Recently I was at Infinity Con in Lake City Florida, where I encountered two gents (young but older than college-age) in a small booth offering the Shattered Dawn RPG. The con turned out to be a multimedia con with almost no gaming interest so I spent a lot of time talking with the guys and playing in both their demos on the day I was there.
I don’t ordinarily look for new RPGs to try out for two reasons. First, I’m not into the Cult of the New that’s so common in games (and a lot of other things) these days. New isn’t likely to be nearly as good as a good Oldie. Second, I’m more likely to find experienced players who already know a particular game if I stick to the most popular game, D&D. So aside from downloading and reading rules occasionally, or watching others play, I am most likely to encounter new RPGs at conventions.
Consider the plight of people who’ve designed new tabletop RPGs. Here are some barriers:
The more complicated the game is, the less interest you’re likely to get - you need to play NOW, not after long character generation. (The one exception is some younger people who use character generation to try to express their individuality in a world where they feel marginalized.)
One barrier that’s much lower today is printing costs. Traditional lithographic printing provides great economies of scale if you can print the kind of numbers the big publishers can, but smaller ones cannot because of the total cost. Digital printing (the kind used for Print on Demand) makes it economically practical to print a high quality initial run of 100 or 200 copies. SD’s initial run was small, but high quality with fine art (pasteboard hardcover, which is standard for the big publishers). They have to charge more because digital is more expensive than huge litho runs (each book is $50, PDF $20), yet with similar quality.
Shattered Dawn offers two hardcover large-format books. Their nerve-wracking Kickstarter in April ‘17 exceeded their $10,000 goal by only $120!
It’s harder to get into retail distribution because SO MANY games are now published. And games are less likely to become “evergreen”, instead they’re flash-in-the-pan, into stores once, sold out, not reordered even if they sell well because there’s so much new coming down the line. It’s a hit-driven industry, such that even the “evergreen” products suffer. This happens even to major publishers. Steve Jackson Games (41 employees at end of 2016) said:
Other publishers cite similar experiences. Individual titles sell fewer copies, so the reaction of publishers is to sell more titles, exacerbating the situation. It's a classic "Tragedy of the Commons".
Shattered Dawn managed to achieve a big Kickstarter, but many small RPG creators do not, and have to compromise print and especially art quality. Which makes it even harder to get into shops in an age where presentation frequently counts for more than actual content. They've placed the game in a few shops in their home city (Jacksonville FL), but have yet to get into regular distribution - and probably won't.
In north Florida alone this year I've encountered two newly-published RPGs through conventions. (I'll talk about the other sometime.) There must be dozens throughout the USA, let alone the world.
I'll discuss Shattered Dawn design choices (which address some of the barriers listed above) next time.
This article was contributed by Lewis Pulsipher (lewpuls) as part of ENWorld's User-Generated Content (UGC) program. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
I don’t ordinarily look for new RPGs to try out for two reasons. First, I’m not into the Cult of the New that’s so common in games (and a lot of other things) these days. New isn’t likely to be nearly as good as a good Oldie. Second, I’m more likely to find experienced players who already know a particular game if I stick to the most popular game, D&D. So aside from downloading and reading rules occasionally, or watching others play, I am most likely to encounter new RPGs at conventions.
Consider the plight of people who’ve designed new tabletop RPGs. Here are some barriers:
- Why change from their old game?
- Those accustomed to video games, expect rapid level rise
- Those accustomed to video games, don’t expect any real danger (save games . . .)
- Short attention spans.
- Getting product into stores is MUCH harder than in the past; the “long tail,” isn’t there.
The more complicated the game is, the less interest you’re likely to get - you need to play NOW, not after long character generation. (The one exception is some younger people who use character generation to try to express their individuality in a world where they feel marginalized.)
One barrier that’s much lower today is printing costs. Traditional lithographic printing provides great economies of scale if you can print the kind of numbers the big publishers can, but smaller ones cannot because of the total cost. Digital printing (the kind used for Print on Demand) makes it economically practical to print a high quality initial run of 100 or 200 copies. SD’s initial run was small, but high quality with fine art (pasteboard hardcover, which is standard for the big publishers). They have to charge more because digital is more expensive than huge litho runs (each book is $50, PDF $20), yet with similar quality.
Shattered Dawn offers two hardcover large-format books. Their nerve-wracking Kickstarter in April ‘17 exceeded their $10,000 goal by only $120!
It’s harder to get into retail distribution because SO MANY games are now published. And games are less likely to become “evergreen”, instead they’re flash-in-the-pan, into stores once, sold out, not reordered even if they sell well because there’s so much new coming down the line. It’s a hit-driven industry, such that even the “evergreen” products suffer. This happens even to major publishers. Steve Jackson Games (41 employees at end of 2016) said:
The current market is more a periodicals business than one that encourages growing and nurturing single games, leading to our evergreen titles -- Munchkin and Zombie Dice -- dropping in sales.
Other publishers cite similar experiences. Individual titles sell fewer copies, so the reaction of publishers is to sell more titles, exacerbating the situation. It's a classic "Tragedy of the Commons".
Shattered Dawn managed to achieve a big Kickstarter, but many small RPG creators do not, and have to compromise print and especially art quality. Which makes it even harder to get into shops in an age where presentation frequently counts for more than actual content. They've placed the game in a few shops in their home city (Jacksonville FL), but have yet to get into regular distribution - and probably won't.
In north Florida alone this year I've encountered two newly-published RPGs through conventions. (I'll talk about the other sometime.) There must be dozens throughout the USA, let alone the world.
I'll discuss Shattered Dawn design choices (which address some of the barriers listed above) next time.
This article was contributed by Lewis Pulsipher (lewpuls) as part of ENWorld's User-Generated Content (UGC) program. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
