Does Anyone Care? (Cosmere RPG)

[TheAlkaizer]

Were those company sponsored events, or regular GMs doing it?

I have no idea. It didn't say.

Gen Con 2025 Events

It's interesting to look at the data. I have no idea what qualifies as an event or not. But it says the Avatar RPG had 130 events.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have no idea. It didn't say.

Gen Con 2025 Events

It's interesting to look at the data. I have no idea what qualifies as an event or not. But it says the Avatar RPG had 130 events.

The ones I looked at say Magpie Games. Compare that field with the D&D games on offer, which say all sorts of things.

I suspect it's Magpie Games running most of those 130 games.

 

[John Lloyd1]

The ones I looked at say Magpie Games. Compare that field with the D&D games on offer, which say all sorts of things.

I suspect it's Magpie Games running most of those 130 games.

Finding GMs to run 130 sessions of your game is an impressive feat and tells me it has some level of interest.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Finding GMs to run 130 sessions of your game is an impressive feat and tells me it has some level of interest.

Or a substantial marketing budget to pay them. Either way, yes, impressive.

 

[Jaeger]

no one coming from a TTRPG-first background really seems to care.

I don’t even see a lot of conversation in the few Cosmere circles I checked out, and a LOT (but not all) of that conversation revolved around lore introduced by these books, not the game itself, it’s rules, or playing the game (these books being 100% canonical). There’s some review videos, and a few Cosmere creators that gave it a try—but considering the massive success of the Kickstarter, monetarily anyway, I’m not seeing the ripples I’d expected.

Because the majority of the backers are not RPG people. They are Sanderson fans.

And it is just collectable merch to the overwhelming majority of them.

They buy because Sanderson did a thing for them to buy.

Sanderson is smart.

would anticipate Cosmere to go the way of the Avatar RPG - huge Kickstarter purchased by fans of the IP but not widely played.

Correct.

Collectors and merch buyers that do not play the game, do not a large RPG network effect make.

Finding GMs to run 130 sessions of your game is an impressive feat and tells me it has some level of interest.

What is their footprint outside of gencon where the people running their games do so organically with no incentives for doing so?

Avatar is clearly profitable. But what is the real size of their network effect within the hobby?

Two years after release it should not be controversial to state that it is a niche game within the hobby itself, and is not, and never will be a product like Vampire was in its heyday that brought new people into the RPG hobby en masse.

There is currently no reason to think that the Cosmere RPG will be markedly different in this regard.

 

[Autumnal]

I think a lot of regularly playing rolegamers vastly underestimate the halo of people who have games, may game occasionally, and could game more regularly if something hooked them. I know that among both queer communities and disabled communities, there are a lot of nerds who look forward to their gaming time very much and they you can very easily find gaming chatter at community gatherings, for instance, even though a much smaller fraction of those people would describe themselves as regular roleplaying game people. And Cosmere people overlap with both those, and others.

 

[Parmandur]

I think a lot of regularly playing rolegamers vastly underestimate the halo of people who have games, may game occasionally, and could game more regularly if something hooked them. I know that among both queer communities and disabled communities, there are a lot of nerds who look forward to their gaming time very much and they you can very easily find gaming chatter at community gatherings, for instance, even though a much smaller fraction of those people would describe themselves as regular roleplaying game people. And Cosmere people overlap with both those, and others.

These books go the extra mile to be inclusive to a broad range of people, reflecting the Cosmere fandom.

 

[John Lloyd1]

Two years after release it should not be controversial to state that it is a niche game within the hobby itself, and is not, and never will be a product like Vampire was in its heyday that brought new people into the RPG hobby en masse.

Niche, but it appears strong and still going. Not everything needs to be a D&D level success. I think it also had a decent showing at the big UK convention. I've seen DMs offering tables at local RPG days and mini-cons. Maybe the same will happen with Cosmere.

Note: I've never read it, played it or seen Avatar.

 

[Jaeger]

Niche, but it appears strong and still going. Not everything needs to be a D&D level success. I think it also had a decent showing at the big UK convention. I've seen DMs offering tables at local RPG days and mini-cons. Maybe the same will happen with Cosmere.

Nothing is a D&D level of success. It's all niche.

But there are degrees of niche.

And when most in this thread are discussing a game being "widely played" it is in reference to games that have established a sizeable and notable network effect of their own within the hobby like; WFRP, PF2, Shadowdark, etc,.

 

[Parmandur]

Niche, but it appears strong and still going. Not everything needs to be a D&D level success. I think it also had a decent showing at the big UK convention. I've seen DMs offering tables at local RPG days and mini-cons. Maybe the same will happen with Cosmere.

Note: I've never read it, played it or seen Avatar.

Big difference, as someone who backed and owns both, is that the Avatar game is very, very dense and not at all amenable to easily being picked up by the general "I've played D&D!" audience. Whereas the Plotweaver system is very amenable to pick up by people with even a casual familiarity with 5E (i.e., most RPG players).