Speaking of LL (because it's the only one on the list with which I'm acquainted): It's "just like D&D" only to the same extent that RuneQuest and DragonQuest, The Fantasy Trip and Swordbearer, Tunnels & Trolls and Warhammer FRP and Talislanta and Earthdawn are just like D&D. In the ways that actually matter to most gamers in my experience -- "System Matters," which I thought was a Forge shibboleth -- they are all strikingly different.

They are all about a fantastic world of premodern aspect in which humans interact with nonhuman beings and supernatural powers. In other words, by Edwards' reckoning, much of classic literature, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the Saga of Beowulf, from the Ramayana to the Oddysey, from the Bible to the Morte d'Arthur, is all just the same and therefore a waste!

His apparent real beef is not that they are all like D&D, but that they are not all like his ideal of a rules set packed with "metagame" contraptions, one that constrains itself to an artificially limited scenario built around a single mechanical innovation, yadda yadda.

Well, it happens that many -- perhaps most -- people find your ideal BORING, Edwards! Why it should be regarded as a shortcoming on their part that they make up pastimes they actually enjoy is a real stumper, pal.

You races sound interesting and fun to play. I'm not much into the system, but your Promised Sands setting looked interesting as well.

I frankly wouldn't worry about theorists and what they think about your game. It doesn't matter if it is/is not a "fantasy heartbreaker".

What does matter is how you like your game. Is it something you would play? It is something you WANT to play? Are excited about sharing this setting with others?

The really good stuff in our hobby comes from super excited RPG geeks who dig what they're doing. They love creating for the sake of it, and then sharing that work.

I think one of the best ways to garner interest in a game is to share free stuff (maps, characters, short stories, adventures, monster write-ups, etc.) on a website and then share that with fellow RPG geeks. With all the stuff available out there, why should I buy your stuff? Show me some quality, some inventiveness, some neat ideas. Show me your stuff is worth having.

Don't worry so much about the "theory". Create and share. That seems to be the driving force behind the successful "indie" publishers (IMHO).

Quote from: Phillip;712285I still have LoA around somewhere, I think. Not the kind of thing for my current game group, but that's partly because it's not trying to be D&D.

Well, I agree, it's trying to be RQ rather than D&D (at least from what I remember of the skills and percentages and derived stats and different kinds of HP)

"Fantasy Heartbreaker" is still fair, though. LoA is an attempt at a generic fantasy toolkit but clearly reflects the early 80s D&D / RQ zeitgeist in how it goes about things.

Quote from: TristramEvans;712142The term is meaningless since the OSR. To understand it, you had to be there.

I agree.

Also, how "fantasy heartbreaker" was used in Ron's essay is not how it is used by forumites in the decade since then.

Quote from: smiorgan;712294Well, I agree, it's trying to be RQ rather than D&D.

Bullshit. It was, IIRC, the rules set Lee developed for her own campaigns. No "trying to be" something else, and it does not especially resemble RQ.

QuoteLoA is an attempt at a generic fantasy toolkit but clearly reflects the early 80s D&D / RQ zeitgeist in how it goes about things.

BUT???

Yeah, Casablanca is an attempt at a wartime romance, but clearly reflects the early 1940s Hollywood zeitgeist in how it goes about things. Needz moar lens flarez n shaky cam dood kuz dats phat jj abrams duz it michael curtiz don' so he sux!!

Quote from: Spinachcat;712297Also, how "fantasy heartbreaker" was used in Ron's essay is not how it is used by forumites in the decade since then.

How is it used?

Quote from: Phillip;712302Bullshit. It was, IIRC, the rules set Lee developed for her own campaigns. No "trying to be" something else, and it does not especially resemble RQ.

Of course it isn't, I was being glib.

But, that's the whole point, innit. LoA is no more trying to be RQ than the other "heartbreakers" are trying to be D&D. They're clearly doing the opposite, trying to differentiate themselves from D&D, RQ and the others, but not getting very far away.

QuoteBUT???

Yeah, Casablanca is an attempt at a wartime romance, but clearly reflects the early 1940s Hollywood zeitgeist in how it goes about things. Needz moar lens flarez n shaky cam dood kuz dats phat jj abrams duz it michael curtiz don' so he sux!!

Er... lol?

Quote from: Ben Rogers;711469What makes a game a "heartbreaker" by definition?

Definitions vary. Edwards' original definition was idiosyncratic and generally not what people seem to mean when they use the term in general practice. (Or rather, Edwards' definition ends up being much more specific than the term's practical usage.)

In general, the term "fantasy heartbreaker" seems to only apply properly to systems, not settings. So I would never consider a fantasy setting supplement for a generic ruleset (like your Elfwood product) to be a fantasy heartbreaker.

With that being said, settings can have similar problems: There's both the Forgotten Realms Clone where you can't figure out why you'd want to use that setting instead of just picking up the better known and better supported alternatives. And there's also the Talislanta Syndrome where you're really, really proud of whatever twists you've created to make your game totally different from a generic D&D setting while still looking a lot like a generic D&D setting (i.e., "we've got no fucking elves, but we sure do have a lot of forest-dwelling humanoids with pointy ears and an affinity for magic").

Re: Fantasy heartbreakers.

For me, I'm willing to call just about any traditional RPG designed to emulate generic fantasy (i.e., D&D fantasy) a fantasy heartbreaker. These games are trying to compete head-to-head with D&D and they're never going to win. The advantages of familiarity and player base are too significant and too large to overcome.

The real fantasy heartbreakers, though, are the games that are D&D with the serial numbers filed off and a couple of "improvements" that they think are going to win the day for them. (Pre-3E adding a skill system was usually a key indicator. Dissing class systems for being "unrealistic" still ranks high on the list of warning signs.)

Retro-clones muddy this distinction somewhat.  My general impulse is to say that they generally can't be fantasy heartbreakers as the term is typically understood.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;712444For me, I'm willing to call just about any traditional RPG designed to emulate generic fantasy (i.e., D&D fantasy) a fantasy heartbreaker. These games are trying to compete head-to-head with D&D and they're never going to win. The advantages of familiarity and player base are too significant and too large to overcome.

I think the term is useless, and has become just a generic insult.

Many games have positioned themselves as being a close alternate to D&D, and still done well for themselves - from Tunnels & Trolls to Rolemaster (originally created as alternate D&D rules) to Pathfinder. They don't have to "win" in competition with D&D (although Pathfinder did, market-wise). They just have to be able to capture a subset of D&D players who are dissatisfied with the rules in a particular way.

There were also plenty of smaller D&D-fantasy games that still had audiences. The explosion of OSR games is the latest example, but in previous eras you had alternate games like Iron Heroes or Castles & Crusades, and before that games like Powers & Perils, Palladium Fantasy, Chivalry & Sorcery, and more.

Sure, there were plenty of failures - but the vast majority of all RPGs are failures in all genres.

Quote from: jhkim;712505I think the term is useless, and has become just a generic insult.

Many games have positioned themselves as being a close alternate to D&D, and still done well for themselves - from Tunnels & Trolls to Rolemaster (originally created as alternate D&D rules) to Pathfinder. They don't have to "win" in competition with D&D (although Pathfinder did, market-wise). They just have to be able to capture a subset of D&D players who are dissatisfied with the rules in a particular way.

There were also plenty of smaller D&D-fantasy games that still had audiences. The explosion of OSR games is the latest example, but in previous eras you had alternate games like Iron Heroes or Castles & Crusades, and before that games like Powers & Perils, Palladium Fantasy, Chivalry & Sorcery, and more.

Sure, there were plenty of failures - but the vast majority of all RPGs are failures in all genres.

T&T and Rolemaster though werent setting out to beat D&D. They were just the designers idea of what they wanted in a RPG. Especially T&T. The designer states in the intro they wanted a simpler RPG and set out to do so.

Quote from: jhkim;712505I think the term is useless, and has become just a generic insult.

Which is unfortunate because the lessons of the original term have value to hopeful game designers.

Quote from: jhkim;712505Many games have positioned themselves as being a close alternate to D&D, and still done well for themselves - from Tunnels & Trolls to Rolemaster (originally created as alternate D&D rules) to Pathfinder. They don't have to "win" in competition with D&D (although Pathfinder did, market-wise). They just have to be able to capture a subset of D&D players who are dissatisfied with the rules in a particular way.

T&T has done well enough for Flying Buffalo, which from the start has had other things going (and apparently you can still play Starweb for just a dollar per turn!). Palladium has done very well with D&D-ish RPG material as its mainstay.

QuoteSure, there were plenty of failures - but the vast majority of all RPGs are failures in all genres.

It might amount to fewer "failures" if the measure of success is that of the designers, publishers and players themselves. The whole matter is like people pretending to know by second-guessing what someone else's "cost" is when they claim he's selling "below cost," and other such fallacies of treating economics as something engaged in by abstractions rather than by human beings.

I tend to think of Fantasy Heartbreakers as one persons vision of their perfect version of D&D or similar which they mortgaged their house/raided the kids college fund/borrowed money from their parents etc to get into print, and which ends up clogging up their garage/basement with boxes full of unsold copies, apart from the ones their own small gaming group bought.

The internet has changed that - you can knock out a PDF for a cost of zero upwards and at least you won't clog up your basement/garage with unsold copies. The flipside is that there are so many of these things it's not easy to figure out which are playable, which are interesting, and which are plain shit.

For the OP - does your game:

1) Bring something new, different, better than anything/everything that has gone before?
2) Will it create a buzz at conventions/internet forums to get people talking about it/trying it out?
3) be remembered in 1 week/month/year/decade?

If the answer to any of those is 'maybe' or 'no' I would seriously consider not giving up your day job to write this thing and whatever you do don't sell the car/house/kids into slavery to pay for fancy art.

Or of course you could try Kickstarter - chances are you might rustle up enough hapless punters to get your houseruled D&D game into print and looking nice, alongside the reams of other mostly forgotten games that are churned out every week/month.

Sorry to sound like a cynic but I'm as guilty as many others of backing kickstarters that I forget about or download but never even look at. I'll be carefully considering all Kickstarters in future rather than blindly backing everything that looks vaguely interesting. Unless the answer to those three questions above are 'yes' chances are I'll pass on by. The world only needs a few versions of the same game, tweaked and polished in various ways. We have dozens now, in the future there may be hundreds or more all doing the same thing in a slightly different way.

Sometimes there is such a thing as too much choice.

Quote from: APN;712797For the OP - does your game:

1) Bring something new, different, better than anything/everything that has gone before?

Quite a few new and different things, yes.  "Better"?  Too subjective for me to say.  My "better" could be your "worse".  Yes, ElfWood is significantly "different" - yet familiar.

Quote from: APN;7127972) Will it create a buzz at conventions/internet forums to get people talking about it/trying it out?

We've playtested it at two Gen Cons and several other smaller cons.  So far, it's generating a lot of buzz, creating fans, people are finding it fascinating and different.  

Quote from: APN;7127973) be remembered in 1 week/month/year/decade?

Two years on (playtested and Gen Con 2012 and 2013) and people are still clamoring for it. We aren't a big company. We haven't advertised a lot.  Yet, we're building a fan-base. Many of the people who are enjoying it are already asking for expansions and additional setting details.

Quote from: APN;712797If the answer to any of those is 'maybe' or 'no' I would seriously consider not giving up your day job to write this thing and whatever you do don't sell the car/house/kids into slavery to pay for fancy art.

Even with "yes" as an answer to all those questions, I'm not anywhere near considering giving up the day job! LOL

Or of course you could try Kickstarter - chances are you might rustle up enough hapless punters to get your houseruled D&D game into print and looking nice, alongside the reams of other mostly forgotten games that are churned out every week/month.

Quote from: APN;712797Sorry to sound like a cynic but I'm as guilty as many others of backing kickstarters that I forget about or download but never even look at. I'll be carefully considering all Kickstarters in future rather than blindly backing everything that looks vaguely interesting. Unless the answer to those three questions above are 'yes' chances are I'll pass on by. The world only needs a few versions of the same game, tweaked and polished in various ways. We have dozens now, in the future there may be hundreds or more all doing the same thing in a slightly different way.

Sometimes there is such a thing as too much choice.

You actually don't sound like as much of a cynic as quite a few others that I've heard.  

Bottom line: This isn't D&D.  We aren't interested in making a "more exciting wheel" when the "old wheel" works just fine.  Our philosophy is such that we don't think that D&D = fantasy.  Fantasy is a genre and D&D is a game system that allows you to play games in that genre.  

Our game system (Sixcess) allows you to play in many different genres - ElfWood is the fantasy setting that we created for Sixcess.

Promised Sands is another setting that blends fantasy and post-apoc.  

In the very near future a mini-setting called Invasion of the Fourth Reich will be released (like in the next couple weeks).  

And after ElfWood has launched, we'll be kickstarting Extraordinary Voyages - which is our take on steampunk / pulpy sci-fi.

Bottom line, we produce settings that are somewhat "wonky" - unusual, different, with new perspectives and tweaks on stereotypes.

I'd encourage you to look at ElfWood.  You might be surprised at what you find.

Quote from: fuseboy;711507So heartbreaker: "This game breaks my heart. The magic system is cool, but it doesn't live up to the hope I had that it would be really interesting from a game design perspective, in other respects it has no aspirations to interesting game design."

But then couldn't you cobble together a patchwork abomination of a game out of the cool magic system from heartbreaker and the cool martial maneuvers from heartbreaker 2 along with the wilderness rules from game x and the anal circumference saves from FATAL?