QuoteD&D is much more of a niche game than something like GURPS, Hero, or the Pool.  

:confused:

Sir, you are not talking about what Levi is talking about.

Quote from: jhkimI think the big versus niche distinction is totally different from thematic vs adventure.  As others have mentioned, there are many niche games over the history of RPGs like Tunnels & Trolls, Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu, James Bond 007, or Feng Shui.  D&D is much more of a niche game than something like GURPS, Hero, or the Pool.  

On the other hand, I wouldn't put Amber as a niche game, or at least no more of one than another genre-specific game like Star Wars, D&D, or Vampire.  Amber doesn't have a narrow formula for adventure -- and Amber games in play diverge radically.  From my experiences at AmberCon NorthWest in particular, you get everything from Toon-like silliness, to Machiavellian competition, to involved melodrama.

I think you're stretching here.

D&D as "niche" might apply if you mean "played as written in the core books, and ONLY those" - which is, uh, common, but not supremely so.

But Amber as "not niche" can only apply if you mean "played as people actually play it".

...Which way would you like it?

Quote from: Levi KornelsenI think you're stretching here.

D&D as "niche" might apply if you mean "played as written in the core books, and ONLY those" - which is, uh, common, but not supremely so.

But Amber as "not niche" can only apply if you mean "played as people actually play it".

...Which way would you like it?

Fair enough.  I was stretching in different directions, but I wasn't trying to establish a consistent meaning.  I was criticizing trying to use "niche" as an alternative for "thematic", by showing that the term "niche" can be validly used to apply to the opposite way you suggest (albeit with some stretching).  

However, to back up my points...

If I go into a convention or simply a local game, say, and a game is described as "D&D3.5" with no mention of variants, alternate settings, or expansions used -- then I have a set of expectations about what will appear in it and how play will proceed.  This is not just what the setting is, but what the adventure will involve, how play will proceed, and so forth.  

(Conversely, a indie Forge-associated game can be highly diverged if you use someone's expansion or variant of it -- so I don't think that is a reasonable judge of the focus of a game.)  

By comparison, Amber DRPG by the book is not narrowly a throne war game.  It includes some competitive throne war advice, but there is a lot of other possibilities for adventure described in the book.

The point is, Amber and D&D are successful NOT because they are niche, but because they are GOOD.

Other games do not stand up to the test of time, not because they are "niche" but because they are not good.

Hell, look at Sorcerer. Its already gone utterly out of style. It doesn't help that Forge games are impulsed a lot by a kind of trend-setting/spotting of what's "hot" at the moment (as decided by a certain clique of Forge "experts"), but basically that game has been relegated to the dustbin of history already.
I mean, maybe there's someone somewhere who still runs it, but you could probably also say that about Synnabar or Cyborg Commando. At some point the "far end" of the bell curve stretches out to a miniscule infinity approaching zero, and you can effectively call a game "dead", regardless of whether or not you know a guy in Milwaukee who still plays it.

On the other hand, look at Amber. How many other games designed in 1986 were there that are just relics today, unplayed for the most part, abandoned? How many have come and gone since then?
You can't say that Amber's 20-year history of consistent success is caused simply by niche-filling. If it was that, some other game would have long since  come along and tried to fill that niche. Hell, some of them did (nobilis, for example), and failed, and are already being forgotten.

So while being able to satisfy a niche effectively is certainly something that will help a game, its not the key to its longevity. Good design is the only key for that.

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