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Tabletop gaming finally had Hasbro’s marketing and distribution driving the popularity of RPGs. – The Harry Potter phenomenon, books and movies and an endless succession of merch. – James Cameron’s Dark Angel, which was replaced by Joss Whedon’s Firefly. – The start of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. – Star Trek and Babylon 5 had strong showings. In a massive way.Ī pretty healthy number of popular games came out as the technology developed. – The rise of Massively-Multiplayer Online gaming. – Strategy and Simulations like The Sims, Microprose’s Master of Magic and Bullfrog’s Theme Park enjoyed popularity.
#Vaults of pandius series
– Flight Sims like Tie Fighter and the Aces series remain extant. – The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Warhammer, Diablo, Baldur’s Gate and Warcraft videogame IPs debut. “Story-based” and “Lite” games were nothing new at this point in time. What you don’t see is anything particularly new and revolutionary. Nonetheless it’s had staying power so I’ll list it here. I played it once under duress but I didn’t become a fan. – The Savage Worlds RPG debuted at the end of this decade.
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#Vaults of pandius license
– The Star Wars license went from West End Games to WOTC/Hasbro (no surprise there). – The Tolkien license went from ICE to Decipher. – The Star Trek license went from FASA to Last Unicorn to Decipher. Greg Stafford apparently over the whole Runequest game. – Hero Wars released for Gloranthan gaming. – Game Designer’s Workshop (Traveller) shutting down, Traveller licensed to the GURPS line. – Gary Gygax involved with various games and companies. Then 3.5e was released and that licensing deal no longer applied. Hasbro acquiring other gaming companies including Avalon Hill and Last Unicorn Games. This led to TSR being purchased by Wizards of the Coast, and WOTC being purchased by Hasbro. – Magic the Gathering and the rise of collectible card games. – T$R lived up to its modified acronym, “ They Sue Regularly.” The death of the Basic D&D line. Let’s do some brief overviews of what we got in Decade Three, 1994-2003. Come up to the lab, and see what’s on the slab And they weren’t marketing supplements for the editions we still played. So it was rare for us to take the plunge and try a new game. Of course, we mature gamers now had plenty of spending power, but the short-sighted companies had alienated us. That’s right, role-playing was becoming acceptable, nerdy past-times would not get you ostracized.
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Therefore they were simply eager consumers, all bright-eyed at the concept of RPGs, free from the stigmas we all had to suffer under back in the day. As I mentioned previously, these folks were unaware of the perfidious history of the industry, and hadn’t yet had scads of books rendered obsolete when new editions meant that all new players would be playing games incompatible with their own. Let’s take a moment to talk about the new generation of gamers. My friends and I grew cynical when we’d spot yet another Star Trek or Tolkien game, or with the number of re-written incompatible editions of something like Gamma World or Stormbringer. Either by a licensed IP repeatedly changing hands, or a bunch of me-too copycat games, or the re-writing and marketing of revised editions of what were purported to be the same game. It’s ironic that in spite of all this TSR had such serious financial difficulties that it had to be sold to Wizards of the Coast.Īs for non-D&D role-playing, after thirty years we had so many games competing for the remaining consumer dollars that the ideas were simply being regurgitated. In addition the player demographic had expanded down from college students to include the twelve-year-olds. D&D was available on the shelves in Toys R Us and major bookstore chains, allowing unprecedented market penetration. They’d broken into the mainstream, in part helped by the scandal of the missing college student Dallas Egbert. Because those original little booklets were close to incomprehensible to the uninitiated.
#Vaults of pandius how to
It’s a marked change from the days when you had to have some grounding in the wargame scene, or know someone to invite you into their group and teach you how to play. Also the early gamers were teaching their own children how to play. It sure beats Max HeadroomĪt this point folks could easily pick up D&D on their own and gather a group of like-minded friends to learn the game together. For a brief refresher, here’s a link to the summary of the first decade, and here’s a link to the second. Let’s review what things were like for role-players in that third decade. Unbelievable, right? D&D was released in 1974, sparking a new hobby that had become quite corporate by the year 2003.