Quote from: Doctor Jest;814282The character sheet looks like something I'd expect to see in a 1970s Sci-Fi TV show on a screen somewhere.

By the looks of things, getting struck in the right shoulder and the dick are key features of the combat system. Is this a game about high school bullying?

Even MTG and the other survivours are waning gradually. And two of the survivours are Japanese games ported over. One or two that died out in the US are still plugging away in one form or another in Japan due to their attendant TV series still running. CXGs get even more flack as they are costly and take up alot of space.
Dragon Dice interestingly enough is still alive and kicking. Dragon Storm which I designed some cards for would still going were it not for the death of Mark and the virtual disappearance of Susan and the web site.

Quote from: Omega;814295Even MTG and the other survivours are waning gradually. And two of the survivours are Japanese games ported over. One or two that died out in the US are still plugging away in one form or another in Japan due to their attendant TV series still running. CXGs get even more flack as they are costly and take up alot of space.

I'd need some kind of actual data to back up the idea that MTG is waning. Last I checked, MTG was still a large enough percentage of HASBROs income to be regularly mentioned, not just "good for a hobby game"

And on the other side of things, Dice Masters was literally impossible to find for  nearly the entire life of the first set, solely because it sold much much better than anyone was expecting.

MtG income  nearly doubled from 2009 to 2014, and I've really not seen this waning you are speaking of.

Locally Dicemasters sat on shelves for a long long time. I am guessing at some point they over-printed?

As for Magic waning. They take up the gradual loss with volume. And it is sitting on shelves too locally. Just not as long. I think of of Magics biggest saves is that (far as I know) it has not radically changed with a new edition. Rules tweaks (and card bans) seem the way they went rather than totally overhauling. I dont see MTG ending anytime soon unless WOTC does something catastrophically stupid. (Which they have done in the past.)

And the CCG heartbreakers will continue.

So other than anecdotal evidence about your local shop, you have nothing to back up that MtG is waning? Because it has had a serious increase in sales every year up until 2014. I haven't heard anything more recently.

As for Dice Masters, the first set starter packs are still selling for 2-3x retail online, and up until they late in the year where they had finally printed a stable amount of packs, the gravity feed boxes were going for around 1.5-2x retail.

The first expansion hasn't had the same availability issue, because they actual printed enough for a stable sale volume based on the demand of the first release. Yeah, I've seen it on shelves all the time now taking up space, but that is because THE STORE KEEPS BUYING MORE AS IT SELLS.

And it IS selling well. CSI sold out of gravity feeds multiple times.

Quote from: TristramEvans;814023Mostly true, but then something like Sol comes around, and I learn once again never to doubt the ignorance and naivety at large of the geeks of the world.

Well, considering that I published SOL: The Omniversal Roleplaying System back in 1994, I guess that I can be forgiven somewhat. One can learn a lot in 20 years. I can describe it as my Universal Heartbreaker. I had some good ideas, but the game was not unique enough to attract much of an audience.

As for the godawful name.. I was backed into a corner by circumstances. The original name was to be "The Stuff of Legend." However, another small company came out with a game called "Stuff o' Legends" and the game was reviewed in the Dragon magazine by Lester Smith. I had to change the name of my game or have it mistaken for that other game. So, I grabbed a name quickly and have regretted it ever since.

Quote from: Keith W Sears;815337Well, considering that I published SOL: The Omniversal Roleplaying System back in 1994, I guess that I can be forgiven somewhat. One can learn a lot in 20 years. I can describe it as my Universal Heartbreaker. I had some good ideas, but the game was not unique enough to attract much of an audience.

As for the godawful name.. I was backed into a corner by circumstances. The original name was to be "The Stuff of Legend." However, another small company came out with a game called "Stuff o' Legends" and the game was reviewed in the Dragon magazine by Lester Smith. I had to change the name of my game or have it mistaken for that other game. So, I grabbed a name quickly and have regretted it ever since.

I've never seen your game, but I will say '94 is well before the point I'd hold someone responsible for not having the access the internet grants to resaerching the hobby as a whole. But just to make clear, you do know its not your game we're discussing right? Just one that happens to share the title.

BTW, welcome to the board

Yes, I realize that this thread isn't about my game. However, one of your number got me involved by posting links to my site for that old game. Naturally, I had to throw in my two cents.

I took a look at the kickstarter page, and it seems that the only "innovation" that they offer is that each player gets their own rulebook with a built-in character sheet. Looks like a jumped-up version of the books offered in Apocolypse World and it's clones.

Quote from: Keith W Sears;815337I had some good ideas, but the game was not unique enough to attract much of an audience.

So, what were some of the good ideas?

Quote from: rawma;815493So, what were some of the good ideas?

Good question. My goal with SOL (not Sol) was to create a roleplaying system that eliminated what I saw as flaws in the other RPGs that I liked. So, some heavy influencers were the HERO system and DC Heroes.

One thing that I was praised for was turning Wealth into an abstraction. In SOL, your wealth was a score that would go up or down only if there was some extreme buying or reward.

It was also possible to spend Experience Points in order to change a die roll after it had been made. It saved a number of character's lives.

Other than simplifying some of the math, that's about it. The problem with new/wannabe game designers is that they figure, "My friends and I like this game, so everyone else will, too." This is not the case when it hits the market.

Gamers get emotionally invested in the games they are already playing. The feedback I would often get back from potential customers was, "I'm heavily into playing GURPS/Hero. This seems very much like them. Why should I play your game?" I never had a satisfying answer for them. Sure, it had couple of good ideas, but it delivered the same roleplaying experience that the other games did. That's what makes it a heartbreaker.

Quote from: Keith W Sears;815699Sure, it had couple of good ideas, but it delivered the same roleplaying experience that the other games did. That's what makes it a heartbreaker.

Do you regret the effort you put into it? I often regret not expanding my house rules and ideas into an RPG, even though it is highly likely that nobody else would have played it (and in truth I was more unhappy with the players around me than with the game rules). And I like the things I did spend the time on, but still....
:boohoo:

Quote from: Emperor Norton;814311So other than anecdotal evidence about your local shop, you have nothing to back up that MtG is waning? Because it has had a serious increase in sales every year up until 2014. I haven't heard anything more recently.

I was talking about major stores. Not FLGS. One of the local FLGS still has some Monty Python on the shelves as of 2 years ago... ahem...

Quote from: rawma;815704Do you regret the effort you put into it? I often regret not expanding my house rules and ideas into an RPG, even though it is highly likely that nobody else would have played it (and in truth I was more unhappy with the players around me than with the game rules). And I like the things I did spend the time on, but still....
:boohoo:

I haven't regretted it for a second. SOL's failure pushed me into actually studying marketing and the game industry so I could figure out where I went wrong. I am currently working on two game designs that are quite different from what I have done before. One of them I am designing in public at http://feylands.com. It's hardly finished, but it gives those of you that would like to provide feedback as the game is being developed.