Do you think that an RPG based on disney movies, if well produced and marketed, would:

1. end up having some kind of appeal to young would-be gamers (perhaps particularly girls)?

2. end up being a huge commercial failure?

3. end up being the subject of a massive campaign of condemnation by 'feminist gamers'?

4. end up being extremely popular with extremely creepy adult men?

1. Almost undoubtedly to the kids. Disney has almost unique broad spectrum appeal, though, so it's hard to say about girls. For adults, however, I expect sales to skew a good bit to the women's side. Whatever % of the hobby in general is women(I don't know the statistics.), I'd expect a good 10-15% more of the sales of this particular game to go to them.

2. I expect it would be a moderate success, but nowhere near D&D/Pathfinder levels. I expect it to have good initial sales, with them tapering off as people try and mostly fail to answer the question of what you even do in a used Disney setting. Kingdom Hearts works because it inserts all that third-party stuff that infects the worlds and shakes up the status quo(and visits multiple worlds in each installment), but . . . that's been done multiple times now. Perhaps good writers could figure out something . . . assuming what they write gets through approvals(gotta love the hoops for licensed products), but I wouldn't bet on it.

3. Massive, no, not even close. I expect a few vocal people to make a fuss, and a few vocal people to oppose them, and most people to tell both of them to shut up and move on with their lives.

4. Disney movies are specifically made for all audiences -- that's a huge part of their initial and continuing appeal -- and some of them have a huge nostalgia factor for people in their 30s to 50s(Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King; remember those? Remember just how long ago they came out, too?), so I expect it to be pretty popular with men in general, though not quite as much so as women, unless whoever's in charge of production really fucks it up. And sure, some of them will be creepy. The creepy ones will latch onto anything.

1. I just feel like Disney would already be there if they thought there was money to be had

 2. ...And since they are not, probably yes.

 3. I think the there would be some chatter on boards, as usual, but small in comparison to what Disney faces on a regular basis.

 4. Given that there is a My Little Pony TTRPG out there, and I haven't heard too much about it (publically) being an issue, I'm going to tentatively say no.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1028127Do you think that an RPG based on disney movies, if well produced and marketed, would:

1. end up having some kind of appeal to young would-be gamers (perhaps particularly girls)?

2. end up being a huge commercial failure?

3. end up being the subject of a massive campaign of condemnation by 'feminist gamers'?

4. end up being extremely popular with extremely creepy adult men?

5. Be an RPG oddity and shelf warmer.

As a father of daughters in the prime demo for Disney movies, I have a lot to say about this:


1. end up having some kind of appeal to young would-be gamers (perhaps particularly girls)?

Yes. Some boys will like them but Disney hasn't had cross gender appeal for their cartoon movies for years. Frozen, Tangled, Moana, etc are primarily targeting girls and are hugely popular with young girls.

2. end up being a huge commercial failure?

I think it would be a huge commercial success if built right. The system would have to be all inclusive and a "box" that can be sold in the toy departments and not the game stores. Think about HeroQuest (not the shitty knock off RPG out today), Dragon Strike, or AD&D First Quest.

3. end up being the subject of a massive campaign of condemnation by 'feminist gamers'?

I think it would be condemned by 'feminist' gamers that still stunted adolescents. A big issue with comicbooks and Disney stuff is that we have people in their 20's and 30's acting like this stuff is still for them and should be catering what they want. You'd then have the normal bullshit intersectional 'feminist' garbage that hates everything. But those people don't matter and aren't actually consumers of these products.  

4. end up being extremely popular with extremely creepy adult men?

Yes. Are you familiar with My Little Pony? It has a huge audience of creepy "adult" men. I've literally seen two "men" argue over these toys at the Toys R us when I was there with my young daughter (aged 5) who wanted to get one of the toys.

One of the issues that the "kids" RPG that MCG put out was it was designed for adults to pretend to be kids. When I was 7-12 (the target market for a product like this) I wanted to use the worlds I like to have adventures like I see on TV or read in the comicbooks/novels. My daughters would love to have an adventure in the world of Disney princesses and would adventure in those worlds like I would in Middle-earth. The system needs to be self contained and quick to pick up (see First Quest, HeroQuest, or Dragon Strike) and the content/world needs to appeal to them.

I think it'd be a great product but would be ruined by the awful people in Seattle that make up the "thought leaders" in this industry.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1028127Do you think that an RPG based on disney movies, if well produced and marketed, would:

1. end up having some kind of appeal to young would-be gamers (perhaps particularly girls)?

2. end up being a huge commercial failure?

3. end up being the subject of a massive campaign of condemnation by 'feminist gamers'?

4. end up being extremely popular with extremely creepy adult men?

There are a huge range of possibilities of what an RPG based on Disney movies would be like. Regardless of the source material, what is the game-play and what sort of adventures are they like? Is it very rules-light for younger kids, more like Greg Stolze's Usagi Yojimbo or John Wick's Cat? Or is it more involved for teenagers and fans, perhaps like the Mouse Guard RPG? How are adventures handled?  What sort of action is there?

In general, it seems like tabletop RPGs for pre-teens have difficulty succeeding in the market. I think that they usually depend on an adult GM who is both experienced at role-playing and good with kids, which is an uncommon type - and even for those that exist, they need a group. I've played a fair amount of games with kids, and they enjoy it greatly, but they don't run their own games among themselves. They will play pretend with each other around similar ideas, but they won't sit down and run a structured game.

I think a better bet for a broad market is a simple board or card game with RPG tie-in for pre-teens, and a tabletop RPG with simple but serious rules for adults, teens, and precocious pre-teens.

1. Yes - just putting Disney on the cover would do that with no other effort.

2. Not so long as they don't overreach. I could see Disney thinking that it would be a huge moneymaker and over-invest.  But the base costs would be tiny since they have artwork coming out of their ears and could license a lite system which already exists. So long as they did that - it'd no doubt get decent returns for minimal investment.

3. Probably. People get crazy when you mess with their nostalgia, and some outspoken feminists (certainly not all) have issues with old-school Disney, which an RPG would no doubt emulate parts of.

4. Probably - but nearly everything is popular with creepers.  It's a tiny % - it's just that the internet has made them visible.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1028127Do you think that an RPG based on disney movies, ...

Like Star Wars?


sorry.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1028127Do you think that an RPG based on disney movies, if well produced and marketed, would:

1. end up having some kind of appeal to young would-be gamers (perhaps particularly girls)?

2. end up being a huge commercial failure?

3. end up being the subject of a massive campaign of condemnation by 'feminist gamers'?

4. end up being extremely popular with extremely creepy adult men?

5. All the above.

5 would be my answer.

Its been tried before.

Disney isnt likely to try themselves because theres just no good market for it and the fanbase is currently still being assaulted by the insane "feminists" out there. any game would come under fire to. Disney though has been researching LARPs as of 2 years ago. I think they backed off when they came under fire for considering patenting LARPing. What they really wanted to patent was a sort of LARP organizer tech. But the proposal was so vaguely worded that things like forums or even DMs could fall under that description depending on how literal someone gets.

http://www.larping.org/feat/did-the-disney-corporation-just-patent-larp/

Quote from: RPGPundit;1028127Do you think that an RPG based on disney movies, if well produced and marketed, would:

1. end up having some kind of appeal to young would-be gamers (perhaps particularly girls)?

2. end up being a huge commercial failure?

3. end up being the subject of a massive campaign of condemnation by 'feminist gamers'?

4. end up being extremely popular with extremely creepy adult men?

#1 Maybe a bit. But the kind of girls who like RPGs are the kind of girls who like D&D.
#2 No
#3 No
#4 Probably!

Quote from: Ulairi;1028177One of the issues that the "kids" RPG that MCG put out was it was designed for adults to pretend to be kids.

These 'pretend to be kids' games often feel creepy to me (especially when discussed on rpgnet, creep central) and are definitely the opposite of what children want in an RPG. My son (10) loved Mentzer Red Box Basic D&D, he enjoys CRPGs like Skyrim and Fallout IV - and other power fantasy videogames I don't like (eg Just Cause, Shadow of Mordor) too. Feeling weak and helpless is the opposite of what children want in a game.

I think if you want a Disney game that would appeal to a wide range audience who are already familiar with the concept of an RPG via computer games, then base it on the Kingdom Hearts games. There are several titles and extensive lore which fans are familiar with. The base setting for a pen and paper game is already there. The fan base is already there. Since the game itself is a Nintendo title collaborating with Disney before the House of Mouse acquired Star Wars and Marvel, the series is already kid friendly and accessible to all ages. I think this would bypass the worries of 1 and 3, and possibly mitigate 2 and 4.

Quote from: S'mon;1028299These 'pretend to be kids' games often feel creepy to me (especially when discussed on rpgnet, creep central) and are definitely the opposite of what children want in an RPG. My son (10) loved Mentzer Red Box Basic D&D, he enjoys CRPGs like Skyrim and Fallout IV - and other power fantasy videogames I don't like (eg Just Cause, Shadow of Mordor) too. Feeling weak and helpless is the opposite of what children want in a game.

One of the settings included with the first release of True20 was Razor in the Apple. It was kids against monsters. If there was no appeal to kids to want to be characters who are also kids, then there would be no point in fiction like Harry Potter which got an entire generation of 90s kids to read books, not to mention Manga and Anime where like 90% of the characters are kids.

In the case of the latter, Manga and Anime are HUGE. That fandom tramples pen and paper RPGs. Completely demolishes it. But the thing is, those titles often have video game tie ins, which is a much more lucrative business than a niche hobby like pen and paper RPGs. Look at something like Pokemon. Yes it is a video game series, but the related anime and manga are enormous. Oh, and of course the elephant in the room which is the card game. Pokemon is totally an RPG, and always has been, with mechanics which are more than a little borrowed from D&D. When kids play the games or card games together, they don't want story. They want to battle.

So a Disney based RPG could work but if you want something that appeals to kids, look at video games that appeal to them. They want to be able to battle, and story is secondary.

Quote from: Ulairi;1028177One of the issues that the "kids" RPG that MCG put out was it was designed for adults to pretend to be kids. When I was 7-12 (the target market for a product like this) I wanted to use the worlds I like to have adventures like I see on TV or read in the comicbooks/novels. My daughters would love to have an adventure in the world of Disney princesses and would adventure in those worlds like I would in Middle-earth. The system needs to be self contained and quick to pick up (see First Quest, HeroQuest, or Dragon Strike) and the content/world needs to appeal to them.

I think it'd be a great product but would be ruined by the awful people in Seattle that make up the "thought leaders" in this industry.

Quote from: S'mon;1028299These 'pretend to be kids' games often feel creepy to me (especially when discussed on rpgnet, creep central) and are definitely the opposite of what children want in an RPG. My son (10) loved Mentzer Red Box Basic D&D, he enjoys CRPGs like Skyrim and Fallout IV - and other power fantasy videogames I don't like (eg Just Cause, Shadow of Mordor) too. Feeling weak and helpless is the opposite of what children want in a game.

Just to be clear, you're talking about "No Thank You, Evil", right?

https://www.montecookgames.com/no-thank-you-evil/

I've seen it being run at the kids room in conventions. It seemed to me to be targeted younger, more like ages 5-9. It's self-described as being for ages 5+. I didn't find it creepy, personally. That said, my kids also had zero interest in games like that when they were that age. When he was 8 or 9, my son's favorite was Monster Island, which is a kaiju RPG/wargame.

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11151.phtml

I highly doubt there's anyone far enough up the food chain at Disney who knows what an RPG even is.  I mean, I think they might understand that, like World of Warcraft is in fact a thing (or rather, was?  I heard it was kind of dying off, but I could be wrong.  I mean, I don't see ads for it really in other media anymore, but I digress), and that D&D is a game IP but beyond that, no.

Sidebar: back in the late 1970s and early 1980s at the toy store in Disney Village at Lake Buena Vista here in Florida, you could buy D&D!  Boxed Basic sets (Moldvay basic), and as late as '99 or so at Tatooine Traders (a gift shop next to Star Tours) in Disney Hollywood Studios you could buy all kinds of West End Games Star Wars RPG products including Grenadier Miniatures.  Also, Disney I guess did a deal with Grenadier and they made a set of 54mm Snow White miniatures in a box that wasn't unlike the "Gold Line" boxes for TSR AD&D miniatures (except it was blue).