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<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4951783" data-attributes="member: 80487">They have, and are likely to do so again.The hobby-game industry seems to go through cycles in which A is all the rage until B comes along ... which in turn gives way to C ... until people get tired of G (or Q) and turn again toward A for the next fad. Steampunk, for instance, seems to be having another day in the sun. The same could be said of RPGs on a whole, relative to the deluge of collectible card games some years ago. Board war-games have not recovered since the Hasborg scooped up most of that endangered species, but historical miniatures may somewhat have expanded back into their old habitat. That Napoleonics are at all on the RPG radar is interesting, given the dominance of fantasy since D&amp;D made the scene (and some popular notions about &quot;kids these days&quot;).In the D&amp;D segment, I figure that 3e designers mostly cut their teeth on 1e and reacted against (some aspects of) 2e; and then 4e people mostly started with 2e and reacted against (some aspects of) 3e.Even as the big RPG publishers seem wedded to the view that &quot;history has left behind&quot; rules sets with an order of magnitude fewer pages, the &quot;indy&quot; scene often goes pretty light (but tight) on &quot;crunch&quot;. (Some might note that, unlike computer hardware, the memory and processing speed of human beings has not been growing by leaps and bounds.)The shift from &quot;beer and pretzels&quot; to &quot;monster games&quot; is also (I think) normally cyclical, going back and around again like hemlines. I worry, though, that there's a tipping point at which too much complexity is both cause and symptom of a moribund market. I'm pretty sure more gamers who stuck with the hobby started with Victory in the Pacific than with Pacific War, with The Russian Campaign than with Drang Nach Osten. Past that point, even too much may simply be too late ...... until the wheel turns, and what's old is new again.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 4951783, member: 80487"] They have, and are likely to do so again. The hobby-game industry seems to go through cycles in which A is all the rage until B comes along ... which in turn gives way to C ... until people get tired of G (or Q) and turn again toward A for the next fad. Steampunk, for instance, seems to be having another day in the sun. The same could be said of RPGs on a whole, relative to the deluge of collectible card games some years ago. Board war-games have not recovered since the Hasborg scooped up most of that endangered species, but historical miniatures may somewhat have expanded back into their old habitat. That Napoleonics are at all on the RPG radar is interesting, given the dominance of fantasy since D&D made the scene (and some popular notions about "kids these days"). In the D&D segment, I figure that 3e designers mostly cut their teeth on 1e and reacted against (some aspects of) 2e; and then 4e people mostly started with 2e and reacted against (some aspects of) 3e. Even as the big RPG publishers seem wedded to the view that "history has left behind" rules sets with an order of magnitude fewer pages, the "indy" scene often goes pretty light (but tight) on "crunch". (Some might note that, unlike computer hardware, the memory and processing speed of human beings has not been growing by leaps and bounds.) The shift from "beer and pretzels" to "monster games" is also (I think) normally cyclical, going back and around again like hemlines. I worry, though, that there's a tipping point at which too much complexity is both cause and symptom of a moribund market. I'm pretty sure more gamers who stuck with the hobby started with [i]Victory in the Pacific[/i] than with [i]Pacific War[/i], with [i]The Russian Campaign[/i] than with [i]Drang Nach Osten[/i]. Past that point, even too much may simply be too late ... ... until the wheel turns, and what's old is new again. [/QUOTE]

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