Shane Hensley comments on the RPG industry

[Storm Raven]

In what you quoted, I was trying to get d20Dwarf to clarify. It seems to me he'd said:

1) d20 helps smaller games, by incresing overall exposure.
2) increasing exposure woudn't change what's sold.

This seems to entail a fundamental problem of logic. If statement 2 is true, statment 1 cannot betrue, and vice versa. I was asking d20dwarf to untangle this apparent inconsistency.

Where do my assumptions come into it?

You assume all games are the same.

Some games have poor sales because they have limited exposure. For those games, increased visibility may result in increased sales.

Some games have poor sales because the consuming public at large simply does not want what they are offering. For these games, increased visibility will have little, if any, effect.

How many games are in the first category? I'm inclined to guess "a few". How many games are in the second category, probably "a lot". No matter how cool the designer thinks it is, a game like "Orcworld" is unlikely to ever have the mass appeal of a game that offers players the chance to be stereotypical heroes without the cultural lessons.

 

[PEGShane]

--- I know, speaking as someone who bought CoC 4th edition and many a campaign from Chaosium) between Deadlands d20 and CoC d20 is why CoC d20 is a breakout hit, while Deadlands d20 is being dropped by its publisher.

Sigh. This is why I don't participate in these forums very much. Is there *anywhere* in *any* of my messages where I said we were dropping DL D20? No.

Exclusively DL D20 books are done after Way of the Righteous. That's all that was ever planned, as the line is dual-statted for *both* systems now, and entire books are converted in the regular Epitaph updates.

Shane Hensley
Pinnacle

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

Exclusively DL D20 books are done after Way of the Righteous. Shane Hensley
Pinnacle

My apologies for getting that fact wrong. Your overall tone of disappointment with d20 had led me to believe that you had dropped support for Deadlands d20.

Regardless, my main point still stands. Despite the installed base CoC has, CoC d20 has generally been a success, while PEG seems to regard Deadlands d20 as a disappointment not worthy of major investment. If you could reconcile all that with your expression that d20 players are not interested in anything other than fantasy, please enlighten me.

 

[Cergorach]

Sigh. This is why I don't participate in these forums very much. Is there *anywhere* in *any* of my messages where I said we were dropping DL D20? No.

Just take a deep breath, bitch slap the offender upside the head (or let someone else do it), count to ten, and politely explain it... Once, twice, trice... Or how many times you can without foaming at the mouth.

Boards (forums) such as these have such a diversity of people that you will always find people you don't like, it's the nature of the game. Those you don't like or annoy you to much, you just ignore, just like in real life (no you aren't allowed to throttle them, even if you do that in real life ;-). But the diversity of this board (and many others) is also it's strength. You would be suprised how many 'annoying' people (sometimes) say something interesting. It's a skill to pick through the threads and pick out your 'treasure' and join a discussion...

These people (and yes i'm one of them) won't stay quiet because you happen to be a game designer, even a famous one, or author their favorite game. They say what's on their mind and it's up to each of us how to deal with that...

 

[Synicism]

- First, I won't buy anything that isn't d20, unless maybe it would be generally useful for any game. I'm not a system nazi or think that d20 is the One System to Rule Them All or anything, its just that my group will NEVER play anything that isn't d20. Actually, there is almost no chance that we'll play anything but D&D. We simply don't have the time.

I've noticed that this is a disturbing trend. Though I wonder - if you are the GM, couldn't you simply decide to try out another game? I know a lot of groups where there is one person who is always the GM.

I mean, there is so much more to roleplaying than D&D. How will a group know what else there is if they never explore other options?

I realize D&D can be a lot of fun, but if players never try anything else, they will never find out what else there is.

Kinda sad, isn't it?

 

[Synicism]

If a book is made OGL instead of D20, such as Godlike and Mutants and Masterminds, you don't even need levels. Everything could be point based.

If someone would release one, I might never by a d20 label book again. Don't get me wrong - there are some great ones. But I have a zillion prestige classes (Swashbuckling Adventures gave me like 90 of them), more feats than I can swing a sword at, a ton of alternative mechanics that have been added on that let me spend experience to get permanent character perks, or make combination attacks with my multiple attack iterations, fight duels, and do any number of other things.

On the plus side, I get weight training walking to a game. On the downside, it's a pain to sort through.

I WISH someone would put out a book that would give me an OGL-compliant system that would let me customize to my heart's content and not have to hunt for prestige classes.

 

[kenjib]

...while PEG seems to regard Deadlands d20 as a disappointment not worthy of major investment.

I think you might want to re-read Shane's posts more carefully before re-iterating this statement. As far as I can tell from what he has posted:

They had a plan to release the core d20 rules then dual-stat supplements in the future. They are following through with it. They haven't backed out on their planned level of commitment. Deadlands d20 sold "quite well." He has been consistent about this in his posts. Where do you read "not worthy of major investment" into this?

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

I mean, there is so much more to roleplaying than D&D. How will a group know what else there is if they never explore other options?
...
Kinda sad, isn't it?

Not really. What I've discovered is that while my groups will occasionally play CoC, or a science fiction game, or super-heroes, whenever we return to D&D, there's always a sigh of relief. For some reason, D&D has long term play potential that none of the other games have. What this means is that anything you buy for D&D will almost certainly have use, while CoC, say, might get a month of play a year, at best.

 

[Synicism]

You'll also note that Spycraft has all of the definitive d20 elements.

Except that when you boil it down, Spycraft's system (and by extension, the system from the Farscape book, which, if I remember correctly, DOES have a d20 logo on it) is quite different. Character creation and levels work the same, but the combat mechanics are like night and day.

Personally, I think the Spycraft combat system fixed everything wrong with the D&D3 one, but that's just my personal taste. Still, it's very different, anf you need to do a lot of work to make them the same.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Not really. What I've discovered is that while my groups will occasionally play CoC, or a science fiction game, or super-heroes, whenever we return to D&D, there's always a sigh of relief. For some reason, D&D has long term play potential that none of the other games have. What this means is that anything you buy for D&D will almost certainly have use, while CoC, say, might get a month of play a year, at best.

My guess as to why is that D&D has a well-developed character advancement system. Many of the abilities players can acquire only come in at higher levels and therefore you have a reason to play the long-haul game so you can get to those higher levels. Vampire and some of the other White Wolf games also have this.

Quite a few games have excellent character construction rules but after building your initial character not much else happens game-wise, so they have to rely on the plot and story to keep suspense. D&D can provide both story reasons and game reasons to keep playing.