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Is 13th Age stealing dnd next's thunder?
- Thread starter Pog
- Start date
dd.stevenson
Super KY
Mercurius
Legend
LOL, I love how people personalize these questions and inflate their own experience/preference to everyone's.
Anyhow, you know how whenever there's a huge blockbuster movie that comes out, there's always a second, often smaller budget, variation riding on the coat-tails, hoping to make a few bucks from those that want more? Now occasionally the "secondary" movie actually ends up being better than the more popular one, but this is rather rare.
So it remains to be seen whether 13th Age is going to be the lesser, lower budget variation or whether it is going to be the cult classic, better variation. Either way I can't see it stealing too much thunder or carving too much of a niche from D&D Next or [notranslate]Pathfinder[/notranslate]. I mean, I suppose that if [notranslate]Pathfinder[/notranslate] is geared towards the 3.x crowd and Next geared towards...everyone?...then 13th Age is geared towards...the Indie crowd? If so, not only is the Indie crowd smaller but their tastes are rather fickle - as a general rule they like to play a wide variety of games, whateer the latest "RPG du jour" is and not playing a long-running campaign which D&D fans are known for. If that is really the case then 13th Age will have a brief popularity and then at best solidify into moderate popularity and enough for ongoing support (e.g. Savage Worlds or Runequest) or more likely either cult classic status (e.g. Talislanta or Reign) or "oh, I forgot about that game!" status (Reign of Steel or Rune).
Anyhow, you know how whenever there's a huge blockbuster movie that comes out, there's always a second, often smaller budget, variation riding on the coat-tails, hoping to make a few bucks from those that want more? Now occasionally the "secondary" movie actually ends up being better than the more popular one, but this is rather rare.
So it remains to be seen whether 13th Age is going to be the lesser, lower budget variation or whether it is going to be the cult classic, better variation. Either way I can't see it stealing too much thunder or carving too much of a niche from D&D Next or [notranslate]Pathfinder[/notranslate]. I mean, I suppose that if [notranslate]Pathfinder[/notranslate] is geared towards the 3.x crowd and Next geared towards...everyone?...then 13th Age is geared towards...the Indie crowd? If so, not only is the Indie crowd smaller but their tastes are rather fickle - as a general rule they like to play a wide variety of games, whateer the latest "RPG du jour" is and not playing a long-running campaign which D&D fans are known for. If that is really the case then 13th Age will have a brief popularity and then at best solidify into moderate popularity and enough for ongoing support (e.g. Savage Worlds or Runequest) or more likely either cult classic status (e.g. Talislanta or Reign) or "oh, I forgot about that game!" status (Reign of Steel or Rune).
heptat
Explorer
I can see the obvious indie elements in 13th Age but the core system seems pretty hard core D&D (of one flavour or another) to me. I think it rocks and am about to start a Mystara campaign (starting with Night's Dark Terror) using the rules - and I hope it's a long lasting campaign! I'd have seriously considered using DnDNext beta but it's just too incomplete yet.
However returning to the OP's original question about whether 13th Age will make any dints into the D&D market, I doubt it. It's a shame so many posters aren't aware of just how many RPGs there are out there - it seems like hundreds, and yes, varying greatly in quality, but many definitely worth reading to see how others approach game design and if not for using for play, then for inspiration.
I like to think I am aware of the indy games out there, and I follow kickstarter games pretty closely too, but until this thread I was unaware of 13th Age.
That's gonna disappoint them - they've had quite a busy marketing campaign of interviews, accouncements, Kickstarters, and the like. A couple of big articles right here on [notranslate]EN World[/notranslate], too (big announcement, and an interview with Jonathan Tweet, plus a video interview I did with Simon Rogers, the publisher). Still, you know about it now!
Until/unless someone does a big-budget 4e knockoff ala [notranslate]Pathfinder[/notranslate] with 3.5, it's looking very much like it's going to end up the game for the 4e crowd despite dispensing with grid-based combat.
Abraxas
Explorer
I think 4E will remain the game for the 4E crowd.
As for 13th age, from what I've observed in my neck of the woods - it hasn't even been noticed. In fact I'm pretty sure of the 15 - 20 or so people I game with no one but me has even heard of it, and I haven't bothered to even check it out. Of course, that's just anecdotal, me and my gamer friends could be living in a bubble and everyone else in the world is going crazy over it, but that seems unlikely. Plus, I'm sure my experience is not universal.
However, until a game comes along that has the impact that D&D did way back in the dark days, I don't think any game is going to have much effect on the newest version of D&D (or [notranslate]Pathfinder[/notranslate] even).
