Keklas Rekobah
SOC-14 1K
What?!!
No "Jar-Jar Binks" seeking missiles?
Not worth the price.
Is the Traveller Market Fractured
- Thread starter Liam Devlin
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No "Jar-Jar Binks" seeking missiles?
Not worth the price.
Rhialto the Marvelous
SOC-13
One plausible rumor about the future of D&D is that either before or after 4th edition it will be sold to Mongoose.
Mongoose have been bragging about trying to close a deal on what they call the "Holy Grail" for some time now, and on rpg.net they've been gradually eliminating candidates for that term. We used to think it's a Harry Potter license, but apparently it isn't.
I have to say that the very idea of a Mongoose D&D gives me shivers, such as one would feel stranded vacc-suit-less in the dark between the stars.
Put differently, that would really suck.
Mongoose have been bragging about trying to close a deal on what they call the "Holy Grail" for some time now, and on rpg.net they've been gradually eliminating candidates for that term. We used to think it's a Harry Potter license, but apparently it isn't.
I have to say that the very idea of a Mongoose D&D gives me shivers, such as one would feel stranded vacc-suit-less in the dark between the stars.
Put differently, that would really suck.
M
Malenfant
Guest
Ugh, I've never been impressed with Mongoose's production values and proof-reading quality... Personally I'd hope that WotC keeps D&D - they've got a good bunch of writers there.
Question: why is it with all the permutations that D&D has gone through, we don't about the fracturing of that market? Traveller has followed the same transformations from edition to edition but certain elements of the core game have always remained. (I say this not to start a flame war but genuine curiosity, as I have only liked AD&D 1e despite trying out the different other versions, it remains true to my heart along with the house rules to make it work).
M
Malenfant
Guest
Because the vast majority of players have adopted the new system?
Rhialto the Marvelous
SOC-13
Kafka, the sad truth is that unlike any Travller edition D&D 3E is a rock-solid game. There simply was no reason NOT to switch to 3E in 2000. Largest playtest in gaming history. Extremely well-written and well-organized text. Full color core books at $20 apiece when they came out. Like thousands of others I hadn't played D&D in like 10 years when 3E came out, but 3E pulled me back in.
Mind you, such production and intellectual values are partly a function of $$$. If you know you're going to sell in the six figures you can afford quality. (Well, OK, so can Hero Games, and they're not WOTC, exactly...)
Of course, by now I'm burned out. I just got the 1981 edition of Basic/Expert D&D on ebay, complete with crayons and Keep of the Borderlands module.
I crave to play an Elf as a class!
Mind you, such production and intellectual values are partly a function of $$$. If you know you're going to sell in the six figures you can afford quality. (Well, OK, so can Hero Games, and they're not WOTC, exactly...)
Of course, by now I'm burned out. I just got the 1981 edition of Basic/Expert D&D on ebay, complete with crayons and Keep of the Borderlands module.
I crave to play an Elf as a class!
Spiderfish
SOC-12
Didn't they *as in Mongoose not WOTC* nick Andy Chambers?
Based on the little I have seen of their miniatures they could do with headhunting a few more GW staff... Tamiya they ain't.
How big are Mongoose anyway? Surely buying D&D would be quite expensive...
Heh. Yeah.
It's been a long time since I've played in a fantasy game, and I'm starting to get a hankering. Unfortunately, it's a hankering for a very old-school game, and I have no interest whatsoever in learning a new set of rules. (Anything since 1st Ed AD&D is "new", although obviously 2nd Ed wasn't much different.)
Unfortunately, that makes recruiting players difficult. I might have to resort to PBEM.
Of course I have to design a world first. It's quite likely doing that will scratch the itch enough to make it go away.
That's what usually happens.
Not true, in the Toronto market, at least, it caused people to play what they were used to then simply turn away from RPGs. Those veterans of 1e actually now play Hackmaster or 1e.
I would agree that it was well playtested and they had the coin to serious R&D but they have ultimately failed in bringing back the old timers. Most people I know are resigned to the facts that d20 & GURPS wiped out the games they loved in the past. So they may buy d20 or GURPS products only for the purpose of mining. Luckly, the Internet has come around and put out their classic games that will never yellow or wilt.
I personally felt betrayed by TSR when they dumped Gary and adopted the 2e and whilst I have tried 3.5e, I find none of the fly by the seat of your pants nor pleasure that I get when I ran through White Plume Mountain or delved into breaking the Assassin's Knot after wasting Bone Hill. When I read the manuals they simply are more about explaining then letting my imagination wander. True, the pretty pictures help but when everything was premised around the same characters, I felt railroaded more than in Mordy most fantastic adventure or combed through the Isles of Dread and Ape.
M
Malenfant
Guest
Dunno what to tell you. D&D3e is certainly a better-designed and more elegant system than its predecessors (if not more crunchy), and was generally adopted by pretty much everyone who had any interest in D&D beforehand as well as newcomers. Naturally there'll be some people who refuse to adapt to or even look at the new system (and it's their loss to be honest), but they're in a definite minority.
Frankly, anyone who was still playing 1e when 3e came out was a relic to start with and not worth targeting - if they hadn't even switched to 2e then they're probably not going to switch to 3e.
Frankly, anyone who was still playing 1e when 3e came out was a relic to start with and not worth targeting - if they hadn't even switched to 2e then they're probably not going to switch to 3e.
T
The Shaman
Guest
If you're talking about the "vast majority" of earlier edition players, then the correct statement is the vast majority never bought 3e at all - the first two print runs of 3.0 D&D PHB totalled about 1.5 million books - TSR sold 1 million basic D&D box sets in 1989 alone. . .
There's no question that 3e D&D is indeed The World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game (tm) at the moment, but it's not in the same league as the earlier editions just yet.
D&D, in any edition, isn't really a fair comparison when it comes to market presence - there's D&D, and then there's everything else. Dungeons and Dragons became a powerful brand name as well as a cultural touchstone - no other roleplaying game comes close in name recognition or market share.
That said, I've heard the argument that D&D did in fact fracture its market during the 1990s with a glut of settings, releasing Dark Sun, Spelljamer, Birthright, and others which competed with the successful Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance lines.
I take the polls for what they are: the expression of the members of this board who chose to vote in the poll.
It's interesting to me that some really passionate Traveller fans (and a few critics) see this fracturing of the market, but at the same time what little we know about the actual market suggests that many, perhaps most, Traveller gamers are content with "classic" Traveller and some third-party add-ons or house rules. It makes me wonder of the ones doing the fracturing are the publishers who insist on trying to take the game in new directions. Do we really need a Rim War setting? Do we really need 1248? To be perfectly honest, these seem like vanity projects by writers who want to "leave their mark on Traveller," not something intended to meet the needs of the market which is pretty clearly in the hands of people playing original Traveller.
(And I'm sorry, but I don't share the notion that T20 is backwards-compatible with classic Traveller - I've been converting a couple of ships from T20 to Traveller, and while it's not difficult to do, the T20 ships are most defnitely not plug'n'play.)
M
Malenfant
Guest
Which doesn't really matter at all. It's what most people are playing nowadays.
You keep saying this, but you're ignoring the fact that Marc Miller himself is quite cheerfully and obliviously heading off in his own way with T5 and not caring what people are apparently already happy playing. And it was GDw itself that moved from CT to MT to TNE.
I think you're being unnecessarily facetious by labelling things like T20 and 1248 as "vanity projects" though. They're just as valid as TNE or MT were (then again I guess you'd say that TNE and MT were GDW's attempt to "fracture the market" too). But then perhaps you'd think that the best solution is for Marc to pull all the licences and just keep re-releasing old CT books and not to develop anything further again? It's not like he actually HAS written anything new for CT himself for years anyway.
Of the companies around at the moment at least Avenger is actually still putting out stuff that CT fans would want to play... if only those fans would actually take notice and check it out.
T
The Shaman
Guest
You are igonoring the fact I haven't offered any opinion at all to date on the proposed new edition. I'm not "ignoring" it - I simply choose not to comment on something that I know next-to-nothing about, or on rumors from sources of questionable credibility.
Nor have I offered comment on the GDW changes to the OTU wrought by The Rebellion and What Came After [TRaWCA (c) (tm) (reg U.S. Pat. Off.)]. The fact that we play in a "golden age" ATU derived from de-canonized setting materials should probably tell you something, though.
The fact is, whatever MWM chooses to do with Traveller is up to him. It's his game, and I'm not going to get bent out of shape over a metaplot I can completely ignore, or a rules edition I can choose not to adopt.
Rhialto the Marvelous
SOC-13
I think you're confusing two groups of people here (this confusion seems also to be at the root of your statements about D&D). The first group is the grognards. The second group is a mix of old school players willing to try new stuff on one hand, more recent players on the other, and potential players who've yet to pick up the game on the third.
It is only the second group that is relevant for "market" purposes--only they can be called "customers" in any meaningful sense, because it is only they who will actually buy new stuff.
For, as you yourself have stated many many times, you're happy with what you've got. Bully for you, but that cuts you out of the market.
In D&D terms, you're a bit like a guy who only ever visits Dragonsfoot and has yet to learn ENWorld exists. I like Dragonsfoot and what it stands for, but it ain't the whole story, and it ain't generating any relevant sales.
Having said that, there is this difference between D&D and Trav: in the latter, the grognard : noob ratio is weighed more towards the grognards. That is not to say that a new edition is pointless. It is rather to say that, in D&D terms, it should look more like C&C than like 3.5. Even the Dragonsfooters have endorsed C&C. And why wouldn't they? Only the staunchest ideologue will dislike a cleaned-up rules system.
M
Malenfant
Guest
You did though - you generalised by saying that you didn't see the point in people releasing anything that wasn't aimed at the CT market (which you claim is the biggest). And by implication that includes T5, and MT, and TNE as well. And I have no idea what those "rumours of questionable credibility" that you mentioned are though - everything we know of T5 has come from people who have seen the current T5 draft (hell, I've seen the latest version of it and it really is nothing like anything that's come before, and I really doubt that any CT fan is going to like it at all).
Well, it tells me something, but probably not what you intended it to say...
Personally I think that catering to the CT fans is about as doomed as anything else though, because a lot of them play in their own ATUs. I think the best any publisher can do is to try to make adventures or supplements that are generic enough that they can be fitted into as many ATUs as possible.
T
The Shaman
Guest
I'm not confused - I'm arguing that it would appear, based on Hunter Gordon's comments up-thread, that perhaps the smart move is to develop "new stuff" for original Traveller, since that's where the lion's share of the market is right now. If the publishers and some gamers are concerned about "fracturing the market," why on earth would you go away from where most people are playing the game?
Are most of those original Traveller players clamoring for 1248? No? Then why not focus on where most of the market seems to be actually playing, on "golden age" supplements and adventures? (In fact, wasn't that what QLI or ComStar wanted to do, with "CT++" or whatever it was called?)
For the record, I've been a member of ENWorld for years and only recently joined Dragonsfoot. I played and refereed 3.0 and played 3.5 (briefly), and I played a lot of d20 Modern, some d20 Call of Cthulhu, and some Grim Tales.
I may be a grognard, but I don't live in a cave watching shadow pictures.
Here we agree.
So, is 1248 how we get more noobs interested in Traveller?
M
Malenfant
Guest
Not only are you confused, but you're also making flawed assumptions to support your case.
Because T20's setting is so similar, supplements produced for it could be dropped into a normal CT game pretty easily. Avenger have also been actively producing material that can be used in CT games as well as their own 1248 stuff. And they're doing 1248 because there is a demand (mostly from the old TNE fanbase) for something that actually continues the Traveller timeline instead of faffing around with bygone eras (which is what Marc seems to be interested in, given T4 and what little we've heard about putative T5 settings).
Because sometimes it's worth supporting the niches too. With your logic, there'd be no such thing as speciality cars or top of the line stereo systems either. They're made because there is a smaller market of people who can justify their production.
As a setting it's got a lot more going for it than CT ever had, and certainly has more than the sociology-textbook/instruction-manual-that-is-T5.So, is 1248 how we get more noobs interested in Traveller?
I think the real question (that I've asked a lot and has never been satisfactorily answered) is "what reason should 'noobs' have to even be interested in Traveller in the first place?". The competition arguably does everything that Traveller does much better - so why play Traveller?
T
The Shaman
Guest
First, I don't claim classic Traveller's the biggest share of the market - others with much more insight into the RPG market than I do claim it's the biggest, and I have no reason not to take them at their word.
Second, until I see actual previews of T5, I will continue to withhold judgement, and I will continue to hope (in vain. . .) that others will do the same.
Originally posted by Malenfant:
Well, it tells me something, but probably not what you intended it to say...
No, it tells you exactly what I wanted it to say: I think The Rebellion and What Came After was a clusterbomb of bad ideas.
(Then again, we ignored the Fifth Frontier War, too, way back when, because we were already too engrossed in our Marches campaign to introduce the GDW metaplot. . .)
Yeah, if only there was a Traveller publisher out there who. . .oh wait, that's exactly what BITS does right now!
M
Malenfant
Guest
Well it's up to you if you want to remain in the dark about it. But those of us who have seen it know what it's like, and have every right to tell people about what we've seen.
Actually it told me that you're one of the usual grognard types who thinks that anything beyond CT is a heresy and who has little or zero interest in moving beyond what you're familiar with. Which is fair enough, but as Rhialto said, that pretty much excludes you from being relevant to any of these discussions - because you wouldn't be interested in anything new to start with.
And it's really raking in the cash isn't it. Oh wait, it's not is it - it's doing well for a small publisher but that's it. I mean the first and last product I got from them was "101 Lifeforms" and its production values were very low to say the least - it looked like something handmade and cobbled together by one guy, a word processor, his laserjet and a stapler. The material in it was OK, but nothing to write home about. Maybe they've improved since then, but they seem to be very much a small press company and I've never seen any of their products on the shelves of the gaming stores outside of the UK.
Avenger is also publishing supplements and adventures of course, but with considerably higher production values. If there's a great white hope for Traveller it's them, IMO.
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