merchandise...

Fascinating, looking back on all of this, from this distance in time...

(1) 'The Tekumel Boat People' was Dave's name for us; we lived in the basement of 1278 Selby, AGI's building (Dave and his family loved on the top floor) where we lived up pallets and under tarps; when it rained, water would come up out of the floor drain, and when somebody flushed the AGI toilet, water would come down out of the ceiling. Oh, those were the days, weren't they?

Originally Posted by David Johansen

The other place I've always felt that Games Workshop had an easy in was that TSR moved away from anything horrific or occult-looking in their games. Sure they were selling to kids, but the older fans often shifted to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay in the late eighties because its tone was closer to the older D&D material. Games Workshop was edgy and humorous and later TSR tended to be apologetic and dry. I've always thought the removal of the cartoons in the DMG to have been a huge mistake.

Agreed. You could never gotten EPT past the Morality Police at TSR, as it violated something like 90% of their strictures against 'unwholesome' content. I can recall some of them having the vapors over our stuff, even back as early as 1980 or so.

Originally Posted by AsenRG

Okay...thank you, both of you! That's a part of gaming history I completely ignored. Books on gaming history don't help here even if you buy them, unless you read them...and they've been sitting on another PC for what should be ages now.

Not that I disagree completely with Arneson's views on the matter, as presented, but I also don't find myself agreeing completely...and it was probably even more complicated than you could describe in forum posts. Humans often are these complex, interesting little buggers, and then we discuss them on forums, reducing them to whatever we can write...

I think I'd better stop delving on this topic now.


Thank you for putting in words the tonal shift. I was trying to remember what bugged me when reading "late TSR" for the first time. And yeah, I migrated to other systems as well, mostly because of it...also because the only DM for "late TSR" I knew was atrocious in more than one way, but the books themselves were part of it.

The sadder part is, lately I've been getting the same feeling from lots of the books of big game publishers.


Anyway, enough with dwelling on this! Chirine, I asked you about the Saving Gordon Dickson's Books last, right? Can you tell us more about his writing?

Whatever you think is relevant and not often mentioned would be fine.

And a short follow-up question, if I may: I'm sure you knew of a short little game named Dragon Warriors, given you solved the author's judicial case...but was it known among gamers in the USA, or was it mainly popular in the UK?

Ok, let's see...

Yes; they were complex people, and short posts just don;t do them justice. The game hobby / industry back in those days was a lot more nuanced and complicated then it comes across in references. And yes, I also thought that the 'later TSR stuff had been 'sanitized' for the mass market.

On Gordy... Well, he was a good, solid writer, who could be relied on to produce good stuff by editors and publishers. I thought his and Poul Anderson's 'Hoka' series was hysterical; the 'Childe Cycle', which included the Dorsai series within it, got a little philosophical for me but I still liked it. I just liked his work - it had a resonance with me, and I think that was because we also had a lot of stuff in common like our love of history. What he didn't know about Sir John Hawkwood would fit on a small postage stamp, and his telling me about that period and those people had an influence on how we played in Phil's campaign. Kathy Marshall drew Yours Truly as a version of Frederigo di Montefeltro (spelling's probably bad, sorry), the mercenary Duke of Urbino.

He was very approachable, and very kind. I enjoyed doing up the Dorsai miniatures and vehicles for him. (No idea what happened to them after he passed away.)

What else? Themes? Characters? What would you like?

No, "Dragon Warriors" didn't seem to make any kind of a splash here in the US; I don't recall ever seeing any copies in the local stores. Maybe somebody can help us with this?

Another thing I find interesting to note is that originally Warhammer had a strong, do it yourself, anything goes mentality, and was in fact more of a wargame than an rpg. I think what Games Workshop succeeded in doing was proving that higher end products could succeed in a market where minigames had been a major wave in the early eighties.

I recall reading that Rick Loomis was the first one to charge more money for his Diplomacy play by mail games and it allowed him to dominate the industry.

So, I would posit that with some glossy, color photos, and a price hike it's entirely possible somebody else could have gotten to it first. On the other hand I think part of it was that the bubble of players from the fad hit the age where they had jobs and time on their hands right when Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Warhammer Fantasy Battle Third Edition hit in their big, shiny hard backs. So the window of opportunity was narrow. TSR could have done it if they had any vision or perhaps Heritage if things had gone a bit differently. FASA was close but Battle Tech took too much record keeping and didn't do the large battles that sell tons of miniatures well.

Originally Posted by David Johansen

Another thing I find interesting to note is that originally Warhammer had a strong, do it yourself, anything goes mentality, and was in fact more of a wargame than an rpg. I think what Games Workshop succeeded in doing was proving that higher end products could succeed in a market where minigames had been a major wave in the early eighties.

I recall reading that Rick Loomis was the first one to charge more money for his Diplomacy play by mail games and it allowed him to dominate the industry.

So, I would posit that with some glossy, color photos, and a price hike it's entirely possible somebody else could have gotten to it first. On the other hand I think part of it was that the bubble of players from the fad hit the age where they had jobs and time on their hands right when Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Warhammer Fantasy Battle Third Edition hit in their big, shiny hard backs. So the window of opportunity was narrow. TSR could have done it if they had any vision or perhaps Heritage if things had gone a bit differently. FASA was close but Battle Tech took too much record keeping and didn't do the large battles that sell tons of miniatures well.

Quite probably, although some analysts have suggested that GW is not really a part of what most people consider ' the gaming hobby'; we're in what amounts to a small niche market, while GW aims at the much larger mass market. I'm thinking here of all the commentaries over the past years about 'Why is GW not making games for me?' that a lot of the 'older' (read anything older then twenty-somethings) fans make in various forum postings.

Back when I was in GAMA, what I thought was very interesting was the relatively narrow focus that people had - your point of 'thinking big' with more color and spash was not happening, as I think there just wasn't enough investment money in the RPG hobby at that time to pay for such. (Let alone the miniatures hobby.)

So, yes, I think you're right; GW caught the tail end of the D&D bubble, and managed to grab those dollars and pounds pretty neatly.