D&D General Could Neon Odyssey overtake Starfinder 2e

[ngenius]

With such a massive Kickstarter (most funded RPG ever, I suspect), could the folks at Legends of Avantris dethrone Paizo's Starfinder 2e in 2027, that is for becoming the most played space fantasy game. Neon Odyssey is built on the Dungeons and Dragons 5.5e engine, so that is a big selling point to existing Dungeons and Dragons fans, who already outnumber all the Paizo Pathfinder/Starfinder fans combined. So entering 2027, I am betting that the go-to space fantasy game will be Neon Odyssey. Your thoughts?

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOGdEIaa_V4']

 

[Waller]

Is this the Daggerheart is a D&D killer debate again?

Neon Odyssey has sold 45K copies. Do we know how many Starfinder has sold? Otherwise the question is not answerable.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We can't safe it because the players are who choose freely what they like more. There may be factors we can't know now, for example if Legend of Avantris published "the crooked moon" and this is in D&D-Beyond, maybe in the future "Neon Odissey" could appear also, filling the almost empty room of space fantasy.

Comparing "Neon Odyssey" is a little newborn and Starfinder is a veteran in its second edition.

I guess today it may be a good moment for the space fantasy because the players are used to the style of Marvel "Guardians of the Galaxy".

Almost off-topic: The synth 80s song "Happy Children" because it gives me inspiration for and adventure style "Neon Odyssey".

 

[ngenius]

Speaking for myself, I was a Starfinder player since 2017, and that is the keyword "was", but am strongly planning to use "Neon Odyssey" as my go-to space fantasy next year (Christmas-time), that is if it published on time, well funded Kickstarters sometimes enter Production Hell due to stretchgoals.

 

[ngenius]

https://avantris.fandom.com/wiki/Neon_Odyssey:_Space_Opera_in_D%26D

Neon Odyssey doesn't require the core D&D books (Monster Manuel, Dungeon Master's Guide, or Players Handbook) in order to play it, but the latter adds on extra layers.[5] Legends of Avantris designed Neon Odyssey using the D&D Free Basic Rules and the free D&D System Reference Document. and has gone to great lengths to ensure that all you need to play is the Neon Odyssey books, the D&D Free Basic Rules, and the free D&D System Reference Document.[5]

The trilogy of books includes: Outrunner's Handbook, Cosmic Codex and Overdrive Expansion.

 

[Reynard]

I wonder how much of that KS money is getting eaten by marketing. It is all over my feeds,with animated ads etc.

Anyway, I'm not convinced these big Kickstarters translate into sustained player bases. How many Cosmere RPG events are running at GenCon this year? Draw Steel? Avatar?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I wonder how much of that KS money is getting eaten by marketing. It is all over my feeds,with animated ads etc.

I mean, it might be a lot, but they hit $16 million last I heard and even my most "normie" player has heard of it, so I suspect it's working out big time for them.

So entering 2027, I am betting that the go-to space fantasy game will be Neon Odyssey.

I think that's quite possible, but we shall see how people react to the actual systems/classes. 3PP D&D stuff is rarely of Paizo/ENworld/etc. levels of quality mechanically, and whilst that rarely matters to KSes, it often matters to the long-term reputation of a product.

Neon Odyssey has sold 45K copies. Do we know how many Starfinder has sold? Otherwise the question is not answerable.

That doesn't actually allow you to answer the question. That answers the question of "copies sold" in the Kickstarter period. To make a useful comparison Starfinder 1/2 would need KSes.

What is interesting is they sold 49k copies by the end, and that isn't a huge crazy number. What's a huge crazy number is $16m.

The One Ring, for example, made $1.8m, which is a lot, but sold 16k copies. So it sold 33% the number of copies, but made a little over 10% as much money.

I think that fewer people buying this, but spending a lot more money means this may be more of a "collector" product than something people play. But that's just guesswork - it could be that once it hits the open market, if the rules are good, it sells a ton of copies.

 

[Morrus]

What is interesting is they sold 49k copies by the end, and that isn't a huge crazy number. What's a huge crazy number is $16m.

The average pledge level on this is is over $300. They’re not just buying a game, they’re buying a ton of swag. That is how you get million dollar Kickstarters. It’s very hard to make a million on Kickstarter with just a roleplaying game—only two crowdfunders have ever achieved that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As an aside, Neon Odyssey is kind of fascinating to me because it's the sort of Western pop-space-fantasy equivalent to the various attempts at Studio Ghibli D&D. People have targeted space fantasy before but never quite this broadly or aggressively, nor with so much "remember the '80s/'90s/'00s?!?!".

It doesn't so much laser-target nerds aged 35-55 (i.e. the ones with the most cash on hand), as saturation-bomb them like a Axis city in WW2. Even in just the Stretch Goals section I noticed pretty direct references to Cowboy Bebop, Dragonball Z, Earthworm Jim (?!?!), F-Zero, The Dark Crystal, Jet Set Radio, Zelda, Pokemon and TRON. Which is pretty wild "BUY THIS YOU WRETCHED NERDS!!!" stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate what I'm seeing, it looks fun enough, and it's obviously significantly Ulysses 31-inspired and is AI-free (good work), but this is not so much putting a gun to the head of certain nerdy collector types as surrounding them with an army of assassins!

The average pledge level on this is is over $300. They’re not just buying a game, they’re buying a ton of swag. That is how you get million dollar Kickstarters. It’s very hard to make a million on Kickstarter with just a roleplaying game—only two crowdfunders have ever achieved that.

Yeah that is what stood out to me looking at the KS. This is an incredible swag-fest. I don't judge that (I am lying, I absolutely judge that, I'm not a swag-man, make a good game people!), but it does make it quite distinct and suggests it will be less successful as an TTRPG than the sheer dollar value would indicate. I hadn't calc'd it out though, $300 average is absolutely mad.

 

[Reynard]

I think that fewer people buying this, but spending a lot more money means this may be more of a "collector" product than something people play. But that's just guesswork - it could be that once it hits the open market, if the rules are good, it sells a ton of copies.

Yeah, it is interesting how some games break out with a big KS and then just keep growing -- Shadowdark being the prime example, of course.