What are your thoughts about episode guides, introductory essays, and other recountings of the source material in licensed games?  Do you find usefulness in them?  Are they simply reiterating the blatantly obvious?

When I buy a game based on a licensed property, I'm not looking to have that property explained to me or the plotline reiterated.  I'm already a fan and already know all this stuff.  What I'm looking for is a game engine which acts as a kind of physics engine which produces the kinds of results which fit with the source material.  I'm looking for the props of the licensed property to be given game stats.  I want to see the characters statted up and capable of doing the things they do in the source material.  I'd like some tips on how to emulate the source material in a game.

These days it's easier to read such fluff online, such as the various wikis dedicated to particular fandoms.

For more general fluff, easier to just read tvtropes.org

Well, episode guides are pointless in an RPG.  

However, I do think there is a place for collecting and organizing information from the source material in a way that is relevant for RPGs.  Organized maps, for example, along with notes on key locations, items, spells, or other things that are hard to look up.  

I think Amber Diceless, say, does a good job of presenting setting that supplements but isn't redundant with the stories.  Likewise Call of Cthulhu.

It can be helpful. I find my level of knowledge on a given line varies considerably. I may know a good deal ne show/movie/book i am interested but much less in another (though my interest in running it is still strong). Also, if it has been a while since i read or viewed it,these can serve as helpful refreshers. It never hurts to have this information compiled ito one place. Worst case scenario it functions as a reference guide. I also think publishers shouldn't assume everyone who buys the game comes to the table with the same interestor expertise. If you concvince me to play in your Buffy the Vampire slayer game and I have never seen an episode, i would find this kind of information very helpful as a player.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;521808It can be helpful. I find my level of knowledge on a given line varies considerably. I may know a good deal ne show/movie/book i am interested but much less in another (though my interest in running it is still strong). Also, if it has been a while since i read or viewed it,these can serve as helpful refreshers. It never hurts to have this information compiled ito one place. Worst case scenario it functions as a reference guide. I also think publishers shouldn't assume everyone who buys the game comes to the table with the same interestor expertise. If you concvince me to play in your Buffy the Vampire slayer game and I have never seen an episode, i would find this kind of information very helpful as a player.

Don't forget, the episode guides and such are mostly there to try to sell the product to non-gaming fans of the property.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;521808It can be helpful. I find my level of knowledge on a given line varies considerably. I may know a good deal ne show/movie/book i am interested but much less in another (though my interest in running it is still strong). Also, if it has been a while since i read or viewed it,these can serve as helpful refreshers. It never hurts to have this information compiled ito one place. Worst case scenario it functions as a reference guide. I also think publishers shouldn't assume everyone who buys the game comes to the table with the same interestor expertise. If you concvince me to play in your Buffy the Vampire slayer game and I have never seen an episode, i would find this kind of information very helpful as a player.

I think the Buffy example is a pretty great one, as they made an effort to try to explain how the various Buffy seasons' themes and such would relate in gameplay.

If there is no attempt to tie the reference guides to the game? Eh...ditch it. Unless, of course, the company you are licensing from is requiring you to place that in there (which is very possible).

Quote from: nightwind1;521907Don't forget, the episode guides and such are mostly there to try to sell the product to non-gaming fans of the property.

Possibly.

I remember some Star Trek fanatics I knew in person, who picked up every FASA Star Trek rpg splatbook released back in the 1980's.  They didn't really play any rpg games, but were reading the FASA splatbooks for (non-canon) information about the Star Trek universe.

Similar things can be said about some hardcore Star Wars fans I knew back in the late 1980's and 1990's, where they picked up the WEG Star Wars rpg books to read for information about the Expanded Universe.  Many of these particular individuals didn't even play rpg games.

I don't want an episode guide or a recant of the story... but I do want the source material laid out in a way that is of more direct use for gaming... including expanding on areas that were left as mysteries in the original (that, or outright say it's up to the GM to decide).

Quote from: jhkim;521787I think Amber Diceless, say, does a good job of presenting setting that supplements but isn't redundant with the stories.  Likewise Call of Cthulhu.

Agreed. Those are good models to follow.

RPGPundit

Quote from: ggroy;522010Possibly.

I remember some Star Trek fanatics I knew in person, who picked up every FASA Star Trek rpg splatbook released back in the 1980's.  They didn't really play any rpg games, but were reading the FASA splatbooks for (non-canon) information about the Star Trek universe.

Similar things can be said about some hardcore Star Wars fans I knew back in the late 1980's and 1990's, where they picked up the WEG Star Wars rpg books to read for information about the Expanded Universe.  Many of these particular individuals didn't even play rpg games.

Don't forget the number of anime sourcebooks from Guardians of Order for the Tri-Stat System. They really were marketed more toward anime fans than roleplayers.

Quote from: Gabriel2;521753What are your thoughts about episode guides, introductory essays, and other recountings of the source material in licensed games?  Do you find usefulness in them?  Are they simply reiterating the blatantly obvious?

Guardians of Order used to include episode guides because they were successfully marketing the books to both RPG players and non-RP fans of the source material. But this strategy is pretty much irrelevant in a post-Wikipedia age.

What I want is for the source material to be reorganized (and possibly supplemented) into a format that's useful for actually referencing it and gaming it.