Ttrpgs are hyper niche due to the high investment cost and difficulty of finding other players. If you want views, then you're better off writing prose or making video games. 

Quote from: estar on September 05, 2024, 10:08:08 AMHeartbreaker stuck because it was coined in an era of limited shelf and warehouse space. Publishers competed for those space and thus projects that had little to no chance in that arena but also had a ton of creative and monetary investment looked futile thus the label stuck.

This is no longer the case and now projects pretty much rise and fall on their own merits and the work the author puts in. There can still be an overinvestment, but if one is willing to recalibrate expectations, you can recover and bootstrap back into something viable.

I'd agree -- but I think it's also obsolete because the genre landscape has changed. When it was coined in 2002, "fantasy heartbreaker" meant a game where the designer's only experience was D&D.

Back in 2002, D&D was on top and the D20 wave was starting -- but there was a variety of second-tier games. Now, 22 years later, the market is even more D&D-focused than ever. It's not just that D&D is still on top, but a big chunk of all the second-tier games are all directly based on D&D - Pathfinder, Starfinder, OSR games, Nimble, DC20, Shadowdark and many others.

So it seems like knowing about RPG design outside D&D isn't actually so important. As someone who's been an RPG fan for years, it bugs me when someone starts publishing and clearly doesn't know about the history of RPGs. But I have to admit that it seems like just knowing D&D is enough to be successful in today's market.

Here's the original essay for reference (cert expired but site is safe). A Fantasy Heartbreaker is a game which is essentially D&D with a handful of innovations doomed to die in obscurity, which is exactly what each game mentioned in that essay did.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 05, 2024, 01:34:43 PM(No, Pulp isn't a genre).

Feel the same way about Anime.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on September 06, 2024, 08:51:13 AMI know of an authour, John Michael Greer. who writes in two relatively obscure fields - occult magic, and talking about the coming deindustrial future, and he said that each time he writes he gets a few sales, but that he also gets a little uptick in sales of previous works, as people who buy Book X by JMG decide to also buy Book Y by JMG. He said that this "long tail" took fifteen years to get thick enough that his wife no longer had to do paid work (she had some long-term illness).

Which are exactly the same market dynamics #WotC originally took advantage of with the OGL, D20 Logo, and SRD to great effect. Now imagine how successful he'd be if he got a little uptick whenever someone else wrote another book.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 06, 2024, 12:28:57 PMTtrpgs are hyper niche due to the high investment cost and difficulty of finding other players. If you want views, then you're better off writing prose or making video games. 

Can't even do lore vids anymore given how so many new RPGs simply don't have any.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on September 06, 2024, 02:12:09 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 06, 2024, 12:28:57 PMTtrpgs are hyper niche due to the high investment cost and difficulty of finding other players. If you want views, then you're better off writing prose or making video games. 

Can't even do lore vids anymore given how so many new RPGs simply don't have any.

So I've noticed. Back in the 90s and 2000s it was common to have campaign setting books, mini-settings in magazines... now rpgs don't even bother with that much. Everything feels sparse and sterile.

On the other hand, after my negative experiences with the lorejunkies in WoD fandom, I find lore to be mostly an elitist extravagance. It gets too bloated to care about, acts as a straitjacket on creativity, and is irrelevant to the PCs. It's just the writers stroking their egos and cultists joining in.

There are ways to make lore relevant, like by the PCs being immortals who lived through these events. But 99% of the time it's just the writer engaging in self-aggrandizing exposition dumping. It's badly executed bullshit. Why should I or anyone else care about the grand convocation in bumfuck texas circa 18 zillion BC?

Even settings I like have a tendency to devolve into exposition dumps full of information that the PCs would never be able to learn anyway. The writers don't even try to communicate the info in-character or reveal it through adventures. It's self-aggrandizing nonsense and I don't understand why writers do it.

D&D and CoC are popular because of their relative lack of lore. It's not that they don't have lore, D&D has a multiverse after all. It's just not a straitjacket. You can invent your own settings and stuff without worrying about where it fits into canon. That's what all rpgs should strive to do. There's reasons why D&D is an order of magnitude more popular than CoC, and CoC is an order of magnitude more popular than anything that comes afterward.

Most rpgs are married to single canons and it just frustrates me. If you don't wanna play some rotting zombie IP from the 80s that has been lucky enough to stay solvent, then you're fucked. Rpgs are limited only by your imagination, but the hobby doesn't even bother to imagine anymore. I've long since become disillusioned with rpgs.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 06, 2024, 02:53:59 PMMost rpgs are married to single canons and it just frustrates me. If you don't wanna play some rotting zombie IP from the 80s that has been lucky enough to stay solvent, then you're fucked. Rpgs are limited only by your imagination, but the hobby doesn't even bother to imagine anymore. I've long since become disillusioned with rpgs.

Or you are not looking hard enough.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/browse?productType=2140-core-rulebooks

There are nearly 20,000 core rulebooks listed on DriveThruRPG alone. I have no doubt there are plenty of imaginative titles among those 20,000.

Quote from: estar on September 06, 2024, 03:11:01 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 06, 2024, 02:53:59 PMMost rpgs are married to single canons and it just frustrates me. If you don't wanna play some rotting zombie IP from the 80s that has been lucky enough to stay solvent, then you're fucked. Rpgs are limited only by your imagination, but the hobby doesn't even bother to imagine anymore. I've long since become disillusioned with rpgs.

Or you are not looking hard enough.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/browse?productType=2140-core-rulebooks

There are nearly 20,000 core rulebooks listed on DriveThruRPG alone. I have no doubt there are plenty of imaginative titles among those 20,000.

I agree. There has been a huge explosion of RPG publishing in the past 10 years or so. I used to maintain an encyclopedia of RPGs, but it became impossible to keep up with the pace of newly published RPGs. There are tons of people publishing, but they're fighting over a narrow fringe when the general market seems to be ever more focused on D&D and directly-related RPGs.

That brings up another point here:

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on September 06, 2024, 08:51:13 AMI don't think they're "heartbreakers" because they're the niche of a niche so much as that people write one or two, don't get an instant hit like JK Rowling did, and so give up. But if the person just kept pumping the writing out for 10+ years and listening to feedback, I think probably some good things might happen.

I'm glad it worked out for Greer, but I can tell you that there are tons of authors who have been struggling for 10+ years and they cannot get a break. My best friend from high school dropped out of college to become a screenwriter, and he's written over 200 scripts, and had 65 of them produced - but he's still struggling to make ends meet. Working for years at a low-paying gig doesn't necessarily lead to great things.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on September 06, 2024, 08:51:13 AMSNIP

I don't think they're "heartbreakers" because they're the niche of a niche so much as that people write one or two, don't get an instant hit like JK Rowling did, and so give up. But if the person just kept pumping the writing out for 10+ years and listening to feedback, I think probably some good things might happen. 

Who said they were?

I'm pointing to two distinct phenomenons and asking if there's a happy middle ground.

Or, to ask the same in a different way: Why do so many rpgs die in obscurity?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 06, 2024, 04:01:31 PMOr, to ask the same in a different way: Why do so many rpgs die in obscurity?

The simple answer is that there are far too many RPGs produced compared to the number of RPG players. Lots of people have great ideas for RPGs.

Added onto that is that the network effect means that even if an RPG is really well-designed, it will still fail unless it can establish a large enough network of players. That requires a popular enough genre hook and successful marketing.


I don't think that the best designs necessarily bubble up to the top. Just like McDonald's isn't the best food, I'm doubtful about design quality of some successful lines like World of Darkness or Starfinder - but they were good enough to be enjoyable to their fans.

Quote from: estar on September 06, 2024, 03:11:01 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 06, 2024, 02:53:59 PMMost rpgs are married to single canons and it just frustrates me. If you don't wanna play some rotting zombie IP from the 80s that has been lucky enough to stay solvent, then you're fucked. Rpgs are limited only by your imagination, but the hobby doesn't even bother to imagine anymore. I've long since become disillusioned with rpgs.

Or you are not looking hard enough.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/browse?productType=2140-core-rulebooks

There are nearly 20,000 core rulebooks listed on DriveThruRPG alone. I have no doubt there are plenty of imaginative titles among those 20,000.

Trust me, I've looked. Did you see my list of urban fantasy rpgs? They all died in obscurity and 90% aren't worth reading anyway.

Crappy games like World of Darkness continue for decades as badly written badly designed franchise zombies, while better games like WitchCraft or All Flesh Must Be Eaten die in obscurity.

90% of those 20,000 are crap due to sturgeon's law, and the remaining 10% worth reading are dead and never coming back.

I'm sick of it.

I think our hobby is just a bit SMALL outside of "official" D&D and a couple of games like PF and CoC.

There are also tons of free RPGs.

BFRPG for example has free adventures and supplements for a lifetime.

It is hard to succeed in our hobby.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on September 06, 2024, 08:51:13 AMdon't get an instant hit like JK Rowling did, and so give up.

I think she was rejected by at least 12 publishers. She wrote the first three books before she got a bite on the first one. I get your point but that's not a great example.

Most of the famous hits, like Potter and Twilight, were rejected a dozen times. It's impossible to predict what's gonna be the next big thing.

Meanwhile, financially successful franchises are canceled because they're not successful enough or part of the wrong IP when the company gets bought out.

There's really no recourse when an IP dies because of our dumb shitty copyright laws. Lots of interesting game IPs from the 80s, 90s and 2000s are dead and never coming back, while post Great Recession games mostly aren't worth investing in and the few that are die anyway.

It's stupid. Just because company X didn't achieve success doesn't mean company Y couldn't make it work.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 06, 2024, 04:01:31 PMOr, to ask the same in a different way: Why do so many rpgs die in obscurity?

In the Business Strategy classes in my MBA program we talked a lot about what makes some industries profitable and others not.  What happens in most industries is that there are a number of companies competing to provide similar products and the prices gets competed down until weaker companies can't stay in business, those folks go off and do other things, the remaining companies get a bit more profitable as they capture a larger share of the market, and things reach a kind of equilibrium until some shock like new technology starts changing things again.  One thing that can change the outcome is if the cost of staying in business is very low and competitors are willing to stay in for reasons other than profit.  Then everyone's profit gets competed down to close to zero unless they have some major advantage, and there's little money to be made as a new entrant.  Guess what industry this looks like?

The TLDR is that the dynamics of the RPG industry basically suck if you want to make a profit, especially for new entrants.  Since the cost of getting in is minimal, a lot of folks are going to try it, find out there's little money in it, and quit.  Hence many abandoned games, even pretty good ones.

A great book on this topic is "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success". It's available on Amazon.

It discusses, among other things:
- network effects
- Matthew effects
- the level of talent that the most successful have, compared to the less successful
- the difference between success and performance
- why young people seem to be the only ones who have big breakthroughs

And more. It's simultaneously a depressing read (because, as JH Kim pointed out, quality doesn't always win out) but it's also very liberating (because, in fact, you can succeed at any age and any time). I recommend all creators read out to better understand how to play the numbers. It inspired me to keep going despite a number of mediocre Kickstarters.

Quote from: amacris on September 07, 2024, 12:22:24 AMA great book on this topic is "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success".
...
It's simultaneously a depressing read (because, as JH Kim pointed out, quality doesn't always win out) but it's also very liberating (because, in fact, you can succeed at any age and any time). I recommend all creators read out to better understand how to play the numbers. It inspired me to keep going despite a number of mediocre Kickstarters.

Thanks for the book recommendation, amacris. I think it's important to have realistic goals, but I don't want to be too depressing. I'm not an insider, but from knowing a few insiders, I'd say keep your day job and don't depend on RPGs as your primary income -- but that doesn't mean don't publish. RPGs are incredibly fun, so enjoy them and as long as you're getting a kick out of creating, keep at it.

Personally, I mostly aim to have fun game sessions with people I know, and have interesting conversations about it on the Internet. I haven't been looking to make money at it, which has simplified my life.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 06, 2024, 05:24:41 PMCrappy games like World of Darkness continue for decades as badly written badly designed franchise zombies, while better games like WitchCraft or All Flesh Must Be Eaten die in obscurity.

90% of those 20,000 are crap due to sturgeon's law, and the remaining 10% worth reading are dead and never coming back.

I'm sick of it.

It sounds like you might just want to step away from the hobby for a while. If you're not enjoying RPGs, do something else that you really enjoy.

For me, I love lots of dead RPGs. I'm pretty sure that if I wanted, I could play nothing but already dead games on my shelf with people for the rest of my life, and enjoy it. There could maybe be a thread on how to find players for dead games.