New Non-WoTC Games?

[JoeGKushner]

On another post, one poster noted that the OGL has harmed the industry because there aren't new games by publishers other than WoTC.

I find that assumption odd.

Perhaps I'm just not paying enough attention, but Burning Wheel has several variants (Wheel, Empire, and Mouse Guard) published by the old independent press which has a ton of material.

Several publishers, whose existance comes from the OGL days, like Green Ronin and Mongoose, have published a long list of games.

Fantasy Flight took over Warhammer and brought out a long awaited 40K setting books with two core books out now and a third to come down the line.

I'm not seeing a lack of innovation in the publishing side.

Is it just me?

 

[Crothian]

To see if the OGL has I think one would have to look at the number of new games produced each year in the late ninties before the OGL, look at the number of new games produced in all the years since the OGL.

It does feel like there have been more games produced in the past couple years then the few years previous.

 

[pedr]

It's not just you!

I just went to a convention where over two days, five slots of gaming, I played or heard talk of people playing:
* HeroQuest 2
* OpenQuest, a RuneQuest/Basic RolePlaying clone/version
* Mouse Guard
* Wordplay, written by one of the convention organisers and slightly HQ-like.
* Six Bullets for Vengeance, a currently un-published GM-less game where you play out a revenge movie ... backwards from the final scene.
* Duty and Honour/Beat to Quarters (essentially Sharpe and Hornblower the RPG)
* Judge Dredd (the Traveller version)
* Various games of Call of Cthulhu
* Monsters and Other Childish Things
* Wild Talents
* InSpectres
* Plenty of others. ... now not all of these are new, but Monsters and Other Childish Things is, OpenQuest is (even if based on an older game) Judge Dredd, HQ2, Duty and Honour and plenty of other small-press games are all new.

Then there's WHRP 3 soon, of course!

 

[Wik]

Not to mention fairly new editions of Shadowrun, Earthdawn, and Battletech.

Aces and Eights is a newer game, and it looks awesome. And let's not even talk about the indy press - there will always be new indy games.

I really want an edition of Mouse guard. I regret not picking it up when I had the chance.

 

[Maggan]

e.

Is it just me?

Nah, there's been scores of new games released since the inception of OGL. And games keep coming out.

Check this site out for more info:

An Encyclopedia of Role-Playing Games

Actually, 2009 looks a bit thin. But then again it aint listing Rogue Trader, Judge Dredd, Mouseguard and the upcoming WFRPv3, to name but a few recent high profile games.

So IMO publishing is as strong as ever, counting titles.

Actual sales figures, maybe not so strong.

/M

 

[Ariosto]

WotC's expressed intent (as I understand it) was to have "d20 System" monopolize the market, so that everyone and his dog would buy a D&D Players Handbook to play the "new" games that other publishers put out. Had that actually turned out just so, one suspects, then WotC might (or might not) still be using the OGL.

That there are no new games is obvious hyperbole! For just one instance, Kenzer & Co. recently released a Basic book to kick off a new HackMaster line. Kenzer's Aces & Eights is relatively recent, and innovative, and surprisingly successful commercially.

That last measure certainly calls for a big adjustment -- if one's expectations are about two decades out of date.

The visibility of other stuff at the FLGS retail level seems less, though, from my perhaps unrepresentative perspective, than even a decade ago. I am not sure to what degree the blame lies with the OGL.

I am not much worried about it. There's a proliferation of small publishers, which seems to me rather the "natural state" of the RPG hobby-turned-industry. It is certainly most conducive to innovation.

 

[JohnRTroy]

I don't think we were saying there were absolutely no new games, rather, the state of new games seem to be in decline. White Wolf seems to be the only other big publisher. Chaosim is still around. But we had other good companies that were second-tier (not what I'd call Indy publishers), like FASA, West End Games, GDW, etc, all with good followings that don't seem to be the case this time. Outside of WW and Games Workshop I think most of the companies doing non-d20 variants are less powerful today.

Take Steve Jackson games. There used to be 4-6 GURPS books released each year, In Nomine had a few good releases, etc. Now it seems like they are hurting more, and the decline started shortly into the d20 rise. Looking at their releases the last couple of years it's been kind of grim for new GURPS releases.

And I notice less diverse companies at the big retail chains. In the 90s I remember they carried White Wolf, WEG, GDW, and a few others. During the height of the d20 market I noticed these companies got replaced by the bigger d20 companies (or sub-labels).

I like to think of gaming as something akin to biodiversity. There should be alternative games on the market. The OGL was very seductive for publishers but I think in the long run it hurt the general game market--especially considering D&D evolved into something greatly different and this caused sales of the related "species" to suffer in the market.

 

[ggroy]

But we had other good companies that were second-tier (not what I'd call Indy publishers), like FASA, West End Games, GDW, etc,

One could argue that "veteran" d20 companies like Mongoose, Green Ronin, Troll Lord, etc ... have filled the vacuum that FASA, WEG, GDW, etc ... left behind.

 

[Pramas]

I'd say the difference between now and 20 years is not the number of new games coming out (there are plenty), it's that few of them actually make it into stores anymore. There are tons of small press games that release PDF/POD and sell mostly direct. The RPG sections of many game stores are vanishingly small these days.

 

[Mark]

I'd say the difference between now and 20 years is not the number of new games coming out (there are plenty), it's that few of them actually make it into stores anymore. There are tons of small press games that release PDF/POD and sell mostly direct. The RPG sections of many game stores are vanishingly small these days.

Boardgames seem to be doing very well and various collectible models of card and minis games do well.