What Does a "Successful" RPG Look Like?

Theory of Games said:

IME business success is always going to be measured by sales and profits. Paizo actually topped WotC by making Pathfinder the #1 selling ttrpg in spring 2011, fall 2012, spring 2013, fall 2013, and summer 2014. So beating D&D is anything but impossible. You just have to make a game people want to play more than D&D. If Paizo can do it, almost anyone can

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Incorrect.

One metric I look at to determine the success of an RPG is the continued publication of official expansion books and adventures. If the numbers are not there, publishers stop supporting the game and it becomes an Undead game.

With two new books out and two others in production, Dragonbane has been doing well since coming out two years ago.

It’s possible for a successful product to die. WEG’s Star Wars was quite successful so far as I can tell, yet it is dead, dead, dead.

MGibster said:

It’s possible for a successful product to die. WEG’s Star Wars was quite successful so far as I can tell, yet it is dead, dead, dead.

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No it's not. People play it all the time.

My only perspective here is that of a player of these games.... so my only metric for success is player base.

Has the game created a player base of a size that demonstrably makes it easier to find people to play with.

Like... right now...I can find more people who play Earthdawn 4th edition (published in '15, based on a game from the early '90s) than I can Avatar: Legends, a game that did a $10m kickstarter a few years ago.

Would most people say Avatar is a successful rpg because of the money involved? Of course they would.

Would I? Nope!

Most people seem to have bought that game as merch for their fandom, not as people who wanted to actually play a game. That game is played very little by my not-uneducated perspective.

What about success purely based on design goals? I think Fantasy Craft is really well-designed with tons of bells and whistles folks look for in a fantasy rpg, especially compared to D&D 2014. And yet... I don't consider it successful since the player base is practically nil.

So, yea... for me, it's player base.

I generally view a RPG as "successful" if it has an active and sustainable play community.

While I do think that there are short term successes, particularly on the financial level, I usually give some preference to medium and long-term RPG successes.

Alternatively, there are some RPGs that are almost like sleeper hits that catch on like wildfire: e.g., Apocalypse World -> Powered by the Apocalypse. While Apocalypse World is a success, its legacy to the gaming scene is probably more successful than the game itself.

Elvish Lore said:

Like... right now...I can find more people who play Earthdawn 4th edition (published in '15, based on a game from the early '90s) than I can Avatar: Legends, a game that did a $10m kickstarter a few years ago.

Would most people say Avatar is a successful rpg because of the money involved? Of course they would.

Would I? Nope!

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I was thinking the same thing - the money aspect of it is the least interesting definition for me (obviously the creator has a different perspective). What good is a game that makes raises a lot of money or sells a lot of books and yet, I can find no interest online in anyone playing the game? I suspect this happens with a good number of licensed products.

so I gave my longer list but now I'll narrow down based on these excellent conversations on what I think would tell me a game is "successful" which might mean "healthy" or whatever.

• I can actually buy it and own it (PDF or print).
• I hear people talking about it and talking about actually running it on Discord or forums or wherever.
• It has some sort of open license so I know people can keep writing for it even if the creators abandon it.
• I can find people running games of it at conventions.

There are big obvious games that are successful, but there are some I know and love that are probably on the edge of this. These are just my examples -- they are far from an exhaustive list.

• FATE / Dresden Files
• 13th Age (hopefully the new version fires people up)
• Shadow of the Demon Lord (I don't know if Weird Wizard is eating up the market for SoDL).
• Numenera (MCG still runs these at conventions, it's definitely healthy).
• Dungeon World (Another one with a new version and some controversy attached but I still see people running it at cons)
• D&D 4e (I hear of people running 4e games -- no license though but there are many 4e-like games).
• I don't know what the Pathfinder 1 scene is like now. I bet a lot of folks are still playing it.

Avatar comes up a lot as a game with a huge initial market but now no real follow-through. That's interesting.

Anyway, those are some of my current thoughts.

SlyFlourish said:

Numenera (MCG still runs these at conventions, it's definitely healthy).

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So here’s a question - do you see people independently of MCG running Numenera at cons? MCG is one of those companies that puts out lots of stuff that seems really interesting but I never, ever see it “in the wild”.

My definition of successful would be something like:

• Are the vast majority of the people on the creation side happy they were involved with it? This includes content creation, artists, writers, investors and the business teams

That's basically it. If you produced a small boutique game that 500 people played, you fulfilled your contracts and you are proud of the result, I'd call that a success!