Quote from: soltakss;858615Chaosium have not produced that many BRP supplements really, most supplements have been produced by third parties. Similarly The Design Mechanism have not produced many supplements for RuneQuest.

I think you need to revise your perspective. For the last four years Loz and I have been writing, editing, negotiating art commissions, laying out books, proofreading and handling other writer's RQ projects; whilst also managing distribution deals, direct sales, postage, customer queries, chasing bills, printing cock-ups and all the other crap that running a business imposes.

In that time, other than RQ6 itself, we've put out an additional seven quality books not including the free Firearms and SW supplements.

Atop that, I have a bimonthly RQ column in a Swedish gaming magazine and much of my own 'spare' time over the previous year was researching and working on Adventures in Glorantha... instead of writing the Mycenaean Greece book that I actually wanted to do. In addition the Chaosium deal not only impacted several of our own projects, but they've also had us beavering away on multiple others since we got back from GenCon.

Considering we're just a couple of guys with family commitments, that this isn't our full time job and we get next to no real financial remuneration for our efforts - our interpretation of 'many' seems to be at odds with yours.

After waiting in vain for the forum to activate a user with my usual nickname (RosenMcStern) I have determined to give up and create another one. It's ironic that therpgsite - which is a strong advocate of people's right to remain anonymous - has to become the only place where I use my real name

Some members of these boards have asked for information about Revolution D100. Since this thread is about Chaosium facts, I find it unfair to hijack it with details about other products or publishers.

I will reply to questions in this other thread.

Quote from: Arminius;858508Thanks for that. It sounds more up my alley based on your description.

Same here. "Merrie England" is some serious naming fail for a gritty historical supplement.

Quote from: Paolo_Guccione;858702After waiting in vain for the forum to activate a user with my usual nickname (RosenMcStern) I have determined to give up and create another one. It's ironic that therpgsite - which is a strong advocate of people's right to remain anonymous - has to become the only place where I use my real name

Some members of these boards have asked for information about Revolution D100. Since this thread is about Chaosium facts, I find it unfair to hijack it with details about other products or publishers.

I will reply to questions in this other thread.

That's nice. Thanks for that!

Though really you couldn't think up any other nickname?

Quote from: Bren;858687So the RQ/BRP game market is somewhat fragmented between various games and versions of games. And now there is D100 Revolution. Which is another version. Hence another fragmentation.

That was an interesting walk down the history of it. I think I still have that little booklet that came with my first edition Call of Cthulhu.

I think this isn't exactly the same as fragmentation but close.

A great parallel example to this is when Apple did two things during the SJ Interregnum:

• They made too many Macs for different markets ("pro" and consumer, awful sounding names like Performa, etc)
• They created the clone market through licensing MacOS X to run on third party hardware

I think fragmentation happened more as a result of the former rather than the latter.

With the latter (third party licensing), they failed to expand the market in a significant way, and that led them to the perception that mac clones were eating up the market that would have otherwise bought a mac from Apple.

With the former, Apple itself introduced many configurations which were poorly named, and poorly positioned within their target group of customers - and some of them were not very good quality products either (also the OS updates were not very innovative, and several other factors...). This was self inflicted fragmentation of the actual brand of Apple Macintosh.

Did the BRP brand get fragmented, or the Runquest brand? I don't think Chaosium ever injected the right stuff to establish BRP as an actual brand, as I believe Runequest, Call of Cthulhu and the Moorcock variants were all brands themselves.

I think what they may have wanted to do, WW did slightly better with nWOD - but I don't know if Id call that a success.

Quote from: Bren;858674Fragmentation isn't synonymous with competition. Competition typically results in better or cheaper products taking a larger share of the market. Fragmentation results in multiple minor brands each taking a fractional share of the previously unfragmented market. You may see some increase in market size overall or you may not.* Costs increase since the market share per minor brands is smaller so the economies of scale are less.

* For example, I haven't seen any data that shows that more people drink more soda now that there are fifty-gajillion flavors to choose from. The fragmentation is driven not by consumer request, but by attempts to create niche products with a higher profit margin and by defensive measures in response to other competitors creating niche products.

If customers have to make a choice, there's competition. If they don't have to make a choice, i.e. one of the products is clearly not what the customer wants, there's no competition. Costs and viability of product are set by the market. I have never understood the desire on the part of gamers to long for a controlled gaming economy. You're saying you want to live in a world where there is only original flavour Coca Cola.

There is at least one more BRP derived Chaosium game to add to the list. King Arthur Pendragon is BRP based. It uses a d20 instead of d100 is all. But 1 on d20 is equal to 5% on d100.

BRP was not really established and marketed as a brand. As has been observed each of the games was put out as its own brand.

Quote from: Vile;858725If customers have to make a choice, there's competition. If they don't have to make a choice, i.e. one of the products is clearly not what the customer wants, there's no competition. Costs and viability of product are set by the market. I have never understood the desire on the part of gamers to long for a controlled gaming economy. You're saying you want to live in a world where there is only original flavour Coca Cola.

No I am not saying that. Though, coincidentally, had soda brands not become fragmented that wouldn't ever have bothered me at all. I never liked any of the fractured flavors. Though the cane sugar (even older) version of Coca Cola is better than the non-cane sugar version which is made, I suppose, from sugar beets.

I'm saying that fragmentation is not an unmitigated benefit to consumers since it comes with other side effects. As an example, increased choice results in an increase in cost. And just because one consumer is happy to pay the higher cost for each product in the now fragmented brand in return for the ability to buy the Tutti-frutti, Zero-calorie, extra caffeinated version of Coca Cola Clear that they want does not necessarily make that greater choice at a greater cost a benefit for all, and in fact it is likely a detriment to consumers who don't happen to want that particular micro-brand or indeed any micro brands.

The price increase is to be expected since one of the goals for brand specialization or fragmentation is to decrease competition in the mini-brand so as to move products from low margin commodities to higher margin niche products. Whether that has actually been a successful long term strategy for Coca Cola and Pepsi Co, is a separate question. If I recall, data  from case studies from the early 'oughts seemed to indicate it was not.

Whether the sort of market factors that operate in the big money markets of soft drinks or personal computers apply to the nano-niche markets of RPGs is also a separate issue about which I have a lot of skepticism, but no firm point of view.

Quote from: DavetheLost;858732There is at least one more BRP derived Chaosium game to add to the list. King Arthur Pendragon is BRP based. It uses a d20 instead of d100 is all. But 1 on d20 is equal to 5% on d100.

BRP was not really established and marketed as a brand. As has been observed each of the games was put out as its own brand.

I agree that Pendragon is not completely divorced from BRP nor would it trouble me to include it, however I left it out on purpose. First, it isn't a percentile based game it is D20 based. Second it uses a roll under black jack resolution method that is significantly different the low roll is always good, and we compare success ratings resolution methods of RQ and BRP games.

QuoteBRP was not really established and marketed as a brand. As has been observed each of the games was put out as its own brand.

I can see that as a reasonable position. Though the Gold Book (or whatever it was called) might argue against that position.

Quote from: Akrasia;858601Revolution d100?  *sigh*

I don't think that further fragmentation within the BRP family is going to help things...

But it will help Alephtar Games. Go to the Alephtar site, their catalog of BRP supplements is gone.

One could say though, that an entirely new 1d100 game was not completely necessary, and that something like Gore or Legend could be enough for Alephtar's necessities. Perhaps Paolo wants to have his own game, I can understand that.

One more comment, as a fan of 1d100 games, I have to say that I much preferred the former situation. That is, having separate companies like The Design Mechanism, Chaosium, Alephtar Games, Mongoose, independently releasing gaming material that I can mix and match freely. The current situation, with Chaosium imposing a Gloranthan RuneQuest on The Design Mechanism, Alephtar not renewing the license to BRP, and Chaosium letting BRP fade, well, does not appeal to me.

Quote from: The Butcher;858290I like Glorantha and I think hardwiring it back into Runequest is a mistake.

There are two types of fans of RuneQuest, the Glorantha fans, and the Alternative Earth fans. Whoever who is in control of the RQ brand, should be aware of this fact, and should try to cater to both groups. In my humble opinion, having RQ and Glorantha married in the corebook may make Alternative Earth fans feel somewhat left behind. I admit I don't like Glorantha, but I wouldn't wish to impose an Alternartive Earth RQ on Glorantha fans. To me, the best solution was the former one, having a setting agnostic RQ, and releasing both kind of supplements.

Quote from: Imperator;858313It is not.

I disagree. It is.

Quote from: Bren;858738I agree that Pendragon is not completely divorced from BRP nor would it trouble me to include it, however I left it out on purpose... Second it uses a roll under black jack resolution method that is significantly different the low roll is always good, and we compare success ratings resolution methods of RQ and BRP games.

RQ6 uses a blackjack method in opposed rolls.  A critical always beats a regular success, but, if both roll crits or both roll regular successes, the higher roll wins.

Quote from: Bren;858715Though really you couldn't think up any other nickname?

That would have caused a fragmentation of my nicknames.

Quote from: Akrasia;858601Revolution d100?  *sigh*

I don't think that further fragmentation within the BRP family is going to help things...

Why? All of the games are broadly compatible.

Quote from: nDervish;858774RQ6 uses a blackjack method in opposed rolls.  A critical always beats a regular success, but, if both roll crits or both roll regular successes, the higher roll wins.

I didn't know that. Thanks for the info.

Subjectively, I don't like the sound of that. Due to the granularity of D100 vs D20 it makes ties much less likely than in Pendragon and I'm not sure that is a good thing. In addition, having 01 no longer be the best roll is a bit odd and unintuitive.

Quote from: Paolo_Guccione;858782That would have caused a fragmentation of my nicknames.

I see your point.