VenerableBede
Adventurer
This is not intended to be a downer post—at least, I hope it isn’t.
I don’t have time to play the Cosmere RPG, and, frankly, I’m not interested anymore. After backing that Kickstarter I discovered Shadowdark and fell in love. That said, reading through the Stormlight Handbook, I really like this take on d20/5e rules. If this game had come out while I was in college, I could see myself playing this more than anything else.
Having an interest in the system as an outside observer, I start looking around for conversation… And I can’t find it. Not in TTRPG circles, anyway. I find the occasional comment here or there (“This is what DnD 5.5 should have looked like!”), but 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.
I do see some issues with the Cosmere RPG not related to the rules. The world these books are set in are deep, and lots of players not already invested in Sanderson probably won’t think it’s worth the effort to learn a ton of lore just to play a TTRPG when they already have one that suits them fine. Also, because the worlds in the Cosmere are designed with epic fantasy novels in mind, not necessarily TTRPGs, I don’t think these worlds contribute to playing a TTRPG very well anyway.
The licensed nature of the Cosmere severely limiting (monetizable) creator content probably doesn’t help attract content creators who might otherwise deive interest.
There’s also the issue of there being so many spin-offs and “refinements” of 5e that even, in my opinion, a truly uniquely excellent one like this can’t stand out on those traits alone.
I consider this all unfortunate because, as I said, I really like the underlying rules for this game—the Plotweaver system, which I believe will eventually receive a setting-agnostic (or generic fantasy setting) rulebook separate from the Cosmere. I really want these rules to have legs, even if the Cosmere RPG itself, in the long run, I think will most likely end up collector’s items for Sanderson super fans and little more. I just think it came out in the wrong time and place for that to be possible.
Anyone here care to prove me wrong? Able to? Or does most everyone else keeping an eye on this game feel the same way?
I don’t have time to play the Cosmere RPG, and, frankly, I’m not interested anymore. After backing that Kickstarter I discovered Shadowdark and fell in love. That said, reading through the Stormlight Handbook, I really like this take on d20/5e rules. If this game had come out while I was in college, I could see myself playing this more than anything else.
Having an interest in the system as an outside observer, I start looking around for conversation… And I can’t find it. Not in TTRPG circles, anyway. I find the occasional comment here or there (“This is what DnD 5.5 should have looked like!”), but 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.
I do see some issues with the Cosmere RPG not related to the rules. The world these books are set in are deep, and lots of players not already invested in Sanderson probably won’t think it’s worth the effort to learn a ton of lore just to play a TTRPG when they already have one that suits them fine. Also, because the worlds in the Cosmere are designed with epic fantasy novels in mind, not necessarily TTRPGs, I don’t think these worlds contribute to playing a TTRPG very well anyway.
The licensed nature of the Cosmere severely limiting (monetizable) creator content probably doesn’t help attract content creators who might otherwise deive interest.
There’s also the issue of there being so many spin-offs and “refinements” of 5e that even, in my opinion, a truly uniquely excellent one like this can’t stand out on those traits alone.
I consider this all unfortunate because, as I said, I really like the underlying rules for this game—the Plotweaver system, which I believe will eventually receive a setting-agnostic (or generic fantasy setting) rulebook separate from the Cosmere. I really want these rules to have legs, even if the Cosmere RPG itself, in the long run, I think will most likely end up collector’s items for Sanderson super fans and little more. I just think it came out in the wrong time and place for that to be possible.
Anyone here care to prove me wrong? Able to? Or does most everyone else keeping an eye on this game feel the same way?