Quote from: GRIMShit stirring?

Nothing succeeds like success. :keke:

I think D20, through D&D, put itself squarely in the zeitgeist of today's hobby and its ups and downs will be be considered the definitive force at the time. People bought, tinkered, played, talked excitedly, and argued ferociously over this system.

It seems to have been succesful at being unforgettable.

Quote from: jrientsYou're making some assumptions about my favorite game company that do not necessarily stand up to scrutiny.  My gut tells me that if S. John Ross sold a million unplayed copies of Fly From Evil he'd find a use for the dough, but he'd also be heartbroken.

I'm not sure what your point is. The company doesn't need money? Where does whether or not S. John Ross would be heartbroken or not enter the picture?

Quote from: jrientsMore to the point, as much as I love Ross's work and that of several others, I have no obligation to pay the man's bills.

I'm not suggesting otherwise—I'm pro-consumer. But it's still sales which allows the industry to grow. Whether you or not you should purchase a particularly product—or any product—is up to you.

Seanchai

Quote from: SeanchaiI'm not suggesting otherwise—I'm pro-consumer. But it's still sales which allows the industry to grow. Whether you or not you should purchase a particularly product—or any product—is up to you.

Seanchai

Yep, when you look at the difference between, say, the fan development scenes for FASERIP or Alternity, and the fan development scene for D&D, the ability, through the license, to make a commercial product has an enormous effect on the landscape.

I'm writing an OSRIC book *right now*. Now Im a fan and even though I do this full time, Im not counting on my OSRIC book to pay the bills for me (True 20 and d20 Modern do that just fine). However, I can honestly say I wouldn't be doing this is if there wasn't a potential to reap a reward.

People will be supporting d20, D&D, d20 Modern, M&M etc for decades, in ways they won't be supporting other game systems, because they'll be able to charge for the products, maybe include a little art, legally put the books on major e-book sites and still break even.

That's something I'd certainly call success.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI think the question is poorly phrased.

Has D20 grown the hobby?

Of course not.  It's lured grognards back to buying product and has energised a few existing gamers as well as inspired lots of gamers to buy more stuff but has it brought any new blood into the hobby?

Given that a sizeable chunk of the D20 years coincided with the explosion in popularity of MMORPGs I find that possibility, frankly, laughable.  D20 was all about consolidating an existing market and wringing more money out of it.

In terms of actually getting new people to become gamers then I'd argue that Vampire was the last "successful"RPG.

Based on my experience in my local rpg scene, I'll have to disagree, fortunately. There are a great many young dnd rpgers around my area, and most I've talked to have never played anything but dnd 3.0 or 3.5. It's pretty cool actually, I go into the large game store here and there's always kids hanging out playing/talking dnd. Takes me back.

Quote from: GabrielWhich is pretty meaningless because it's saying, "There's a million more people playing D&D each month during the highest point of the D&D3 craze than were playing AD&D2 during it's lowest ebb of popularity."

I wouldn't call brining a MILLION people back to RPGs "meaningless"; but hey, I guess for some people who don't actually want RPGs to be successful, or who specifically want D&D to fail...

RPGPundit

Quote from: CalithenaSeanchai,

I'm offering the theses for argument. You defend your side spiritedly. But I'm not necessarily on the other side.

Do you think those amazon d20 modern buyers are new gamers? Because as I said, making a million dollars or creating a genuinely new and interesting way to roleplay are NOT success for purposes of this thread. The ONLY thing that counts as success for my purposes in this thread is creating more butts in seats playing RPGs. You can talk about other stuff if you want of course - it's a free internet.

D&D is the one that gets new players in. D20 (modern or whichever) is what dominates the RPG market itself.  The two each have their role to play (pardon the pun).

The point is that the sales ranking that D20 Modern has (vastly beating the shit out of all other mainstream games) indicates that whether they're new players or not, new people are getting into D20. Those people might be moving from D&D, or moving from other RPGs, but they're moving. D20 is a success, a bigger success by far that the WoD, Savage Worlds, or whatever game you like.

QuoteI think the jury is still out on 3rd edition's long-term success in this sense. I grant that it has had some and I do believe (based on anecdotal and a limited amount of inside information) that it's undergoing something of a 'second wave' (or even third) now.  WotCs annual report supports that too. Is this 'proven wrong'? Well, first of all, I didn't assert it, I asked it as a question, and second, I wonder if it would be possible to do better.

Oh for FUCK'S SAKE. At what fucking point is the Jury ever "In" with you fuckers?
Tell me, tell me motherfucker: What has to happen, concretely, for you to just fucking admit D&D is the most successful RPG in the world, and D&D 3.x has been a huge fucking success that SAVED ROLEPLAYING from the stupid as shit fuckhead swine who had driven gaming into the ground with failed concepts like Story-based gaming???

QuoteI agree with you that one thing the public wants is very close to what D&D is offering. The question - which I wouldn't be asking if I had a convincing answer ready to go - is whether the current rules actually provide that as well as they could, granted that they provide it to a certain degree. The answer might be yes or no, that's what I was hoping to get some insight into out of this thread.

ITS YES, MOTHERFUCKER, ITS OBVIOUSLY FUCKING "YES".

I mean shit, I'd love it if what the public liked was a little closer to True20 or Amber or even Warhammer, but its not. What they like is D&D 3.x. A million fucking new people say YES.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditI mean shit, I'd love it if what the public liked was a little closer to True20 or Amber or even Warhammer, but its not. What they like is D&D 3.x. A million fucking new people say YES.

RPGPundit

In fact when you look at the differences between M&M and True 20, you see (imo obviously) exactly what the dominant games are in their genre.

Why is M&M point based? Because supers fans (which in RPG terms means Hero fans) have said repeatedly, for years, that point-based gaming is the way to go and Hero is the most successful non-licensed superhero RPG of all time (by a wide margin).

True has classes. Why does it have classes despite being designed by the designer of M&M? Because D&D fans like classes and they like levels.

Following trends is one of the BEST ways to track real success.

And btw... only counting success as new players is, again, not a good measure of success.

When the NFL announces its attendance statistics, it counts the people who SHOWED UP, not the number who showed up, relative to last year.

So I agree "butts in seats" counts for a lot but we should actually count those butts when counting them, not whether it was more butts this year than last year (though obviously that's important for the future).