Does Anyone Care? (Cosmere RPG)

[SteveC]

As someone who played Avatar, I think it's going to be a different experience than with Cosmere. I played a campaign of Avatar and had a fantastic time. Everyone else, including the GM who went all in on the game, hated it. That was because what they were expecting was a kick-butt game of bending characters having awesome fight scenes. What you got was a great game about characters striving to balance (or not) fundamental conflicting ideals. The combat was not the point of the game.

Now with Cosmere, it seems (from watching the Knights of Last Call) that the game delivers action rpgs with maps and minis and skill trees of abilities to work out builds for characters. I think the problem is going to be the cost of entry and how dense the lore for the game is.

In the end, I suspect that Cosmere will face the same fate as Avatar, but for different reasons. But I also don't know what's going to happen. The Cosmere designers did a great job of making the game someone like me could run, but it's too expensive and too dense for me as someone who's only read the first book.

Maybe I'll play it, and love it. If I had the right group of players, I'd love Avatar too. The devil is always in the details.

 

[John Lloyd1]

Nothing is a D&D level of success. It's all niche.

But there are degrees of niche.

And when most in this thread are discussing a game being "widely played" it is in reference to games that have established a sizeable and notable network effect of their own within the hobby like; WFRP, PF2, Shadowdark, etc,.

Agreed.

Our bubbles can be weird though. If you look at the GenCon tables it has a very small contingent for WFRP. From that it would appear WFRG is a very niche game. I expect they vary a great deal from location to location. Depending on where you play, the games with sufficent network impact will be different.

 

[Retreater]

[...] but it's too expensive [...]

It looks like the three core books (and accessories) are $120 - which makes it cheaper than Starfinder 2, Pathfinder 2, or even D&D 5.24.
Just curious why you would find that especially expensive, compared to other games? (Granted, I was just writing about this in another thread: What's Your Price Limit?)

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think Cosmere is inherently niche, with the Cosmere setting having enough books to appeal to Sanderson's fans (hence the Kickstarter success) but also to intimidate non fans.

The game itself looks like D&D by way of Genesys. And we've just had a D&D with Genesys influence in the core mechanic (I may find Daggerheart's Duality Dice more elegant than Cosmere's d20+Plot Die but the difference is fairly minor). And Daggerheart has Cosmere mechanically left in the dust in other ways, not least of which being character creation where Daggerheart has raised the bar. Now is not the best time for Cosmere, Dungeon World 2e, or 13th Age 2e.

As for Avatar, and bearing in mind that as far as I know I'm the only overlap

1. I lent my copy to friends who had a campaign late last year and will again
2. One of my clubs recently ran a one shot. The GM says that some don't like it because they expect cool bending powers not emotional themes
3. My branch of my main club recently ran it as a one shot
4. Another branch has an ongoing campaign. (To be fair we have about a dozen thriving branches and about 50 games between them)

It's not D&D. It's not even PF2e or Call of Cthulhu (or even based on the current uptake at the extended gaming club network Daggerheart which has as many games as PF2e and CoC combined). But it's definitely still ticking over.

 

[SteveC]

It looks like the three core books (and accessories) are $120 - which makes it cheaper than Starfinder 2, Pathfinder 2, or even D&D 5.24.
Just curious why you would find that especially expensive, compared to other games? (Granted, I was just writing about this in another thread: What's Your Price Limit?)

That's a good question. For me, you have the expenses of the PDFs and the Foundry modules too. And that compares to $0 for Pathfinder 2 (and, as I understand it, Starfinder 2). And D&D set me back $30 for the PHB and $30 for the adventure path I picked out. For Cosmere, everything is new, so I'll have to purchase everything.

And this is a price comparison for something I have no real idea if my group will want to play or not. No one in my multiple groups is a Cosmere fan, so it will be a sell for them that D&D or Pathfinder or any number of other games already have locked in.

 

[Parmandur]

Agreed.

Our bubbles can be weird though. If you look at the GenCon tables it has a very small contingent for WFRP. From that it would appear WFRG is a very niche game. I expect they vary a great deal from location to location. Depending on where you play, the games with sufficent network impact will be different.

Yeah, I think a lot of people are underestimating, one, how non-Niche the Sanderson readership is, and two, how many will actually pick up and play a game where they can swear the oaths of a Knight Radiant, or even more so get to be a Mistborn.

Like, Critical Role is very successful but is more "niche" than the Cosmere.

 

[Jaeger]

If you look at the GenCon tables it has a very small contingent for WFRP. From that it would appear WFRG is a very niche game.

Apples and oranges.

Magpie goes out of their way to have a presence at gencon; they are the contact for all 130 events that the Avatar RPG has there. It is not organic.

Again; I am not saying that the Avatar RPG is not profitable for them. It clearly is. People like their favorite IP's.

What I am talking about is the actual network effect within the hobby that the game has built.

Has it built up a network effect within the hobby in the past two years similar to what ShadowDark has done? Clearly not.

I am merely pointing out that Big KS dollars do not necessarily translate to a large network effect. (The lifeblood of RPG's). Especially when most of the people backing it are doing so because they see it as collectable merch.

 

[John Lloyd1]

Apples and oranges.

Magpie goes out of their way to have a presence at gencon; they are the contact for all 130 events that the Avatar RPG has there. It is not organic.

Again; I am not saying that the Avatar RPG is not profitable for them. It clearly is. People like their favorite IP's.

What I am talking about is the actual network effect within the hobby that the game has built.

Has it built up a network effect within the hobby in the past two years similar to what ShadowDark has done? Clearly not.

I am merely pointing out that Big KS dollars do not necessarily translate to a large network effect. (The lifeblood of RPG's). Especially when most of the people backing it are doing so because they see it as collectable merch.

I was thinking about the Network effect after you raised it and I'm not sure it is as important for many games other than D&D and maybe a few others. I think there are a two other effects that are more important for other games: the status quo effect and the DM effect.

The way I see the network effect is, can I look out in my local community as a player and see tables playing the game that I can join without too much trouble. In my community it would be D&D and PF, but not much else. It relies on the player being the one who desires the system and the number of available tables playing it.

The Status Quo effect is about the individual table. Every one has come together to play a particular system (usually D&D) and are now wanting to play something else. But everyone has a veto and it is impossible to get the table to agree to play another system.

The DM effect is the DM deciding to play a particular system seeking players who are interested. This is DM led and relies on the DM marketing the game to the players. It is less dependant on a particular system and rather themes, genres and play styles.

 

[John Lloyd1]

To bring it back to Cosmere:

The success of Cosmere RPG will be based on convincing DMs it will be fun to play and then the DMs convincing enough players.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I'm just not that jazzed for any game setting known primarily through novels (or particularly sprawlingly long media franchises of other sorts). Aside from the wide disparities in lore knowledge most tables are likely to encounter, I also don't want to be corrected on lore by a superfan when I dare think up something new in my imagination game.

But someone in my current D&D group was a backer of this project and is excited to try running a game for the first time with it, so we'll see how it goes.