Dark Conspiracy Developers Diary

[actionman]

it had "the 90s Problem" that GDW otherwise avoided

Everybody had nose rings?

 

[Rickel]

That 90's problem was bs and killed a company that easily could have owned modern RPGs from Western to SCI FI. Just think, Twilight 45, High Noon, Twilight: The great war. Twilight: The cold war spy game. They really could have introduced just Occupations and guns through the years and maybe a few supplements on spying, magic etc and we could have built out our own unique settings.

 

[GypsyComet]

Everybody had nose rings?

You jest, but that was a different WW problem: 1st edition VtM's adventures were all aggressively railroaded. They called their game masters "Storytellers" unironically, it seems.

That 90's problem was bs and killed a company that easily could have owned modern RPGs

That was *also* a different 90s problem: The juggernaut of MtG caused extreme behavioral changes in games distribution companies which led a number of publishers to look at mainstream book distributors, GDW included. That led to GDW's demise and contributed to the mighty TSR's passing.