Alright you guys know I'm the GURPS-lover around here....but after 4 years at a game store I know how to distance myself from my bias and look at what people are ACTUALLY playing.
Here goes...
Dungeons & Dragons
ALL versions. People are still playing that one. Doesn't matter about the 3.0 and 3.5 stuff. Customers that are still playing 2nd edition will come in and sometimes buy the current pre-paint minis or a new adventure book to get a map or two. They buy the PAIZO Gamemastery maps for D&D - no matter what version of it they are playing.
WORLD OF DARKNESS
...STILL somewhat popular but it seems to be slowing down quite a bit. If we get 3 or 4 customers in at the same time that play that - almost always a conversation drifts into which was better - oWOD or nWOD. It sells alright but doesn't seem as "hot" as it did in 2003.
GURPS - it sells sporadically in unpredictable spurts. The sad thing is I can't perfectly track my favoite system. Last week we had a group in purchasing REAPER fantasy miniatures to be their characters in a campaign. Usually that means the customers/browsers are in a D&D game, but then one of them mentioned another player's character had Lecherousness. I said "That sounds like a GURPS thing." Customer says: "DO you play GURPS?"
So - those 4 wouldn't show up as GURPS purchasers on our records but they are playing in a longterm GURPS Fantasy campaign.
RIFTS/Palladium - We still get a few shopping for that in the store. As I've mentioned before my favorite one of those customers was an attractive brunette with beautiful blue eyes. She was running TWO RIFTS campaigns for awhile. One of her groups was all women.
SHADOWRUN - That game haspicked up a lot more interest recently and I'm not sure why. I can think of at least 3 different groups that started playing that one within the past month and a half. Heck, this past Saturday ONE customer bought $260.00 worth of SHADOWRUN books because he was thinking about getting back into that game.
HERO system - That one its mostly interest in the main rules book and the sidekicker thing. I get the feeling there are at least 2 groups that stop by our store that play that - they just don't talk about it much.
MUTANTS & MASTERMINDS - I know thats a d20/OGL variation thing, but I can think of at least 4 to 5 groups that have had campaigns either ongoing or starting with setting or system within the past year.
SAVAGE WORLDS - At least TWO possible groups have tried it or started something with it in the past 6 months in our area.
By-the-way, when I say a "group" that means browsers/customers where I can tell the GM and at least 1 or 2 of her/his playetrs have stopped by the store and bought stuff for their campaign or have talked about . (Or both of those in the same conversation).
All the stuff I said above is tip-of-the iceberg phenomena. There is no way for me to usually tell whats sold during the other shifts or get a feel for RPG systems are popular from their point of view and the customers that they meet.
FOR EXAMPLE: I thought that we had not been doing well with White Wolf's SCION. Turns out I was wrong, we actually got replenished on that one TWICE. So that means we sold out our initial 3 copies, then sold another 3 copies of it. I only sold ONE copy of it during all the work shifts I had since it came out. My best guess is that we've sold 6 to 8 copies of the corebook sinvce its release. (if anyone is curious I can check the actual number on Wednesday)
Those charts from COMICS & GAMES RETAILER magazine? From what I can tell they are pretty close to whats happening across the nation. We have some regional variation. For whatever reason Aces & Eights has not just hit in the local area yet, I don't know why.
Forge/Indie games ? Hardly anybody locally has heard of them if I mention them in conversation. When I try to describe fairly and objectively what the games are or how they are played, the usual reaction is : "Well why would anybody want to do that?".
- Ed C.
I'd agree with this. The top-selling indie games are only selling a few thousand copies - (six thousand for Burning Wheel, around two thousand for Spirit of the Century -- less than 2000 per year). That's at the bottom of the middle tier in terms of sales.
On the other hand, people do actually play them, just not in large numbers. Like Amber, or Star Frontiers, they have a dedicated but small base of players.
Star Frontiers I've actually heard mentioned in conversation in the store.
Also a diluted version of that setting is in the D20 FUTURE book that we usually have 1 or 2 copies of onhand.
Hell, I think I owned that one when I was much younger. Even may have run a CAR WARS combat on the shopping mall map that was included with the boxed version of it .
...but I digress......
- Ed C.
Fair enough. I don't dispute your experience. I don't know any indie gamers in Cincinatti, and I don't see any on NearbyGamers. (Though neither of those are conclusive.)
However, I'd point out for comparison the Year of Sales at Endgame (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3764) as a different retailers experience. Endgame is a prominent retail store that stocks indie games and sees substantial sales of them.
I'm still not sure that I see any real disagreement here.
I've seen people buy both D&D and WoD stuff at my store. Some people think WoD is a D&D variant.
I know a group that plays all kinds of different systems regularly. But that's one group playing a bunch of different games.
even though its hard anecdotal evidence, Id like to see more of this kind of posting, as its more relevant than it might first seem.
Here's the list of RPGs I know are played regularly in my local scene:
3.0 and 3.5 D&D
Savage Worlds
Exalted
Vampire
Pendragon
HackMaster
HERO System (mostly Champions, some Fantasy Hero)
BESM
A longrunning local Wraith LARP just recently came to an end, IIRC. Mekton Zeta, Feng Shui, and Deadlands have all had at least one campaign each in the last couple years. GURPS once held as big a place as HERO and may still, but in the 90s the local scene was split into opposing GURPS and HERO camps. I'm not sure whether the Jackson Heretics still practice their blasphemous rites. I'm pretty sure that Shadowrun is an on-again, off-again favorite locally as well.
Traveller in many of its forms has it adherents around about here. Not surprising given my relative proximity to the Hallowed Halls of GDW, but I have my doubts that any of the old crew have actually run a campaign recently.
I'm not in touch with my local scene, although I wish I was. My group has no interest in other groups and only goes to the game store to buy dice or something they don't want to wait for, like Scion...
I know that there are a bunch of other groups down here who have nothing to do with the game store, and there are a bunch that do. I've run many an Indie game over at Castle Perilous, but the owner seems uninterested in stocking them.
Here's the games I'm aware of in my local area:
- D&D (all editions).
- World of Darkness.
- Unknown Armies. People go crazy for this one.
- Call of Cthulhu.
- Classic Traveller.
- Cyberpunk 2020.
- Witchcraft.
- Numerous smaller games, normally played in short campaigns or as one-shots. Spirit of the Century, REIGN, Weapons of the Gods, Tunnels and Trolls, JAGS...
@Koltar
What age groups do you see buying said games? Teens, College, Adult, Middle-Age, Old? Just curious the age of your buyers.
Quote from: KoltarSHADOWRUN - That game haspicked up a lot more interest recently and I'm not sure why. I can think of at least 3 different groups that started playing that one within the past month and a half. Heck, this past Saturday ONE customer bought $260.00 worth of SHADOWRUN books because he was thinking about getting back into that game.
Up until a couple of months ago Shadowrun was in a holding pattern. The game was sold and books started being printed again. Until then players had just the core rulebook and the magic book (if you could find it). GMs had a little bit of setting info aimed at them, and a screen.
After the sale the Catalyst Games Labs the cybertech book hit the shelves immediately and several more are on their way. I know this rejuvenated my group's interest in SR.
Also, I noticed no Scion or Exalted on your list. Were they being lumped in with WW's WoD? I ask because the Scion stuff at least flies off the shelves here. When our group decided to start playing it I had to call all over to find a copy. Every game store in my city and the next was sold out of the main book (Hero), as were most of the regular bookstores.
Exalted also sells out fast, although none of the books are on my "must have now" list like Scion was, so I just order them through my FLGS and wait the week it takes for his shipment to come in.
Quote from: Koltar.......................
FOR EXAMPLE: I thought that we had not been doing well with White Wolf's SCION. Turns out I was wrong, we actually got replenished on that one TWICE. So that means we sold out our initial 3 copies, then sold another 3 copies of it. I only sold ONE copy of it during all the work shifts I had since it came out. My best guess is that we've sold 6 to 8 copies of the corebook sinvce its release. (if anyone is curious I can check the actual number on Wednesday)
..................
- Ed C.
James MacM,
SEE? I did mention
SCION in the original post.
As for
EXALTED ?
I haven't sold an
EXALTED corebook or related book in close to a year (or more).We have them on the shelf and they disappear from time to time...at least the ones on the shelf seem to decrease every 3 or 4 months. All I can figure is that if
EXALTED is selling - then its only been during shifts that I'm not working.
Which , by-the-way has NO connection. I have never talked bad or good about that line of RPG books one way or the other in all 4 years I've been there.
EXALTED just seems to have died out as an interesting RPG setting for people locally.
When we first opened in 2003 to early 2004 we had some regulars who bought EXALTED books quite often and had a regfular group . Last time I talked to any of those former regukar customers they said they had changed over (or back?) to
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and occassionally
MUTANTS and MASTERMINDS.- Ed C.
Oops. It didn't start the paragraph, so my brain filtered it out. :)
Quote from: jhkimHowever, I'd point out for comparison the Year of Sales at Endgame (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3764) as a different retailers experience. Endgame is a prominent retail store that stocks indie games and sees substantial sales of them.
I think that game stores, like general bookstores, tend to sell what they have on their shelves. My FLGS has a salesguy who's into somewhat "indie" games, so he makes sure there are always copies of
Burning Wheel,
HeroQuest and so on. But another game store never has copies of them, "oh but we can get them if you order them." Unsurprisingly, if you talk to the first store's salespeople they say "indie" games are popular, if you talk to the second store they say they're not. Few people will hear of a game and then take the trouble to order it, they just buy whatever's on the shelves.
Having a bit of support from or promotion by the game store people - just on that conversational one-on-one level, plus wilingness to put it on the shelf before anyone's ever heard of it or asks for it - makes a big difference, I think. I'm sure Koltar's store sells more GURPS books than a similar store with an assistant manager who is only interested in CCGs :)
I am going to post in BOLD more. It makes every post into a pithy masterpiece.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron..................I think. I'm sure Koltar's store sells more GURPS books than a similar store with an assistant manager who is only interested in CCGs :)
Thats what you might think, but in actuality almost all the groups or customers at our store who say they play
GURPS were playing it
BEFORE they discovered the store or met me.
They mostly were VERY glad to find a store that knew what they were talking about...instead of having to buy it at BORDERS Books or B. DALTON Books.
I can think of ONE guy so far who got his friends to try
GURPS because he grabbed a copy of
GURPS Lite at the store. Turns out his GM had played it or ran it 20 years ago, but at his player's suggestiomn he gave 4th edition a try and decided that he liked it.
- Ed C.
Currently playing:
HARN (Sometimes using the HarnMaster rules, sometimes GURPS)
FADING SUNS
and D&D (3.5).
My group has played a smattering of Call of Cthulhu, Top Secret S.I., Castles and Crusades, and a shitload of Burning Wheel over the past year or two.
D&D 3.5, Exalted, NWoD, and Shadowrun are popular with other groups at the local gaming club.
i have no idea what the locals are playing.
my group:
megatraveller w/ mechwarrior
WFRP 1st
shadowrun using deadlands as the mechanics
backburner'ed:
some sort of laurel k. hamilton (minus the sex) meets WoD using millennium's end
pending:
MRQ slaine
star frontiers
Koltar - just some questions on the thread's title and your OP.
First, is the thread title a little misleading, or should it perhaps read 'What people are actually buying from their FLGS to play and are willing to discuss with me?' Buying books often doesn't equate to actually playing a game and if people already have the main elements of a game line they may not be buying lots more, particularly for supplement-light systems.
Second (and third), which games do you class as 'forge/indie' in discussions and how do you 'describe fairly and objectively what the games are or how they are played'?
Quote from: AosI am going to post in BOLD more. It makes every post into a pithy masterpiece.
If you notice...I usually just put the names of role playing games in bold or sometimes movie or TV show titles.
- Ed C.
I've been playing Risus, Castles & Crusades and D6 Space.
Hands up, who was surprised....?!
Quote from: Dr Rotwang!I've been playing Risus, Castles & Crusades and D6 Space.
Hands up, who was surprised....?!
As long as you're having fun.
Cool.
We have a few of the
Castles & Crusades books I believe - I just never see much if any interest in them locally.
- Ed C.
Strokes/Folks, right?
Quote from: KoltarIf you notice...I usually just put the names of role playing games in bold or sometimes movie or TV show titles.
- Ed C.
Facts are of no interest to me. They do no serve my ultimate purpose.
Quote from: AosFacts are of no interest to me. They do no serve my ultimate purpose.
We have noticed :)
What? Somebody had to.
i have a group i'm lucky enough to play with every other sunday. we've been playing a sweet AD&D campaign, but have recently started a game of pulpy Four Colors (http://www.4crpg.homestead.com/). After a couple of sessions of that (as a sort of sorbet), i'm going to gm a nice game of delta green (http://www.delta-green.com/home.html).
we finished up a 6-session campaign of boot hill prior to all that...
life is good. :D
I'm playing Metal, Magic, and Lore and Metascape II at the moment. It's hard to say what I might do after that. I'm erratic. Don't try to pin me down, baby.
There's a lot of WFRP and Hero being played in my vicinity. I can smell it.
From what I can tell, the big games around here are D&D 3.5, WFRP 2e, nWoD, Scion, and Buffy/Angel (but the store is also Eden Studios' HQ so that's no surprise). Oh and GURPS seems to do well too.
-=Grim=-
I don't give a fuck about what is played in my local area, because my local area is huge and I don't play with all those people, anyway. And most of my gaming buying is made online.
My two groups will play what I tell them to play, as I'm always the GM :D ;) . These days, we play Call of Cthulhu (Sundays group) and are finishing a Mutants in Shadows short campaign, and gearing up for an Aquelarre campaign (Thursdays group). We play some indie games or board games when we lack players.
DMing: AD&D 2nd, MegaTraveller 2300AD, Dark Conspiracy
Playing: D&D 3.5 Savage Tide Adventure Path, "Greyhawk", D&D 3.5 Eyes of the Lich Queen, Eberron
Reading: In Harm´s Way: Aces in Spades
Quote from: Imperatormy local area, because my local area is huge
The US is the country of my birth, but Spain is the country of my heart. That said, Madrid has one creepy ass airport.
Quote from: Dr Rotwang!I've been playing Risus, Castles & Crusades and D6 Space.
Hands up, who was surprised....?!
It would only surprise me if you weren't playing them all at once...
Ummm, I watched the fall of a local gaming bookstore that I supported. BORDERS killed them by underselling them (plus, the locals are not so much into rpgs like you might think they would be). I've had a falling out with another gaming bookstore. It involved some misunderstandings & some homophobia on their part. So, currently, I work at the BORDERS store. I order a lot of my stuff mostly, because BORDERS doesn't have the biggest selection, and I want to get it ASAP. I get a decent discount (25% off & I get a free gift card with $30 on it each month). They have many D&D and nWoD books for sale. They occasionally get some different things like Shadowrun and Big Eyes Small Mouth, etc.; but, usually/mostly the big two companies. But, not a lot of people are partaking. That's on my localest of levels. Memphis, TN. The other store has a good selection and offers a discount on new stuff that just came in, but it's hard for me to stomach going in there.
Quote from: teckno72BORDERS killed them by underselling them.
Every Borders or B&N I have been to has charged full MSRP for thier RPG books.
In fact I've only seen Borders and B&N discount books in thier bargain bin, everything on a normal shelf goes for the cover price.
I'm not saying it didn't happen, but in all the stores I've been in, that is the way it was.
Did the FLGS mark up above the cover price?
.
as someone who is still working for borders for 12 years, i find the "underselling" to be ridiculous. stuff stays at list price unless non-returnable. sure, you may get your employee discount. but that doesn't apply to the local gaming population. we (borders) would rather return it to the warehouses than mark it down, too.
shenanigans!
IIRC Borders offers a rewards card that gets you cheaper books, free books every now and then, and coupons. I can easily see the price breaks breaking a smaller store, especially a homophobic one in a low-RPG interest area.
I've never seen my FLGS do that. I still go to him, because I like the guy, he's got a much better selection, and I'm a big fan of well-run small businesses. But if I wasn't, it would be Amazon or another online seller and Borders/Waldenbooks for me every time.
the rewards card gets you coupons and bonus discounts on bestsellers. if you're buying one item, maybe the coupon of 25% off or whatever will do it for you. but that's about it, there's nothing amazing about it. you're better off (generally) going with amazon if you're a discount-hunter.
Quote from: James McMurrayIIRC Borders offers a rewards card that gets you cheaper books, free books every now and then, and coupons. I can easily see the price breaks breaking a smaller store, especially a homophobic one in a low-RPG interest area.
I just used my special Halloween 30% off Borders coupon today. Not on a game book, however. Occasionally I do - and it's a good deal - but usually Borders isn't timely enough or have the selection I want to compete with my FLGS. So they still get the lion's share of my business...
Seanchai
Quote from: KoltarForge/Indie games ? Hardly anybody locally has heard of them if I mention them in conversation. When I try to describe fairly and objectively what the games are or how they are played, the usual reaction is : "Well why would anybody want to do that?".
- Ed C.
Well, shit. I've been running octaNe! for some time now in Cincinnati. I can't believe that one doesn't fly off the shelves from its description alone.
Quote from: beeberthe rewards card gets you coupons and bonus discounts on bestsellers. if you're buying one item, maybe the coupon of 25% off or whatever will do it for you. but that's about it, there's nothing amazing about it. you're better off (generally) going with amazon if you're a discount-hunter.
True, but you're also better off going to Borders with a coupon than an FLGS without one, which is the only point I was trying to make.
Quote from: James McMurrayTrue, but you're also better off going to Borders with a coupon than an FLGS without one, which is the only point I was trying to make.
Mostly true .
However , in our store's case we have a
BORDERS store that is in the same general Mall Complex - it shares the parking lot at least.
They may sell some of the same books we do ....but they won't have Goodman Games
Dungeon Crawl classics, Palladium/
RIFTS, or
Savage Worlds.
Hell, I used
my BORDERS card this past Sunday and haggled my way to using a coupon the workers there almost forgot about. So the two DVD season collections I bought that should have been $96.00 only cost me $70 some odd dollars.
- Ed C.
Quote from: MechnomancerWell, shit. I've been running octaNe! for some time now in Cincinnati. I can't believe that one doesn't fly off the shelves from its description alone.
Don't you be running them pinko indie games round these parts. We'll do a Larry Flynt on you and run your ass right out of town pilgrim! :D
Quote from: GrimjackDon't you be running them pinko indie games round these parts. We'll do a Larry Flynt on you and run your ass right out of town pilgrim! :D
...Actually that joke may be out-of-date as Mr. Flynt owns TWO stores locally that I know of. They both appear to be doing good business.
The one downtown is a bit of a tourist spot and the one up in Monroe has the better selection and variety of DVDs. The married couple that plays in my campaign likes to shop there.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Koltar...Actually that joke may be out-of-date as Mr. Flynt owns TWO stores locally that I know of. They both appear to be doing good business.
The one downtown is a bit of a tourist spot and the one up in Monroe has the better selection and variety of DVDs. The married couple that plays in my campaign likes to shop there.
- Ed C.
Yeah but if they was playing Poison'd instead of selling dildos we would run them right out of town again!!! Now if you will excuse me I'm off to Monroe for some research.
My current group is using GURPS 4e with enough houserules to fill a street.
I'm running a CP2020 pbp game over at Big Purple, which is the same game I tried to set up as a tabletop face to face one in my local area - however there are only 3 internet connected gamers in my entire county, and only 1 of them was really interested.
Quote from: MechnomancerWell, shit. I've been running octaNe! for some time now in Cincinnati. I can't believe that one doesn't fly off the shelves from its description alone.
Eh, I can, I see a lot of gonzoid games floating about and most of them aren't that great. octaNe is pretty good, but without anyone in the shop helping explain what it's about I can see it not shifting.