"This game will bury you" vs. "This game is a flash-in-the-pan"!

[Nisarg]

Ok, so that's half the question.. what about the other half?

What games are really hot right now that won't last?

I mean, in one sense every game "lasts", there'll always be someone playing it. But I'm talking about games that are "hot" right now, that people expect to have a monumental popularity for a long time, or a monumental impact on gaming, but turn out to be mostly a fad. Like, there are still people playing Deadlands, there are still people playing Space 1889.. but those are both good examples of the phenomenon I'm talking about. I remember when there was a HUGE buzz about those games, and now they're pretty much buried.

So what's going to be like that, out of what's hot now? Nobilis? Exalted? M&M? Unisystem? Unknown Armies? Midnight (the setting)?

No point (IMO) making anysuch predictions about either Eberron or the new WoD, neither have been out long enough to judge its "faddish" qualities over its "solid burier" qualities.

Nisarg

 

[Henry]

I'll nominate Savage Worlds for the list (ironically, from Pinnacle Entertainment Group). I love the rules for the game, and it still has a rather solid core community still playing it, one year after its release. However, the buzz in places like RPG.net, here, Dragonsfoot, etc. is less than half of what it was a year ago. It's a solid game system, much in the same way as Feng Shui, but it doesn't have a strong range of system support from 3rd parties that such a game needs to grow in mindshare.

 

[Mercule]

My list for what will continue ad infinitum:

D&D, d20, or both. I say it that way because they could diverge in the future. 4E could move to a completely different "engine" -- or return to something more resembling a prior incarnation -- while d20 remained in the marketplace.

World of Darkness has survived about 15 years and it has been in the #2 slot for a good portion of that time. It would take a major culture shift to cripple the WoD.

HERO will be around forever only because there are a few passionate people willing to carry it. Hero Games practically had to close their doors a few years back (everyone got a day job), but they are now publishing quite a few books. There are also a significant number of people (like me) who will use a "universal" system for a lot of one-shot or odd-ball ideas that don't have a dedicated system to them.

GURPS is the other side of the HERO coin. Personally, I think it's one of the worst games ever made, but it has a large fan base. In fact, I think it's more popular than HERO. Anyway, the reasons are largely the same -- with the added benefit that it's owned by a fiscally sound (AFAIK) company.

 

[MerricB]

I'd say that Buffy will be little played in another couple of years. (The system may have moved on to new settings, though).

Cheers!

 

[Meadred]

Ok, so that's half the question.. what about the other half?

What games are really hot right now that won't last?

Nisarg

Generally speaking, I doubt if all of the licensed d20 games, such as Stargate SG-1, Babylon 5, etc. will continue to prosper and get new players, at least in a few years from now. If the show that the game is based upon is cancelled and you're only left with endless reruns (if you're lucky), I think that I will be hard to continue to recruit new players. The hard core fans will always be there, so the game may not be altogether "buried", but the fan base for the game won't rejuvenate. Then again, the success of Star Trek, and the countless RPGs based on it, may prove me wrong.

Cheers,
Meadred

 

[satori01]

GURPS will still be around, Steve Jackson has been designing and maintaining RPG systems for too long for me to put my money on saying he will go belly up.

As for Shadowrun, I loved the game up to about second edition and have never looked for it again since FASA went under. There will probably be small pockets of resistance, but unless the title was picked up by a major player, I dont see it being the powerhouse it was, ever.

 

[Testament]

Generally speaking, I doubt if all of the licensed d20 games, such as Stargate SG-1, Babylon 5, etc. will continue to prosper and get new players, at least in a few years from now. If the show that the game is based upon is cancelled and you're only left with endless reruns (if you're lucky), I think that I will be hard to continue to recruit new players. The hard core fans will always be there, so the game may not be altogether "buried", but the fan base for the game won't rejuvenate. Then again, the success of Star Trek, and the countless RPGs based on it, may prove me wrong.

Cheers,
Meadred

And yet that is exactly the case with Babylon-5. It was cancelled, what, almost a decade ago, yet the game is selling very well AFAIK.

BTW, I am not a B-5 fan. I've never seen a single episode.

 

[Nisarg]

Generally speaking, I doubt if all of the licensed d20 games, such as Stargate SG-1, Babylon 5, etc. will continue to prosper and get new players, at least in a few years from now. If the show that the game is based upon is cancelled and you're only left with endless reruns (if you're lucky), I think that I will be hard to continue to recruit new players. The hard core fans will always be there, so the game may not be altogether "buried", but the fan base for the game won't rejuvenate. Then again, the success of Star Trek, and the countless RPGs based on it, may prove me wrong.

Cheers,
Meadred

Yes, I think its a safe bet to say that any successful liscensing of an RPG will have its ongoing prosperity tied to the ongoing prosperity of the license in question.

On the other hand, we all know that a prosperous license does not automatically just create a prosperous RPG. Star Trek and LoTR have proven this, among others... you have to make a system that works, and marketing that works too.
So I suppose its possible a successful licensed RPG might tank even while the licensed property itself is hot, if it suddenly screws up its marketing practices or changes its system (or the system just starts being seen as outdated).

Nisarg

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

Asa far as games that won't last, well I certainly have to second the 'licensed game' theory. B5 it is said is successful but when Star Wars came out from West End, it did not last very long (Hell, West End did not last very long). I think that the products that are tied to movies or TV shows have a limited appeal. There will always be exceptions, though.


As far as non licensed, I get the sense that Silver Age Sentinels may be fading into obscurity.

 

[wedgeski]

And yet that is exactly the case with Babylon-5. It was cancelled, what, almost a decade ago, yet the game is selling very well AFAIK.

Not really. The original 5-year arc finished (note: it was not cancelled), and then the spin-off Crusade was unceremoniously dumped (no great loss IMO). However, there have been numerous TV movies (some great, others not so), a bunch of books, and now a feature film seems imminent (everything bar the official press release). I think as long as the franchise has legs in some form, the RPG can thrive on the residual interest. Not only that, but when these programs are built up around an almost iconic creator (Straczinski, Whedon), then as long as interest in *him* survives, so can the RPG.

Um, my point... yes, that's right. My point is that although the original B5 finished a long time ago, enough has happened in the meantime to give the RPG some legs, so B5 may not be a good example.