Are Game Lines Smaller Today?

[Micah Sweet]

Inspired by the threads What Does a "Successful" RPG Look Like and Jason Carl on White Wolf's Return, Mage: The Ascension Plans, @Ruin Explorer got me to thinking.



Just looking back and the sheer number of books published for various games in the 80s, 90s, and into the 2000s, my perception is that fewer books are published these days. My working theory has been many splatbooks published in the 1990s were designed more to be read as one might enjoy a novel rather than actually be used in a game. While I still think that's true to an extent, there were a lot of splatbooks for some game lines prior to the rise of the metaplot in the 1990s. It's also a bit surprising to look back and see how quickly a new edition of a game might come out. The 1st edition of Vampire was published in 1991, 2nd edition in 1992, and a revised edition in 1998. Legend of the Five Rings published its first edition in 1997 and it's second in 2000.

Is my perception off? Are fewer books being published for RPGs across the board? Fantasy Flight Games is no slouch, having published about 50 Star Wars books/adventures since 2016. That's the biggest number I can think of outside of D&D. I think D&D 5th edition only has like 48 books for it. If my perception is correct and there are overall fewer books published for any given game line, why?


How does one classify a book? I typically categorize game products into two areas.

Splatbooks: A supplement that expands the rules and/or setting of a game. For the purposes of simplicity, I include boxed sets as a type of splatbook.
Adventures: These are scenarios for the GM to run a group of player characters through.

I am not including accessories like dice, decks of cards, or exclusively PDF products to the number of items published for games.

For games published prior to 2010

Between 1991-2004, White Wolf published over 100 supplements/adventures for their Vampire game. That's just for Vampire and doesn't include Werewolf, Wraith, Changeling, Mage, or even spin off games like Vampire Dark Ages, Werewolf the Wild West, or Mages the Sorcerers Crusade. The number would be a lot higher if I'd bothered trying to count them.

From 1997-2005, Alderac Entertainment Group published about 42 books/supplements for Legend of the Five Rings.

From 1996-2005, Pinnacle published nearly 50 supplements and adventures for Deadlands.

From 1989-1997, TSR published what I can only estimate was about 300 books, boxed sets, adventures, and other miscellaneous products for AD&D 2nd edition.

Between 1988-2004, Steve Jackson Games published more than 200 books for GURPS third edition.

Man, those were the days! A large portion of my collection comes from the '90s. It was a wonderful time for content.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Algae produce far more oxygen than trees. Far more trees are harvested for TP than books, and far more are burned for slash & grow farming than cut for TP.

But I only buy pdfs. Not for the planet, but because its so much more convenient.

I only buy new physical books because my players prefer to refer to such in active play. Most of the time I go with pdf.

 

[Scribe]

Man, those were the days! A large portion of my collection comes from the '90s. It was a wonderful time for content.

Thing is now, you dont even need the original publisher, assuming they have a 3rd party license. For example, Shadowdark core book, then its going to have its own official large expansion later this year, but I also just received Aetherdark (Spelljammer) have a few other small books, there is what looks like a not-Ravenloft on kickstarter, a book of 40+ (!!!) dungeons on kickstarter, and because of the nature of Shadowdark there is a bunch of content out there to convert or you can make your own quickly.

Just look at all the cy_borg stuff on itch.io.

I think today, beats the old days, in terms of content. Its just a bit harder to find perhaps and it doesnt only come from the main company that released the rules.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Thing is now, you dont even need the original publisher, assuming they have a 3rd party license. For example, Shadowdark core book, then its going to have its own official large expansion later this year, but I also just received Aetherdark (Spelljammer) have a few other small books, there is what looks like a not-Ravenloft on kickstarter, a book of 40+ (!!!) dungeons on kickstarter, and because of the nature of Shadowdark there is a bunch of content out there to convert or you can make your own quickly.

Just look at all the cy_borg stuff on itch.io.

I think today, beats the old days, in terms of content. Its just a bit harder to find perhaps and it doesnt only come from the main company that released the rules.

What is itch.io?

 

[Scribe]

What is itch.io?

Oh boy, I'm sorry in advance.

Search results for 'cy_borg'

Christian Eichhorn - itch.io

 

[Jd Smith1]

What is itch.io?

A very odd porn site.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh boy, I'm sorry in advance.

Search results for 'cy_borg'

Christian Eichhorn - itch.io

A new place to avoid. Thank you.

 

[Scribe]

A new place to avoid. Thank you.

?

I dont follow, there's some good stuff there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

?

I dont follow, there's some good stuff there.

I was told it's a porn site. Not a huge fan of porn.

 

[MGibster]

See, that's precisely the issue. I don't think the OP is complaining about the lack of books overall, but rather about the support for any given line.

I'm not really complaining there seems to be fewer books published for particular game lines as I am just noticing it. AD&D 2nd edition had somewhere north of 300 books/boxed sets published for it over the years including settings, books on classes, races, time periods, monstrous compendiums, adventures, etc., etc. While there were some gems produced during that period, we also got turds like Maztica and The Complete Book of Elves.

Obviously something changed, maybe @Deset Gled is right about it being a general trend among publishers, maybe it has something to do with not being able to accept returns on unsold merchandise, or maybe customers aren't as interested in buying tons of books for their favorite game as they used to be.