Quote from: SettembriniRC+loads of minis + flipmat+dungeon tiles  is way better than RC + nothing.

I have nothing against people usign those, but I don't really see any advantage to making a game that really needs them. Adds extra expense, its more stuff to carry around, more to fiddle about with... Yeah, it appeals to the nerdish collector, but its the antithesis of the kind of product that acts as a gateway to rpg's.

I don't know that less expense actually facilitates the gateway. Kids love the Warhammer 40K, and it's quite expensive to get into. I see far more kids playing that than rpgs. What snaps people out of playing 40K is not that it's expensive, but that it's a bottomless pit of money and time. When you start getting interested in girls, they don't put up with that.

It seems to me that mst people are actually looking at WoW as the gateway to D&D, and it's expensive.

I think doodads and accesories are a good idea for kids, because it helps them feel like they're playing something. Kids don't approach abstract thinking the way older folks do. Sitting around with a book, a spiral notebook, and some dice doesn't feel like a game to kids.

People have been trying to reinvent the one book approach to roleplaying for new people since waaaay before the decline and it was already happening. Take a look at Guy Mclimore's "Simply Roleplaying" or even Gurps Lite.

Those games predate the existence of World of Warcraft. Heck, they predate the existence of D&D3. They are trying (and unfortunately failing) to meet a perceived need.

People don't want to "simply use one book". They don't care. They don't care about aesthetics or whether it uses a dice pool or a polyhedral set or a bell curve or a narrative mechanic for pirates commiting corpse mutilation followed by homosexual pedophilic necrophilia.  

The thing about people is, they only care what's fun. They just want what they want.  They vote with their wallets. For the most part: they can't be predicted.

The only thing we can ever say for sure is:

"Aha, that one thing that everyone is playing constantly? That's what people actually like and want."

Quote from: CabYou've just described some of the crap that I think is doing the hobby most harm. The more espensive it seems, the less kids will flock to it. Give 'em a game they can play with one book, a few dice and a pencil and watch them go. Give 'em a game that calls for a wheelbarrow full of rubbish and they'll wilt. Why do you think most kids grow out of Games Workshop games?

On the one hand, I'd kind of agree, as a fan of pen & paper gaming, and non-participant in card-based gaming.  On the other, there are about 12 kids at the local comics/gaming store playing Magic on Saturday afternoons who would have NEVER walked in had card games not been there.  So...yeah, they're not all playing a proper rpg yet, but it has a better chance of happening there than at Gamestop.

I'm far from a one book person. I want new books filled with new and interesting ideas, new PC toys, and new monsters or NPCs to pit against those toys. Campaign sourcebooks I can mangle to make fit my style are great (boxed set preferably for the post sized maps). Monthly magazines overflowing with so many ideas I can never use them all is even better.

The thing is: games used to come in boxes. Even if it was a box that contained a book.

At some point people got smart and said, "hey, let's just sell the book".

But that's when they lost a huge chunk of audience. Because people buying books and people buying games are actually two different audiences. And somehow we completely forgot to let that other audience know that the game could be in the book.

I can recall my earliest days of rpg-ing pretty good and that concept alone was pretty amazing. "The game is in the book." was a mindblowing concept itself.

I'm with Herr S. I bought an irregular Chessex flipmat for 10 bucks and three sets of Dungeon Tiles for 10 apiece. That's not expensive, and more importantly it enlarges the imagination toolbox. Having to log in once a week to a website in order to DL additional but official rules, OTOH, is the exact opposite of that.

But then, as Monte Cook put it baldly in a recent podcast: One of his most important early lessons in game design (ICE, late 80s) was that a "product" designed so as to leave it to (= permit/enable) the GM to connect the dots is a BAD product.

At some fairly early point, game companies came up with a fucked up idea of people's desires and abilities, and they've stuck to it ever since. One can see why. If you're convinced that people are unimaginative you feel good stuffing shit down their throat which you need to do in order to make a dime. Splatbooks, metaplots, rules add-ons,  doesn't matter which.

I remember when GURPS came in a box, and then when it didn't. And although I don't remember my reaction to buying RQ2 as just a book, I later bought RQ3 in a box and I think I felt a little suspicious about buying Harnmaster as just a book. So, AM may be right. He's sure right when it comes to selling games to people who aren't familiar with RPGs.

The leading brand in RPGs is D&D. Always has been. Its the first RPG most people encounter, its the only RPG most non-gamers have heard of. Bluntly, the more it is like Games Workshop games (piles of miniatures, game board, loads of supplements... bottomless money pit) the more kids will grow out of it, like they grow out of Games Workshop games. The kind of collectable element in D&D doesn't appeal for the same reason as collectable minis, game cards and suchlike don't appeal in Games Workshop products.

I recall a line in an old rulebook for Bloodbowl; if you wanted cheerleaders, each had to be represented by 'a correctly painted citadel miniature'. Needless to say I soon gave up on keeping my undead team in the local league. I don't play that game any more, haven't bought anything for it in more than a decade.

The more D&D becomes that kind of game, the more kids will grow out of it before moving on to pen and paper RPGs.

Quote from: Elliot WilenI remember when GURPS came in a box, and then when it didn't. And although I don't remember my reaction to buying RQ2 as just a book, I later bought RQ3 in a box and I think I felt a little suspicious about buying Harnmaster as just a book. So, AM may be right. He's sure right when it comes to selling games to people who aren't familiar with RPGs.

I think that the extraordinary success of the D&D basic boxed set editions should not be forgotten.

Cab, I'm dying to know if you have an alternative source of orcs and skeletons in cheerleader costumes.

Man, I suddenly sound creepy...

Quote from: jrientsCab, I'm dying to know if you have an alternative source of orcs and skeletons in cheerleader costumes.

Man, I suddenly sound creepy...

You always sounded creepy. Or so I'm told

I don't think you could get undead cheerleaders for the undead team at the time, the suggestion was that I buy other Citadel skeletons and modify them. The fact that cheerleader figures are never used at all during the game didn't seem to cut any ice, I still needed them apparently.