Quote from: Levi KornelsenThe hardcover, color art look, can help me sell other people on a game because it looks professional.  When I want to sell people on GURPS, I can plonk down the book in front of them.  It doesn't make for better actual play, but it makes one game attractive over another.

I'd quibble, by pointing out that improving actual play often requires replacing players, and that having a larger pool of players makes that replacment, and therefore the actual play, easier and better.

But I'd be quibbling.

I'd like to point out that there's a lot of room for supplements in Balbinus' concept - just keep them optional. If the supplement is necessary, it should be in a/the core book, not a supplement. Supplements can focus on greater detail, or open up new areas to explore, or the like, but the customer should never need them. I sell a lot of supplements - most of them at about 50% of the  quantity of the core books - but you don't need any of them. It's my job to make them so good that you want them, though.

-clash

I've noticed that the supplements for the new GURPS seem a lot denser. I was eyeballing the new biotech sourcebook the other day, it seems twice as thick as the old one, not taking into account the hard cover. I know the actual RULES are a lot lighter (both because I perused it, and because I understand that most of the rules are in actual core book)... meaning almost all that heft is on PLAYING Biotech based games.

Not sure I need it, but I'll probably get it at some point down the line.

Quote from: PaulChapmanBut I'd be quibbling.

As quibbles go, not bad.

My point is basically that chasing after time spent on book quality isn't the best way to get more time on refining rules and playtesting.

Instead, to get more time spent on refined rules and playtesting, folks can scream about how much they want refined and playtested rules, how those are their Numbah One Thing.  At the top of their lungs.

Good art and good writing (which can, but often doesn't include game fiction) stimulate my imagination.  As we are talking about games where are predicated on imagination, it follows that yes these things help actual play for me.  Conversely, particularly bad art is annoying, distracting and damaging to my ability to effectively envision the setting.  On a similar note, a book which is falling apart is a book which I won't likely use so again, superior production values (which can, but often doesn't include hardcover) enhances the playability of the product for me.

I absolutely agree that RPG books shouldn't be produced with the Reader (as opposed to the Player) as the primary audience -- but at the end of the day, you have to read the game before you can play it so a game that is more pleasant to read is more likely to be played.  Just like not everyone wants to wrestle with Borgstromesque obtuse prose, not everyone wants to wade through comically bad art and sleep-inducing layout and books that disintegrate at the slightest touch.

KoOS

EDIT: Reworded for clarity.

Quote from: flyingmiceI'd like to point out that there's a lot of room for supplements in Balbinus' concept - just keep them optional. If the supplement is necessary, it should be in a/the core book, not a supplement. Supplements can focus on greater detail, or open up new areas to explore, or the like, but the customer should never need them. I sell a lot of supplements - most of them at about 50% of the  quantity of the core books - but you don't need any of them. It's my job to make them so good that you want them, though.

-clash

Just so.

And since Gurps has come up, it's actually a good example.

Gurps 3rd edition, which I played for around a decade, had a great core rulebook.  I ran whole campaigns with just that book, in terms of rules it had everything I needed.

I still bought supplements.  Until Compendium though I didn't need to, I bought them because SJGames put out damn good supplements.

Then with Compendium that changed, and I needed that to make full use of later supplements.  I think that was an error, and I think that was corrected in 4e.

But prior to Compendium Gurps was a model example in many ways of a game that largely serves play.  The core books contained all you needed, the rest was sold on quality.

I'm excepting 4th not because I think it sucks but just because I don't know it well enough to comment, whereas I know 3rd pretty well.

I don't really see the difference betwee GURPS High-Tech, nWoD Armory or WotC Complete Warrior. All of them aren't neccesarily needed, but you could complain that they contain stuff that should've been in the core books.

Where are the specific complaints? I'm not familiar with the new RQ books, but I've heard clanbooks mentioned. While I'm not very familiar with lots of them, they mostly contained fluff. What's so bad with that? I knew lots of people who ran their Vampire campaigns with just the core book...

The same goes for Shadowrun or Palladium. Yes, often the supplements contained more powerful stuff. Does that really invalidate the core books and turn gaming into some kind of Marxist class struggle?

Except, I feel pretty safe in saying that most players don't go on to a lifetime of playing from one book.

Most players get the corebook, buy one or two supplements, and then quit forever before they've been in the hobby four months.  Why?  Because they get bored after seeing "all the options of the game."

Plus, I'm also fairly certain that if you checked those players who have embraced the hobby as a lifetime one, you'd similarly find that very few of them (a totally insignificant amount, really) only have a single corebook for the entire group as their sole gaming implement.

The Forge "indie" games, at the least, have created their very own marketing gimmick, no different really than the "endless metaplot" or "book that requires the next book to get the secrets of the first book" gimmick; and that's the gimmick of creating "microgames" that are only playable for a couple of sessions then end. Not to mention the selling of these books being principally based on fashionability ("Ron Edwards says this game is good!") than quality, and you've got a great gimmick combination set up for built-in obsolescence, requiring the would be Forge-gamer to continue buying constant "indie" games in order to keep playing his two-or-three-week campaigns and keep up with the cool kids.

RPGPundit

Quote from: PaulChapmanI submit that your tastes may not match the majority of the game purchasing public.

They may not, but you're asking the wrong question, Mr.Chapman. The question isn't "do our books best match the desires of the majority of RPG collectors out there today", but rather "Do our books appeal to the majority of potential RPG-playing demographic who do not yet play"?

RPGPundit

I think Balbinus is by6 and large right.

The drive towards hardbacked books, the inclusion of more full-colour art, the releasing of intentionally crippled games (7th Sea being the best example I know of seeing as two of the magic systems simply didn't work as written in the core book) and the multiplication of edition are all driven by the demands of essentially an industry that is trying to grow without growing the market.

Gurps was an excellent example of how to put play first because you bought the corebook then, IF you wanted to play in a certain setting, you bought the supplement.  The supplement contained rules and information that SUPPLEMENTED that in the game book.  They were optional.

The problem though is that RPG gamers are arguably the least demanding, most easily manipulated and naive niche in all of geekdom.  So if you release a crippled book full of pretty pictures chances are people will be happy.

Depends on the game. Some settings/systems aren't targeted at newbies, as with most existing products. Some are for beginners, some for more experienced people. It's not very often that those two demographics find joy with the same offering.

Quote from: RPGPunditrequiring the would be Forge-gamer to continue buying constant "indie" games in order to keep playing his two-or-three-week campaigns and keep up with the cool kids.

Oddly, I'd consider this the "normal" casual model of gaming.  People play a given game for two or three weeks, then put it behind them forever before moving on to something new.

Our hobby has developed into the periodical model precisely because it isn't a widespread lifetime hobby.  The number of lifetime gamers is fixed, and they demmand a constant supply of new material. Meanwhile, that same constant supply of new material is necessary to keep the tiny number of new players involved in the hobby and preventing them from "exhausting the game."

If anything, blame the current model on the fact that practically all other forms of entertainment offer something "new" with greater speed and efficiency.

Quote from: RPGPunditThey may not, but you're asking the wrong question, Mr.Chapman. The question isn't "do our books best match the desires of the majority of RPG collectors out there today", but rather "Do our books appeal to the majority of potential RPG-playing demographic who do not yet play"?

Assuming I'm not already asking that question, why would I ask it here?

All the "Hardcore" lifer gamers I know own SHELVES of books for their favorite game. I do too. The only real problem have is corebook (or splatbook) hole-filling. Where the corebook has a great mystery, or something mentioned, but unexplained and your campiagn took a different direction with it, only to have a cannon version of it come out later. I think Splat Books should try to include only contain new information rather than explaining old information. That's why I ran most of my Old School WW games with just the corebooks.
 
I think all the big companies get it right. WoD, Corebooks D&D, Shadowrun and what have you are all "Introductions to the hobby". Enough rules to play with and enough setting to spark you imagination, and you could almost play forever with what the core book(s) include. Although I wish D&D would introduce a real "Basic Set" with everything a group needs to play at an affordable price. Their $90-100 buy-in is total crap.