http://sjgames.com/ill/archive/February_10_2013/Wheres_The_Stakeholders_Report
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
;)
Bummer about the stakeholder report being delayed, its one of the few honest looks at the industry that we get.
Quote from: Piestrio;627427http://sjgames.com/ill/archive/February_10_2013/Wheres_The_Stakeholders_Report
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
;)
Bummer about the stakeholder report being delayed, its one of the few honest looks at the industry that we get.
good news is always welcome news.
Quote from: Piestrio;627427DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
How much of that is due to
Munchkin, I wonder, and how much to GURPS?
Quote from: Daddy Warpig;627433How much of that is due to Munchkin, I wonder, and how much to GURPS?
Almost entirely Munchkin I'm sure
And almost none of it was from Gurps!
Funny, our group played a game of Munchkin for the first time a few weeks back (someone called in sick)... and it was pretty unanimously a flop. Maybe because it seemed a parody of an RPG at a time when we really would have rather been playing an RPG.
The popularity of Munchkin mystifies me. I like it but the humor relies on players being familiar with D&D, which my RPG group obviously is, but (e.g.) our wives, who often join us for boardgame night, aren't.
Ah well, long live SJG and all that.
Wasn't the Ogre Kickstarter over a million dollars? I think that would have put 2012 over the top.
Quote from: Killfuck Soulshitter;627517Wasn't the Ogre Kickstarter over a million dollars? I think that would have put 2012 over the top.
He specifically says not counting kickstarter money it was their highest sales year.
Well is this good or bad?
Pretty safe assumption Munchkin is the big mover over there since the new Ogre isn't factored in.
So, Munchkin is probably worthless to non-roleplayers, right? So either
1. We have more active roleplayers who are also playing Munchkin. (Good)
2. We have more inactive roleplayers needing to do something so they play Munchkin. (Bad)
3. We have more ex-roleplayers laughing at the stupid shit you do as kids. (Bad)
:hmm:
Quote from: CRKrueger;627614Well is this good or bad?
Pretty safe assumption Munchkin is the big mover over there since the new Ogre isn't factored in.
So, Munchkin is probably worthless to non-roleplayers, right? So either
1. We have more active roleplayers who are also playing Munchkin. (Good)
2. We have more inactive roleplayers needing to do something so they play Munchkin. (Bad)
3. We have more ex-roleplayers laughing at the stupid shit you do as kids. (Bad)
:hmm:
Makes sense to me. Personally, I've seen Munchkin act as a nice "pressure release" for serious campaigning - you can get your "kick a door, kill a friend" jollies in a consequence-free environment, and less of the silly gets into your day-to-day roleplaying. YMMV.
(I will note that Munchkin does, indeed, require genre knowledge for the humor to work - which is why I prefer Chez Geek (link to Wiki) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chez_Geek). 'Cause everybody can relate to having bad roommates. ;))
Quote from: CRKrueger;627614So, Munchkin is probably worthless to non-roleplayers, right? So either
1. We have more active roleplayers who are also playing Munchkin. (Good)
2. We have more inactive roleplayers needing to do something so they play Munchkin. (Bad)
3. We have more ex-roleplayers laughing at the stupid shit you do as kids. (Bad)
4. We have more WoW players who find Munchkin and laugh at the fantasy RPG tropes not even realizing that they originated in D&D. (Sad)
5. We have more DSA/TDE players (US equivalent: story telling gamers, story gamers) wanting to experience the stuff those D&D players do without actually playing D&D. (Indifferent)
6. We have more fans of John Kovalic art who collect the cards as cartoons. (Understandable, I liked Murphy's Rules as well)
If Munchkin was useless to non-roleplayers it would not be such a big hit in mainstream (toy, game, book) stores. I don't know about the US market but the German edition of Munchkin is all over the place, neatly placed next to Bohnanza, Skip-bo, Uno and similar games.
Also, don't underestimate the lure of John Kovalic art.
I really can't stand Munchkin, any of them. It's a terrible little game with intentionally poorly-written rules and an endgame that's not about beating the other players, but instead waiting for everyone else with an advantage to get unloaded on by the entire table to stop them winning, and then sneaking through when everyone else is out of FUCK YOU cards. At the end, the game really, really drags as a result.
Munchkin Quest is all right, but again suffers from the FUCK YOU endgame.
My wife, having never played an RPG tabletop or video game, is the reason we play Munchkin from time to time. She liked the art on one of the undead ones. We own Super-Hero Munchkin and Zombie Munchkin. The people who play at our house usually have zero prior RPG experience and we enjoy the screwing-each-other-over aspect. It's also not a game we play more than a couple times a month.
Its good to see that the new economy, the way things are changing in how we sell products, is apparently leading to prosperity for some of the older gaming companies as well, and not just the new small-press people.
RPGPundit
I wouldn't be surprised if it's because Munchkin has made it into places like Target. Many former gamers, non-tabletop gamers, and general nerds are far more likely to be browsing the game aisle of Target than go into one of the few remaining game stores.
If that's the case, it speaks to the continued strength of mainstream distribution. This is what made Basic D&D a hit - normal people not previously tied into the hobby could see it and buy it.
Whatever, it's still good news. SJ Games on a good financial footing means that they'll be able to keep stuff in print, bring out more stuff lik Ogre, and put out new stuff as well.
Quote from: Nicephorus;628096Whatever, it's still good news. SJ Games on a good financial footing means that they'll be able to keep stuff in print, bring out more stuff lik Ogre, and put out new stuff as well.
...Cough,
Car Wars, Cough...
High sales? High profits? High inflation? How well was 2012 for them in 1991 money?
And if 2012 was really spectacular, they should have money then for more GURPS books, right? Or does that money go right back into their electrical costs for their growing PDF storage? And how much of their sales increase (counting chickens before they are hatched) was because of their Ogre Kickstarter?
Quote from: GameDaddy;628356...Cough, Car Wars, Cough...
This.
I miss my autodueling days. Half the fun was coming up with the most wicked awesome stuff, and the other half was wrecking each other's shit in some road or arena scenario that took all day (or, sometimes, all weekend) to play out.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;628423And if 2012 was really spectacular, they should have money then for more GURPS books, right?
The problem with Munchkin vs GURPS is a manpower issue where the time spent on Munchkin (and other dice/board games) returns a vastly larger profit than the time spent on GURPS.
Quote from: estar;628577The problem with Munchkin vs GURPS is a manpower issue where the time spent on Munchkin (and other dice/board games) returns a vastly larger profit than the time spent on GURPS.
This is why I wish they would do a kind of OGL for GURPS so others could write & publish adventures and supplemental stuff.
Quote from: Exploderwizard;628601This is why I wish they would do a kind of OGL for GURPS so others could write & publish adventures and supplemental stuff.
Just download GURPS Lite and play from that.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;628602Just download GURPS Lite and play from that.
What good is that? I already have the core books and the supplements I want that have been published.
I'm talking about the availability of modules.
Quote from: Exploderwizard;628609What good is that? I already have the core books and the supplements I want that have been published.
I'm talking about the availability of modules.
I concur they don't have a lot of ready to run adventure. Most "adventures" are organized and read like sourcebooks. "Mirror of the Fire Demon" is the closet thing they have to the traditional adventure format.
My Scourge of the Demon Wolf started out as a GURPS adventure and is how I would write and organize them.
Quote from: Exploderwizard;628609What good is that? I already have the core books and the supplements I want that have been published.
I'm talking about the availability of modules.
Ok. I've never used modules, or store-bought adventures.
GURPS lite 3e was pretty great. I had heard somewhere that they gimped 4e's lite in comparison.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;629003GURPS lite 3e was pretty great. I had heard somewhere that they gimped 4e's lite in comparison.
RPGPundit
Yeah, it's less useful.
If feels like it has more mechanics for character building and fewer for actually running the game.
3e lite felt complete, 4e lite feels like a teaser.
The main reason I dabble with game design at all is that GURPS isn't open source. Not that it's perfect but it's close enough for my purposes 99% of the time. True I complain that it's utterly broken for supers but that's the point system, combat is fine with supers if they're built right.
As for GURPS Lite 4e, I'd argue it's more complete. It covers a wider range of weapons and skills than the 3e booklet but leaves out magic entirely which seems to be a core beef for some folks. Personally there desperately needs to be a GURPS Fantasy Lite more than any single other thing GURPS needs, even the precious Vehicle Design Rules.
Quote from: estar;628577The problem with Munchkin vs GURPS is a manpower issue where the time spent on Munchkin (and other dice/board games) returns a vastly larger profit than the time spent on GURPS.
I suspect another issue is that they consider the GURPS line more or less "complete". They've run out of ideas for genre sourcebooks, they can't muster the enthusiasm to adapt any published settings (or the money to get the licences) and they've never really seemed to be interested in producing adventures. I could well believe that from their point of view there's not much left to do with the line except occasionally run off another print run of those books which still sell in print.
You also have the downward spiral going, where SJG declare there's no money in GURPS after spending a fair amount of time neglecting the system. If I were a GURPS fan I'd want to shake them by their lapels and yell "Of course the market's drifted away from GURPS! Gamers have lost interest because
you've lost interest!"
I mean, I don't necessarily blame SJG for apparently losing interest in GURPS. As I understand it the existence of the game is an enormous compromise as a result of Steve no longer having the rights to TFT, the game he actually wanted to print and support. And whilst I admire GURPS' fans devotion to the line, for me and most of the people I game with a game which deliberately sets out to be the white bread of RPGs is going to pall after a while.
Quote from: Warthur;629453You also have the downward spiral going, where SJG declare there's no money in GURPS after spending a fair amount of time neglecting the system. If I were a GURPS fan I'd want to shake them by their lapels and yell "Of course the market's drifted away from GURPS! Gamers have lost interest because you've lost interest!"
I think it largely due to a myopia about GURPS as a universal toolkit that caused GURPS to decline faster than its competitors. While I think SJ Games will still had to face the Munchkin vs GURPS (and now Ogre) issue. GURPS would be a lot healthier if it had a standalone powered by GURPS Fantasy RPG. Along with a version for Sci-Fi and a version for Horror.
Quote from: estar;629464I think it largely due to a myopia about GURPS as a universal toolkit that caused GURPS to decline faster than its competitors. While I think SJ Games will still had to face the Munchkin vs GURPS (and now Ogre) issue. GURPS would be a lot healthier if it had a standalone powered by GURPS Fantasy RPG. Along with a version for Sci-Fi and a version for Horror.
Yup. I think GURPS is possibly the best crunch to run each of these genres but there are no grab-and-go products for them. Each type of campaign requires combing through the basic set with a filter and having to build a system from the tools therein.
Its worth the effort IF you have the time. There are too many ready to go alternative games out there. Some targeted focused releases could really help the popularity problem.
Quote from: Exploderwizard;629470Yup. I think GURPS is possibly the best crunch to run each of these genres but there are no grab-and-go products for them. Each type of campaign requires combing through the basic set with a filter and having to build a system from the tools therein.
Its worth the effort IF you have the time. There are too many ready to go alternative games out there. Some targeted focused releases could really help the popularity problem.
They could also greatly reduce the complexity. No matter how well it is explained in the core books, different styles of game have different options that work well. Sub-selecting this not only gives a less expensive entry point but it leaves you with a lot less text to look over when playing in that setting.
So I heartily agree.
I just use GURPS books for getting setting ideas and then run my game sessions using Mongoose Traveller, which is a nice generic mechanic that is very easy to add equipment, races, vehicles, weapons, skills, careers, etc to.
Quote from: Exploderwizard;629470Yup. I think GURPS is possibly the best crunch to run each of these genres but there are no grab-and-go products for them. Each type of campaign requires combing through the basic set with a filter and having to build a system from the tools therein.
Its worth the effort IF you have the time. There are too many ready to go alternative games out there. Some targeted focused releases could really help the popularity problem.
Yeah, this problem was exasperated with 4th. There is just SO much more to comb through and so many more options presented.
In 3e you could run a basic fantasy game with the core book with just some common sense restrictions and the various supplements were fairly "ready to go". Grab GURPS Camelot and have at it, etc...
4th rolled the two compendiums into the core and vastly increased the workload to carve a particular game out.
Of course to the hardcore GURPS players those are positives. They already used a bajillion source books and the compendiums so having them all more accessible was pure positive.
Quote from: estar;629464I think it largely due to a myopia about GURPS as a universal toolkit that caused GURPS to decline faster than its competitors. While I think SJ Games will still had to face the Munchkin vs GURPS (and now Ogre) issue. GURPS would be a lot healthier if it had a standalone powered by GURPS Fantasy RPG. Along with a version for Sci-Fi and a version for Horror.
Oh, certainly. You could have all the advantages Exploderwizard and Votan cite, plus it'd also go a heck of a long way to counter the impression many people have (including me, based on my memories of the GURPS material I read back in the day) that GURPS = flavourless.
If you could put out a "Powered by GURPS" RPG which was packed with flavour, ready to run from the book, and didn't layer on any complexity which the setting didn't require (for instance, you don't really need a complex vehicle-building system for fantasy, with SF you can dump the magic system entirely, and so on), and if you did a halfway competent job, you'd instantaneously brush away a heap of the factors which put people off GURPS without ruining the experience for the core fanbase even slightly (beyond grousing about having to buy redundant rules along with your cool new setting, but screw it, if you do it right the reprinted rules won't take up that much of the book anyway). Nobody would lose.
I guess it's just stubborn clinging to business philosophies which worked back in the 1980s and 1990s which stops them greenlighting it. That and, like you say, they're too ideologically devoted to GURPS as this beautiful pure generic toolkit despite the fact that more or less all the other pure generic toolkit RPG systems out there - HERO, BRP, etc. - have "Powered By..." lines as well.
Quote from: Warthur;629506If you could put out a "Powered by GURPS" RPG which was packed with flavour, ready to run from the book, and didn't layer on any complexity which the setting didn't require (for instance, you don't really need a complex vehicle-building system for fantasy, with SF you can dump the magic system entirely, and so on), and if you did a halfway competent job, you'd instantaneously brush away a heap of the factors which put people off GURPS without ruining the experience for the core fanbase even slightly (beyond grousing about having to buy redundant rules along with your cool new setting, but screw it, if you do it right the reprinted rules won't take up that much of the book anyway). Nobody would lose.
There is GURPS Discworld upcoming (sometime) which is basically what we want but tied to too idiosyncratic a setting to be really popular (IMO).
Quote from: Piestrio;629508There is GURPS Discworld upcoming (sometime) which is basically what we want but tied to too idiosyncratic a setting to be really popular (IMO).
Now you mention it, I remember the 3E GURPS Discworld was complete in one book too, but I agree that I'm not sure about its RPG potential. I know a lot of gamers who like Pratchett but more or less none who want to game in Discworld. Although there's been a lot of mapmaking and worldbuilding done surrounding Discworld it is essentially a platform for Pratchett to use to tell jokes with and the idea of exploring it without Terry's very distinctive voice narrating things feels like it's missing the point.
GURPS Prime Directive is good enough for me.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;629519GURPS Prime Directive is good enough for me.
Prime directive is another game that is probably too idiosyncratic to ever be really popular.
Star Trek has never been a really popular gaming property so it shouldn't be a huge surprise that "not-Star Trek" the RPG has limited appeal.
What's frustrating is how close they come in some cases:
WW2
Hellboy
Discworld
Prime Directive
etc...
But instead of giving people what they want (i.e. generic gamble fantasy and sci-fi) they give us awesome rules and products tied to specific niche appeal settings.
If Star Trek can't sell tabletop RPGs, then no wonder it's a D&D world.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;629541If Star Trek can't sell tabletop RPGs, then no wonder it's a D&D world.
It is what it is. Star Trek has never been a particularly successful franchise for tabletop gaming.
Compound that with the fact that Prime Directive is NOT Star Trek and, like I said, it's really not surprising that it's not terribly popular.
Well, we had FASA Trek with its slow character generation and combat and an awesome starship combat game. Great rules for hard core detail freaks though.
We had Last Unicorn Trek with a book for every series. Actually I really regret not getting the TOS one. The rules were supposedly decent.
We had Decipher Trek with broken rules and a lame duck company that didn't stick it out.
I don't quite know what the answer for Trek is. Honestly Traveller Trek or d6 Trek would probably be the best bet.
For GURPS I think a Single 200 page core book with no esoteric / supernatural powers or game breaking disadvantages in it would be a good start. Call it GURPS Vanilla. Now You can pick up any genre source book and plug it in without having to cull the character creation section.
One book fantasy, sf, and action would be okay too. Maybe even better as you could tailor the selection of abilities.
I have Traveller Prime Directive on order (due out this winter, if at all). Not expecting much from it, since it will be a 90% reprint of what the D20 and GURPS verions had in them. No ship combat rules probably. They want you to buy Star Fleet Battles for that. And Mongoose has their own Call to Arms already. We will see. Sci-Fi RPGs are not as popuar as fairy dust RPGs.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;629559Sci-Fi RPGs are not as popuar as fairy dust RPGs.
Very true.
The only "sci-fi" rpg I can think that really achieved notable popularity was Traveller.
Most other popular "sci-fi" RPGs are science-fantasy.
WEG and then WOTC Star Wars
The new 40k RPGs
etc...
Quote from: Piestrio;629004Yeah, it's less useful.
If feels like it has more mechanics for character building and fewer for actually running the game.
3e lite felt complete, 4e lite feels like a teaser.
Hell, I ran some complete short campaigns using the 3e GURPS lite rules plus a single setting book.
RPGPundit
Because I'm curious about the Trek, I'm going to spin off another thread...
Quote from: mcbobbo;629897Because I'm curious about the Trek, I'm going to spin off another thread...
Well done!
RPGPundit