I'm copying this from something I saw James Raggi write, where he brings up some very interesting points for discussion:

Quote"Do we need another retroclone? Why can't somebody just do a supplement of what's different about the way they do things instead of another whole set of rules?"

Interesting questions, but they never seem to be asked because someone is actually interested in learning the answer. They are asked because someone is lapsing into assholio behavior, thinking that not buying or downloading or reading something is somehow an imposition.

Anyway, the answer to "Do we need..." is always yes and is objectively provable simply by the fact that somebody did it. The creator's part of "we" certainly doesn't count less than everybody else's.

Also, that "we" is, as all the uncool kids say, problematic.

Some people seem to think that a gaming "community" (surely that's where the "we" comes from?) has some sort of hierarchy or structure more robust than "What's the latest cool shit and who did it?"

Worse, some people think a community should be in some way democratic. Like we'd all take a vote and agree on which way AC should go or whether bards should be a playable class or whether having a bestiary is a requirement for a game.

The fact that this is a big disorganized mess is half the fun of it. If any organization did develop it be be shit and boring because all the interesting people would break off to do their own thing.

Opinions?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;631970Opinions?

"Please don't forget me now that AD&D is readily available again!!!  PLEASE!"

He's right, but I, personally, am not really interested in more clones.

It's odd...there's lots of superfluous osr stuff yes, but every so often something really good turns up. Personally I think it's worth it to page through 10 dull "S&W or Basic with a few houserules" clones if the 11th is actually good.

Like Blood & Treasure, an awesome game that's supplanted S&W as my fave osr game. It weaves together stuff from all Pre-4e editions w/o coming across like cut and paste work (well the magic item section is extremely similar to 3e but, *shrug* that's fine with me). Helps that its creator is a very imaginative guy (seriously, he has a lot of ideas) - he also makes the Nod magazine, wich absolutely rocks.

Of course there's a bunch of disappointments as well, but them's the breaks.

Quote from: danbuter;631975He's right, but I, personally, am not really interested in more clones.

Something like this.

I'd say that at this point the market for "pure facsimile" retroclones (that is, those clones which exist solely to present a refined emulation of one edition of D&D or other) is undeniably saturated. I don't see any meaningful niches left to be filled.

There's probably space left for the "fantasy heartbreaker" version of facsimile retroclones to continue to appear - these being those which are "D&D done right", but otherwise more or less the original game. There's a chance for lightning to strike here, and a breakout hit to appear, but by and large this segment of the market will likely continue to find an audience you could fit in a living room.

Where the life in the retroclone market seems to be is in the themed and focused retroclones - where people are clearly trying to deliver a specific product with its own tones and aims which shares a heritage with D&D, but isn't trying to ape it. The line between this and a "fantasy heartbreaker" is ambiguous and subjective at times (depending largely on whether you like the game or not), but for my money this is how I could categorise things like LotFP, AS&SH, and probably even ACKS (although that's more on the "I like it" basis than a strong case for being more than D&D).

It is the heart of the OD&D aesthetic versus the AD&D aesthetic.  

His answer does little to address why people need to put another retro-clone on the market.  The "creator's need" to create is fully addressed and realized by writing up something that is successfully used at his table.  I'm not saying people should stop selling retro-clones, but his response is less than fully genuine to the point of the original question, which is about whether there is some opportunity cost in the balkanizing of the old-school market.  

Also, the attitude inherent in making a statement to the effect of interesting people don't support the 1st generation close clones (because if they were interesting they would "break off to do their own thing") displays the hipster snobbishness I find off-putting about many in his near-circle - I think many of them would prefer kudos and acclaim from RPG.net than with Dragonsfooters, for example, even though DF, and the posters that congregate there, is the beating heart of their market.

This phase of the OSR has run its course. Stuff will continue to come out, but it's now another phase of RPG history to be seen in the past tense.

There is no "we". IMHO each individual is more than capable of deciding if he or she wants to purchase a product.

The market will tell you if your product is wanted or not. To my knowledge there is no secret council that decides exactly when the retroclone market is officially closed.

It is up to the producer of the product to convince me that I want or need thier work.

Seems reasonable enough. If people want to spend their free time redeveloping the wheel, fine, that's their choice. You don't have to buy it, read it, or care about it in the slightest.

Raggi's right in many many ways.

First: I'd go farther with the comment about "lapsing into assholio behavior". Pretty much everyone I've ever seen ask "do we need another retroclone?" or restate it as the exclamation "we do NOT need another retroclone!" is either a retroclone author who doesn't want another competitor or a partisan of some game, who wishes people would just stop making new games and play the one *they* prefer. It's democracy by bullying.

Second: Most retroclones are distributed free, so it's not like you can really talk about market saturation and bullshit like that. It's somebody writing up their own version of D&D, in case anyone else wants to read it. You don't have to read it, or download it, or even learn its name. The only reason this seems to come up is because of the crazy consumer mentality of most gamers, centered around buying or at least getting a copy of as many games as possible. For those people, maybe "yet another retroclone" is a bad thing, because they CAN'T KEEP THEMSELVES FROM BUYING OR DOWNLOADING.

But that's more of a personal problem and should have no bearing on whether someone makes a new retroclone or not.

The number of retro-clones never a true issue. Full rulesets are dwarfed by the variety and number of other types of OSR projects released.

Only 31 out of 700 odd projects that targeted a an older edition of D&D are full rule systems.

The issue was over blown and over hyped from the get go.

Quote from: EOTB;631983His answer does little to address why people need to put another retro-clone on the market.  The "creator's need" to create is fully addressed and realized by writing up something that is successfully used at his table.  I'm not saying people should stop selling retro-clones, but his response is less than fully genuine to the point of the original question, which is about whether there is some opportunity cost in the balkanizing of the old-school market.

Why have I started work on Lords & Wizards? Because the players at my table would like to see (and play) the version of D&D I used in the late 1970s-early 1980s. It started with OD&D and added what we wanted from: AD&D as it came out, B/X, stuff in magazines and third party products, my ideas, player ideas, etc.

Given the number of OGL/Open Game Content 0e/1e/BX/BECMI games out there, it will be easy for me to piece together a starting point to modify. Once the game is "finished", there is really no reason not to make it available for free to anyone on the Internet who wants it. Do games like this "balkanize" old school gamers? Considering they are all pretty much based on the same core rules and can easily use adventures and settings from TSR and any retrogame publishers out there, I really don't think so.

They do, of course, cut down the number of sales any one company will have because there is a lot of competition for limited old school gamer dollars. However, why should people not publish what they want to just because refraining from publishing would help companies they have no financial interest in? If company X makes a profit of one dollar or a million dollars is immaterial to me if I don't get any of those profits, so why show I adjust what I do to help them?

Quote from: EOTB;631983It is the heart of the OD&D aesthetic versus the AD&D aesthetic.  

His answer does little to address why people need to put another retro-clone on the market.  The "creator's need" to create is fully addressed and realized by writing up something that is successfully used at his table.  I'm not saying people should stop selling retro-clones, but his response is less than fully genuine to the point of the original question, which is about whether there is some opportunity cost in the balkanizing of the old-school market.  

Also, the attitude inherent in making a statement to the effect of interesting people don't support the 1st generation close clones (because if they were interesting they would "break off to do their own thing") displays the hipster snobbishness I find off-putting about many in his near-circle - I think many of them would prefer kudos and acclaim from RPG.net than with Dragonsfooters, for example, even though DF, and the posters that congregate there, is the beating heart of their market.

I agree with this. It's a matter of what's more important to you - to be able to show off your awesome creativity as an Artist (in which case you're better served by everybody publishing their own individual fantasy heartbreaker retroclone system), or to have a group of like-minded folks doing the same thing as you that you can share ideas with, be inspired by, get feedback from, and generally be part of a community with (in which case you're better served by more folks playing the same handful of systems, and playing them fairly similarly to each other).

On the one hand I wish the community of "folks who play 1E AD&D more-or-less the same way I do" was bigger than it currently is (i.e. more than the dozen or so regular posters at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse), so there were more people I could share ideas with and get valuable feedback from (and, let's be honest, flat out steal stuff from), but OTOH I'm also glad that folks like Raggi are "off doing their own thing" and not trying to shove their square pegs into my community's round hole anymore.

No, we don't, but I sure as hell don't mind 'em. I've read OD&D and I've read S&W and I still got a kick out of reading Delving Deeper, which I'm seriously considering using it to run ASE1-3 (which BTW arrived yesterday in the mail. Huzzah!). I'm all for everyone, everywhere publishing their houserules as a full-blown game, especially if it's a free download. Even if it's not, God knows my favorite version of D&D is Alexander Macris' houserules, and I'll never touch a Ravenloft book again as long as I have Jack Shear's Grotesque & Dungeonesque campaign notes on the iPad.

I agree with the "lapsing into assholio mode" thing. Most opposition to retro-clones that I personally have read seemed to originate with butthurt grognards (or rather, butthurt gamers trying to legitimize their opinions by claiming old school cred). Which is sad.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;631974"Please don't forget me now that AD&D is readily available again!!!  PLEASE!"

I'm not sure that's an issue since: (1) he's already carved out a little niche for himself as the OSR's go-to guy for grand guignol (if you'll allow for the abominable alliteration); and (2) most of the stuff he puts out is adventures and those are readily compatible with AD&D 1e. The reprints are a win-win for the OSR really.