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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Dallman" data-source="post: 9026602" data-attributes="member: 6999616">There's a trade-off here, which is fairly inescapable in commercial popular culture. Most people don't want lots of originality. They don't want something exactly the same as last month's product, because that would be dull, but they also don't want to overturn all their ideas and deal with something totally unfamiliar. Anyone who offers something highly original is likely to find that it only appeals to a small part of the market. If you're a small publisher relying on each product's sales to keep you afloat while you work on the next one, attempting radical innovation will kill you. So if you want to play something that isn't mainstream, you have a variety of options, but they're all more work than buying and running third-party D&D-style adventures: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> If one of the traditional niche markets, like superhero gaming, Call of Cthulhu, or Harn, appeals to you, join that. You'll get some mutual support from other members of the niche, but you'll still have to create a lot of your own adventure material. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> You can pick a game system that seems appropriate and create your own setting that works the way you want. This is what I usually do, running GURPS in semi-historical settings. It is quite a bit of work, but you can do the work as you go along, rather than having to write the whole world before you start. You need players that will appreciate the setting, and don't just want to kill monsters and take their stuff.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> An odder approach is to take a published setting and run it with a different game system that brings a different mindset to the game. I'm currently playing through the Pathfinder 1e version of the Kingmaker Adventure Path, under GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. The characters are a bit more rationalist than seems to be expected, and keep spotting flaws in the logistics, which make it all seem more complicated. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> If nothing published pleases you, start creating your own setting and system. This is where radical innovation happens, but it's not a good basis for starting a publishing company. </li> </ul></blockquote>

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