Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Deadlines for Me ... Changes for TLG

Well, I've been recently involved in a couple of discussions and debates on C&C and the SIEGE Engine. I'll be commenting on this a bit later today. For now, I've got a couple looming deadlines for material I promised to submit. A couple are reviews for the upcoming, and last, issue of the Domesday as well as an article on Arcana Creations.

I also have to prepare something of an announcement for later in the week.

Both needs to get done today but thankfully I see the light at the end of that particular tunnel.

In the meantime... some food for thought:

Troll Lord Games has had its share of challenges since Trigree Enterprises pulled the Lejendary Adventures, Castle Zagyg, and Gygaxian Fantasy World licenses. Coupled with these changes, TLG has also had to adjust given the release of the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons. When these things happened, TLG presented to the fans that this could be an opportunity to build on the C&C and SIEGE Engine brand. After a difficult year when everybody is facing troubled economic times, Steve Chenault expressed the concern that TLG was a 'One Pony Show' and that they were going to look to expanding the number of games they supported and published.

Now that we less than two months remaining, I'm forced to consider the releases that C&C has seen in the past year. This year saw the new printings of Monsters & Treasures and the Player's Handbook, the C&C conversion of the Heart of Glass, Black Libram of Nartarus, A5 and A6 as well as DB5, the Tainted Lands, and Of Gods & Monsters. There were also the character sheets and mapping sheets, the first tournament module for C&C, and a module for Star Siege.

Unfortunately, more than a couple of items listed have had issues attached to them. The M&T had a 'stat block' left out in the layout process, problems with the initial release of the Heart of Glass had to be rectified, and there remains concerns with the Tainted Lands box set (which I do discuss in my forthcoming review of the product). Problems outside of TLG's control caused an inordinate amount of delays with the new printing of the Player's Handbook which snowballed and derailed attempts for publishing Of Gods & Monsters in hardcover.

While I love the material that TLG produce and agree that expansion into other product lines is a good thing for the company, I can't help be a bit concerned considering the problems they had with their flagship line.

M

1 comment:

  1. Castles & Crusades has become my RPG of choice and I share some of the concerns.

    ReplyDelete