Are the Retro Clones doing well?

[SSquirrel]

I didn't know if there were, but if someone did a clone of 2E I would consider it a retro-clone.

 

[Treebore]

They are successful enough people are making products for them, and selling them.

They are not successful enough for anyone to make a living off of it alone.

I do not consider C&C or Hackmaster a clone, HM has nothing to do with D&D any more than Paladium or GURPS, same with C&C other than they used the OGL to avoid potential legal issues.

I do know that C&C is successful enough to support 2 full time employees, but that is still far less than the success of Mongoose or Paizo.

As for Kenzer, I do not know, but I do get the impression that no one has quit their day jobs, but I have not seen anything specifically stated by them.

I do know I have grown to like Hackmaster Basic a lot.

 

[SSquirrel]

I do not consider C&C or Hackmaster a clone, HM has nothing to do with D&D any more than Paladium or GURPS, same with C&C other than they used the OGL to avoid potential legal issues.

This may be true with Hackmaster Basic, but here is a bit about Hackmaster 4th Edition from the Kenzer website:

"Quite simply, HackMaster 4th edition is a fantasy role-playing game with an edge, that was licensed from the hallowed Advanced Dungeons & Dragons core rules. And even though we took a wrecking crane and a crowbar to those rules, we certainly didn't take the opportunity to alter the rules lightly. Players of the original AD&D game will find HackMaster 4th edition comfortably familiar, yet also new and exciting."

That sounds like a retro-clone, except they actually did license things from WotC, whereas the clones aren't. Officially licensed extensions of a ruleset that had ended over a dozen years prior when it first came out, certainly

I can see calling Hackmaster 4th a clone.

 

[bytor4232]

The retro clones are doing awesome. Judging from the community behind the games, the visibility, and the number of players I'm running across, I would say the "retro" market is doing better than anyone thought they would. I run across new OSRIC players and games every day, and Swords and Wizardry is just exploding. People really like the S&W game alot.

For example, I just started checking out Google Wave as a medium for playing games. In less than a week I've been invited into an already running Swords and Wizardry game, I started recruiting for my own S&W game and got five players almost overnight, and have joined an OSRIC game. There is also a lot of OSRIC games running on Google Wave that not only have a full slate of players, but a fairly long waiting list.

 

[Nellisir]

In my view, there are two points to the retro-clone movement. One is "feeling" or "style". Personally, without a radical departure in rules, none of which the retro-clones provide, I think style is mostly up to the DM. I'm never going to be comfortable running urban adventures. I love dungeons and quests, and my games are always going to involve dungeons and quests. They did in 1e, they did in 2e, and they did in 3e. If I ever play 4e, they will there also. unfortunately, this is also the most advertised point, and people who play a retro-clone hoping for a magical style experience may be in for a big surprise. A sucky DM is a sucky DM, no matter the rules (or simpler rules may make it even worse!)

Second is the mechanics, or the game rules. The 0e retro-clones (ie S&W) are radically different creatures from 4e. I like the simplicity and the easy customability. It's not a "worse" or "inferior" game than 4e, it's simply different. I don't have a problem with the two existing side by side.

 

[Sticknia]

Our local gaming store is constantly sold out of all its retro books.
Maybe it's a stocking thing, but there is a ton of 4e stuff just sitting there.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I do not consider C&C or Hackmaster a clone, HM has nothing to do with D&D any more than Paladium or GURPS, same with C&C other than they used the OGL to avoid potential legal issues.

While I agree that C&C and Hackmaster aren't clones, I think they're both much closer to TSR D&D than Palladium or GURPS. They're more like "versions" of the game that tinkered here and there, but are still largely compatible. (That is, you can take a C&C module and run it with AD&D rules pretty much as-is. Or the other way: an AD&D module with C&C rules.)

I think the only thing that separates OSRIC and C&C is a matter of degrees; they're both OGL versions of D&D, it's just that OSRIC aimed at perfect fidelity to the AD&D rules and avoiding new stuff, and C&C didn't mind introducing new stuff into the mix.

 

[Hairfoot]

In my view, there are two points to the retro-clone movement. One is "feeling" or "style". Personally, without a radical departure in rules, none of which the retro-clones provide, I think style is mostly up to the DM.

Whether that style can be achieved with newer rulesets is a persistent question. IMO, that style is fundamentally about [brace yourselves] realism, with characters who are largely bound to the laws of physics (yes, plus magic) and spend much of their careers facing mundane, non-world-threatening challenges. The default adventuring party in newer D&D editions - a roving fantasy Justice League - is a far cry from the mortal, often short-lived characters of editions up to 1e.

Whether newer rulesets are actually capable of playing down to that level of power is another question. Some have had luck, but a great appeal of retro-clones is that the bare-bones rules can't help but start the power dial at zero and allows groups to scale up from there.

Conversely, it's not so easy to run a gritty, swords & sorcery game with a ruleset that assumes laser-beaming half-demons as a default starting character option, so retro-clones are often considered to be the best tool for that particular job.

 

[dm4hire]

I'm going to take the silence as meaning there isn't a 2e clone yet. If there is please let me know.

 

[Chgowiz]

I'm going to take the silence as meaning there isn't a 2e clone yet. If there is please let me know.

To my knowledge, there is not.