If I ran an RPG company I would make_________.

[Rabid Gerbil]

I agree with Kluge

After reading over the posts, I agree with die kluge. Bluffside is ripe to be expanded, and I think it would be a good seller if presented right. Expand the world where Bluffside is or even produce another city book to be the sister city to Bluff would both be great products to purchase/write. Hint hint MEG....

Rabid Gerbil
"Mmmmm....cheese"

 

[Alynnalizza]

I would make a new sourcebook that had 0 new feats. (How many are there now anyways! ).

I would love to see a book of places. A guide to 'realistic' places of a fantasy setting. Inns with flavor, Shops with personality, Houses with pizzaz. Places where characters frequent, but sometimes falls on the lower end of priority for the DM. (at least the design of them for me.)

As well, would be a book 'guilds'. Creation of Merchant Guilds and why the function, A Group of Monks that have a different view of balance (which if I had the time, I would finish writing!), and so forth would be covered. Something that could be a new antagonist or ally for a group.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

If I ran a game company I'd... well, I already run a game company, trying to do the things I want.

I've never liked any of the gun books published for any game system, and I wanted to do a truly detailed gun book, one so detailed that if the gaming material wasn't in it, gun nuts would buy it for a reference source. I did just that.

Turn one of my favorite hobbies, searching out roadside attractions and other freakishness on the road of America, into game material. I'm working on that right now, and ending up with a nifty D20 modern based horror product.

Lots of prop type stuff. Paper minis, prop police and tax forms and the like, various certificates in the spirit of the legendary Armory player certificates, etc.

Write a fantasy game based on D20 Modern. Wrote it years before D&D 3e was published. One of these days I'll have to get around to rewriting it for the right game system.

Write an entirely new set of combat rules for D20/D20M that does away with hit points. This is actually half done, it's elegant and absolutely brilliant, but so far only works with guns, since I don't have sufficient knowledge of blades and blunt weapons to make it work with melee weapons.

Write a decent cyberpunk genre game that will replace Cyberpunk 2020.The going is slow with this one, with over three years of development in it so far.

License the following animes and mangas and build a monster sourcebook based on them: Ghost in the Shell movie, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Ghost in the Shell: Second Gig, Ghost in the Shell manga, Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human Error, Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface.

License to do a game based on the Witch Hunter Robin anime, especially if the live action version they're going to do on scifi manages to go to a second season.

 

[pensiv]

Well. . . since I've been chin-deep in running d20 Modern lately, I'd probably publish a couple of d20 Modern adventures first.

There are 3 products I recently bought for my game that I've really gotten a lot of use out of "Blood and Fists" (RPG Objects), "The Psychic's Handbook" (Green Ronin) and "Modern Magic Volume 1" (The Game Mechanics). So I would be interested in creating a resource book like these for investigative/law enforcement characters--Police Officers, Detectives (private and police/government), Journalists.

The investigative book would highlight police procedures, government and international investigative organizations (e.g.: the FBI), and the ins and outs of the media and journalism.
Of course there would be "crunchy bits" like feats, advanced classes, prestige classes, equipment, etc.

Maybe there already is a book like this out, but I'm not aware of it.

 

[RodneyThompson]

If I ran a gaming company, the first thing I'd do was cook up a print magazine for non-D&D d20 games. Basically, a bi-monthly (to later go monthly) magazine devoted to d20 Modern, Spycraft, Mutants and Masterminds, and so on. I actually wrote up my ideal d20 magazine once before; it's in my LiveJournal, and here's the link:

Non-D&D d20 Magazine

The second thing I would do would be to write a space western. Oh, wait...

 

[der_kluge]

I was thinking this morning that an RPG that was completely off the wall might be interesting. And, when I say "off the wall", something where "Oompa Loompa" is a PC race. Just something really... bizarre.

 

[cybertalus]

I would make a new sourcebook that had 0 new feats.

Also toss in 0 new prestige classes and you've got me 75% sold on it before knowing anything else about it. Although if it turned out to be The Complete Clown's Sourcebook I'd get unsold very quick.

I would love to see a book of places. A guide to 'realistic' places of a fantasy setting. Inns with flavor, Shops with personality, Houses with pizzaz. Places where characters frequent, but sometimes falls on the lower end of priority for the DM. (at least the design of them for me.)

Sounds very much like the Volo's Guides for FR in 2E, which were IMO some of the best gaming products ever produced. Anything which took a similar approach would definitely get my attention.

As for my own list....

A Big Book O' Descriptions. Not just lists of them for everything from travellers on the road to the moss on the dungeon floor to the stench of a bugbear's fur, but a big section about how to make up evocative descriptions, including writerly exercises to help DMs get better at making up descriptions on the fly.

Ed Greenwood's Flavor-O-Rama. Just sit Ed down in front of a word processor and keep tossing cash at him until he turns in a manuscript he declares finished. Edit it for spelling, typos, and grammar and publish as is. Fire any employee who suggests adding game mechanics.

A different take on modern fantasy for d20 Modern. Urban Arcana had some stuff I didn't want (bugbear hockey players, orc biker gangs) and lacked some stuff I did want (a modern druid, an explanation for magic that is satisfying). So I'd like to give it a go.

"Everything a Modern GM Needs to Run a Game Set in {Country} Without Looking Foolish". A series of sourcebooks covering a country or region of the real world providing all of the information a GM who isn't native to that country would need to run a campaign set there. Contents would include a good poster map of the country, geographical and population information, an overview of history and laws, lists of famous leaders, notes about culture, common misconceptions about the country, etc. The same book would include notes on folklore, myths, and the like with an outline of how to use that to run a culture-specific fantasy campaign either in Modern or D&D.

Redheads in Kilts. A Celtic book. Basically an excuse to:
1. commission a lot of art with redhaired beings in it
2. toss out a lot of Gaelic words.
3. go to Ireland and Scotland for research

A non-d20 RPG with game mechanics based on the old Atari ST/Amiga game Dungeon Master.

And lastly to put my company on the map....

Something at least mildly controversial. A "love it or hate it" product that would get message boards hopping (at least until all the threads got closed down) and make teenagers and young adults feel like they were being rebellious by liking it. Although this one would need some work, because my best idea so far, Thoreau the Roleplaying Game, probably wouldn't do the job.

 

[Crothian]

I'd do something that took a chance. Not sure what, but get an idea that is really out there and just run with it.

And I'd do a Thieves World RPG

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Well. . . since I've been chin-deep in running d20 Modern lately, I'd probably publish a couple of d20 Modern adventures first.

There are 3 products I recently bought for my game that I've really gotten a lot of use out of "Blood and Fists" (RPG Objects), "The Psychic's Handbook" (Green Ronin) and "Modern Magic Volume 1" (The Game Mechanics). So I would be interested in creating a resource book like these for investigative/law enforcement characters--Police Officers, Detectives (private and police/government), Journalists.

The investigative book would highlight police procedures, government and international investigative organizations (e.g.: the FBI), and the ins and outs of the media and journalism.
Of course there would be "crunchy bits" like feats, advanced classes, prestige classes, equipment, etc.

Maybe there already is a book like this out, but I'm not aware of it.

Yes, there are already books covering this. They're done by Hogshead.

 

[pensiv]

Very nice. Thank you Dana.