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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eyebeams" data-source="post: 3307290" data-attributes="member: 9225">Sure. That can explain the success of 3e just as easily. This reminds me of a Wayne Gretzky quote, actually. Gretzky sloppily kicks in one through a scrum by the goalie and afterwards, a reporter says, "Wasn't that a bit of a gimme, Wayne?" Gretzky looked at him and said, "It's not how, it's how many." It doesn't matter if people bought Serenity because they inhaled a fungus that made them really like the sepias and browns of the graphic design.Ryan Dancey said something about Serenity not being "evergreen," which is self-evidently true given that no game with less than 2 FY of sales under its belt can be considered evergreen. What will determine that game's long-term success is whether a strong player base forms behind it and people play games using the RPG in some capacity. I don't know whether it will and I don't think MWP is counting on it, but see below.I've heard of more Serenity games than nifty-keen fancy schmacy games with cool new mechanics. I have a feeling that the game is seeing more use outside of the traditional tabletop culture and in web a javachat gaming, which is already heavily fanfic oriented. (It's also an area in which companies and commentators have generally shown and incredible *lack* of insight. Prognostication and punditry that fail to take this thriving community into account are painful to read, actually. Taking it into account doesn't mean, "Build cool interface for tabletop gaming," either. And incidentally, this community is why saying you'll run some kind of narrative game for a any licensed IP is so wrongheaded it ain't funny, 'cause they don't play that way. My God, the wated opportunities here . . . well, that;s a topic for another time.)The mechanics are serviceable enough. They're nothing special, but the game doesn't really cry out for anything superfancy except maybe for merchant/trade rules.FATE would have been a terrible choice. Definng the character by a identity-cum-genre traits is already a done deal for fans, so applying it to a game system gives them *no* help at all, especially since the whole basis for game balance for genre fans is different than for other games. Contrary to popular belief, fan-centered gaming *discourages* strong emulation of canonical characters, and the toolsets it seeks out (when winging it isn't the order of the day) to to *rid* the character cast of people who can argue their way into being just as good as folks like Mal. So providing sufficiently divorced and character-neutral traits along with character stats as a yardstick is pretty good. Nothing wrong with FATE though(and to be honest, I prefer systems with broad, self-defined traits like it).D20 would work with broad classes, a reworked damage/injury system, spaceship construction rules, and a whole bunch of other things that basically make you wonder why you don't just make your own system. And this is where we get to the fallacy in the "D20 can be anything you want!" business. It certainly can, but in some cases, the degree of alteration is drastic and time-consuming enough that there is no significant difference between using it and writing a new system, except for losing control over parts of your IP (to the OGL). And in Serenity's case, it being Serenity is a much bigger deal than the system. Besides, MWP does DL and Castlemourn too, so I'm sure they know the value of the system and license around those parts.Oh yeah, and: Stargate SG-1 and Farscape are excellent counterexamples to the idea that a license should default to D20. So are LotR and Trek, given that Decipher's system was not-so-subtly based on easy adoption for the D&D set. And the less said about Modern/Future, the better.I think Serenity's value will ultimately depend on BSG and one other license enabling an identification of the system with licensed games. If I were them I'd try to snag at least two more licenses and go for similar releases targeted at established fan communities (esp. ones that already freeform).</blockquote>

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