Is a popular non-D&D traditional fantasy RPG possible?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Another advantage to being good at game design might be that, even if you don't make a best-seller, other game designers might take notice and hire you.

Mike Mearls did a great job with various games, and now he works for WOTC.

Basically: If you want to create your own RPG and be successful as D&D, be a good game designer, get noticed and become hired by whoever owns the D&D brand.

Of course, you probably still have to get the rest of R&D out of the way to keep them from mucking up your game...

 

[TwinBahamut]

I think the only possible challenge to D&D's supremacy would be a concentrated effort by a major game publisher to create a strong tabletop RPG brand. It would have to be something that takes a very popular and large brand name, and then converts a significant number of people from a pre-existing fanbase into Tabletop RPG players. For example, if a major videogame publisher with a few spare game designers and a few million spare dollars wanted to move into the book industry, and spent quite a bit of time and energy getting it right (including hiring on people experienced with the Tabletop RPG industry), then they might stand a chance of pushing D&D's dominance aside. If this occurred in some market where D&D was not in complete control (like in some foreign country where D&D gets terrible translations and there is no local big dog), then it might get a good foothold that could help it expand elsewhere. If such an RPG offered some kind of experience that D&D lacked (such as being truly built around the concept of online play, rather than table play), then it might have an even better shot.

So, I say it is certainly possible, but pretty much any company that actually has the resources and talent to pull off that kind of project would probably be better off focusing on its own industry, so it is unlikely to happen.

I am pretty sure that any Tabletop RPG designed with D&D as its prime inspiration (whether as a copy of D&D or a reaction against it) will fail to challenge D&D's dominance.

 

[Turanil]

So what do you think? Is it possible? And if so, what would it require to actually work and attain a degree of popularity that would allow it to exist indefinitely without going out of print and going through similar "edition-expansion-new edition-expansion" cycles as D&D?

p.s. Could this be Pathfinder?

IMO, part of the answer is art. I have a strong dislike of the current trend in fantasy rpg art, including that of Pathfinder. I just find it silly and unreal. A mixture of superhero and anime that only convey a cartoonish mood of super dungeonpunk dudes with oversized armors and 50 lb. swords, but certainly nothing truly sword and sorcery. I think "traditional" fantasy would have to go back to the roots of sword and sorcery (Fritz Leiber, R. E. Howard, etc.), with artists like Easley and Frazetta, instead of that junk-food like fantasy that Macdonald-4e is serving us.

 

[hamishspence]

Fighting Fantasy was a good candidate

I think it tried to release tabletop adventures, they may have fallen short of what was necessary.

 

[rounser]

I think it tried to release tabletop adventures, they may have fallen short of what was necessary.

Maybe they were just plain making a lot more money with their gamebooks, such that they dabbled in RPG on a whim, then returned to the cash cow.

I'd assume that the gamebooks had a far broader audience than TSR's RPGs. Maybe Fighting Fantasy was the definitive example of "passing over the ipod" of RPGs because they already had something more profitable.

 

[WayneLigon]

IMO, part of the answer is art. I have a strong dislike of the current trend in fantasy rpg art, including that of Pathfinder. I just find it silly and unreal. A mixture of superhero and anime that only convey a cartoonish mood of super dungeonpunk dudes with oversized armors and 50 lb. swords, but certainly nothing truly sword and sorcery. I think "traditional" fantasy would have to go back to the roots of sword and sorcery (Fritz Leiber, R. E. Howard, etc.), with artists like Easley and Frazetta, instead of that junk-food like fantasy that Macdonald-4e is serving us.

How about going to your local bookstore and looking at the covers of fantasy books today, and then go to the art section where you'll find the latest "best of" collections of fantasy art. See what people are actually doing today in that line and how it meshes more closely to what you're seeing in games. People have moved on from Frazetta and Hildebrandt and you should probably start getting used to it by now. The last 15 years or so have seen a much greater variety in fantasy art coming down the pipe and this is what your new gamer has grown up with. Just about the last thing gaming needs is to be associated with 'your father's RPG'.

 

[Turanil]

By the way, is this not Dennis Cramer who does most of the art of 4e (looking at the cover ads)? I loved what Easly did, but had an intense dislike of Wayne Reynold's art. (He was called "Dennis Cramer" in a 3.0 splatbook, probably an error, because it's the same artist). So, if it appears that he is the leading 4e artist, there it is: 4e has finally got 100% of the things (rules, spirit, marketing, and art) required for me hating it.

 

[portermj]

Magic the Gathering is a good example of innovation, but I wouldn't personally call it RPG. What I mean is, it could be argued that WoW, a fantasy game, outstripped D&D since it has more players worldwide, but it isn't an RPG.

For designers, thinking of Magic the Gathering and WoW through an RPG lens might be a good practice. Maybe expand it to Settlers of Catan, Muchkin, Ticket to Ride, Halo etc.

They're all games that are about getting people to together and having fun. Someone drawing on ideas from those games might get insight on how to make better RPGs or expand the RPG player population.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

How about going to your local bookstore and looking at the covers of fantasy books today, and then go to the art section where you'll find the latest "best of" collections of fantasy art. See what people are actually doing today in that line and how it meshes more closely to what you're seeing in games. People have moved on from Frazetta and Hildebrandt and you should probably start getting used to it by now. The last 15 years or so have seen a much greater variety in fantasy art coming down the pipe and this is what your new gamer has grown up with. Just about the last thing gaming needs is to be associated with 'your father's RPG'.

I dunno about this Wayne. Most of the fantasy artists around today lucky or talented enough to have art books have a styles that a deeply unlike that of WAR, who is responsible for Paizo's cover art and 4E's cover art.

Inside of Paizo's books you will frequently find a style that is distinctly "anime", which may be what's extra-offending him. It's spikey, geometrical, utterly unreal and very very comic book with a strong anime trend.

Next time I'm in Forbidden Planet, I'm going to make some notes, and you know what, I'm 90% sure we'll see that you're wrong to suggest D&D's cover or interior art is "typical" of modern fantasy art. Todd Lockwood and William O'Connor are "more typical", perhaps, but I don't think they're necessarily "representative" or whatever, and WAR, as mentioned, just isn't.

Just to note, Frazette, Elmore et al are utterly out of date and unrepresentative too, but is WAR-style work what I'm seeing in fantasy art books these days? No, it isn't.

 

[Maggan]

So, if it appears that he is the leading 4e artist, there it is: 4e has finally got 100% of the things (rules, spirit, marketing, and art) required for me hating it.

I am sorry to ruin your perfect score of 100% things to hate about D&D, but no Dennis is to be found among the artists, as far as I could see.

The covers are by Wayne Reynolds.

/M