What does it take for an RPG to die?

[Cergorach]

What does it take for an RPG to die?

Depends on the perspective...

From a publisher's view, it's dead when they don't sell anything from it anymore, not enough to matter, or just don't produce anything anymore for it. Example, Green Ronin still sells their 3.5e pdfs, but I suspect not enough to matter... So they would consider their 3.5e line 'dead'. But certain parts of that line were remade for 5e... So 'dead' RPGs can be resurrected!

From a gamer's/fan's perspective when they have all the books, the game is 'dead' when they can't find anyone that wants to play it.

From a gamer's perspective when the books aren't available anymore, not even as pdfs (legally). Something like Babylon 5 by Mongoose would be considered pretty darned dead!

From most other gamer's perspective, a game is 'dead' when it suits them...

Personally, a RPG is like Schrödinger's cat, only when you open the door to actually play it will you find out...

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Aftermath
Space Opera

Still readily available in pdf, and both have had new releases as recent as 2018, including a whole new setting for Aftermath (a post-asteroid impact apocalypse) and two new Sector Atlas books for the Space Opera setting. FGU's been prone to long breaks between releases since their long dormancy in the 80s and 90s, but dead these are not, nor is Fantasy Games Unlimited.

The old company 'Fantasy Games Unlimited' had games like Villains and Vigilantes or Other Suns, and I at least saw Other Suns on DriveThru.

Other Suns is one of the few games they made where you can't get the core rules any more, although they still sell the Anderson Shipyards (and nothing else) through their site. If you saw it on DTRPG I'd love to get a link, since it's on my list of oddities I might revisit someday. V&V still has fan base, and has almost 60 supplements from FGU on DTRPG as well as the other stuff made by Dee & Herman through Monkey House Games, including several editions of the core rules (which FGU no longer has the rights to, just the trademark on V&V itself).

Author is posthumously revealed to have used a pen name to sit on the board of a real world terrorist organization and write 'Nazi' literature, as well as be the son of a '5th columnist' operating for Nazi Germany during the years before WWII. (Empire of the Petal Throne)

M.A.R. Barker did turn out to be a monster, but that hasn't led to everyone abandoning Tekumel, or even EPT. Myself I can't "kill the author" dead enough to ignore the setting's ties to him, but others feel differently and are too attached to what was arguably an important piece of gaming history to leave it behind because the creator turned out to be what he was. Various rule sets for Tekumel roleplaying still have their fans, with the most recent being Jeff Dee's (yep, the V&V co-creator again) Bethorm.

Good lord. I Googled this, and...wow, that is truly horrifying. I guess it's the author's bad luck that he didn't live long enough to be part of nu-TSR.

As bad as it is (and it is really bad) the thing that really gets under my skin is that at least some of the members of the Tekumel Foundation knew about Barker's "second life" for years and kept it hidden from the broader fan community to avoid exactly teh kind of reaction that happened once it came out. Quite possible that we still wouldn't know if it weren't for one dissatisfied whistleblower who'd once been part of that inner circle of Barker enthusiasts.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

A stake through the heart, cut off its head, stuff its mouth with garlic.

I feel like this is pretty basic knowledge, folks.

And burn it. The acronym to remember is "Give to the full BiGSBy":

• Behead it
• Garlic It
• Stake it
• Burn it

 

[payn]

And burn it. The acronym to remember is "Give to the full BiGSBy":

• Behead it
• Garlic It
• Stake it
• Burn it

Looks like a recipe...

 

[dbolack]

Interesting question. I take a different view of dead RPGs. Like the Mexican view of three deaths, that's how I conceive of dead games.

The first death of a game is when it goes out of print.

The second death of a game is when it's no longer played.

The third death of a game is when no one remembers playing it.

I might tweak that last one to "Is only ever discussed academically"

 

[Committed Hero]

If a publisher has announced plans to make more material for a game but doesn't, that's like removing it from life support.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If a publisher has announced plans to make more material for a game but doesn't, that's like removing it from life support.

So...like the "current" Star Wars RPG?

 

[dbolack]

It’s possible that “dead” is just plain a wrong word, because games aren’t organisms. They’re communities. Extinction can happen, but it’s rare. What happens more often is isolation, where the existing population of fans seldom if ever interacts with anyone else and almost nobody stumbles into the communities from outside.

I like this notion, though I think this might be a parallel rather than a replacement concept?

 

[dbolack]

Yeah, DragonQuest definitely has a player base. Little more concerned about Universe, but maybe I've just never stumbled over whatever online community is out there.

I used to know a Canadian on Fidonet who was ALL about Universe...

 

[dbolack]

You do get games where the original creator will not sell the thing for anything. There was an interesting game called "Nexus: the Infinite City" that the author would not sell for anything. If you want it these days you can search for decades-old physical copies or pirate scans.

Dammit Jose.

Weirdly, I still have floppies of early drafts.