Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 01, 2023, 11:40:59 AM
The biggest counter example, of course, is the WEG Star Wars games.  We'll never know what could have been had an errant shoe company fiasco not happened.

Quote from: Brad on March 01, 2023, 03:02:39 PM
Glad to see the WEG Star Wars comments...that game most likely, quite literally, saved that entire franchise. Best roleplaying game ever made based on one of the best movie series ever made, so it worked about as well as possible. Had the game sucked ass I doubt we would have heard much more about SW, but thankfully it was the ultimate marriage of system and atmosphere.

That "errant shoe company fiasco" is something I found out way after the fact. I kept wondering how a company that made some of the best products in the industry ever went out of business, but now I know.

Bolding mine, care to explain? My Google-Fu is comming up with nothing.

Quote from: Thorn Drumheller on March 01, 2023, 11:02:41 AM
That's a good point of consideration I hadn't thought about. My first thought is, but didn't the game designers just make stuff up whole cloth? Or were there like setting bibles they had to adhere to? Was the MERP stuff limited by certain published works (I'm ignorant on that sorry).

   The general rule in the early days was 'take whatever the official material establishes, and then run with or fill in the gaps.' Again, as I recall it (but I wasn't involved in organized fandom or the like), there was a lot less angst about 'canon' vs 'non-canon', largely because no one thought anything was 'canon' aside from the original works. Again, lots of these properties were more or less dead or only producing something like a movie every few years, so fans needed some way to get their fix.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 01, 2023, 11:40:59 AM
I don't buy licensed games because they are licensed.  It drags in canon that often isn't helpful.  It means a big chunk of budget went to the license instead of game design, development, or testing.  And let's get real, given how that works, and the relatively short timeline for a license, it's the testing that often suffers the most. 

I think Armchair Gamer is correct about the earlier appeal.  The success of the various GURPS source books kind of backs up that point.  No idea on the percentage, but there were people who bought those source books with no intention of playing them in GURPS.  You see the same thing with some of the "historical" lines in D&D and Design Mechanism's "Mythic .." series.  Heck, I suspect that the Harn line stays in business off of sales to people with no intention of using those books in the Harn system.  I'm sure there are more examples.  Point being, the "source book" was either not licensed or barely licensed for that book--not tying the fate of the whole game line to the license.

The biggest counter example, of course, is the WEG Star Wars games.  We'll never know what could have been had an errant shoe company fiasco not happened.

Greetings!

*Laughing* Steven, yes, ye indeed. I am one of those people. I have a *huge* collection of GURPS books--Rome, the Celts, Russia, Mongols, Aztecs, Britain, China, Japan, and more, I'm sure. I don't run or play GURPS. I have bought them--and collected them--simply for reading and reference. They provide lots of awesome inspiration for doing whatever kind of fantasy history, regardless of what particular game system that you choose to use for the campaign.

I love those GURPS books!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 01, 2023, 03:14:23 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 01, 2023, 11:40:59 AM
The biggest counter example, of course, is the WEG Star Wars games.  We'll never know what could have been had an errant shoe company fiasco not happened.

Quote from: Brad on March 01, 2023, 03:02:39 PM
Glad to see the WEG Star Wars comments...that game most likely, quite literally, saved that entire franchise. Best roleplaying game ever made based on one of the best movie series ever made, so it worked about as well as possible. Had the game sucked ass I doubt we would have heard much more about SW, but thankfully it was the ultimate marriage of system and atmosphere.

That "errant shoe company fiasco" is something I found out way after the fact. I kept wondering how a company that made some of the best products in the industry ever went out of business, but now I know.

Bolding mine, care to explain? My Google-Fu is comming up with nothing.

It was new to me too, but I saw this from Wikipedia:

QuoteIn July 1998, West End Games went into bankruptcy, following mismanagement between West End Games and its then-parent company, shoe importer Bucci Retail Group.  When the parent company filed for bankruptcy, West End Games was forced to go under as well, despite an attempt by Palter to perform a Chapter 11 reorganization of the company's finances. As a result, former WEG designers Costikyan and Goldberg took Palter to court over ownership of Paranoia, and in 2000, the courts ruled that the license should revert to Costikyan and Goldberg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_End_Games

Quote from: GhostNinja on March 01, 2023, 11:33:04 AM
I have always wondered why as expensive as licenses can be and how little money there really is in designing game material (with the hours put in, etc) how licensed games can be worthwhile.

I guess it's because they think they'll get a larger audience, making up for the increased costs. Plus it helps with gamers looking for groups; if you're looking for a group for a generic sci-fi game, I don't know what the setting and feel of the game will be. But if you're after a group for a Star Wars RPG, then that gives me a pretty good idea of what the world and adventures will be like.

Quote from: Krazz on March 01, 2023, 03:59:28 PM
I guess it's because they think they'll get a larger audience, making up for the increased costs. Plus it helps with gamers looking for groups; if you're looking for a group for a generic sci-fi game, I don't know what the setting and feel of the game will be. But if you're after a group for a Star Wars RPG, then that gives me a pretty good idea of what the world and adventures will be like.

Yeah I guess that makes sense

Sorry, I thought the WEG and shoe company thing was common knowledge now.  John Kim's link is what you need to know.  Main point for this discussion was that WEG Star Wars was an "exception that proves the rule".  Had it not been derailed by something completely unrelated to the game, they might have kept the license long enough to be practically entrenched in gamers' heads.  I doubt anyone could have survived the sellout of Star Wars to Disney, but it might not have mattered by then.

I often think it's because when newer gamers discover there's something other than D&D they don't know how these things go in the long run.  They don't have the view of the three to six preceeding systems for the same license.

Never got around to this. Since you've asked, a system-neutral setting/campaign guide would have sufficed, so never will

Quote from: jhkim on March 01, 2023, 12:41:12 PM

1) Call of Cthulhu (1980). This technically took from RuneQuest, but it was a thorough redesign that is still probably the leading horror RPG.

I would add Stormbringer as 1.5

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 01, 2023, 04:42:14 PM
Sorry, I thought the WEG and shoe company thing was common knowledge now.  John Kim's link is what you need to know.  Main point for this discussion was that WEG Star Wars was an "exception that proves the rule".  Had it not been derailed by something completely unrelated to the game, they might have kept the license long enough to be practically entrenched in gamers' heads.  I doubt anyone could have survived the sellout of Star Wars to Disney, but it might not have mattered by then.

As far as exceptions go, they did it before with Ghostbusters, then with SW. I think it has to do with the quality of the product.

I started with SW WEG, because my rich cousin brought it back from a trip to NY with his parents (fecking disgusting I know  ), and I loved it and still holds a special place in my heart.

I no longer buy/play in licensed RPGs because I want to be The Hero, not a hero. So I rather have a more generic Space Opera, S&W, S&P, etc. to run/play. The extra rare exception to that rule is when I want to mine it for ideas, monsters, etc for my games.

Quote from: jhkim on March 01, 2023, 12:41:12 PM
It implied here that licensed RPG designs aren't as good, and that one's favorite RPG is unlicensed. But some of my favorite RPG designs are licensed. Sometimes a good designer can put their best work into trying to make a system that works well for a given property. I can think of a few examples.

I certainly agree with 1, 3 and 4. I don't know anything much about the James Bond RPG though.

As much as we justly give Evil Hat shit for their current antics, I'm still going to defend the Dresden Files RPG as being possibly the best iteration of FATE. That one single book is an immensely flexible, versatile system, and represents the setting well. In addition, a lot of love was put into the book, and the fact that they had access to the comic book art to illustrate it certainly didn't hurt anything.

The flip side of the coin is Mouseguard. Absolutely gorgeous book, fantastic production values - but the system is so wrapped up in it's very peculiar mode of play that it turned most people off. I can't even say that the system is *bad*, exactly, it just isn't something I want.

Quote from: Bruwulf on March 01, 2023, 06:53:16 PM
The flip side of the coin is Mouseguard. Absolutely gorgeous book, fantastic production values - but the system is so wrapped up in it's very peculiar mode of play that it turned most people off. I can't even say that the system is *bad*, exactly, it just isn't something I want.

That's another problem licensed systems have:  Expectations on play that may not fit the chosen system very well. In the case of Mouseguard, the author of the original comic wanted it done on a Burning Wheel - lite chassis.  So obviously it appeals to some people the way he wanted, which was evidently inline with some of the themes of the comic. 

Take Design Mechanism's Lyonesse as another example.  I love Runequest.  I love Design Mechanism's take on RQ.  Lyonesse is easily in my top 5 fantasy stories of all time, maybe top 3.  Yet, I'm hard pressed to think of a worse fit for that setting than RQ-based mechanics.  Again, obviously someone thought it was a good fit.  But then someone also thought that Robin Laws making a Dying Earth game based on talking like a character in a Dying Earth novel instead of playing a game set in Vance's setting.  Which makes me gag a little ever time I think about it. 

If a licensed game isn't going to reinforce the themes of the setting or ground you in it, what's the point.  OTOH, everyone approaches those ideas a little different. So if you do a good job with some themes, you alienate some of your audience, and if you don't it's probably bland enough that people wonder why you bothered.  If you get a bad match for system and/or designer, you might even go against the themes.  Damned if you do; damned if you don't; really and truly sent to the 9th circle if you screw up.

Hey, know that show/movie/book you really like? Well here's  pre-made RPG of it, so you can play in the universe. You don't need to know how to adapt another system to run the setting, it's all done for you. There are hopefully plenty of bad guys and adventures ready to go, just jump in!

I think some of you guys forget that inexperienced gamers play too. Not many people own generic games they use to hack settings, they just buy something designed to emulate the setting (for better or worse.)

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 01, 2023, 10:55:30 AM
There was a long stretch--perhaps best epitomized by MERP and WEG Star Wars--where the licensed RPGs were your best source for new background material for your favorite worlds. I don't think fandom was as concerned with 'canon' so much then, perhaps because a lot of those worlds were also dead or dormant outside of their RPG spinoffs.

Nowadays, with wikis, systemless reference books, and the like, this niche is no longer as relevant. But it was a major driver for a long time.

MERP is probably one of the few RPGs that have had more books purchased to read than to play. Excellent material, still is.