D&D General Could Neon Odyssey overtake Starfinder 2e

[payn]

Based on the numbers Teos Abadia has crunched, D&D sales are maybe brisker than ever, and Beyond seems to be humming along fine.

Right, which is why im always suspect of the 5E is waning comments.

I feel like a lot of TTRPG fans take our bubbles as being somehow representative samples of the broader gaming population.

Yeap, thats my experience.

 

[Liongo]

I have only been in the hobby for a little over a year, but I have been searching for a TTRPG that really captures my sci-fi interests because I am actually a bigger fan of sci-fi than fantasy. Neon Odyssey felt like exactly what I was looking for, so I decided to become a backer. My choice to back the project was not influenced by Legends of Avantris because I am not a fan of their work. I hope the game lives up to the hype.

A big part of Neon Odyssey is reskinning the fantasy of D&D, but it also offers much more than that. The information I have read about Starfinder leads me to believe it is mostly fantasy with a sci-fi skin, though I have never actually played it, so I could be mistaken. Neon Odyssey seems to provide many ways to use the game universe to fit exactly the specific flavor of sci-fi you want to play. I have no idea if Neon Odyssey will overtake Starfinder 2e, but after examining them both without the benefit of having played them, Neon Odyssey came out on top as the one I wanted to try.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I still have the Esper Genesis pdfs somewhere in my hard drive, but I don’t think I’ve ever personally seen anyone looking for players.

Part of it is, I think, that there’s really no such thing as a “generic sci-fi setting” - Star Wars and Star Trek and Stargate are all different things, whereas generic fantasy is a thing (although that’s defined mostly by DnD) - so making one sci-fi game for all sci-fi fans isn’t necessarily possible unless it’s genre agnostic.

Maybe NO will hit a brand if sci-fi popular enough to build a self-sustaining community; predicting the future is hard.

Starfinder will be fine simply because Pathfinder creates an easy funnel, but Pathfinder is at least an order of magnitude bigger than Starfinder.

Edited to correct the game name.

 

[Morrus]

Part of it is, I think, that there’s really no such thing as a “generic sci-fi setting” - Star Wars and Star Trek and Stargate are all different things, whereas generic fantasy is a thing (although that’s defined mostly by DnD) - so making one sci-fi game for all sci-fi fans isn’t necessarily possible unless it’s genre agnostic.

D&D is not generic. It's its own, fairly specific setting and genre. There's more in common between different D&D worlds than there is between D&D and, say, Tolkien or Beowulf.

 

[Reynard]

What does Neon Odyssey offer that Ultramodern5 doesn't?

 

[payn]

What does Neon Odyssey offer that Ultramodern5 doesn't?

Mechanically im not sure. Looking at the artwork, UM5 looks more gritty, and NO looks more anime-action oriented. Punk vs. high fantasy sci-fi.

 

[Incenjucar]

Big themes of NeOd include:

• The internet is a universal physical place and videogames are the feywild
• The main badguys are basically an unhealthy coping mechanism made manifest, based on the four humors
• Spells are everywhere, but you're encouraged to flavor them as technology - the wizard is the hacker class
• All sizes of giant robot suits
• All the aliens are cosplay-friendly
• All the aliens have abilities from the soul of their world
• The universe is heavily musical, to the point that silence is linked with undeath, and the galaxy is a vinyl record
• The species and classes are based on cartoon and movie tropes - there are Carebear, Sailor Moon, and Neo (Matrix) analogues.
• The universe is full of hope, not grimdark.

 

[Scribe]

The universe is full of hope, not grimdark.

 

[Rystefn]

D&D is not generic. It's its own, fairly specific setting and genre. There's more in common between different D&D worlds than there is between D&D and, say, Tolkien or Beowulf.

D&D is a particular subgenre of fantasy, yes. But that subgenre has very much become the default fantasy subgenre. If you say "fantasy" without elaboration, what almost everyone thinks of is essentially D&D fantasy. An elf without other elaboration is a D&D elf. A dark elf is a drow. A dwarf without further elaboration is a D&D dwarf. An orc if you don't specify, is now a D&D orc. Paladin, ranger, thieves' guilds in every city, the list goes on and on.

None of these things are D&D inventions, but the D&D version is the default assumption across the fantasy spectrum because D&D is the default, generic any-fantasy-setting until you specify otherwise.

 

[Morrus]

D&D is a particular subgenre of fantasy, yes. But that subgenre has very much become the default fantasy subgenre. If you say "fantasy" without elaboration, what almost everyone thinks of is essentially D&D fantasy. An elf without other elaboration is a D&D elf. A dark elf is a drow. A dwarf without further elaboration is a D&D dwarf. An orc if you don't specify, is now a D&D orc. Paladin, ranger, thieves' guilds in every city, the list goes on and on.

None of these things are D&D inventions, but the D&D version is the default assumption across the fantasy spectrum because D&D is the default, generic any-fantasy-setting until you specify otherwise.

I think you overestimate D&D. 'Almost everyone' doesn't know what a drow or a paladin are, and definitely think Gimli and Legolas when you say 'dwarf' or 'elf'. It's important not to mistake our own little bubbles for the wider world.