Venger is quitting RPG publishing. Why didn't it work for him?
Also, I give a breakdown of combat in Baptism of Fire!
�#dnd� �#ttrpg� �#osr�

My feeling is that Venger's stuff is a super niche within a niche.

The market for that kind of thing is only ever so large, and even tiny variations or gaps will lead to unprofitability, specially if you are spending quite a bit on the production side (Cha'alt books seemed to be very "premium" for lack of a better term).

I wish him the best of luck on any future endeavors.

Because Venger is known for his strong political beliefs, and for writing RPG's packed full of material that is only suitable for adults. 

Those are limiting for sales. 

That being said, I do own one or two of his works.

I'll give an example from Alpha Blue.  One character creation table is for alien customs.  Entry 12 is, "All sexual activity must be performed in public."

Yeah, I'm not letting my kid play this one.  Hell, I'm not even sure I want people to know I even own this game.  I'm definitely not going to play it with anyone. 

His work has been dominated by Cha'alt for a long time. If you didn't buy into Cha'alt initially your not gonna buy the fourth or fifth Cha'alt product. I think he should go back to the sword and sorcery stuff as its more accessible to the common gamer.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 24, 2024, 09:38:10 PMBecause Venger is known for his strong political beliefs, and for writing RPG's packed full of material that is only suitable for adults. 

Those are limiting for sales.

I think this is a good bit of it. I like Venger a lot, we're friends on Facebook, never having met in person, and I own a most of the Chalt hardcovers.

Sometimes he comes across way too strong with his public marketing, and for a lot of people, I can see that rubbing people the wrong way. There are a lot of people that just want a 'here's my product, please check it out' but Venger tends to take it to the extreme with 'no woke lefty libtard stuff in my products, hoss!'

Hopefully he re-evaluates his output and decides to keep putting stuff out, even if it's not as much as he had been doing because I do like his products. I appreciate that he's unapologetically himself, and there's something to be said for that.

My sympathies to Venger, a bold creator.

To my opinion it seems very much a niche of a niche of a niche syndrome. Great for creative content, boldly creating in your own space. But the challenge is commerciality is more than creativity, it is also popularity (as much as we may not like that truth). Having the lion share of mind-blowing artisanal personal pan pizzas sold once a week is great!, until you need more sales to live on. Hence why selling 20 XL plain extra cheese pizzas an hour will always win, less stress for the business having a mainstay keep you afloat.

RPGs may be art (exceedingly creative) as amateur production, but as business or livelihood -- the professional sphere -- it cannot remain there. To live off of one's art one typically has to broaden to a commercial element, and commercial means popularity over creativity. Hence why for generations the commerciality of creativity or production was never over-exalted as the sine qua non element for creation, because commerciality's sine qua non reliance on lower common denominator popularity was well understood. Creativity exists beyond popularity and commerce, not that popularity and commerce are bad per se, but there is more to life than reducing things to commodification.

Yet in the end, baby's still gotta eat.

While I've only interacted with him a bit on x I gathered his stuff is like super wacky/gonzo Hyperborean stuff. 

That's not for everyone. Hell that's for a tiny subset of an already small subset. I know while I liked his takes I had zero interest in his content because I don't like that style.

Our community seems mostly divided between people who are okay with the modern d&d (at least gameplay wise, ignoring wotcs woke shit) or think 80s b/x or ad&d is the one true way and are OSR people.

Anything else is a very small fringe of the OSR segment.  That can't be profitable.

My guess is he found a new grift with an even more gullible audience. Remember, he's the guy who tried to make a living off of an actual Cthulhu cult before finding the OSR...

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 24, 2024, 09:38:10 PMBecause Venger is known for his strong political beliefs, and for writing RPG's packed full of material that is only suitable for adults. 

Those are limiting for sales. 

That being said, I do own one or two of his works.

I'll give an example from Alpha Blue.  One character creation table is for alien customs.  Entry 12 is, "All sexual activity must be performed in public."

Yeah, I'm not letting my kid play this one.  Hell, I'm not even sure I want people to know I even own this game.  I'm definitely not going to play it with anyone. 

I buy a small amount of this kind of adult-oriented RPG material, but here's the thing: I buy it as a curiosity. It's mostly to read it and go "ha that shit's crazy". I know full well that the people I play with would be put off if I put it into my game. Maybe I mine it for ideas, but mostly it's there because I'm weird and I like reading weird things.

That means that when times get tight (as they are now) and I'm tightening my RPG purchasing belt, these are the first things to go. These days I'm only purchasing RPG products that I expect to use very directly at my table in the near future. Have to imagine I'm not alone in that.

It's true that his politics were more present in his RPG products than you'd ever see in my products.  Of course, some people with very left-wing politics might not buy my games either, but as the OSR tends toward either conservatives or people who don't care about politics in any way, my games (which do not have overt modern-day political statements in them) still sell well.

I think that the smutty side of Venger's work might actually have hurt him a bit more with the OSR crowd than his politics; a lot of people who would otherwise have liked his games and probably like his current politics might have for moral reasons been turned off (pardon the pun) by the sexual content in Venger's products. That, and I can imagine some conservative and Christian OSR gamers might even have some qualms about buying a product from a guy named "Satanis".

If he makes a comeback in a few years, he might want to change his nom-de-plume to "Venger Jones" or something like that.

I buy Venger's stuff because, like Pundit, Alexander Macris, and Stellagamma (actually all the indie 2d6 people), he actually responds when you ask questions.

His non-sexual stuff I buy in case I ever want to run that adventure and to see how things are implemented.
I buy some of the system books for the sexual stuff to read for fun and to see how things are implemented.
The directly political stuff never really appealed to me at all.

The different versions of Crimson Dragon Slayer are especially fun to compare - a lighter read than either Pundit or Macris for weeks where work has fried my brain.

I'll miss his work.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 24, 2024, 09:38:10 PMYeah, I'm not letting my kid play this one.  Hell, I'm not even sure I want people to know I even own this game.  I'm definitely not going to play it with anyone. 

Same, I don't think I'd mind people knowing I have the game, but I'm not going to buy it in the first place if I know it's something I definitely won't play. Crimson Dragon Slayer seemed like fun until the part about recharging health by having sex came up. Neat idea, but not for me in a game.

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 25, 2024, 11:01:10 AMThat, and I can imagine some conservative and Christian OSR gamers might even have some qualms about buying a product from a guy named "Satanis".

Yeah, that's me.  I saw the name, figured he wouldn't have anything I was interested in, and didn't even give his stuff a look.  From reading his posts here I figured out that he's probably a good guy and might have stuff worth considering, but most folks aren't going to do that.  Selling RPGs is hard enough without handicapping yourself from the get-go like that.

I was always amazed that Venger had any success. I have not read any of his products, but based on his own representations, what stood out to me was the sleaze and silliness. It was like someone looked at Appendix N and said, "You know what's missing? Leisure Suit Larry." The demographic for that kind of product has got to be awfully limited.

That said, from his online persona, he seems like the kind of guy you could have a beer with, and it's no fun seeing him do poorly (by his reckoning), even if I don't get it.

Quote from: dungeonmonkey on August 25, 2024, 05:38:41 PM<snip>It was like someone looked at Appendix N and said, "You know what's missing? Leisure Suit Larry."<snip>

Now you're just hitting the reasons to buy Venger's stuff! LOL (I get what you're saying. I just really liked that sentence.)