What do you think was the biggest blown chance, of something that was practically a license to print money, but that for whatever stupid reason got fucked up?
To me, that would be the Call of Cthulhu D20 game. Wildly successful, tanked by Chaosium's anti-d20 prejudice.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPunditWhat do you think was the biggest blown chance, of something that was practically a license to print money, but that for whatever stupid reason got fucked up?
To me, that would be the Call of Cthulhu D20 game. Wildly successful, tanked by Chaosium's anti-d20 prejudice.
RPGPundit
I'll agree with that. I really dig that game, but I don't like BRP.
I think the Dune debacle is the biggest blown opportunity. I'd love to have a copy of that book...
Quote from: RPGPunditTo me, that would be the Call of Cthulhu D20 game. Wildly successful, tanked by Chaosium's anti-d20 prejudice.
I'm not sure what's the biggest screw up but that was definitely a big one. Chaosium had a bunch going for it. It had two big brand names to bank on, CoC and D20/D&D. It had WOTC doing part of it, which got it in front of new faces/places where Chaosium wouldn't have normally been. The book itself was extremely well done (not a perfect measure but ebay prices are well above original retail). The timing was fairly early in the D20 cycle.
They had an inside line to get an early jump into the D20 market and have a lead in to get new faces into their other lines. Part of the problem might have been that they were still financially strapped from jumping in the CCG glut at exactly the wrong time. I know Pulp Cthulhu was supposed to be dual stat and follow soon after - I'm not sure if it's out yet.
But, based on comments on their website, there is definitely and anti-D20 bias.
Quote from: joewolzI'll agree with that. I really dig that game, but I don't like BRP.
I think the Dune debacle is the biggest blown opportunity. I'd love to have a copy of that book...
Yeah. It was awfully nice for WotC to ignore all the pre-orders and create a situation where most of the people who did get the book were scalpers.
Chaosium blew earlier opportunities too. RQ was highly popular at one time, second only to D&D in fantasy and vying for second overall popularity with Traveller. The supplements were groundbreaking and great to play in. That's when any sensible company...sells their RPG to a wargame company?
Quote from: joewolzI think the Dune debacle is the biggest blown opportunity. I'd love to have a copy of that book...
Don't bother, it really wasn't very good (I managed to get two copies of the book at cover price when it was initially released. Fast forward five years where I sell them on eBay. Easiest $400 I ever made).
With:d20 Modern
or
d6 Space
or
Burning Wheel: Jyhad
or whatever you system of choice is that has SF and psychic powers
PLUSThe Dune Encyclopedia
EQUALSEnough Dune gaming to last a lifetime.
The Dune book was just a pile of rules for "background noise" (falling, radiation, poison, character generation etc) where all the "setting" and "genre rules" (rules for mentats, rules for bene gessrit, etc) would have been coming out in future books. The only thing the book did well was that it had a pretty layout, and lots of pretty color art, all taken from the Dune CCG if I recall correctly.
Oh, so with the above it might make sense to check eBay for like a $5.00 set of thousands of DUNE cards, and just cut them up to use the art in your game.
-Andy
I actually think Chaosium blew it biggest with Dragonlords of Melnibone, their d20 fantasy outing. They could have planted their flag as the one true way for dark fantasy d20 gaming. Instead, they blew their wad on a slipshod project.
An even bigger lost opportunity was Decipher's inability to capitalize on the LotR movies. They had a license already signed for a megahit movie trilogy. Why didn't that game break big? Why wasn't more product on the shelves at the release of the second and third films?
But the biggest blunder in the history of the hobby would have to be the wargaming companies passing on OD&D when Gygax and crew shopped around the manuscript. Back then I can see not wanting to take a chance, but hindsight is pretty unforgiving on this one.
Chaosium are second to none when it comes to A) getting their hands on fantastic IPs and B) fucking up spectacularly by putting out poor material or not putting anything out when they should do.
There's also Eden who were riding the crest of a wave of good will generated by Buffy and their incessant hyping on RPGnet. Then Angel actually comes out and then nothing... for practically a whole year. Suddenly all the bullshit hype comes home to roost and Eden have to deal with customers not only pissed off at Eden's support for DriveThru's DRM but also pissed off at having been bullshitted into expecting games that weren't even close to being released. Textbook example of a bubble bursting.
I second Lord of the Rings. The only thing Ive heard anyone us it for is as a holodeck adventure in their Decipher Star Trek games. Seriously. Lord of the Rings RPG+Big Time Movie tie in should equal success. The frikkin Buffy RPG is doing better!
Here's a missed oppurtunity: Why hasn't WotC made D20 setting books that tie in with their Magic the Gathering universes? They have the artwork and the backstory, just flesh it out, add some d20 sats and be done with it. I can already see them making sales to quie a few of my Magic playing D20 addicts.
Kamigawa?
Ravnica?
Money?
:)
Actually, I thought WizKids should have released d20 stats for their MageKnight figures.
Quote from: KrakaJakI second Lord of the Rings. The only thing Ive heard anyone us it for is as a holodeck adventure in their Decipher Star Trek games. Seriously. Lord of the Rings RPG+Big Time Movie tie in should equal success. The frikkin Buffy RPG is doing better!
Here's a missed oppurtunity: Why hasn't WotC made D20 setting books that tie in with their Magic the Gathering universes? They have the artwork and the backstory, just flesh it out, add some d20 sats and be done with it. I can already see them making sales to quie a few of my Magic playing D20 addicts.
Kamigawa?
Ravnica?
Money?
:)
given the huge number of settings in MTG, they could cover a lot of ground with multiple MTG setting books. Sadly I don't think we will ever see a MTG Setting book.
I'll toss my money in with D20 CoC. The layout's gorgeous, the rules are tight and the setting's perfectly presented. Near the end of the book there's a breakdown of all the shitty things that happened in the 20th century that's probably the best historical writing in an RPG ever. The stats for using the Mythos gods in D&D was just icing on the meatball sub.
Chaosium didn't just drop that ball; they cut it open, shit inside it and threw it off the end of a pier. The sooner those marvels of capitalism just hand the game line over to their German counterparts, the better off CoC will be. (I sometimes wonder if the boys at Chaosium shit themselves in terror at the idea of CoC getting popular and the buying public forcing them to publish something other than short fiction anthologies.)
KrakaJak makes a fine point, though. What in the hell is WotC doing with all that setting info? Their MtG guys write massive style bibles for the worlds they set the game in, there's a metric fuckton of official art that's already paid for... I hope there's an angle I just don't see.
Quote from: RPGPunditWhat do you think was the biggest blown chance, of something that was practically a license to print money, but that for whatever stupid reason got fucked up?
To me, that would be the Call of Cthulhu D20 game. Wildly successful, tanked by Chaosium's anti-d20 prejudice.
Yeah, that's the one that leaped to mind when I saw the subject line for the thread.
Quote from: jrientsI actually think Chaosium blew it biggest with Dragonlords of Melnibone, their d20 fantasy outing. They could have planted their flag as the one true way for dark fantasy d20 gaming. Instead, they blew their wad on a slipshod project.
I did a positive review of DLoM right after it was released. Looking back on it, it wasn't a bad early effort for third party d20 stuff. But what it could've been was squandered. Rather than rush to get it out, they would've done well to take their time and really get it right. Licensed products like Black Company, Conan, Babylon 5, and Thieves World have proven how good such books can be when care and time are taken.
Quote from: jrientsAn even bigger lost opportunity was Decipher's inability to capitalize on the LotR movies. They had a license already signed for a megahit movie trilogy. Why didn't that game break big? Why wasn't more product on the shelves at the release of the second and third films?
They seriously dropped the ball by not having a Return of the King sourcebook. Beautiful books, lovingly researched.
Quote from: KrakaJakI second Lord of the Rings. The only thing Ive heard anyone us it for is as a holodeck adventure in their Decipher Star Trek games. Seriously. Lord of the Rings RPG+Big Time Movie tie in should equal success. The frikkin Buffy RPG is doing better!
I ran a campaign using it, and was pleased with it. It ran smoothly, and was very much like a streamlined d20 system, using 2d6 as the core mechanic. It evoked the feel of the setting very well.
Quote from: fonkaygarryI'll toss my money in with D20 CoC. The layout's gorgeous, the rules are tight and the setting's perfectly presented. Near the end of the book there's a breakdown of all the shitty things that happened in the 20th century that's probably the best historical writing in an RPG ever. The stats for using the Mythos gods in D&D was just icing on the meatball sub.
CoC d20 set a standard that wasn't met or surpassed for years. It's still one of the best d20 books produced. I played in a campaign of it that lasted the better part of a year, and it played as well, if differently, than the BRP version. Simply baffling the way Chaosium gave up on it, even with their half-hearted dual-stat books.
Quote from: fonkaygarryChaosium didn't just drop that ball; they cut it open, shit inside it and threw it off the end of a pier. The sooner those marvels of capitalism just hand the game line over to their German counterparts, the better off CoC will be. (I sometimes wonder if the boys at Chaosium shit themselves in terror at the idea of CoC getting popular and the buying public forcing them to publish something other than short fiction anthologies.)
It really does make no sense. Chaosium has had some truly cool properties at its disposal, but never seemed to take full advantage of any of them, besides CoC. RuneQuest, Elric/Stormbringer, Pendragon, and even less-well-known efforts like the Ringworld RPG have either been taken over by other companies or left dormant.
TSR refusing to license AD&D to a Japanese company that had a new manga series inspired by it. In the end, the Japanese published their own game.
The manga's name? Record of Lodoss War. :rolleyes:
Quote from: JongWKTSR refusing to license AD&D to a Japanese company that had a new manga series inspired by it. In the end, the Japanese published their own game.
The manga's name? Record of Lodoss War. :rolleyes:
I had no idea TSR had a chance to buy into that...
:banghead:
Quote from: JongWKTSR refusing to license AD&D to a Japanese company that had a new manga series inspired by it. In the end, the Japanese published their own game.
The manga's name? Record of Lodoss War. :rolleyes:
Ouch.
Quote from: JongWKThe manga's name? Record of Lodoss War. :rolleyes:
Damn, I had no idea.
Lodoss is also the best representation to date of D&D on TV/film. You can pretty much tell the class/race of everyone involved.
The biggest? TSR and D&D. A royal fuck-up in the grand style. Confused, confusing, too many settings and too many contradictory rules. Then the company pissed away the money they made on half-assed schemes and vindictive fits.
The settlement with GDW and Omega Helios regarding the Dangerous Journeys line involved a payment by TSR in the 7 figures. This at a time when TSR owed money to their printer, and was still defending against copyright suits brought against TSR by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax.
You want to beat the Lorraine Williams TSR as the biggest fuck-ups in RPG history, you're gonna have to work at it.
West End Games fucked up their Star Wars license by trying to keep a shoe company afloat. Just before the new (crappy) movies came out.
Quote from: droogChaosium blew earlier opportunities too. RQ was highly popular at one time, second only to D&D in fantasy and vying for second overall popularity with Traveller. The supplements were groundbreaking and great to play in. That's when any sensible company...sells their RPG to a wargame company?
Yup... Chaosium: first rate game-designers, third-rate businessmen at best.
When your greatest accomplishment in the last 10 years is "Not going under", that's a pretty sorry state of affairs.
RPGPundit
Quote from: jrientsI actually think Chaosium blew it biggest with Dragonlords of Melnibone, their d20 fantasy outing. They could have planted their flag as the one true way for dark fantasy d20 gaming. Instead, they blew their wad on a slipshod project.
Agreed. It was done with such utter lack of effort that I would almost suspect that they did it as an exercise in trying to "prove" that D20 wasn't a good system, by making a crappy D20 book.
QuoteAn even bigger lost opportunity was Decipher's inability to capitalize on the LotR movies. They had a license already signed for a megahit movie trilogy. Why didn't that game break big? Why wasn't more product on the shelves at the release of the second and third films?
This one was a huge blunder. Not making it D20 was a huge part of that blunder.
QuoteBut the biggest blunder in the history of the hobby would have to be the wargaming companies passing on OD&D when Gygax and crew shopped around the manuscript. Back then I can see not wanting to take a chance, but hindsight is pretty unforgiving on this one.
Ehhh, this one is more forgiveable. In the other cases we're talking about, the people involved had to KNOW that they had a license to print money, and they flushed it down the toilet anyways. Whereas blaming the wargame companies in this instance is a bit like blaming the record companies that passed on the Beatles; at the time, they had no way of knowing. It was a lack of vision, but it wasn't a case where they were literally offered a sackful of money and choose to light it on fire knowing what was inside.
RPGPundit
I think chaosium really blew a lot of great chancers, like ringworld. They could have ran with one of the most popular series in SF, known space, but didn't.
I guess they wanted to be "The call of cthulhu game company". Well, they got their wish.
Quote from: jrients... An even bigger lost opportunity was Decipher's inability to capitalize on the LotR movies. They had a license already signed for a megahit movie trilogy. Why didn't that game break big? Why wasn't more product on the shelves at the release of the second and third films? ....
Bingo.
Quote from: fonkaygarryI'll toss my money in with D20 CoC. The layout's gorgeous, the rules are tight and the setting's perfectly presented. Near the end of the book there's a breakdown of all the shitty things that happened in the 20th century that's probably the best historical writing in an RPG ever. The stats for using the Mythos gods in D&D was just icing on the meatball sub.
Chaosium didn't just drop that ball; they cut it open, shit inside it and threw it off the end of a pier. The sooner those marvels of capitalism just hand the game line over to their German counterparts, the better off CoC will be. (I sometimes wonder if the boys at Chaosium shit themselves in terror at the idea of CoC getting popular and the buying public forcing them to publish something other than short fiction anthologies.)
KrakaJak makes a fine point, though. What in the hell is WotC doing with all that setting info? Their MtG guys write massive style bibles for the worlds they set the game in, there's a metric fuckton of official art that's already paid for... I hope there's an angle I just don't see.
I had no idea that the COC d20 book was worth anything at all on the collector market. It's just been sitting on my shelf. I agree that it was a nice product and deserved better support all around.
Decipher, like I was just saying to Mr. Analytical, is another bunch of foot-shooting nimrods. I mean, how on Earth do you manage to not make a bundle on a LOTR title, especially one that uses images and other intellectual property from the wildly successful movies? Support was non-existent, that's how.
I'm starting to feel the same way about the "Serenity" rpg.
Quote from: LostSoulWest End Games fucked up their Star Wars license by trying to keep a shoe company afloat. Just before the new (crappy) movies came out.
A shoe company? :eyepop: Any sites I can get more info on this? sounds too good not to read up on.
WotC's take on D&D.
I felt like it ditched every single thing I (and a lot of others) loved about the game.
Thank Zagyg for Castles & Crusades.
Quote from: cnath.rmA shoe company? :eyepop: Any sites I can get more info on this? sounds too good not to read up on.
The story is that, somewhere along the line, WEG was acquired by a shoe company. WEG was actually stable, despite a string of not exactly well received game engines and licenses. The shoe company, however, was not financially stable, and the owners siphoned money off WEG to keep their shoe business alive. In the end, the shoe company went out of business and the owners left WEG bankrupt and in total disarray.
Another possible entry for a missed opportunity is the Gundam RPG.
Way back in 1999 or 2000, Mike Pondsmith of R Talsorian games announced a mecha gamer's dream come true. R Talsorian had acquired the rights for a North American Gundam RPG. The game would be a translation of a Japanese RPG which was in turn a licensed use of the Mekton game system. It would cover the Universal Century era from 0079 to 0083.
At the time, Gundam was a tangible market force in the US. Gundam Wing had performed well on cable TV. While the original Gundam wasn't doing all that well on TV, there were some steady toy sales. The franchise was popular with the right age bracket and awareness was fairly high. Even better was that at the time (and even now) there was no actively promoted mecha RPG on the market.
Of course, it all fell apart somehow. Early on, the same excuse as was given for the cancellation of completed Mekton products was given for the cancellation of the Gundam RPG. Namely that R Talsorian didn't have a big market presence, and that Gundam simply wasn't a recognizable enough brand name to convince distributors to carry the product. R Tal needed to warm the waters a bit with a well known product like Cyberpunk V3 first.
Over time, that explanation was abadoned and the rationale became that R Talsorian didn't have enough money to pay the translators, so the book was never completed.
Whatever the reason, the Gundam RPG was stillborn. R Talsorian lost the license. And Cyberpunk V3 hasn't exactly taken gaming by storm.
Quote from: GabrielThe story is that, somewhere along the line, WEG was acquired by a shoe company. WEG was actually stable, despite a string of not exactly well received game engines and licenses. The shoe company, however, was not financially stable, and the owners siphoned money off WEG to keep their shoe business alive. In the end, the shoe company went out of business and the owners left WEG bankrupt and in total disarray.
Things are actually reversed. The original owner of WEG inherited (or was involved with) his family's shoe import business. Using money from that business, he started WEG. IIRC, as long as WEG made a profit or at least didn't lose too much money, he could use the shoe company to keep it afloat. Through a bit of bad luck and a few bad decisions with licenses, WEG started losing money at the same time that the shoe company hit a rough spot.
I'd like to see a Ghost in the shell game, but not for d20, for the love of god not d20!!!
D&D The Motion Picture.
Quote from: mearlsThings are actually reversed. The original owner of WEG inherited (or was involved with) his family's shoe import business. Using money from that business, he started WEG. IIRC, as long as WEG made a profit or at least didn't lose too much money, he could use the shoe company to keep it afloat. Through a bit of bad luck and a few bad decisions with licenses, WEG started losing money at the same time that the shoe company hit a rough spot.
Ah, thanks for that.
WotC buying, and then killing, a ton of game lines and companies during the magic glut instead of putting their financial muscle behind diversification and cross marketing.
Then Hasbro bought them and D&D came along and that opportunity slammed shut.
LotR for me, not a doubt. The greatest crossover opportunity ever, the single most iconic fantasy series, three huge movies with global appeal and both popular and critical success, and Decipher totally dropped the ball.
In Italian bookshops you sometimes see rpgs, more precisely, you see three rpgs. CoCd20, Decipher's LotR and DnD. These aren't games shops, these are bookshops.
LotR had the potential to be great, instead we got a half baked DnD clone with broken rules for combat and magic. They essentially did a copy of d20 without the rules elegance of that system but with all the complexity. Way to go guys.
Like it or not, d20 works. Decipher's LotR didn't, was full of serious errors and then got fuck all support.
Quote from: Balbinus... Like it or not, d20 works. Decipher's LotR didn't, was full of serious errors and then got fuck all support.
I don't think that the failure of the LotR RPG was due to the weakness of its game
system. (Which in any case I don't think was that bad, although it definitely could have used more playtesting, additional editing, and better organisation. Its magic system was certainly the most 'Tolkien-esque' that I've ever seen.)
Its failure was because Decipher failed to promote and support the game adequately (or even inadequately).
Quote from: AkrasiaI don't think that the failure of the LotR RPG was due to the weakness of its game system. (Which in any case I don't think was that bad, although it definitely could have used more playtesting, additional editing, and better organisation. Its magic system was certainly the most 'Tolkien-esque' that I've ever seen.)
Its failure was because Decipher failed to promote and support the game adequately (or even inadequately).
Actually, I agree, I think the system was full of really appalling errors and problems but that didn't kill it, the utter lack of support killed it.
The magic system was almost great IMO, tons of good atmospheric stuff, but the lightning spell didn't work as described at all and the whole combat system for the game was about the most broken I've seen in a commercial rpg release. I think the magic system, with a bit more playtesting and so on, could have absolutely rocked, as it was for me it was a bit like CoC d20, you could see the greatness but it hadn't quite made it onto paper, in the process they'd just got a few too many things wrong and it stopped it being what it could have been.
No idea how they playtested that game though. I understand they did, but there was damn all sign of it in the book.
Yeah, I can't see how they play-tested it either. I mean if they had actually run the game with half-way critical players then surely someone would pick up on the fact that under the mook rules a Dwarf with a massive axe can actually be less effective than a hobbit with a pile of rocks.
There was also the famous character creation examples that produced characters that weren't possible using the rules as written. Meaning you'd read the rules go "Oh right, I understand that" and then read the examples and be completely lost.
It looked beautiful and all that stuff about how the local morality colours the landscape was really excellent but they should so have play-tested and proof-read it further and probably have used a stripped down version of D20 instead of that Coda nonsense.
When Decipher shut down their RPG wing, I wasn't the least bit surprised as it had been literally run into the ground by people who not only had no idea how to exploit an IP, but seemingly had no idea how to run a games company either.
Quote from: GRIMWotC buying, and then killing, a ton of game lines and companies during the magic glut instead of putting their financial muscle behind diversification and cross marketing.
Then Hasbro bought them and D&D came along and that opportunity slammed shut.
You got your history backwards, buddy. Wizards acquired D&D BEFORE the company was sold to Hasbro.
Diversification of games was precisely the opposite of what Wizards wanted to do, given that they came out with D20, and that they saw how TSR's "diversification" efforts had fucked that company up, essentially making them compete
against themselves for no good reason.
RPGPundit
Quote from: AkrasiaI don't think that the failure of the LotR RPG was due to the weakness of its game system. (Which in any case I don't think was that bad, although it definitely could have used more playtesting, additional editing, and better organisation. Its magic system was certainly the most 'Tolkien-esque' that I've ever seen.)
I think that inasmuch as the system wasn't D20, that was a major failing of the game.
The signficiance of making "Lord of the Rings", with the "compatible with D&D rules" would have been an obvious marketing move to anyone short of a retarded bonobo chimp. Sadly, decipher seemed to prefer banking on D20-hate rather than coherent business sense.
And, to top it off, they created a house-system that wasn't significantly different from D20 in any way, other than being incompatible with D&D.
Meaning it had nothing that would even appeal to the anti-D&D swine, AND it wouldn't appeal to, say, people who have heard of D&D.
LoTR could have been huge at getting people back into the hobby who hadn't been in it in years; or getting kids who never played RPGs but had heard of D&D and were big LoTR fans into gaming. Instead, they pissed all of that down the toilet because they didn't want to be D20.
RPGPundit
Quote from: BalbinusActually, I agree, I think the system was full of really appalling errors and problems but that didn't kill it, the utter lack of support killed it.
What are some of those appalling errors? I ran a campaign with the game, and after applying the errata that was released (not even that much, really), it was a good, fun game. I'm interested in hearing the experiences of others who ran the game.
By the way, I have a review I wrote of the game after it was first released, with some notes from when I was running it. I'll post it to this site soon.
Quote from: ColonelHardisson... By the way, I have a review I wrote of the game after it was first released, with some notes from when I was running it. I'll post it to this site soon.
I'd like to read it. Thanks! :)
Quote from: YamoWotC's take on D&D.
I felt like it ditched every single thing I (and a lot of others) loved about the game.
I'm not going to argue the quality of old vs. new D&D. But from a business sense, 3e/D20 is not a failure/bonehead move. The redesign took a half dead game and totally revitalized it into a market leader. 2e was a muddled mess by then, with various kits, skills & powers books, and half a dozen settings. I don't think more of the same would have gotten any where near the same level of public notice.
Quote from: AkrasiaI'd like to read it. Thanks! :)
It's up.
Quote from: NicephorusI'm not going to argue the quality of old vs. new D&D. But from a business sense, 3e/D20 is not a failure/bonehead move. The redesign took a half dead game and totally revitalized it into a market leader. 2e was a muddled mess by then, with various kits, skills & powers books, and half a dozen settings. I don't think more of the same would have gotten any where near the same level of public notice.
Yep. I had pretty much given up on gaming until 3e came along. I'd played since 1979, and by the late 90s, I'd completely quit gaming. I'd always been a D&D fan, right from the beginning, and 3e implemented a lot of material that seemed much more intuitive and easy to grasp, and opened up a lot more possibilities using just the core game. Some of the stuff was remarkably similar to stuff we had house ruled as far back as the 80s - no level limits for nonhumans, AC, extras for humans to make them attractive as a PC race. Without 3e, I'd have been a former gamer for the better part of a decade now.
Quote from: RPGPunditI think that inasmuch as the system wasn't D20, that was a major failing of the game.
The signficiance of making "Lord of the Rings", with the "compatible with D&D rules" would have been an obvious marketing move to anyone short of a retarded bonobo chimp. Sadly, decipher seemed to prefer banking on D20-hate rather than coherent business sense.
And, to top it off, they created a house-system that wasn't significantly different from D20 in any way, other than being incompatible with D&D.
Meaning it had nothing that would even appeal to the anti-D&D swine, AND it wouldn't appeal to, say, people who have heard of D&D.
LoTR could have been huge at getting people back into the hobby who hadn't been in it in years; or getting kids who never played RPGs but had heard of D&D and were big LoTR fans into gaming. Instead, they pissed all of that down the toilet because they didn't want to be D20.
RPGPundit
Well, it surprises me to say it, but I agree 100% with RPGPundit here, except for the use of the swine term which I don't agree with but the underlying logic of the post I think is spot on.
Quote from: ColonelHardissonWhat are some of those appalling errors? I ran a campaign with the game, and after applying the errata that was released (not even that much, really), it was a good, fun game. I'm interested in hearing the experiences of others who ran the game.
By the way, I have a review I wrote of the game after it was first released, with some notes from when I was running it. I'll post it to this site soon.
If you read the Dan Davenport review on rpg.net, which as ever is an extremely well written review, he says everything I would with greater eloquence than I could ever manage.
But above all, combat and chargen. LotR is the only game where I couldn't generate pregens, mostly for the reasons Mr Analytical points out. And as for combat, maximum damage does minimal harm, unless you use mook rules in which case hobbits turn into ninjae. The combat system is one of the worst I have ever seen in a published rpg.
Quote from: BalbinusWell, it surprises me to say it, but I agree 100% with RPGPundit here, except for the use of the swine term which I don't agree with but the underlying logic of the post I think is spot on.
I agree too. If they were going to make it non-D20, they should at least have used a system that wasn't D20 with the serial numbers filed off. It pleased nobody. What they meant to achieve with the set up they went with is beyond me.
-mice
Quote from: BalbinusIf you read the Dan Davenport review on rpg.net, which as ever is an extremely well written review, he says everything I would with greater eloquence than I could ever manage.
It doesn't differ much from mine in overall attitude. I disagree with him on some things - all magic-users don't have to be Maiar, for example, as was pointed out on another thread by Akrasia, I beleive. Elves aren't Maiar and they clearly use magic. The Mouth of Sauron uses magic. The Witch-King was a spellcaster as a mortal, and it's implied that other Nazgul were as well.
Quote from: flyingmiceI agree too. If they were going to make it non-D20, they should at least have used a system that wasn't D20 with the serial numbers filed off. It pleased nobody. What they meant to achieve with the set up they went with is beyond me.
-mice
Same here. Hell, the Edges can be ported over to d20 as Feats with little (if any) alteration. Same goes for Order abilities. A strange design decision. If they were going to make it that easy to port to d20, why not just make it d20?
Quote from: BalbinusBut above all, combat and chargen. LotR is the only game where I couldn't generate pregens, mostly for the reasons Mr Analytical points out. And as for combat, maximum damage does minimal harm, unless you use mook rules in which case hobbits turn into ninjae. The combat system is one of the worst I have ever seen in a published rpg.
I used to think the same thing about the combat system. Then I oddly realized it was simulating the movies almost exactly.
"Mooks" in the game drop in a stiff breeze. This very neatly simulates what you see in most every combat in the movies, from Aragorn hacking away to Pippin and Mary slaughtering orcs by throwing rocks.
The disconnect comes from monsters that aren't "mooks." Those types of combatants (and PCs) take forever to do any damage to. It creates a massive disconnect. But, then again, that's exactly what we see in the battles with the Cave Troll in Moria, or the fight between Aragorn and the Uruk-Hai a bit later in Fellowship.
What the game should be faulted for is not providing more guidelines on important combatants versus mooks. As it is, the reader gets the impression that the methods are used pretty much at random.
Quote from: GabrielI used to think the same thing about the combat system. Then I oddly realized it was simulating the movies almost exactly.
"Mooks" in the game drop in a stiff breeze. This very neatly simulates what you see in most every combat in the movies, from Aragorn hacking away to Pippin and Mary slaughtering orcs by throwing rocks.
The disconnect comes from monsters that aren't "mooks." Those types of combatants (and PCs) take forever to do any damage to. It creates a massive disconnect. But, then again, that's exactly what we see in the battles with the Cave Troll in Moria, or the fight between Aragorn and the Uruk-Hai a bit later in Fellowship.
What the game should be faulted for is not providing more guidelines on important combatants versus mooks. As it is, the reader gets the impression that the methods are used pretty much at random.
That's actually a fantastic observation, one that has never occurred to me before. I find your assessment to be supported by what I found happening in actual play - the combats seemed much like those in the movie. The PCs plowed through mooks until I threw more important opponents at them, and then the combats became more intense and dangerous.
The disconnect is one that has to be handled by the Storyteller (GM), tailoring each combat encounter according to how he wants the story to run. I threw mooks at the PCs when I wanted some brisk action but didn't want the PCs damaged for later, more dangerous, encounters. The players seemed to enjoy it.
Quote from: flyingmiceI agree too. If they were going to make it non-D20, they should at least have used a system that wasn't D20 with the serial numbers filed off. It pleased nobody. What they meant to achieve with the set up they went with is beyond me.
-mice
I found it the worst of all possible worlds, close enough to d20 to be an obvious copy of it to be blunt, but without the sophistication and interlocking logic of that game.
If I want d20, I want d20 proper, done correctly with an understanding of how it works. I don't want a d20 knock off and I'd be pretty surprised if anyone out there does.
Like you, I have no idea why they thought that a good idea. Either use another system entirely or adapt D20 proper and make it a licenced d20 game. Hell, much as I don't especially love d20 I do recognise it as great design and that would have helped get lots of folk into the hobby who might not otherwise have.
Well, had they supported it. As it is, with the lack of support they could have used any ruleset whatever and it would have made little odds.
Quote from: NicephorusI'm not going to argue the quality of old vs. new D&D. But from a business sense, 3e/D20 is not a failure/bonehead move. The redesign took a half dead game and totally revitalized it into a market leader. 2e was a muddled mess by then, with various kits, skills & powers books, and half a dozen settings. I don't think more of the same would have gotten any where near the same level of public notice.
Yup, there's a big difference between "I don't like it" and "it was a boneheaded move".
For example, no one can argue that publishing Vampire was a boneheaded move
for White Wolf.
You can argue that trying to imitate Vampire was a massively boneheaded move for the 90% of the industry that blindly followed that road trip to nowhere in the mid/late 90s.
RPGPundit
QuoteDecipher, like I was just saying to Mr. Analytical, is another bunch of foot-shooting nimrods. I mean, how on Earth do you manage to not make a bundle on a LOTR title, especially one that uses images and other intellectual property from the wildly successful movies? Support was non-existent, that's how.
I'm starting to feel the same way about the "Serenity" rpg.
Yeah, especially considering they used a no-name fantasy system for a big hard sci-fi property. Muy estupido.
Not to mention the fact that, because of some liscensing bs, they could only use material from the movie and not the TV show in the RPG! I've friends who are frothing Joss Whedon fans (and gamers) who flipped over that fact ("How could you be so cruel, Joss? WHY!?! Are you turning into a clean-shaven George Lucas in your lack of caring?!? ARGH!" - direct quote)
And that's why I'd just run a
Serenity game as a grim-&-gritty d20 Future. I bitchslap MWP, Decipher AND Chaosium with my empty wallet! HA!
Quote from: RPGPunditYou got your history backwards, buddy. Wizards acquired D&D BEFORE the company was sold to Hasbro.
Diversification of games was precisely the opposite of what Wizards wanted to do, given that they came out with D20, and that they saw how TSR's "diversification" efforts had fucked that company up, essentially making them compete against themselves for no good reason.
RPGPundit
I'm just out of order chronologically on the last sentence, but it wasn't meant to be chronological.
TSR divided up, mostly, within their D&D franchise, splitting their core audience up into smaller fractions and performing in a halfarsed fashion with their non D&D products. Its a shame, because a lot of the extra setting stuff was cool.
WOTC blowing cash aquiring anything and everything - a lot of it very good - and then killing it off, that was a missed opportunity to build up the industry as a whole on the back of Magic.
That blunder isn't as significant as GW's decision to turn into the GW hobby as far as devastating gaming goes, at least nationally here, but it is more broad based.
Quote from: dsivisYeah, especially considering they used a no-name fantasy system for a big hard sci-fi property. Muy estupido.
Especially considering that just about EVERY Traveller fan on the planet was watching Firefly and saying "dude, that's Traveller!".
If they'd used a Traveller system (either T20 or the latest version of Traveller) they'd have had a built in fanbase and a familiar proven system.
RPGPundit
GW's "Kids! Kids! Kids!" memo has to be up there. Maybe someone with a better grasp of that time in GW's history could expound on it.
I'd do it, but I was one of those kids they were shooting for at the time. :)
OH yes... Serenity... The worst part of that debacle was that Eden allegedly bid for the rights but got turned down in favour of the untried hacks of MWP.
I wish I could find the thread now but there was one spectacular moment when Steve D (who playtested it) complained about the need for skills for boats AND an other for different aquatic vehicles (or something along those lines).
When he pointed out that it was skill bloat and that simplicity might be a better angle to work he was told to be quiet because those skills played an important part in the film. A few months later the film comes out and there were no boats OR any other kind of aquatic vehicle.
Why bother to play-test if you're going to be that irrationally protective of your design choices?
Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalWhy bother to play-test if you're going to be that irrationally protective of your design choices?
:D Because everyone expects play-testing, so you give them pt, the same as movies and tv are run through test audiances. However I'm guessing that they had already got the ok stamp on that part of the system and didn't want to go through the month+ of junk that changing it and getting it re-approved would have been. Doesn't help the final product, but that's my guess as to why judging from the tiny bits I've heard about the process. Licenced product lines can be a real pain, just ask Bullit over at Nothingland about the B5 license at Mongoose.
Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalOH yes... Serenity... The worst part of that debacle was that Eden allegedly bid for the rights but got turned down in favour of the untried hacks of MWP.
Yep. Serenity was very disappointing. I was looking forward to the game for awhile and they horriable result was depressing. A system that not only didn't capture the feel of the genre, but also gets in the way of play
Quote from: GabrielAnother possible entry for a missed opportunity is the Gundam RPG. ... Of course, it all fell apart somehow.
The Japanese murdered the Gundam RPG.
QuoteThe game would be a translation of a Japanese RPG which was in turn a licensed use of the Mekton game system. It would cover the Universal Century era from 0079 to 0083.
Yeah, I saw the book in a Japanese game store. I was so close to buying it, when I realized that the game was exactly Mekton with about 30 extra pages of "setting history", and not much else. There wasn't even any Gundam art in the book from the series (possibly because it would have cost too much to license).
QuoteEarly on, the same excuse as was given for the cancellation of completed Mekton products was given for the cancellation of the Gundam RPG. Namely that R Talsorian didn't have a big market presence, and that Gundam simply wasn't a recognizable enough brand name to convince distributors to carry the product.
Hmmm. Could have been true. But here's the problem: The Gundam license in Japan is as popular, convoluted, twisted by red tape and choking lifeless middlemen, as say Star Trek is in the US. Way more so, actually.
The reason being this: About three companies in Japan jointly own the licenses to most of the original series and side-properties. The company that owns the rights to the original Gundam Series is so stingy and twisted that barely anyone tries to get the license anymore from them, and instead work on side-properties. That's why, for example, all the Gundam Movies and the like are out on DVD in the US (as those licenses are owned by the other companies) but the original series isn't out on DVD, and probably won't be unless that original company goes bankrupt.
Also, when you consider that the companies releasing Gundam in the US have to check with the Japanese license-owning companies every step of the way, any project less than translating an anime or a video game will never have enough money or patience to release anything.
Anyway, to make a long story short, here's the problem:
They start working on a translation. Translation done. Then they send the translation to the US company that distributes Gundam in the US. The US company says "gotta send it to Japan". They send it to Japan. The Japanese company says, "I don't understand this; translate all your work back into Japanese and show it to us". This costs A LOT of money. They do so, and the Japanese company takes months going over each sentence with a fine-tooth-comb. The Japanese company says "Hmmm. I don't want you to post this section here, and that section there. And you can't include any sample characters or mecha that weren't explicitly in the original anime
, because otherwise you'd be rewriting/manipulating our intellectual property." So R Talsorian goes back and makes the adjustments as requested, and send the script back: "Sorry, please retranslate the whole thing back into Japanese so we can carefully analyze it". The cycle restarts. Sometimes, they find a piece of info that is owned by one of the other companies, and have to forward the whole mess over to them for approval, etc.
It's a pretty insane, soul-sucking nightmare. It explains the deep flaws in Japan's licensing tactics (only huge console games have the budget to even think about negotiations for Gundam properties). On the side, it also explains why the GoO "Anime and Roleplaying Guides" never included:
1) Sample PCs
2) Sample NPCs that didn't appear in the license
3) Sample locations or events for scenario creation
4) Any new material whatsoever to help gamers create a game in that setting
-Andy
Quote from: Andy KThat's why, for example, all the Gundam Movies and the like are out on DVD in the US (as those licenses are owned by the other companies) but the original series isn't out on DVD, and probably won't be unless that original company goes bankrupt.
Actually, the original Gundam series IS out on DVD (10 discs) in the US under the Bandai/Sunrise label. At the time when the North Am Gundam RPG was a possibility, the original Gundam was airing on Cartoon Network, as well as 08th MS Team, 0080, and 0083 (which are all out on DVD as well).
Now, maybe licensing red tape did kill the RPG production, but I don't remember it being brought up as a reason at all, and I ate up any information which was dropped about it like a hungry animal.
Quote from: GRIM...
WOTC blowing cash aquiring anything and everything - a lot of it very good - and then killing it off, that was a missed opportunity to build up the industry as a whole on the back of Magic.
...
I wasn't really paying attention at the time... who and what did wotc buy and kill?
Quote from: Geek MessiahYep. Serenity was very disappointing. I was looking forward to the game for awhile and they horriable result was depressing. A system that not only didn't capture the feel of the genre, but also gets in the way of play
I think the fact that RPGnet didn't howl for the head of Weiss over that shit is living proof that that place has lost its teeth. Here's a film derrived from a very grown up and dramatically complex TV show and they hand it over to a company based on the reputation of a writer practically unparalleled when it comes to producing poorly written hogwash. I mean, Weiss' career is so undeniably built on shit that you'd think she was a coprophiliac sewage worker.
If her website's anything to go by, it looks like Serenity is the only game that that particular company will ever put out.
In other words, she wanted to launch a new game company (even though she already had one) so spent a fortune on IP rights to a hot property and then proceeded to drive it into the ground as some form of twisted vanity project written by a no account underling whose only other credits are Dragonlance things.
Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI think the fact that RPGnet didn't howl for the head of Weiss over that shit is living proof that that place has lost its teeth. Here's a film derrived from a very grown up and dramatically complex TV show and they hand it over to a company based on the reputation of a writer practically unparalleled when it comes to producing poorly written hogwash. I mean, Weiss' career is so undeniably built on shit that you'd think she was a coprophiliac sewage worker.
I agree. I read only a few of her books and I thought they were horriable. I am not sure if I have ever read one of her books all the way through. How she got to be so popular is beyond me.
Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalIf her website's anything to go by, it looks like Serenity is the only game that that particular company will ever put out.
And they have done a poor job supporting it from day one. Yes, they may have sold out a few printings worth but you have to ask yourself how much money is left after you have paid everyone you employ as well as pay for the license.
Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalIn other words, she wanted to launch a new game company (even though she already had one) so spent a fortune on IP rights to a hot property and then proceeded to drive it into the ground as some form of twisted vanity project written by a no account underling whose only other credits are Dragonlance things.
I wish a game company more competent had gotten the license. But they didnt and as you said drove it into the ground. I know enough people and have heard of enough people going to other systems for their Serenity/Firefly fix.
The only thing they did right was to really try and reach out to the non- or casual gamers out there. I know a site I write for got a free copy and a few others did too.
But artistically it was clearly a failure.
Quote from: algaubleI wasn't really paying attention at the time... who and what did wotc buy and kill?
Two off the top of my head would be Last Unicorn and Nightfall. There were other properties and small companies.
The way I see it, MWP gave us a pretty good Serenity sourcebook for .
Hey! Any truth to the rumor that SJG lost the Robotech license to Palladium? Or that somebody did?
EDIT: Aso, as my wife adds, too bad about AEG losing the Stargate SG-1 license. Its not the sytem I woulda chosen for SG-1, but it was nice to have SOMEthing.
Quote from: GRIMTwo off the top of my head would be Last Unicorn and Nightfall. There were other properties and small companies.
If I'm remembering right, WotC was under the impression that if they bought LUG that the licensed properties would come with them, not realizing that the licenses would revert back to the original owners.
So yeah they killed LUG, that happens all the time in the rest of the world, more important was (imho) the game lines, and had they kept the licenses I don't doubt that the writers would have had continued work under WotC. The weren't trying to kill off a competitor, they were trying to bring the money making potential to WotC. (and they should damn well have asked more questions about the licenses before buying the company!!!)
Not familior with Nightfall offhand, so I won't try to speak to that.
Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Hey! Any truth to the rumor that SJG lost the Robotech license to Palladium? Or that somebody did?
I think I've heard that rumor once or twice. Despite the complaints I have about Palladium's treatment of Robotech, I absolutely cringe in horror as to what it would have looked like as GURPS Mecha.
Two words and an abbreviation:
Gamma World d20
Nuff said.
Quote from: cnath.rmIf I'm remembering right, WotC was under the impression that if they bought LUG that the licensed properties would come with them, not realizing that the licenses would revert back to the original owners.
So yeah they killed LUG, that happens all the time in the rest of the world, more important was (imho) the game lines, and had they kept the licenses I don't doubt that the writers would have had continued work under WotC. The weren't trying to kill off a competitor, they were trying to bring the money making potential to WotC. (and they should damn well have asked more questions about the licenses before buying the company!!!)
Not familior with Nightfall offhand, so I won't try to speak to that.
Actually there was a leaked memo from inside WOTC that caused a stir back then that revealed that a large part of their plan WAS to buy up and snuff out other companies to reduce their number of competitors.
Typically, I can't find it now and I don't think it was the case (directly) with Nightfall.
Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalIf her website's anything to go by, it looks like Serenity is the only game that that particular company will ever put out.
Well, except for the Battlestar Galactica RPG that they have the license to produce...
... No, I'm not kidding.
What kills me about MWP is how they respond to any criticism of the finished product with "well, it sold like hotcakes." That might be relevant were it not for the fact that "Brownshirts" are an irrational fandom that would line up to buy Nathan Filion's bronzed turds by the case lot. I don't hate the game but I'm not at all convinced that 35,000 sold copies equates to 35,000 games played -- or even 3,500 games played.
KoOS
Quote from: GRIMActually there was a leaked memo from inside WOTC that caused a stir back then that revealed that a large part of their plan WAS to buy up and snuff out other companies to reduce their number of competitors.
Typically, I can't find it now and I don't think it was the case (directly) with Nightfall.
Hmm, interesting, I'd be interested in seeing it should you come across it again. I still think they weren't stupid enough not to want to snag the ST license by absorbing LUG. (not even during the worst years of T$R would they have not realized what that could be worth. :D )
Quote from: King of Old SchoolWell, except for the Battlestar Galactica RPG that they have the license to produce...
... No, I'm not kidding.
I'm still debating, I may be looking forward to this...
From what I understand, the LUG purchase was made for two reasons:
1. WotC wanted to get its hands on the licenses LUG had.
2. WotC wanted a design studio to handle non-D&D games, mainly licenses.
From what I understand, the Wheel of Time RPG (remember that one?) was meant to be the first in a series of RPGs that drew on different licenses. The licenses that LUG held were part of the deal, but LUG itself (and the talent it had) was another big reason.
The earlier wave of WotC acquisitions (Ars Magica, SLA Industries, Talislanta) was a genuine attempt to form a viable RPG arm of the company. Sales simply weren't there, so the division was dissolved and the games returned to their original owners.
Quote from: mearlsThe earlier wave of WotC acquisitions (Ars Magica, SLA Industries, Talislanta) was a genuine attempt to form a viable RPG arm of the company. Sales simply weren't there, so the division was dissolved and the games returned to their original owners.
How could they have known there weren't sales without any real effort to do anything with any of what they acquired? The scent is a little piscine around that for my taste.
Quote from: GRIMHow could they have known there weren't sales without any real effort to do anything with any of what they acquired? The scent is a little piscine around that for my taste.
In the case of
Ars Magica 4e the core rules were ready for publication when WotC finalized the purchase of TSR. As a matter of fact, the printer was about to start the first print run when word came down from Wizards that the printing order was being cancelled. Later Jonathan Tweet was able to get publication rights transferred to Atlas games, which then published AM as developed by Wizards of the Coast.
The decision to not publish non-D&D games came because Adkinson saw more potential in publishing D&D than other RPGs and decided to focus company resources on D&D.
Quote from: T-WillardTwo words and an abbreviation:
Gamma World d20
Nuff said.
Here, here!
I've still got my first edition box set. They can't take that away from me.
In my opinion, the lack of support was the major problem with the Serenity RPG, not the system itself. It's nothing to write home about to be sure, but not what I would consider a godawful abomination.
I'm a Firefly/Serenity fan, I guess you could probably call me a Browncoat. I don't think that the folks who enjoy this franchise are any worse than folks who enjoy Star Wars, Star Trek, any one of a hundred pro football teams, or just about any other pop culture phenomenon.
Quote from: mattormegI'm a Firefly/Serenity fan, I guess you could probably call me a Browncoat. I don't think that the folks who enjoy this franchise are any worse than folks who enjoy Star Wars, Star Trek, any one of a hundred pro football teams, or just about any other pop culture phenomenon.
The problem with the Browncoat phenomenon is that it's acquired a collective messiah complex wherein Browncoats feel compelled to purchase Firefly/Serenity merchandise in an uncritical, matter-of-faith manner as a means of "saving" the show. This renders any discussion of sales numbers as a measure of quality pointless, because "real Browncoats" specifically don't care about quality when buying a Firefly/Serenity product (or if they do care, it's a secondary consideration at best). You can see this effect in any sizeable Browncoat community, the exhortations to "buy [product X] and help save Firefly, buy [product X] if you're a real Browncoat." Well that's fine, but if you're buying the Serenity RPG because its your moral duty as a Browncoat then your purchase says jack-shit-all about how good a game it is.
I'm not aware that this is true of anything but the fringe in any of the fandoms you mentioned. And yes, Browncoats are themselves a fringe of the Firefly/Serenity fanbase but they're a much, much bigger fringe in relative terms than, say, hardcore Trekkies.
KoOS
I just thought of a couple.
Starcraft: Alternity and Diablo D20. Also D&D Warcraft.
The D&D: Warcraft RPG was excellent, and it didn't have polygon player models in the guides (ack!). They were running excellently until WoW came around. The World of Warcraft liscense has done nothing for the game as no-one I know wants to play it. It relegated to an Everquest:the RPG.
As for the others: Starcraft fans are chomping at the bit for ANYTHING about ANYTHING Starcraft. Same with Diablo. Both these settings are rife with characters, combat, badguys, settings and politics. Perfect for any RPG. Toss in some Mass combat rules and you're golden!
I see your point, and largely agree with you. "Saving" the show could be a strong drive for a lot of folks, even if it is an erroneous or fruitless avocation. However, "saving the show" is only one aspect of the extreme personal identification obsessive fans of any phenomenon tend to demonstrate.
I've always held strongly to the idea that "true believer" lunatic
fringe types exist in every organized body of people, and those that cluster around more acceptable objects of fixation, like pro sports, tend to stand out less than their similiarly-nutty peers involved in less socially acceptable hobbies or interests, like gaming, SCA, etc.
There are a lot of people in my town who would probably be called "catpiss men" if they were involved with gaming, but escape this label because they are fixated on football instead. There's a woman down the street that painted her house in her favorite team's colors, and has a wooden cut-out of the mascot on her lawn. Still, no one gives her as much as a second look.
Same with the guy who dresses in his team's colors and owns a team-colored SUV plastered with about half a dozen team bumper stickers, with a team-themed vanity plate.
I think that if either of those people were Star Trek nuts, they'd be the talk of the town, but the perceived worth of the object of their fixation allows them to dip under the radar.
Yeah, I don't disagree with you at all. It's why the term "fandom" makes my teeth ache, and I look askance at anyone who self-identifies as a member of a fandom (as opposed to a fanbase).
As far as professional sports versus RPGs, I'd agree that the social acceptability of sports relative to RPGs is a big factor in differing perceptions. OTOH, I'd argue that a big part of that lack of social acceptability for RPGs is the perception that the hobby is dominated by socially retarded fatbeards and catpiss men to a relative degree that far, far outweighs their analogues in pro sports. Is this perception accurate? Sadly, I'd have to say it has a pretty damn strong basis in reality. Freakazoid fatbeard-types are relatively rare among the totality of sports fans, but fatbeards abound anywhere gamers gather. Fatbeards, not "Swine," are the true achilles heel of the hobby.
Apologies for dragging the thread off-topic with this aside.
KoOS
Nightfall is alive and well and working under hogshead last time I checked. Of course, their release schedule is insanely slow, in oh, 13 years I think they've released four books and one very slim adventure.
They are scottish, so it might be they are drunk...;)
Quote from: King of Old SchoolOTOH, I'd argue that a big part of that lack of social acceptability for RPGs is the perception that the hobby is dominated by socially retarded fatbeards and catpiss men to a relative degree that far, far outweighs their analogues in pro sports.
I think it might actually be the opposite. The stereotypical Joe Sixpack sports fan is so common that they don't stand out. The world has learned to work around their low education, bigotry, and poor social skills. They're a marketing niche unto themselves.
Despite the its mythological proportions, I rarely get approached by gamers who go on about their characters, even in game stores and gatherings of gamers. But almost daily, I run into strangers who want to start up a conversation about the game last night or their theory on what the team can do to win.
Long ago, I've realized that if something has been around long enough and become common enough, it just stops being weird to most people no matter how objectively silly it is. If you were to spend $20,000 on a boat (that is not part of your job), your neighbors would ooh and ah. If your neighbors found out that that you spent $5,000 on Magic cards, they would whisper behind your back.
I have been gaming continuously since 1978. Personally, I've never met a catpissman involved with RPGs. Most of the gamers I've met have been young, personable, and friendly. I've only gamed with one person I would call mentally unstable, and he was an ex-marine whose problems came from his experiences in 'Nam, not gaming. The rest have been perfectly normal, either going to school or with good jobs. I realize I must be a statistical fluke, but KoOS must be as well.
-clash
Quote from: SpikeNightfall is alive and well and working under hogshead last time I checked. Of course, their release schedule is insanely slow, in oh, 13 years I think they've released four books and one very slim adventure.
They are scottish, so it might be they are drunk...;)
Hogshead closed down and the name was bought out.
SLA is currently under Cubicle 7 entertainment and, hopefully, finally, we'll see some movement on new releases at Dragonmeet.
I said fatbeards abound, not catpiss men. You'll note the difference. And if you've never encountered a fatbeard, I can only assume that (a) you have a single, very exceptional LGS and (b) you've never been to a con. I'm not even a regular con-goer, but in my limited experience the proportion of fatbeards was overwhelming (many female con attendees will back me up on this). As for stores, I live in a very large city (Toronto) with multiple LGSes and fatbeards abound in our stores on both sides of the counters... which, come to think of it, was and is also true in the city I used to live in.
As for sports, the fact remains that they have achieved sufficient cultural penetration that Joe Sixpack is a small subset of fans -- sports fans also include huge numbers of politicians, business leaders, academics, artists, media figures, etc. You can't compare the totality of gamers with only the fringe of sports fans, you have to compare the totality of both. Again, where I live the biggest local team (the Maple Leafs hockey team) are supported by a broad section of society and indeed, only the social and economic elites can afford to regularly attend the games; you can see that a huge proportion of the good seats are filled with suits. Put another way, in your average office there might be 50 people and 35 of those will be at least casually interested in the local team (including the CEO and most of the directors), and maybe 4 or 5 of those are real fatbeard types. In the same office, there might be 10 gamers of varying degrees of interest -- and you'll still have 4 or 5 fatbeards.
Fatbeards are representative of gamers to a degree that they simply aren't representative of sports fans. There's a reason why you'll periodically see discussions of which celebrities are or might be gamers, but you'll never (or very, very rarely) see the same discussions among sports fans: because sports fans already know that the beautiful people are sports fans and don't need the external validation to prove that there's more to their fanbase than the fatbeards and socially marginalized freaks. Interestingly, computer and video gaming is starting to achieve the same kind of cultural acceptability... perhaps there are lessons there to be learned.
KoOS
I've known a number of catpiss men in gaming.
One used to make his money growing sun flowers, would never wash or wear shoes and would pick his nose and his feet with any pencil you loaned him during a game.
Another is a short fat bald guy with glasses who spends as much time on WoW a week as he does at work and gaming wise he just runs the big Dragonlance campaign on an eternal loop.
And there was another ginger one who used to cart around this dandelion and burdock bottle with him, he had mad ginger hair a GIGANTIC arse (I mean really, he was a fatbeard but it all went to his posterior) and had thousands and thousands of magic cards.
They very much do exist and it's not just limited to RPGs. Go to a football match and you'll see a lot of weird people. What it is is isolation and a lack of female influence. Those can do strange things to a man.
It's not that I never see fatbeards, just that they are a small minority of the gamers that I see (no, I'm not a big con attendee - come to think of it, I also avoid the store where the warhammer crowd hang out). I see a smaller percentage of the socially retarded among gamers than I do among sports fans. By socially retarded, I include things such as starting conversations with people who obviously aren't interested, saying contextually inappropriate things, being clueless about subtle feedback from listeners, and rambling about topics that others aren't interested in.
Luckily, statistics are on the side of the sports fan. If they start talking about the QB they have a fetish for, there's a reasonable chance that the average stranger will have some interest in the topic.
Fatbeards are quite different to CPM's though surely? Practically all game designers are fat men with beards and glasses but they tend not to be social retards.
Also, I think most sport fans are less inclined to holy war than your average gamer. When I'm not here I post on a comedy forum and frequently take part in the football discussions and you never have someone be called a "hater" for not liking Peter Crouch or someone saying that while you may very well support Chelsea, they aren't the team that they support and it's not nice to suggest that they're wrong. Tell your average sports fan their team sucks and they'll either agree or they'll calmly point out that actually they do have some good players. Bizarrely, sports fans identify far more with a team than gamers but they are far less quick to take on the language of identity politics.
I think this is because gamers are over-educated and under-socialised when in comparrison with sports fans.