is the ttrpg market swamped now? could you write a winner?

[JThursby]

Matt Colville is banned from my youtube for doing a movie review pooping on Dune 2021 which still triggers me.

I wouldn't go so far as to say he angers me, but yeah, I just can't get a read on Matt Colville at all. Sometimes he has good ideas, sometimes he says literally the opposite of what I would consider good design or taste (ie endorsing Greyhawk Initiative). If you want a better D&D youtuber for design I like Treantmonk quite a bit.

 

[Jack Daniel]

What's an E&E game?

There are at least two literal examples that have come out of the OSR tradition: Engines & Empires (by me) and Exemplars & Eidolons (by Kevin Crawford).

alternative to a D&D game. Like a Tunnels and Trolls or a Mazes and Monsters (I guess thats copywritten)

Oh, you mean Alliterations & Ampersands!

 

[bennet]

I'm still not entirely sure how that's being defined.

Would it be something inspired by D&D's mechanical structure or D&D adjacent (like Pathfinder)?

Would a non-d20 game qualify?

Pathfinder/DnD variant in an alternate universe, like, rewrite dungeons and dragons as a 6th edition, pulling from everything you can find to create a perfect system where perfect is recapturing the fun of 1e/2e but with a modern set of rules. Pretty much what they did with 5e, but fix all the issues with that edition.

 

[bennet]

The initial reasoning from the OP sounds like it's running from the assumption that game rules and systems are the selling points, when I think in reality it's IP and story potential that catches people's eyes and gets them to investigate further. D&D is no exception in this case, it commands the strongest brand recognition by a country mile which I would wager accounts for a large part of it's success. Development of a great set of systems is very valuable and gets players to stick around, but I can't think of any examples of games that successfully sold themselves on the premise of using a certain rule set as their primary feature. The sole exceptions are ones that are direct responses to complaints about wherever D&D is at the time, i.e. Pathfinder 1e or Advanced 5e. Lore, setting, tone, genre, IP usage, all of those seem more important to me in terms of getting attention and initial buyers. I think the reason many of those hundreds of games fail is that they successfully do as I described to an extent, but are ultimately shallow (in some cases barely more than a set of guidelines) or don't have rules that facilitate the experience that was promised; I can recall more than a few 5e compatible or d20 OGL games that didn't mesh rules with the story well at all.

The name is recognized, but it doesn't really require any particular setting to succeed (e.g. crit role didnt need that). Hmm maybe the key is just to have actors with amazing synergy playing the new game. I agree that having the tolkein IP would be a massive bonus. Release a modern MERP might work. Maybe you have to write some novels first, establish a D&D world that becomes popular, then add a TTRPG to that.

 

[hedgeknight]

This thread takes me back to the days of Wolfgang Baur's Open Design, the pre-cursor to the "kickstarter" type projects. In OD, patrons bought in at various levels and actually had a hand in the design of the adventure. Via the forum, we could talk with each other and with the lead designer(s) and artists. I helped edit and proofread a few of those projects and it was a lot of fun (a lot of work too!). I miss those early days of adventure creation. I can only imagine how the "old guys" felt designing and play-testing the original adventures we love so much.

 

[Argyle King]

There are at least two literal examples that have come out of the OSR tradition: Engines & Empires (by me) and Exemplars & Eidolons (by Kevin Crawford).



Oh, you mean Alliterations & Ampersands!

Thanks.

I'm not familiar with either of those, but I like your whiskey.

 

[bennet]

This thread takes me back to the days of Wolfgang Baur's Open Design, the pre-cursor to the "kickstarter" type projects. In OD, patrons bought in at various levels and actually had a hand in the design of the adventure. Via the forum, we could talk with each other and with the lead designer(s) and artists. I helped edit and proofread a few of those projects and it was a lot of fun (a lot of work too!). I miss those early days of adventure creation. I can only imagine how the "old guys" felt designing and play-testing the original adventures we love so much.

I don't know if it is what you are talking about, but a Open Source D&D clone, that had no license to any one person or company, that had lots of writers, artists, designers collaborate into creating a new game (G&G), would be awesome.
D&D linux if you will.

 

[TerraDave]

In terms of fantasy tabletop gaming and adjacent areas, we will continue to see the occasional breakout game or product. I think the “problem”, such as there is one, is that 5e and Critical Role were two of those products.

PF was another. But that took a lot things coming together.
As for trying to do your own better D&D…there is a reason that’s called a fantasy heartbreaker.

 

[Umbran]

I think the real issue is that the poor conventions of the past 30 years have become such common wisdom and unquestioned truth that most people wouldn't recognize a really good RPG if you hit them over the head with it.

Wow. That's one of the most condescending positions around.

 

[Reynard]

I am going to answer the questions in the title of the thread, because I think they are more interesting than the questions in the first post.

Is the TTRPG market swamped now?

It is certainly "busy". At the same time there are also a lot more potential customers there have ever been, and many of those are reaching the stage of what else is out there besides D&D (since many of them have been playing D&D for 5-ish years). I think that means that the TTRPG industry is on the cusp of opening up -- a new 1990s, if you will, full of new ideas and old ideas made new again, but also fragmented and niche in a lot of ways. The big difference between the 90s and now is currently there are a bunch of well polished core systems (PbtA, Fate, FitD, etc) that folks trust to provide a solid experience so I think we will see fewer wacky core dice engines like Shadowrun, Vampire or Deadlands.

Could You Write a Winner?

I am an on again, off again freelance RPG writer. I sometimes toy with the idea of putting something out of my own, but I think a "winner" in this industry is much like any other artistic industry -- it is as much about luck and timing as anything else. There are thousands of great self published novels, for example, but we (the general public) got Twilight and 50 Shades. So.