nuTSR/Wonderfilled? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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GiantLands was basically finished before the “TSR” was slapped on the cover. Let’s see something done from the ground up.
 
Toadmaster said:
Gangbusters is one of the games WotC does not have up on Drivethru. That doesn't really mean much but it would make sense if they have licensed it or given up the trademark.
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I could be wrong. But if I remember correctly,
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Gangbusters was owned by the original writer, not TSR/Wizbros. Besides the trademark. Mark Hunt has licensed or is using the material with permission. Or something to that effect. I could be wrong. Mark if your out there please, correct me.
 
Warthur said:
a) The first paragraph pointlessly alienates a bunch of potential customers who might have been more interested had Ernie not chosen an answer that seems designed to antagonise them. You don't agree with some people's ideas about gender or whatever. Why court the controversy when you can just ignore it - unless, that is, you aren't confident that anyone will talk about you at all without that controversy. If you really want to wink to people who specifically want a publisher who comes down to that side of the culture war stuff, other people already kind of went there and did that. It's not going to make you stand out. From a pure business perspective, setting aside the politics, it is a bad use of the publicity.
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It's such a weird answer, because he doesn't really seem committed to it, he just kinda drops it in there all casual. If he'd built up a head of steam about it, fine, I could get that at least, if he went somewhere with it and explained why he feels it helps them make better games then that would be understandable too even though I'd probably disagree, but it's like... a quirky fact he wants you to know about him.

And y'know, shine on you crazy diamond, but... why make such a completely unforced error? It doesn't work for anyone. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that choosing your character's gender from M or F isn't what brings many folk to games night, folk who have used D&D as a safe space to experiment are likely to see his comments as a major negative, and as you say for people who are really dedicated to that sort of thing he's not going anywhere near far enough.

TristramEvans said:
The problem with Marmoreal Tomb isn't the length of time it's taking. I'm a Kingdom Death Backer, I can deal with long waits.

It was the blatant dishonesty to backers and the shutting down of communication. It's not AS BAD as Far West, and it does look like somethings are going to get delivered, probably not everything promised, but at least some stuff, maybe enough to satisfy the backers.

In other words, damnation through faint praise.
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Fair enough, I don't know the exact details because I didn't back the project and I don't follow Benoist any more. But... it's still Ernest's baby. He's still the one that messed up bad.
 
Ladybird said:
It's such a weird answer, because he doesn't really seem committed to it, he just kinda drops it in there all casual. If he'd built up a head of steam about it, fine, I could get that at least, if he went somewhere with it and explained why he feels it helps them make better games then that would be understandable too even though I'd probably disagree, but it's like... a quirky fact he wants you to know about him.

And y'know, shine on you crazy diamond, but... why make such a completely unforced error? It doesn't work for anyone. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that choosing your character's gender from M or F isn't what brings many folk to games night, folk who have used D&D as a safe space to experiment are likely to see his comments as a major negative, and as you say for people who are really dedicated to that sort of thing he's not going anywhere near far enough.
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It’s obvious he didn’t put any planning into these answers, but with anything else, the silent majority in the middle doesn’t have a dog in the hunt and just wants to be about their business. For those people it’s enough to know he’S not going to focus on Culture War issues. That stance probably does well with the TSR demographic.
 
Gabriel said:
Incidentally, I never did get an answer from the Gangbusters B/X guy about whether he was licensing the name or not. Anyone know if he just scooped up the abandoned trademark? It's been a while since I looked at the Gangbusters B/X book, but I don't think it carried over any of the old TSR Gangbusters material other than just being about the same general subject matter.
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I recall him saying he has the rights/license/whatevertgecorrect term on G+
 
David Johansen said:
So, to leave off on the legalities of the thing.

If nuTSR brings out a new edition of Star Frontiers, will you buy or back it? How much do you want to change? What do you want kept? What's the breaking point?
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Certainly would never "back" anything by Ernie Gygax. That ship has sailed. But as to how much they could change and still entice me to buy it?

Well, if it's a completely new system and setting, WTF is the point of calling it "Star Frontiers"? seems like a bait&switch - just come up with a new name for your new scifi game.

If it's the same setting with a different system - it's totally going to depend on what that system is. I don't dislike the SF setting. I'm also not especially in love with it, Dralasites aside. It's more nostalgia-bait for me than anything. I think it's a cool, interesting, setting that reminds me of pre-Star Wars SciFi paperbacks I consumed as a kid, Afred Bester, Harry Harrison, Van Vogt etc., leaning more towards the pulp. It's not expansive (at least what I've read of it), just gives you exacty as much as you need to go on, and that's fine. Worth licensing? Not sure. Cool enough that I would care about an etsy version with the seriel number filed off? Noooo...not really.

If it's the same system with a different setting - well, I already have the system. And I'm not in the market for a SciFI setting.

Best case scenario (insofar as attracting me personally as a potential customer) would be original setting and system, but cleaned up and tweaked, much like what the Star Fronteirsman guys did. Actually, they should just get the rights worked out and then hire on the Star Frontiersmen guys and publish their stuff.

But, that prolly ain't gonna happen. So...yeah.
 
CRKrueger said:
It’s obvious he didn’t put any planning into these answers,
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You can say that again.

CRKrueger said:
but with anything else, the silent majority in the middle doesn’t have a dog in the hunt and just wants to be about their business. For those people it’s enough to know he’S not going to focus on Culture War issues. That stance probably does well with the TSR demographic.
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But that's kinda my point. If you don't want to be involved, cool. Just don't mention it and carry on promoting your stuff.

But he did. He's not staying out of it, he has a stance which he specifically bought up in the context of his new company so obviously wants people to know about. He isn't neutral or apathetic.
 
So it seems the Gygax name is there to lure in nostalgic neckbeard types and connect with the TSR name/logo but for anyone who knows about Kickstarters and the delays/non delivery it's actually putting people off having anything to do with it? Talk about an own goal.

If this Nu TSR wants to gain any traction or esteem in the RPG sector it needs to associate with decent proven authors and put the TSR logo to their stuff, take a cut and go from there. Having no name no track record people write things and say 'We're TSR you should buy our unproven wares!' will end in tears. The TSR people (three of them as far as I can tell) should be there purely to judge submissions and say yay/nay/needs more work and go from there instead of big announcements when they've delivered nothing and have an iffy name to start with because of Kickstarter failure or at least poor track record.

Meh. What do I know, I'm just a schmuck with disposable income who was interested in new TSR until more details came out about a less than stellar performance up to now. Will I buy the game? Not until I've seen reviews which means someone else will be the guinea pig. Would I have bought the game sight unseen if circumstances were different? Yes. Steve Kenson, Kevin Crawford you name em, the RPG industry proven creative types that you know and trust would have caused me to shout

takemymoney.jpg


not people I never heard of and a guy trading off the family name with no track record of being a decent game designer.

Still, I'll watch to see if they take my 'advice' and get someone decent on board. Then charge a consultancy fee :grin:
 
Black Leaf said:
Let's steer away from EG's views or otherwise on the culture wars stuff please. It's not like there isn't a wealth of material to discuss here.
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Yeah, typical Twitter shitstorm (justified or not).

Without getting into the merit of anyone’s views — they don’t just need legal advice, they need a PR person or ten, stat.
 
TristramEvans said:
Best case scenario (insofar as attracting me personally as a potential customer) would be original setting and system, but cleaned up and tweaked, much like what the Star Fronteirsman guys did. Actually, they should just get the rights worked out and then hire on the Star Frontiersmen guys and publish their stuff.
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Honestly, what these people did pretty much scratched the small itch I had for the game. The only things that could improve it would be lots of high quality art, new quality adventures and strong VTT support.
 
TristramEvans said:
The problem with Marmoreal Tomb isn't the length of time it's taking. I'm a Kingdom Death Backer, I can deal with long waits.

It was the blatant dishonesty to backers and the shutting down of communication. It's not AS BAD as Far West, and it does look like somethings are going to get delivered, probably not everything promised, but at least some stuff, maybe enough to satisfy the backers.

In other words, damnation through faint praise.
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Plus as I understand it Troll Lord have stepped in to deliver what is going to be delivered, so it's not even a case of Ernie finally making good on his commitments, it's Ernie finally admitting that he can't get the job done and it'd be better to let someone else handle it.

It's like the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition and Horror On the Orient Express Kickstarters - the ones which were so badly botched by Charlie Krank (who was running Chaosium at the time) that it prompted Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen to leverage their ownership stakes to get him removed, install the Moon Design guys as a whole new regime, and basically rebuild Chaosium from the ground up. (Imagine what it takes to get Greg Stafford, who always struck me as being one of the nicest and most benign people in the industry, to give up on you and use boardroom tactics to mount a coup against you: that's how bad a place Chaosium had got into.)

In the end, good stuff came of that! Backers got their products, a bunch of people who'd been owed money by Chaosium for years got paid, a bunch of bridges that had been burned got fixed. But at the same time, I would never touch any Kickstarter Krank was involved with because of how badly he managed those projects before the rescue team swung into action. Same with Ernie.

Jenx said:
So it seems the Gygax name is there to lure in nostalgic neckbeard types and connect with the TSR name/logo but for anyone who knows about Kickstarters and the delays/non delivery it's actually putting people off having anything to do with it? Talk about an own goal.
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Exactly. And think about their level of visibility. They're not operating at a level where a lot of people who aren't all that up on gaming community news are going to even notice their existence. Some people will notice their existence without being aware of Ernie's history etc., sure - but I think there's greater than usual odds that anyone with their ear to the ground enough to hear about this also has their ear to the ground enough to hear about all the drama.
 
The Butcher said:
Yeah, typical Twitter shitstorm (justified or not).

Without getting into the merit of anyone’s views — they don’t just need legal advice, they need a PR person or ten, stat.
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Pretty much. I think we can stay in pub rules by noting that when someone pitches you a softball question which you really should have a clear answer to like "why a new TSR?", going off on irrelevant tangents which don't really address the question is just bad interview technique.
 
Ladybird said:
You can say that again.


But that's kinda my point. If you don't want to be involved, cool. Just don't mention it and carry on promoting your stuff.

But he did. He's not staying out of it, he has a stance which he specifically bought up in the context of his new company so obviously wants people to know about. He isn't neutral or apathetic.
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Exactly. By bringing it up he was making a point. One that I think many of us aren't appreciative of.


Edit: @ A Fiery Flying Roll Black Leaf Apologies if by agreeing with Ladybird I was violating the forum policies. I just noted your post as I read further down.
 
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Warthur said:
Pretty much. I think we can stay in pub rules by noting that when someone pitches you a softball question which you really should have a clear answer to like "why a new TSR?", going off on irrelevant tangents which don't really address the question is just bad interview technique.
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Indeed, you should at least get a couple of seasons into your show before you pull a Duck Dynasty.

Acmegamer said:
Exactly. By bringing it up he was making a point. One that I think many of us aren't appreciative of.
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Agreed. It’s an uncalled-for show of ignorance that’s not going to play well with most people outside of a very restricted and aging demographic. I’m not sure who they think their target audience is. They strike me as some guys who’ve been hanging out in the same social circles for the past half-century and don’t seem to realize that the wider gaming world doesn’t actually look like them anymore. I’d even say they’ve misread the room when it comes to the OSR scene, except they don’t even seem to be trying to appeal to them either.
 
An analogy: after Tim Schafer had that big hit Kickstarter to produce a new point-and-click adventure games, a bunch of Sierra old hands ran Kickstarters to make new games (or remakes of old games). Some of these crashed and burned, some of these came out but were no better than "alright", no great shakes, and someone who'd followed a lot of those projects made the good point when discussing it elsewhere that it felt like a lot of them basically hadn't played a point-and-click adventure since Sierra shuttered and hadn't really kept up with what the scene was doing in all those years when indies and small studios were putting out new point-and-clicks.

This feels like a similar situation: not only has the conversation moved forwards in mainstream game design and indie/story-game design, it's also moved forwards in the OSR scene and the world of retro-clones, and Ernie and others seem to have not kept up with any of it. They're popping up with something which seems irrelevant to a great many people, and to the people it might be relevant to and excite, they seem awkwardly out of step.
 
Hey, everybody. I'm rebooting Star Frontiers.

I don't own the name yet. It won't be the original Star Frontiers game system. Instead I'm going to use the Palladium system and make the game about space ponies.

I'll leave the other stuff to the lawyers.

Send me money. I totally promise to have the game ready by Christmas.

Oh, and I don't like you. You stink. This product is only for people who don't stink.
 
Toadmaster said:
I guess just slapping TSR on a product and hoping for nostalgia to get you the sales isn't a wining plan.
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They are at least a decade late with this plan. Back when Goodman Games was making 3E adventures that looked like old TSR modules, it was a clever idea, but there are thousands of adventures on DriveThru like that now. It's not that I won't buy something that resembles an old TSR product anymore, but it sure isn't enough to get my attention by itself.
TristramEvans said:
Certainly would never "back" anything by Ernie Gygax. That ship has sailed. But as to how much they could change and still entice me to buy it?

Well, if it's a completely new system and setting, WTF is the point of calling it "Star Frontiers"? seems like a bait&switch - just come up with a new name for your new scifi game.

If it's the same setting with a different system - it's totally going to depend on what that system is. I don't dislike the SF setting. I'm also not especially in love with it, Dralasites aside. It's more nostalgia-bait for me than anything. I think it's a cool, interesting, setting that reminds me of pre-Star Wars SciFi paperbacks I consumed as a kid, Afred Bester, Harry Harrison, Van Vogt etc., leaning more towards the pulp. It's not expansive (at least what I've read of it), just gives you exacty as much as you need to go on, and that's fine. Worth licensing? Not sure. Cool enough that I would care about an etsy version with the seriel number filed off? Noooo...not really.

If it's the same system with a different setting - well, I already have the system. And I'm not in the market for a SciFI setting.

Best case scenario (insofar as attracting me personally as a potential customer) would be original setting and system, but cleaned up and tweaked, much like what the Star Fronteirsman guys did. Actually, they should just get the rights worked out and then hire on the Star Frontiersmen guys and publish their stuff.

But, that prolly ain't gonna happen. So...yeah.
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I had a lot of fun running Star Frontiers back in the day, but I agree with all of this. And while it is a TSR game, there isn't anything particularly Gygaxian about it. The sentence "Luke Gygax is doing a new version of Star Frontiers" does absolutely nothing to interest me. I associate the game more with guys like Dave Cook.

It's like if Mark Rein-Hagan's son announced he had the trademark for White Wolf and was doing a new edition of Exalted. The chain of association is weak.
 
Acmegamer said:
Exactly. By bringing it up he was making a point. One that I think many of us aren't appreciative of.


Edit: @ A Fiery Flying Roll Black Leaf Apologies if by agreeing with Ladybird I was violating the forum policies. I just noted your post as I read further down.
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That's understandable, but everyone can be warned I'll be just deleting posts on this particular topic in full from now on. (Not editing them, because I'm lazy).
 
Gabriel said:
Hey, everybody. I'm rebooting Star Frontiers.

I don't own the name yet. It won't be the original Star Frontiers game system. Instead I'm going to use the Palladium system and make the game about space ponies.

I'll leave the other stuff to the lawyers.

Send me money. I totally promise to have the game ready by Christmas.

Oh, and I don't like you. You stink. This product is only for people who don't stink.
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sign-me.gif


So I just have a few questions...

1) Using Palladium™©® system™©® sounds awesome™©®. Does this mean I get to pay you some money, then pay you some more and read about a crisis of treachery™©® or something about a game console thing™©® and not get anything I pay for because... I forget why. Take my money™©®

2) Lawyers are great. They have the fans best interests at heart. Getting the lawyers involved reassures me that the money I give to you now will definitely go into a good cause and not in the direction of getting a book written and printed and delivered. Which will cost extra. Or never arrive. But hey, the lawyers will be happy™©® and paid.

3) It's on it's way! Uh, which Christmas?

4) This makes me sad. I mean, sure, body odour is an issue but if I send more money will you send me more imaginary product™©®?
 
Endless Flight said:
Jayson Elliott of TSR 1.5 made a statement on Twitter saying his TSR has nothing to do with TSR 2.0 after that EGG Jr interview. Doesn’t sound like they are going to merge to form the TSR.
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Good. 1.5 + 2 = 3.5, and that isn't a number that has the best connotation for me when it comes to D&D.
 
Voros said:
Just checked the site and Garycon is ran by Luke Gygax, so this may be more Gygax-on-Gygax violence.
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Luke has in fact tweeted to emphasise that he's nothing to do with nu-TSR. Don't know if they've gotten around to responding to that, since their own Twitter account seems to be more interested in getting into spats with drive-by commenters. Hardly a professional look.
 
Warthur said:
Luke has in fact tweeted to emphasise that he's nothing to do with nu-TSR. Don't know if they've gotten around to responding to that, since their own Twitter account seems to be more interested in getting into spats with drive-by commenters. Hardly a professional look.
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Yikes, awkward.

Glad I get along with all my bros. Can't imagine having to air family dirty laundry in public like this.
 
So Jayson Elliott forgets to re-up a trademark and a guy that he worked with snatches it up the moment he can get it and then is kind enough to license out the TSR name to said Jayson Elliott for a mere $10 a year. Most likely to help avoid a lawsuit.
 
Looks like James Ward is releasing Giantlands via the new TSR.

At least that is confirmed.

An odd choice considering Ernie's history with long delayed KS but there you go.

 
Voros said:
Looks like James Ward is releasing Giantlands via the new TSR.

At least that is confirmed.

An odd choice considering Ernie's history with long delayed KS but there you go.

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There’s some interesting things about it. Mixing biblical beings like Nephilim and Anakim with the goddess Gaia, focusing on ecological problems, etc.
 
What legacy did Ernie inherit? He bought up a trademark after a guy he worked with on Gygax Magazine let the trademark lapse accidentally. Jayson said on social media he would most likely win a lawsuit but doesn’t have the dough to hire a lawyer so he’s licensing out the TSR name to keep Top Secret afloat.
 
Funny thing is that the greatest still-living designer from early TSR, David 'Zeb' Cook, never seems to get involved in any of the online drama or even gets mentioned much.

I mean he created Expert and Isle of Dread with Moldvay, designed a number of classic adventures (Temple of Death, Dwellers of the Forbidden City), the cult Indiana Jones and Conan the Barbarian games, Oriental Adventures, was lead designer on 2e AND Planescape.

That is quite the CV.

If I recall right from his Grognardia interview he went on to work in video game design.

I hope he's happily retired and living in the south of France.
 
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Voros said:
If I recall right from his Grognardia interview he went on to work in video game design.
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This pretty much flows into what I just quoted Gary about, and goes into another fact. One thing brought up earlier is that some people moved on from TSR. The people who were the most successful in their career path as a game designer took this step. People like Jeff Grubb, Zeb Cook, and Paul Reiche III, Fred Ford, and guys like Warren Spector. Gary himself wanted to go this path but failed.

The guys like Frank Mentzer, Jim Ward, Tim Kask, Ernie Gygax, etc., weren't as successful, and pretty much are more remembered now at conventions for the past. There is no shame at this, but realistically some of the old guard are more like the classic rock and pop stars who play state fairs and smaller venues playing their old hits vs. the guys who still play arenas and release new albums. I'm glad for all of them getting to follow their careers and make money, but it's obvious there's a level of success involved.
 
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