Is there still innovation in the RPG industry?

[HeavyG]

7th Sea had an innovation I've yet to see resurface, but if it does it could completely rewrite one popular aspect of nearly all non D20 based RPGs... In 7th Sea disads/flaws cost points rather than reward them, but give XP when they come up in play. Thsi completely flips the axiom of disads from something the players try to trick the GM into avoiding into something the players strive to have actively hinder their characters. Couple that with a good list of disads and you could go a long way towards encouraging roleplay and actually getting people to enjoy roleplay who were not previously inclined to it.

But now I'm going back in time, if I keep this up I'll end up on a discussion of Dice pools and generic RPGs... Let's move forward...

The Babylon 5 rpg used that too. Don't laugh.

It's a great mechanic and I intend to use it whenever they come up with a advantage/disadvantage system for Exalted.

 

[Umbran]

True innovation echoes throughout the basic design and form of an industry.

Meaning that the only way to be innovative is to have everyone else like it and adopt it as their own? Innovation is more about popular opinion than it is about creativity? Sorry, but I don't buy that. Neither does my dictionary.

The hallmark of innovation is being new and creative, bringing something new into the world, or looking at an old thing in an new way.

Whether an innovation gets acepted by the masses is dependent on a number things, many of which (marketing among them) have little to nothing to do with the innovation itself, and I'd see it as unfair to claim a thing is not an innovation simply because poor marketing meant that nobody ever heard of it.

 

[2d6]

No disrespect meant, but is it possible that Mr. Spector may not see any innovation, because it's not HIS kind of innovation? Is innovation defined by brand-new mechanics for every system, or is it mechanics, concepts, and technologies that are successful?

The issues that Warren Spector is talking abut have to do with the proliferation of licensed games and sequals in games. From watching his discussion and looking at his slides, it could just as well be for PnP games as well.

Basically, if you look at the the number of top selling games on the market, the vast majority are either licensed properties or sequals (in many cases based on licensed properties) and offer very little in the way of new IP. No new stories, no new concepts, no new gameplay.

This really goes back to the who risk-aversion/gold digging done in Hollywood and now in the game industry. These things take so much money to develop and market that that it's easier and SAFER to make a sequal of something that has sold well before, then create something new.

He goes on to discuss the pros and cons of doing business this way, and how to work with the constraints of a liceansed propery to create a game that offers something more then "more of the same".


My description doesn't even do it justice.

2d6

 

[mearls]

Meaning that the only way to be innovative is to have everyone else like it and adopt it as their own? Innovation is more about popular opinion than it is about creativity? Sorry, but I don't buy that. Neither does my dictionary.

In the field of games, you'd be wrong.

We're talking about RPGs here, an item whose value is directly related to use. A game is a definitive object crafted for a specific purpose. It sees use towards a very specific goal: enjoyment. Any RPG design that does not spark a wave of adoption throughout the design community and the general player base has failed to improve the base form and is thus not innovative.

Marketing and ad campaigns are irrelevent in the gaming industry. D&D didn't have a massive ad push, nor did Warhammer 40k, Vampire, Magic the Gathering, or Mage Knight, yet all took off and are acknowledged as excellent game designs.

If we were talking about a medium, then you'd have a point. But games aren't a medium. They're a tool crafted for a specific purpose. Most things that aren't innovative or good are either bad or mediocre. Few, if any, people play bad games. A small number of people latch on to any mediocre game.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

The Babylon 5 rpg used that too. Don't laugh.

It's a great mechanic and I intend to use it whenever they come up with a advantage/disadvantage system for Exalted.

I believe AEG's Spycraft used it first for d20-- natch.

It is a great mechanic. I might yoink it.


Wulf

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

Isn't Warren Spector the guy who made Deus Ex? Isn't he currently making Deus Ex 2?

"Sequels cripple innovation! But I need a paycheck, so I'm gonna make me a sequel!"

 

[The Little Raven]

Meepo, he's not necessarily targetting just the developers of the games, he's also targetting the people who have the money... the producers.

Business folk who want to make a buck. If something works, you make another one and another one and another one until it ceases to sell. If a movie is really popular, you get the rights to make a licensed game (even if the game sucks). The point is that in this day and age, when games have become an international phenomenom, more marketing people make the decisions about what games get made. A lot of developers merely have to take what they are given and do what they can with it.

 

[EOL]

I can cite some examples such as Direkobold's Xenogenic publishing system, and PDFs which have allowed small publishers to come up with interesting products at little risk.

Nice to be noticed. Though I think that depending on how you talk about innovation we may not qualify. (for the record I think we do). Some people seem to think that innovation has to be somehow related to the game system. Certainly the D20 system we use is the same as everywhere else. In fact since we want our adventures to be easy to drop into anyone's campaign we may even err on the side of not innovating.

If you're talking about innovation on a distribution level then the OGL/D20 liscense and PDFs have certain similarities. Where before it was very difficult to put out a rules supplement without first establishing your particular "system". With the D20 liscense that particular overhead is done away with meaning you don't have to have a lot of marketing and money to put out a successful product. PDFs are yet another step requiring even less money to produce and distribute.

I'm not objective, but that to a certain extent is the nature of the DireKobold.com innovation. Rather than printing hundreds of adventures to meet every taste you have a single adventure which can be generated in hundreds of different ways. Obviously only possible with the PDF innovation (and computer and internet innovation, obviously far beyond the scope of this discussion)

As far as some of the other points made. I think Mearls has a good point, but I think it is possible for something to only be recognized as innovative, as Henry said, after the fact. Meaning that the innovation could permeate the industry but only be recognized as a distinctly new thing long after its creation.

Thus you could have a situation where it seems that the idea was innovative, never caught on, and then a few years later realize that it has seruptitiously permeated everything.

 

[d20Dwarf]

There's also a sense that to move RPG design forward, it has to push towards a story-based, literary model, despite the fact that such games never prove popular.

Sure Mike, no game that empasized Storytelling could ever be successful.

Look for my new game, Pretzel: The Salting, at Gencon SoCal!

 

[coyote6]

Sure Mike, no game that empasized Storytelling could ever be successful.

Look for my new game, Pretzel: The Salting, at Gencon SoCal!

Don't forget to make sure the pretzels can simultaneously kick seven different types of ass (nine on weekends).