Lets Just write it already

[T. Foster]

I'm just about done with this argument, since we're going around in circles ("you're a zealot!" "no, YOU're a zealot!"), but I can't help one last post.

Originally posted by daryen:
You just made his point. If the mass of the modern gamer audience doesn't know CT or the TRP, where is the market for T5?

T5 is by no means a safe bet or a sure thing, and I never claimed it was. GT and T20 are the safe bets -- you can calculate that you'll pick up x-subportion of the existing Traveller fanbase and be able to add y-subportion of the existing GURPS/d20 fanbase: you'll know approximately how big your audience will be and can plan/budget the product accordingly. The problem with this model is that it's inherently limited -- you're probably never going to pick up significant numbers of new players who don't already belong to either x or y. While T5 can also count on picking up x (but a smaller value of x than GT and T20, 'cause it's coming third and most of the existing fans are either satisfied with what they're playing or just sick of spending money), its real potential lies in creating its own, new fanbase -- peeling away gamers from other systems and/or converting non-gamers. This isn't easy, and might not even be possible -- would d20 players ever be willing to play a different system? could adult non-gamers ever be convinced to try out (or return to) that "geeky kids' hobby"? could anybody ever be convinced to invest the money necessary to find out?

Hypothesizing that it IS possible, but very hard, I oh-so-humbly suggest that Traveller is in a better position than most/any other existing game to make a run, for a few reasons:

</font>

• the system is good, better than d20 (this is axiomatic to me, if this isn't true then none of the rest really matters)</font>
• the existence of T20 could ease the transition for existing d20 fans -- you already know the feel, setting, and much of the system, all you have to change/learn are a few key elements</font>
• Traveller is (or at least has the potential to be) seen by the general public as 'less-geeky' and/or more mature than D&D -- no funny dice, less cartoony artwork/graphic design, not fantasy, possible vestigial memory among those who played D&D in the 80s but 'outgrew' it of Traveller as a more mature/serious alternative (remember, it sold 250K copies in the 70s-80s, which means it was seen by at least 2-3x that number -- those people are still out there somewhere, and some of them may still remember Traveller fondly even if they haven't played an rpg in 20+ years)</font>
• FFE has a strong existing relationship with a company that has already produced a system for playing rpgs online (this is IMO very important and has been almost totally overlooked -- if you want to reach adult non-gamers you're going to HAVE to overcome the time-investment and the difficulty of finding other players, and FULLY integrating GRiP or something similar into the basic package is the only way I can see to accomplish this)</font>

(Note: FWIW I've brought these points up before, in a litle more detail, on this thread at traveller5.com)

Especially since T5 is to be based on what seems to be the concensus choice for the worst version of Traveller made so far!

Well, not if I can do anything about it! But seriously, Marc Miller seems to be seriously swimming upstream with this one. I'm still hoping that with enough gentle prodding he can be convinced that the DGP/MT task system is both more popular and just plain better than his tweaked T4.1 system, but I've been prodding away for ~5 years now with no visible signs of progress, so maybe I should just give up. But then again, I AM a zealot!

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Dropping out of argumentative mode...

Originally posted by T. Foster:
T5 is by no means a safe bet or a sure thing, and I never claimed it was. GT and T20 are the safe bets -- you can calculate that you'll pick up x-subportion of the existing Traveller fanbase and be able to add y-subportion of the existing GURPS/d20 fanbase: you'll know approximately how big your audience will be and can plan/budget the product accordingly. The problem with this model is that it's inherently limited -- you're probably never going to pick up significant numbers of new players who don't already belong to either x or y.

You forgot z, being 'new gamers who have never heard of or played Traveller, GURPS or d20 before'. I don't think anybody really knows how big a proportion of the Traveller customer base that makes up though.

This isn't easy, and might not even be possible -- would d20 players ever be willing to play a different system?

From what I gather, it seems to be very difficult to tear d20 fans away from d20 and expand to using other systems. Granted, that's mostly from hearsay on discussion forums, but I've had some actual experience with d20 games to back this up. D20 fans do seem to be rather close-minded when it comes to other systems. Proving to them that another system is 'better' overall - in whatever way you choose - is very difficult.

the system is good, better than d20 (this is axiomatic to me, if this isn't true then none of the rest really matters)

'Better', as you're well aware, is relative. To your average d20 fan who doesn't have the time or inclination to learn another system, 'better' is 'something I'm familiar with', which is d20.
The OGL is what makes d20 so damn powerful, because people don't need to learn another system to play a game, they can just wait for the d20 conversion. It's also another reason why I suspect that there won't ever be another version of Traveller produced now that the d20 version exists.

[*]the existence of T20 could ease the transition for existing d20 fans -- you already know the feel, setting, and much of the system, all you have to change/learn are a few key elements

It's more than a few, I think. Those charts that others have produced comparing the systems puts T20 and CT on diametrically opposite ends of the spectrum. Though actually, they're probably more similar than GURPS and CT.

[*]Traveller is (or at least has the potential to be) seen by the general public as 'less-geeky' and/or more mature than D&D -- no funny dice, less cartoony artwork/graphic design, not fantasy, possible vestigial memory among those who played D&D in the 80s but 'outgrew' it of Traveller as a more mature/serious alternative (remember, it sold 250K copies in the 70s-80s, which means it was seen by at least 2-3x that number -- those people are still out there somewhere, and some of them may still remember Traveller fondly even if they haven't played an rpg in 20+ years)

I don't see how you can easily persuade people who have outgrown something to come back into it.
Those people are at least 15 years older by now, and probably don't have the time or inclination to do *any* roleplaying today.

[*]FFE has a strong existing relationship with a company that has already produced a system for playing rpgs online (this is IMO very important and has been almost totally overlooked -- if you want to reach adult non-gamers you're going to HAVE to overcome the time-investment and the difficulty of finding other players, and FULLY integrating GRiP or something similar into the basic package is the only way I can see to accomplish this)

Playing online still requires time and effort though. Somehow, I can picture a resurgence in Traveller in about 20 years time, when the people who originally played it reach retirement age and suddenly have time of their hands again .

 

[daryen]

Thank you for answering my questions. It helps me understand where everyone is coming from.

Originally posted by T. Foster:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Especially since T5 is to be based on what seems to be the concensus choice for the worst version of Traveller made so far!

Well, not if I can do anything about it! But seriously, Marc Miller seems to be seriously swimming upstream with this one. I'm still hoping that with enough gentle prodding he can be convinced that the DGP/MT task system is both more popular and just plain better than his tweaked T4.1 system, but I've been prodding away for ~5 years now with no visible signs of progress, so maybe I should just give up. But then again, I AM a zealot!

</font>[/QUOTE]From an pure observer point of view, you probably have a long row to hoe to get Mr. Miller to change his mind on that.

Putting everything I have read together, and then attempting to read between the lines, it would appear the problem is that MT (and TNE) aren't his systems, but T4 is.

Put in other words, Mr. Miller himself made the T4 system. It is a direct result of his efforts.

MT is the result of the efforts of others. Sure, he had input into MT, but the system is not his. Yes, it is purely based on CT, which was predominately his, but it would seem that he doesn't view it as his.

Therefore, I would guess that the battle to get him to change from using a system that he views as his, to a system that he does not view as his, is likely futile.

Please don't take this as an attempt to stop your attempts. (Lord knows I have plenty of "futile battles" of my own!) It is just to explain why I think it is futile.

 

[T. Foster]

Originally posted by Evil Dr Ganymede:
You forgot z, being 'new gamers who have never heard of or played Traveller, GURPS or d20 before'. I don't think anybody really knows how big a proportion of the Traveller customer base that makes up though.

I suspect it's a very small number. Even if he only wants SF, someone new to the hobby who walks into a game-store is going to see Star Wars (1 book @ $35), Star Trek (2 books @ $60, but you can start with 1 @ $30), Blue Planet (2 books @ $56, but you can start with 1 @ $28), Transhuman Space (1 book @ $30), GURPS Space (2 books @ $53 and you need both*), GT (2 books @ $53 and you need both*), and T20 (2 books @ $75 and you need both*). In this field Traveller (either version) doesn't stack up too well -- unless he's already familiar with either the Traveller brand or the GURPS or d20 systems (and the whole argument is predicated that he's not) I can really see no reason why he'd choose Traveller over the others.

*Yeah you can get by using GURPS-Lite or free downloads from WOTC, but our hypothetical newbie gamer doesn't know that -- after all it says right there on the back of the book "requires x, y & z" (and actually IIRC the back of the GT book says it requires GURPS Basic, Compendium I, and G:Space! -- how's 4 books @ $99 sound? ).

From what I gather, it seems to be very difficult to tear d20 fans away from d20 and expand to using other systems. Granted, that's mostly from hearsay on discussion forums, but I've had some actual experience with d20 games to back this up. D20 fans do seem to be rather close-minded when it comes to other systems. Proving to them that another system is 'better' overall - in whatever way you choose - is very difficult.

Agreed.

'Better', as you're well aware, is relative. To your average d20 fan who doesn't have the time or inclination to learn another system, 'better' is 'something I'm familiar with', which is d20.
The OGL is what makes d20 so damn powerful, because people don't need to learn another system to play a game, they can just wait for the d20 conversion. It's also another reason why I suspect that there won't ever be another version of Traveller produced now that the d20 version exists.

Agreed again, sadly. I argued when T20 was first announced that it meant Traveller was effectively abdicating its future existence as a stand-alone game engine and was roundly poo-pooed (and not just by the people who thought the Traveller engine deserved to be retired). As someone who started back in the 80s and played dozens of different systems I don't really understand why the d20ers are so unwilling to expand to different systems, why they would rather kludge 'fixes' for the things they don't like about d20 than just play a different system that doesn't have those problems in the first place, but I can't deny it. Perhaps WOTC is coding subliminal messages into their rulebooks?

But anyway, that's why I'm not relying totally on conversting existing d20 gamers as the way to create a new audience for Traveller/T5, and why I think the real potential lies in the relatively untapped mass of 'casual adult gamers.'

It's more than a few, I think. Those charts that others have produced comparing the systems puts T20 and CT on diametrically opposite ends of the spectrum. Though actually, they're probably more similar than GURPS and CT.

You're probably right here too. Honestly, I wasn't that enamored with this reason to begin with, but since it was the excuse given to me as to why T20 would actually be good for Traveller tha game-engine (not just Traveller the IP) , and having 4 points on my list looked better than having 3

, I went ahead and included it...

I don't see how you can easily persuade people who have outgrown something to come back into it.
Those people are at least 15 years older by now, and probably don't have the time or inclination to do *any* roleplaying today.

This is what I'd like to see investigated further. Sure those people don't play rpgs anymore, but a lot of them do still play computer games like Civilization or The Sims (I know these examples area couple years old, but I'm sure adults are still playing their present-day equivalents). I still think that if we could both lessen/eliminate the 'social stigma' associated with rpgs and make the experience more like what they're used to with computer games (by decreasing/eliminating the 'offline' prepwork and need to gather 3-4 likeminded fellow-players at a single time and place) that some of them might be willing to look back at what they thought they had outgrown. Whether that number would be statistically significant, and enough to keep the game afloat, I have no idea. I sure wish I did, though.

Playing online still requires time and effort though. Somehow, I can picture a resurgence in Traveller in about 20 years time, when the people who originally played it reach retirement age and suddenly have time of their hands again .

So there we have it then -- T5 in '25!

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Eris:

Ideally, I would make T5 a modified T4 where the skill levels average out on the same 2 to 15 scale as the characteristics. A "low characteristic"(2), "low skill"(2) person brings an asset of 4 to a task, an "average" person (7) with "average" training (7) would bring an asset of 14 to a task, and an "outstanding" (15), "high skilled" (15) person brings an asset of 30 to a task. This means, of course, we would need to scale the task system's success levels appropriately, but that should be doable. [/QB]

That's quite profound -- thanks for posting! You simply mean 'scale the target numbers' for the tasks, don't you?

The 2d6 roll + asset would typically be 7-32, with a potential range of 3-42.

So then, how about
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Easy : 16+
Average : 20+
Difficult : 24+
Formidable : 28+
Staggering : 30+
Impossible : 34+</pre>[/QUOTE]Or instead, are you thinking of a matrix mapping an asset range against a difficulty to a 2-12 target number? That might make it easy to run with...

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by T. Foster:
I suspect it's a very small number. Even if he only wants SF, someone new to the hobby who walks into a game-store is going to see (*lotsastuff snipped*). In this field Traveller (either version) doesn't stack up too well -- unless he's already familiar with either the Traveller brand or the GURPS or d20 systems (and the whole argument is predicated that he's not) I can really see no reason why he'd choose Traveller over the others.

That is a point. Though people seem to be willing to spend more money on games nowadays than they used to. Ideally a new Traveller corebook should be self-contained at least (which GURPS Traveller and T20 currently aren't, though T20 is close. If GT ever gets released as 'Powered By GURPS' - and the Interstellar Wars book might be - then that should be more selfcontained).

I can't help but wonder if it might have been a better idea to release T20 as a self-contained OGL game based on the d20 system, rather than as a d20 game that required one to have the PHB?

As someone who started back in the 80s and played dozens of different systems I don't really understand why the d20ers are so unwilling to expand to different systems, why they would rather kludge 'fixes' for the things they don't like about d20 than just play a different system that doesn't have those problems in the first place, but I can't deny it. Perhaps WOTC is coding subliminal messages into their rulebooks?

I wonder about the same thing. Maybe kids today have shorter attention spans or something. I'm only now getting to the stage where I can't actually seem to be able to learn a new system (rules make my eyes glaze over now). But there is a definite reticence to learn new systems today.

But anyway, that's why I'm not relying totally on conversting existing d20 gamers as the way to create a new audience for Traveller/T5, and why I think the real potential lies in the relatively untapped mass of 'casual adult gamers.'

But you also have to persuade those 'casual adulty gamers' that whatever system T5 has is a better choice than the most popular RPG system on the market (and GURPS which is apparently around fifth place in the popularity stakes, according to some sources). Yes, yes, CT may have sold 250,000 copies, but 'popularity' isn't based on how much a previous version of the game sold in the past. Besides which, that's dwarfed by the number of copies D&D has ever sold in its lifetime, and possibly (and I'm guessing here) also less than the numbers of GURPS corebooks sold since that game's first incarnation.

This is what I'd like to see investigated further. Sure those people don't play rpgs anymore, but a lot of them do still play computer games like Civilization or The Sims (I know these examples are a couple years old, but I'm sure adults are still playing their present-day equivalents).

Maybe so, but have you tried tearing anyone away from Civilisation or the Sims?

I still think that if we could both lessen/eliminate the 'social stigma' associated with rpgs and make the experience more like what they're used to with computer games (by decreasing/eliminating the 'offline' prepwork and need to gather 3-4 likeminded fellow-players at a single time and place) that some of them might be willing to look back at what they thought they had outgrown. Whether that number would be statistically significant, and enough to keep the game afloat, I have no idea. I sure wish I did, though.

I'd guess it'd be very difficult to do that. For one thing, it's very difficult to minimise the prep-work, unless you want to run one-shots all the time. And how do you get these people to even try the game in the first place? They probably don't even go to RPG stores and won't see any notices or demos.

So there we have it then -- T5 in '25!

Of course, by 2025, we might all have to work til we're 80 before we can retire...

 

[Sophiathegreen]

The America public is very anti-crital thinking an very anti-science. In the local bookstore in El Paso, texas most of the books in the Science Fiction and Fanstary section nowday are mostly fanstary not science fiction anymore.

That why Science Fiction games like traveller have than hard time selling in America. Look America lead in science and technolgy is soon going to end the Nation of Pakistian, Iran , India and other 3rd world
nations are going to bypass use. The only nation thinking about colonzition of the moon is China.

 

[T. Foster]

Originally posted by Evil Dr Ganymede:
But you also have to persuade those 'casual adulty gamers' that whatever system T5 has is a better choice than the most popular RPG system on the market (and GURPS which is apparently around fifth place in the popularity stakes, according to some sources). Yes, yes, CT may have sold 250,000 copies, but 'popularity' isn't based on how much a previous version of the game sold in the past. Besides which, that's dwarfed by the number of copies D&D has ever sold in its lifetime, and possibly (and I'm guessing here) also less than the numbers of GURPS corebooks sold since that game's first incarnation.

Yeah, D&D/d20 would seem the natural choice, since it has much more mass-market name-recognition and exposure than every other rpg system combined, there are also IMO a couple factors working against its potential acceptance by casual adult gamers: 1) the social stigma -- everybody may know what Dungeons & Dragons is, but they also know that it's exclusively the domain of geeky teenage boys (assuming they don't 'know' that it's a tool of Satan... ). A 'new' game that doesn't have those negative connotations might stand a better chance of finding mass-market success*; 2) the HUGE mass of D&D/d20 books on the market -- there are literally hundreds of these things, and seemingly about a half-dozen new ones released every week. While this is heaven for kids with a collector's mentality and nothing else to spend their paper-route and allowance money on, I suspect it's actually a turn-off for more casual prospective fans, who'd probably prefer to get 1 (or maybe 2) products and go, rather than having to buy something new every week.

*(Traveller possibly has a double advantage here: name-recognition and history of quality within the existing gamer fanbase, but essentially unknown to the mass-market (thus avoiding the negative popular connotations of D&D).)

As for where GURPS fits into the popularity stakes, I've always seen GURPS as a niche product, marketing itself primarily to existing gamers ("you've tried the rest, now try the best") rather than to non-gamer newbies. From its acronym title to its customizable rules to its policy of not publishing full/scripted adventures, everything about GURPS says 'advanced system' to me. The new 'powered by GURPS' lines might be changing this, but in my (admittedly non-scientific) experience everybody I know who plays GURPS is an 'advanced' gamer who came to it from other systems. Also, SJG's tendency to play up the 'gamer-geek' stereotype for laughs (shared by the KODT/Hackmaster group) is wholly incompatible with my hypothesis that for an rpg to achieve mass-market popularity it would need to do everything possible to avoid that very stereotype.

I'd guess it'd be very difficult to do that. For one thing, it's very difficult to minimise the prep-work, unless you want to run one-shots all the time. And how do you get these people to even try the game in the first place? They probably don't even go to RPG stores and won't see any notices or demos.[/QB]

A certain amount of prepwork for referees is inevitable (thinking up stories, plotting adventures) but I think that if we could minimize the bookkeeping and paperwork load (creating characters, worlds, maps, encounters, gear) that would be a big help, similarly for players (by automating chargen and between-session bookkeeping). Even if you're playing an 'old-fashioned' FTF game, having all the paperwork and bookkeeping automated on your laptop or PDA rather than in a stack of looseleaf notebooks seems like a big advantage that AFAIK no one has really exploited of yet (WOTC's E-Tools notwithstanding).

As for how to get the casual adults to try the game in the first place, well, that's the big question (and the thing that even I admit makes my vision thoroughly unrealistic). The first step would necessarily be to make the game available beyond the traditional game-store outlets. Mass-market bookstores (Border's, Barnes & Noble, etc.) are absolutely essential (these stores already have a shelf of rpgs, but all that's on it are D&D and d20 products, maybe a few WW books and a copy or two of the Lord of the Rings rpg); depending on how fully the online/computer portion is integrated, trying to get it into electronics stores (and places like Best Buy) would also help. Mass-market advertising and press coverage would probably also be necessary -- tv spots on likey channels (Sci-Fi Channel, History Channel, the ridiculous new 'Spike' thing), coverage in media/lifestyle magazines (Entertainment Weekly, computer magazines, Maxim maybe). Making a free demo version available on the website (and/or giving out free demo CDs and/or 'lite' rulebooks in stores) would help. I'm not a sales/marketing expert by any means, I'm just thinking out loud, mostly about how mass-market computer games are marketed. The bottom line is that the money to launch such an aggressive marketing campaign is surely beyond the capabilities of FFE or QLI (or any non-Hasbro game publisher, for that matter). The way to accomplish this would probably be for FFE and QLI to partner with some major media company (Sony, AOL, Microsoft, etc.) but that's making a deal with the devil that would probably end up making the bumpy relationship with Courtney Solomon look like paradise and I imagine Marc Miller's too protective of his IP rights to ever risk it (besides which, it's not like major media companies are exactly lining up to drop serious cash on marketing an rpg either... ).

As you can see, in addition to being a zealot I'm also a dreamer . For a more realistic view, I dunno -- I suppose yours is as good as any (IIRC it was a PDF/POD release for the grognards, followed perhaps by a 'real' version a few years down the line after GT, T20, and the reprints have run their course).

What it really all comes down to for me is the fact that I haven't sat down and played a game of Traveller in ~5 years, and don't have the time (or even the inclination, really) to play again anytime soon. So, in a way, fiddling around trying to fashion the 'perfect' rulset and making grandiose plans for eventual market dominance is my own personal way of 'playing' Traveller solitaire, comparable to other people's 'playing' Traveller by designing endless ships or working out the minute details of Imperial culture and history. As Bill Cameron has been known to say, "it's all Traveller and it's all good!"

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

"Anyone that claims to dislike Science Fiction or to not understand Science Fiction, has something WRONG with them."

-Arthur C. Clarke

I can honestly say that this is a modicum I choose to live by, What? I have also found out that it is sort of true...

IMNSHO, t20 presents the best opprtunity for Mass Appeal, if you can apply such a thing to the RPG market... It presents a familiar system that makes some sense overall, and seems to work. It has been my experience (adopts crotchety old man voice) That these durn kids today with thier Magic Cards and Heroclix, and whatnot, have turned the so-called RPG market into even more of a hypergeek festival than it ever was. Gurps, is a fine game, I have played it many times and have had a great time in so doing (I was a Champions player in me mispent youth).
But its Gurps. Gurps is Expensive. Gurps is way too Specialized for even my geeked out behind. I half expect SJG to release "GURPS: Third Shift Nurses" next week. Defeats the use of imagination if you already have it all spelled out for ya...

T20, is a good system, but does have its problems (mostly sloppy mechanical ones) MT, T4, TNE, all seemed pretty "By Geeks for Geeks" to me. They seem like "pet" game systems. CT had some flaws, yes, but it did have its own identity.

To be Brief,

Computers while helping the RPG market, are also helping to kill it.

Today's Kids (IE new Players) are more reluctant than ever to sit around and do math for fun, that's your computer game society for ya... I first noticed it when Shadowrun (PUKE) and the first Star Wars RPG came out. The Character Making Process was replaced with an Archetype Selection... I guess people get tired of using thier Imaginations, or perhaps they are merely lazy...

My alternate theory is that Anime-related media have subverted the average american's Imagination.
the stuff is good, yes, but is it TOO good? Most everything nowadays seems to be derived from it, ad nauseum. I personally find it disturbing, as everyone looks like Speed Racer with Impossible Hair. It is also an Artform that easily makes a short jump from Giant Robots to Highschool girls in Sailor's Uniforms getting "chased" by plants and things too easily to be healthy.

OK, it wasn't that Brief, what?

I sometime feel as a Gamer that I am a polar bear on an ever shrinking Ice Floe, adrift in a sea of unimaginative mediocrity.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Baron Saarthuran:
IMNSHO, t20 presents the best opprtunity for Mass Appeal, if you can apply such a thing to the RPG market... It presents a familiar system that makes some sense overall, and seems to work. It has been my experience (adopts crotchety old man voice) That these durn kids today with thier Magic Cards and Heroclix, and whatnot, have turned the so-called RPG market into even more of a hypergeek festival than it ever was. Gurps, is a fine game, I have played it many times and have had a great time in so doing (I was a Champions player in me mispent youth).

Let's see. D&D was made into a movie (albeit an atrociously bad one) and a very popular cartoon series in the 80s, Battletech was made into a fairly decent cartoon series in the early 90s, and there's also been the Heavy Gear animated series, which I haven't seen. Then you have all those clicky games and card games, that have actually *expanded* the RPG-related market hugely. And also, the new D&D RPG has sold in the *millions*.

If it was 'hypergeeky' I don't think it would be practised by quite so many people. I think there are many more people than you're accounting for who are at least familiar with roleplying, if not fully accepting of it.

So it seems to me that gaming is getting quite mainstream today - it's not the same hobby as it was in the 80s. Roleplaying and gaming don't have the social stigma that they used to have, though there will always be people who sneer at it. But that's their loss

That said, getting people who were roleplayers years ago to come back to the hobby is likely to be very difficult. Eventually, people change over time, grow out of things, have different priorities to take care of, and just don't have the time to spend on RPGs.

The Character Making Process was replaced with an Archetype Selection... I guess people get tired of using thier Imaginations, or perhaps they are merely lazy...

I'd imagine archetypes were introduced because the publishers wanted to make it easier for people to get straight into the game. Why spend 30 minutes rolling dice when you can just pick an archetype, tweak a bit, and be ready in 5 minutes?

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

My rant was more directed at the new RPG market, and a apologize (as much as possible for me to) in my use of the term "Hypergeek".

It is interesting that you should bring up the d&d movie and cartoon, as they exemplify perfectly what im getting at. The movie, SHOULD have given Lord of the Rings a run for its credits, yet, it did not. Why? crudely put, it would seem that its creators banked on duping RPG people into seeing a crappy, nay, Incredibly Fecal pile of "Cinema". I would have thought that the capital generated by years of RPG product sales could have produced a film that did NOT seem like Helen Keller was the director. You can say "Oh, That's Hollywood" or something similar, but then you must consider, did no one from hollywood or whoever is in charge of the D&D Franchise, just out right and say "This Movie Sucks!"?

The same tenets go for the Cartoon from the eighties, and I can Prove it...

1. "Sheee-la!" said Bobby the Barbarian. Shouldn't the Characters be dunGeons and Dragons type Characters, instead of annoying displaced teenagers from 1984? Why Not? Thundarr did. Hell, even He-Man did...

2. The Yoda/Papa Smurf Dungeon Master Character was just plain embarassing to anyone that was a Dungeon Master.

3. They could have cut out the middleman and just called the Evil Character "Venger" "Vader" in stead.

My point is that when a concept is diluted and "dumbed down" to make a fast buck, the result degrades the genre. It may be Elitist of me to say, but I prefer an RPG situation that isn't a warmed over version of DOOM or Quake 2. All meaningless combat with no substance.

Yes, The RPG market is more "mainstream" but the market is full of the sort of folks that read Comics, but only love Wolverine. Instant gratification is well on the way to creating McRPGs for everyone. The Archetype systems may have saved the poor RPG creators from fussing about with the process of a player making distinct, unique, and individual Characters, but then wouldn't that make a lot of people Han Solo or Daredevil?

I think expansion is a good thing for the market, definitely, but isnt there some way to do it that doesn't make it so... Prefabricated? You may get new RPG players, yes, but for a short while, before they find the joys of "Survivor" or something.

People are supposed to grow out of RPGs?
I always thought the only Priority was RPGs... heh, the universe truly does hold many wonders...

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by Baron Saarthuran:
Computers while helping the RPG market, are also helping to kill it.

Agreed. How many times I've seen someone tying "Role Playing Game" with "Computer Game"... they all goes funny-eyed when I tell them we are 7 to play simultaneously.... they all asks "what kind of system do you have?!?!?!". Funny how they look when I say "Pen & Paper"...

Today's Kids (IE new Players) are more reluctant than ever to sit around and do math for fun, that's your computer game society for ya... I first noticed it when Shadowrun (PUKE) and the first Star Wars RPG came out. The Character Making Process was replaced with an Archetype Selection... I guess people get tired of using thier Imaginations, or perhaps they are merely lazy...

And anything having more rules than Magic:The Gathering is turning them off...

My alternate theory is that Anime-related media have subverted the average american's Imagination.
the stuff is good, yes, but is it TOO good? Most everything nowadays seems to be derived from it, ad nauseum. I personally find it disturbing, as everyone looks like Speed Racer with Impossible Hair. It is also an Artform that easily makes a short jump from Giant Robots to Highschool girls in Sailor's Uniforms getting "chased" by plants and things too easily to be healthy.

Nah... it's not the Anime that did the damage... it was the stoooopid collectible card game that came with them (pok'em on... with a KNIFE

And all that craze started with Magic TG... In my college gaming club, people stoped opening rulebook and asking about the latest Dragon mag when Magic came... It sucked all their intelligence and filled it with thoughts of Instants, Mana and Black Lotuses...

That was the beginning of the end for that Club... even if we were watching Anime years before. At least we were looking forward RPG based on those anime, if not already playing one...

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by Baron Saarthuran:
It may be Elitist of me to say, but I prefer an RPG situation that isn't a warmed over version of DOOM or Quake 2. All meaningless combat with no substance.

Hum... I guess Angband is out then

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Sophiathegreen:
The America public is very anti-crital thinking an very anti-science. In the local bookstore in El Paso, texas most of the books in the Science Fiction and Fanstary section nowday are mostly fanstary not science fiction anymore.

That why Science Fiction games like traveller have than hard time selling in America.

While that may be true, I don't think sci-fi has ever been a particularly popular genre anywhere. Sure, some things have broken into the mainstream (eg Star Wars, Star Trek), but when it comes to roleplaying most people seem to want to beat up hapless Orcs in dungeons rather than travel the spaceways.

I have a theory that people prefer to play characters that can make a difference to the game world (e.g brave adventuring heroes), and that's a lot harder to do when a universe is so huge as in Traveller - PCs tend to get lost in something that big. Though this is exactly why I liked TNE so much, because it shrank down the stage so that the PCs could actually make a difference on a planetary scale.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by thrash:
More food for thought:

http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=817

This is a discussion among Firefly fans about suitable systems for running a Firefly-based RPG campaign. What's interesting (and pertinent to this thread) is how quickly and out-of-hand Traveller gets dismissed, despite that most Traveller fans would say it's a natural choice.

*Snort*

That discussion's exactly just like one of the zillion threads on rpg.net that start with someone asking 'what system should I use for this concept', and then getting every single system under the sun suggested to him (most of the time with no explanation why), even the systems that patently aren't remotely suitable

.

One of these days I'm actually going to see an episode of this legendary 'Firefly' series that everyone's been going on about. Though I understand it's been cancelled now, much to lots of peoples' chagrin?

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Oh Firefly people of little faith...

Yick... this sort of exemplifies my point, to a disturbing degree

"I know! We could do a Rifts Combat System, With BESM character Development, And Gurps Vehicle Design, That for sure would be the easiest way to do it!"

I'm not quoting, I'm mocking...

I wish I could understand the Draw of this show, but it eludes me... at least its not Enterprise (ends own life) or Andromeda (kills Self) I remember a little show called Blake's 7 that tore that mess up for sure.

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by Baron Saarthuran:
I wish I could understand the Draw of this show, but it eludes me... at least its not Enterprise (ends own life) or Andromeda (kills Self) I remember a little show called Blake's 7 that tore that mess up for sure.

Maybe it's because it's NOT Enterprise nor Hercules In Space

It was a decent show that wasn't based on Yet Another StarTrek Show Generator. It didn't have a pseudo-god star that hijacked the show "because it's too hard to follow"...

Yet it missed things that these shows had: Air-Time and Backing. How can you build an audience for a show if you preempt it on the second week for showing a movie, AND that you air the pilot months after the actual show debut?

oh well, I might as well end this here or I'll be ranting, and ranting, and ranting, and...