I was curious if there was much of a market for these, given that the law suit pretty much ended the run and forced a re-release with different rules and names.  On e-bay it looks like they are a dime a dozen.

burntwire wrote:Dangerous Journey items are fairly common. Usually sell for only a few $.

Neat, so a lot of them escaped the shredder.

Thanks!

Traveller wrote:Something tells me I'm going to have to find Epic of Ærth, as that was to me a rather kick-ass worldbook. Having the rules wouldn't hurt either, even if TSR's machinations are what brought about the demise of GDW.

Actually, it was the return of all those Desert Shield/Desert Storm books that killed GDW. The money they got from the Dangerous Journeys lawsuit (it ended in a payoff by TSR, not a decision against GDW) actually helped keep them afloat for a while.

Epic of Aerth is indeed a kick-ass worldbook, but like the classic Greyhawk book it is the outline of a setting, and does require a fair bit of work on the part of the game master to use. I've used it for DJ: Mythus, AD&D, and D&D 3E campaigns. If you are looking for something meatier, go for Gary's newest and, I believe, greatest setting: Lejendary Earth. The Gazetteer is very, very bare-bones, even moreso than that of Epic of Aerth, but the first support book, Noble Kings & Dark Lands, fleshes everything out in great depth. And that's two whole continents! Yet it is all so wide-open you can still drop anything you want into the setting and still have that classic Gygaxian flavor.

But if you want something more definitively Earth-like, Epic would be the way to go, as Aerth is far more strongly "historical" than Learth (Lejendary Earth), which diverges even more from historical Earth and its geography.

As for the system, I felt it was one of the best all-encompassing complex systems on the market, though it had a few glitches here and there, noticeably in the amazing recursion factor in the experience system and the never-completely-defined-properly Heka system for magic. But some homebrew work on those fix things up quite easily. And don't let the detailed character creation system put you off; it is well worth it, as it really defines and fleshes out the character. But if the complexity puts you off, go for Gary's newest system Lejendary Adventure, which is to Mythus as Classic D&D is to D&D 3E (though with all the lessons learned from 30 years of gaming).

Traveller wrote:The Gulf War books did not bring down the house. Given the time frame, that is absolutely impossible, especially as one of those books was a New York Times Bestseller. It was as Goodfellow said. The time and energy involved in fighting off TSR, as well as the appearance of Magic: The Gathering, killed GDW. Not the Desert Shield Fact Book, and not the Gulf War Fact Book.

Actually, I did half-misascribe. Indeed, the Desert Shield Fact Book, which was a bestseller, did very well for GDW. It was the Gulf War Fact Book that hurt them, because by the time that one went through the mass (and even the hobby), nobody cared, and they printed it to the same level and beyond that they had with the Desert Shield Fact Book... though there were no returns from the hobby (in general), the mass could return them in mass, and did. It was sold starting in April 1991 and for a year and a half or more afterward... and then the returns started coming in a year later. Having worked in distribution at the time, I saw tons and tons of those things come back through at pennies on the dollar after the returns.

From Loren Wiseman's bio:

"The Desert Shield Factbook made us a fortune. The Gulf War Factbook lost most of it. In retrospect, we should not have listened to those advising us to do the second book. The first was in the right place at the right time, and was the only title available for several critical weeks during and after the air and ground campaign. The second was "just another Gulf War Book.""

Recall, that though GDW officially ceased to to business on Feb. 29, 1996, they had been on the ropes for a number of years before that. I recall meeting with some of the GDW people at the GAMA Trade Show in 1994, before Magic: The Gathering had taken over the industry (Antiquities was releasing that month), and even then they were effectively down and all but out of business, with the cash infusion from TSR the only saving grace. You will note that Steve J. Pyskoty Olle's story in your quoted page confirms this, as he was laid off in July 1994, more than a year and a half before the company closed its doors, and after things were bad that people had already taken paycuts to 1/2 normal and they had Frank Chadwick working the phones for sales!

Now I'm not quite sure as to the exact timing, but the two major cash flow incidents occured at or around the same time. Yes, there were troubles caused for developers and others because of the TSR lawsuit, but that was a secondary issue. The money that GDW got from the settlement helped keep them alive after losing the cash they had to pay back to the mass market on the GWFC returns...

The basic chronological order is this (and this, note, happens time and again with game companies that get a good sale in the mass): Massive numbers of books go out to the mass, pay the printer, the writers, pay down a lot of bills. Great cash flow, and it all goes out in old bills or in new products. Then the returns start coming in, and you've got to pay those guys off. Returns on mass market books are generally 50% or greater, and can be up to 90% (the Desert Shield Fact Book was an aberration, believe you me). Most of the products cannot be resold. And returns are at full wholesale price. So GDW's cash flow crashes to less than zero at the same time they are going through the whole Dangerous Journeys: Mythus thing with TSR (1992-1993). They lose many of their creatives and much of their staff during this time, for various reasons.

And THEN Magic: The Gathering hits in 1993, and starts sucking the free cash and then the core cash out of distributor, retailer, and consumer pockets in October and on. Traveller: The New Era was a bad game, and sold no better, with a lot of the money gotten from the TSR settlement going down the drain supporting an insupportable line. 1995 was a massive year for CCGs, and the glut caused a massive discombobulation in sales at the end of the year... the "three bad quarters" mentioned by Wiseman. And that was the final, last nail in the coffin. Already a marginal company to begin with at this point, orders for GDW products died... and so did GDW (and a fair number of other marginal companies at the time... heck, even WotC laid off some people in the 4th quarter of 1995).

Without the financial wherewithal to continue, the double whammy GDW received from the changing industry did them in once and for all. I say double as truly, Magic: The Gathering was only half the equation, the obvious and hobby-related portion; the other half, invisible to many, was computer wargames. That shift was the final nail in the coffin in the vast majority of wargame companies, either directly or indirectly. But GDW's demise is attributable to the following, in whole or in part, with the assignment in order of my estimate of the damage that was caused by the factor:

#1) Over estimation of number of Gulf War Fact Books that would sell through in the mass market, and the return and charge-back thereof;

#2) Movement of wargames away from tabletop to computer;

#3) Magic: The Gathering;

#4) Dangerous Journeys: Mythus lawsuit (remember, they made more money than they ever lost on the settlement, and the lawsuit never cost them a dime in cash).

#5) TNE sales being miserable.

jamesmishler wrote:

Traveller wrote:The Gulf War books did not bring down the house. Given the time frame, that is absolutely impossible, especially as one of those books was a New York Times Bestseller. It was as Goodfellow said. The time and energy involved in fighting off TSR, as well as the appearance of Magic: The Gathering, killed GDW. Not the Desert Shield Fact Book, and not the Gulf War Fact Book.

Actually, I did half-misascribe. Indeed, the Desert Shield Fact Book, which was a bestseller, did very well for GDW. It was the Gulf War Fact Book that hurt them, because by the time that one went through the mass (and even the hobby), nobody cared, and they printed it to the same level and beyond that they had with the Desert Shield Fact Book... though there were no returns from the hobby (in general), the mass could return them in mass, and did. It was sold starting in April 1991 and for a year and a half or more afterward... and then the returns started coming in a year later. Having worked in distribution at the time, I saw tons and tons of those things come back through at pennies on the dollar after the returns.

From Loren Wiseman's bio:

"The Desert Shield Factbook made us a fortune. The Gulf War Factbook lost most of it. In retrospect, we should not have listened to those advising us to do the second book. The first was in the right place at the right time, and was the only title available for several critical weeks during and after the air and ground campaign. The second was "just another Gulf War Book.""

Recall, that though GDW officially ceased to to business on Feb. 29, 1996, they had been on the ropes for a number of years before that. I recall meeting with some of the GDW people at the GAMA Trade Show in 1994, before Magic: The Gathering had taken over the industry (Antiquities was releasing that month), and even then they were effectively down and all but out of business, with the cash infusion from TSR the only saving grace. You will note that Steve J. Pyskoty Olle's story in your quoted page confirms this, as he was laid off in July 1994, more than a year and a half before the company closed its doors, and after things were bad that people had already taken paycuts to 1/2 normal and they had Frank Chadwick working the phones for sales!

Now I'm not quite sure as to the exact timing, but the two major cash flow incidents occured at or around the same time. Yes, there were troubles caused for developers and others because of the TSR lawsuit, but that was a secondary issue. The money that GDW got from the settlement helped keep them alive after losing the cash they had to pay back to the mass market on the GWFC returns...

The basic chronological order is this (and this, note, happens time and again with game companies that get a good sale in the mass): Massive numbers of books go out to the mass, pay the printer, the writers, pay down a lot of bills. Great cash flow, and it all goes out in old bills or in new products. Then the returns start coming in, and you've got to pay those guys off. Returns on mass market books are generally 50% or greater, and can be up to 90% (the Desert Shield Fact Book was an aberration, believe you me). Most of the products cannot be resold. And returns are at full wholesale price. So GDW's cash flow crashes to less than zero at the same time they are going through the whole Dangerous Journeys: Mythus thing with TSR (1992-1993). They lose many of their creatives and much of their staff during this time, for various reasons.

And THEN Magic: The Gathering hits in 1993, and starts sucking the free cash and then the core cash out of distributor, retailer, and consumer pockets in October and on. Traveller: The New Era was a bad game, and sold no better, with a lot of the money gotten from the TSR settlement going down the drain supporting an insupportable line. 1995 was a massive year for CCGs, and the glut caused a massive discombobulation in sales at the end of the year... the "three bad quarters" mentioned by Wiseman. And that was the final, last nail in the coffin. Already a marginal company to begin with at this point, orders for GDW products died... and so did GDW (and a fair number of other marginal companies at the time... heck, even WotC laid off some people in the 4th quarter of 1995).

Without the financial wherewithal to continue, the double whammy GDW received from the changing industry did them in once and for all. I say double as truly, Magic: The Gathering was only half the equation, the obvious and hobby-related portion; the other half, invisible to many, was computer wargames. That shift was the final nail in the coffin in the vast majority of wargame companies, either directly or indirectly. But GDW's demise is attributable to the following, in whole or in part, with the assignment in order of my estimate of the damage that was caused by the factor:

#1) Over estimation of number of Gulf War Fact Books that would sell through in the mass market, and the return and charge-back thereof;

#2) Movement of wargames away from tabletop to computer;

#3) Magic: The Gathering;

#4) Dangerous Journeys: Mythus lawsuit (remember, they made more money than they ever lost on the settlement, and the lawsuit never cost them a dime in cash).

#5) TNE sales being miserable.

I couldn't find his bio page except on the Internet Archive, so thanks for the link.  But I still have to disagree that the Gulf War Fact book was the number one factor.  No doubt it contributed, as Loren himself pointed out, but it still was predominantly the lawsuit and Magic that did GDW in.  I'm not discounting that the other things you listed played a part, but I'm not inclined to believe that those things were as major as the lawsuit and Magic.

That is simply my take on it.  And, I do want to apologize if I seemed hot and bothered in my initial reply.  I didn't mean it.

d20 Fantasy Necropolis is a conversion of DJ Necropolis.  I had a copy of the entire set at one point, but had to get rid of them.  I think I'll be searching on ebay for Mythus Prime, Epic of Ærth, and Necropolis, as the diet that DJ was put on to make Mythus Prime actually made the game more enjoyable.

I have the Lejendary Adventures Player's Book, but for some odd reason I was thinking it was a single book system, and not three books (Player's Guide, GM's Guide, Creature Book).  Not terribly useful right now, so it will likely head to storage.  Then again, Mythus Prime would end up doing that as well.  It's really the Epic of Ærth book that I would want, since I have this habit of collecting world settings.



If I want to play a skill-based game, I use the Basic Roleplaying system, either through RuneQuest, or Stormbringer.  Chaosium is supposedly going to have Deluxe Basic Role Playing available at Gen Con this year.  From what I have heard regarding the system, pretty much all the little system quirks that Chaosium created to differentiate their various systems, RuneQuest, Stormbringer, Hawkmoon, ElfQuest, Ringworld, Superworld, Call of Cthulhu, are all going to be incorporated in this one book as optional bolt-ons to the default system.

jamesmishler wrote:I'll believe in DBRP when I see it. It has not attained for me the same mythical vaporware level that, say, RQ IV has or T2 ToEE did, but it is getting close...

Actually, I have the rough for RQIV sitting on my hard drive, with my feedback comments, back from when the project stalled.  But, with AH having sold the rights back, etc., who knows what might happen next.

Traveller wrote:I have that rough draft as well, although no comments as I picked up my copy from the web. However, I spoke to Dustin at Chaosium and he confirmed that DBRP was being written as I was speaking to him. Now, whether it gets put out at Gen Con or not is really anyone's guess, but there was also a reason that BRP monograps were being sold at the Chaosium website...to gauge interest in DBRP.

I would not have spent $60 on print-on-demand copies of RuneQuest III if I didn't feel that the game had a ghost of a chance of being put out.

Hmm.  The only copy I knew of on the web was the one I had put up, with comments.  It came down when the rights came back to Chaosium and they asked me to take it down.  I gather that someone else put it up too (since my comments were all over the copy I put up).

I think the chances are much better than anyone suspects.