No amount of wishful thinking is going to change the fact that TSR put out some pretty shitty SF games. I'm glad they did not "utterly" dominant the hobby as it would have been an utterly sucky thing if they did.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: J ArcaneThen I am generally rendered stunned by your ability to come to such an utterly fallacious conclusion.

Maybe it's just from playing too much Endless Oceans and Mario Kart but yeah computer games encompass a hell of a lot more than kill them and take there stuff. Oh sure kill them and take their stuff hasn't disappeared. :shrug: There are still games like that (Mario Galaxy is sort of kill things and take their stuff, sort of, but it's more a puzzler).  And if you are super liberal and try to include Pacman and Team Fortress 2 in the definition it tips the balance some.

But Sims? What was is, about 50 million units of the first version sold (excluding the numbers for expansions)? The only thing people were killing there is time and perhaps the English language.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityNot doubting what you say, KoOS, and come to think of it the recent romantic fantasy genre makes it plausible, but do you have some figures and details for that? It would be really interesting to learn more about it.

Although I'm sure the figures are available online somewhere, my sources are realspace stuff from inside the publishing industry.  I'll see if I can get ahold of something postable.

Although if you want something quick and dirty but still statistically sound (unlike, say, C&GR), you could do worse than the New York Times bestseller lists.  Fantasy novels regularly feature as solid sellers; SF novels very rarely do.

KoOS

QuoteWhat was is, about 50 million units of the first version sold (excluding any expansions)?

6.3.  Way to exaggerate there sport.

Of course there's other computer games out there.  That doesn't not negate the fact that killing things and taking their stuff still is a rather large percentage of that.  

To suggest they've somehow "moved on" or "grown out of" such pursuits is laughable, considering it continues to be a well worn and successful line of play.

Not to mention your deliberate exclusion in your previous statement of a field which is no small portion of the market.  You make it sound as if MMOs are some kind of marginal abberation, when in reality, they're the most successful and popular sector of the gaming sphere worldwide.  

You're distorting reality, and solely to paint a very popular brand of play as some kind of phase to be grown out of, and that's bullshit, and insulting to boot.

Look, what's possible in video games isn't the same as what's doable in the tabletop RPG format. Flying Buffalo had an early SFRPG, name escapes me, in 1976 but it didn't catch on, maybe partly because it didn't do things on the character level but the starship level. Traveller came up with an effective SF paradigm that wasn't kill and take, but outside of the free trader campaign it's rather difficult, to my mind, to come up with an effective "wandering PC party" paradigm without going post-apocalypse. And the "wandering party" approach, the PCs a law unto themselves, free agents, beholden to no man, is a big part of the appeal of RPGs.

Jesus Elliot, that actually taxed my googel foo.
http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=4093&editionid=4525
And, hey, dig those production values.

Quote from: jhkimI think to there is very simple reason for difficulty in translating play.  Dungeons have walls, and pseudo-medieval times have limited options for transportation and information.  That makes it much easier to constrain the scope of play.  

In modern-day or sci-fi games, characters can call anyone, go anywhere, or look up anything fairly easily.  That makes it a lot harder to come up with a simple adventure structure that a new GM can come up with and run smoothly.

Hmmm... d20 Farscape seems to do well with this. I would imagine Stargate SG-1 would also do a real decent job. I haven't had any trouble at all putting together Farscape games, and they seem incredibly popular with anyone that has seen like two or more episodes of Farscape whether they have played RPG's before or not. It's something about the setting.

Quote from: AosJesus Elliot, that actually taxed my googel foo.

Sorry about that--it's actually included in John Kim's list-by-year of RPGs, I was just too lazy to link it.

Quote from: DwightYou can't use the same railroading techniques, no. Now if originally there had been better developed ideas about running the game without the railroad of dungeon walls....

Dungeons aren't a railroad; they're a way to channel gameplay so a DM can run the game without a whole lot of prep or improvisational skills. And you know what? The 12-15 year-olds who made D&D a massive phenomenon in the early 80s didn't, in general, have advanced DMing skills.

D&D was huge because its appeal reached far beyond the tiny gamer geek demographic. So any alternative or 'solution' to D&D that relies on sophisticated gamer geek sensibilities misses the point entirely. Dungeons worked precisely because they were easy enough for a typical 14-year-old to run.

Quote from: HaffrungDungeons aren't a railroad; they're a way to channel gameplay so a DM can run the game without a whole lot of prep or improvisational skills.

Poh-tay-toe, poh-tah-toe.

Quote]And you know what? The 12-15 year-olds who made D&D a massive phenomenon in the early 80s didn't, in general, have advanced DMing skills.

...and they were playing a game that didn't actually help them at all.

Quote from: J Arcane6.3.  Way to exaggerate there sport.

Way to not know WTF you are talking about, sport.

Yes, there are kill them and take there stuffs as a category in games. But it sure as hell isn't the sum of it.

The real kicker. Consumer video games didn't even really start as "kill things and take their stuff".  Yeah, I played Pong. Had one of these. Kill things and take stuff was just another option. Along with 'sports', kill things, puzzles, knock things over, etc.

Quote from: DwightPoh-tay-toe, poh-tah-toe.

Well, the dungeons I ran back in the day didn't have plots. So you must have an entirely different definition of 'railroad' than the one I'm familiar with.

Quote from: HaffrungWell, the dungeons I ran back in the day didn't have plots. So you must have an entirely different definition of 'railroad' than the one I'm familiar with.

It's an extreme narrowing of the effective path (or 'plot' or whatever you want to call it) the characters can take.  Dungeons over time evolved to have a few more options of which direction to take [without causing an TPK], allowing some branching. But still you had a very limited tree to follow (effectively the 'plot' for what it was worth).

Quote from: DwightWay to not know WTF you are talking about, sport.

Yes, there are kill them and take there stuffs as a category in games. But it sure as hell isn't the sum of it.

The real kicker. Consumer video games didn't even really start as "kill things and take their stuff".  Yeah, I played Pong. Had one of these. Kill things and take stuff was just another option. Along with 'sports', kill things, puzzles, knock things over, etc.

Oh I see where this is going.

Yeah, I read the whole "If we make the Soap Opera game, normal people will start playing RPGs, and we won't be geeks anymore!" one too many times back on RPGnet, thanks.  

Take it to the Forge.

Quote from: J ArcaneOh I see where this is going.

You getting a Fact Beatdown, so you pull out a tired, name-calling schtick?  :rolleyes:   The thread was stillborn, I need to shake my head for even looking in it. L8R doodZ!