Sunday, May 13, 2012

Fighting Giants is where AD&D went all wrong

Encouraged by the surprise success sales of G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl and G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King along with the blockbuster movie Clash of the Giants, Gygax calls the staff of TSR into his office.
From now on AD&D is going to be about fighting Giants. 

For the next two years a flurry of adventures was released. All of them about fighting giants including the classic Under The Storm Giant's Castle. Greyhawk was shelved in favor of a new setting which had as it's centerpiece a war against the giants. Unearthed Giants was quickly written and released giving new classes and new races revolving around fighting Giants.

However what seemed like a surefire way to capitalize on D&D's popularity and the excitement over the new Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was it death knell. Within two years of it's release, sales plummeted as gamers tired of fighting giants all the time and flocked other games like Chaosium's Runequest and SPI's newly released Dragonquest. There is growing excitement over Palladium Fantasy as many say it restores the wide ranging fantasy enjoyed by fans of original Dungeon & Dragons.  Now a 2nd Edition of AD&D is has been announced that promises to be a toolkit to allow referees to create any fantasy setting they desire. TSR is quick to note that fans of the Giant Wars will still find support in the 2nd Edition.

4 comments:

two_fishes said...

I see what you did there.

Sean said...

Sounds like the premise for a new retro-clone.

Badmike said...

If the unintentionally hilarious JG module "Under the Storm Giant's Castle" was indeed included in this alternate universe TSR's list of products, no wonder they failed...

Pulp Herb said...

@two_fishes:

I'm dense, I missed it.

@Sean:

A retro-clone, not so sure...a really cool campaign, maybe.