What does it take for an RPG to die?

[numtini]

This? Or something else?

Nope, Knights And Berserkers And Legerdemain. A game with absolutely nothing to recommend it that's been out of print for 40 years. I am not sure if that or the two Islandia scenarios by The Companions are the rarest things I own.

 

[chuckdee]

Nope, Knights And Berserkers And Legerdemain. A game with absolutely nothing to recommend it that's been out of print for 40 years. I am not sure if that or the two Islandia scenarios by The Companions are the rarest things I own.

Hey, me and my group played and ongoing game of World of Synnibarr. We had fun in spite of the game system, not because of it!

 

[aramis erak]

I would argue that MERP and Star Wars WEG are dead games: the publishers have ceased to exist and/or lost the license, and the current IP licensees do not have IP for the original games.

WEG's Star Wars IP is all owned by LFL, which is now owned by Disney. And Disney let FFG rerelease WEG 1e core & sourcebook.
So, WEG's comatose.

I agree with with your bolded part -- they're definitely dead as commercial products. Without that disclaimer, though, I definitely don't believe either game is dead in any meaningful sense.

PretzelBoy is flat out wrong about the IP ownership...
MERP:

WEG SW 1e:

EN Judge Dredd

(Fair Use/Fair Dealing exception for educational purpose asserted)
Most licensed games' copyrights work the same way... the licensee has to hand over ownership of the generated properties.
Some of the contracts prohibit post-license republishing by either party, others don't bar republishing the licensed game, but the IP of the licensed game is almost always now property of the licensor.

Not being privy to the actual contracts for the above 3, but having seen info on two of them - WEG's rules, having gone open license, were not seen as any impediment to the reprint. It was mostly getting access to the files, and permission from LFL/Disney.
With MERP, the issue is that MERP added way too much, wasn't a good fit as a game, and while it sold a lot, it was not played much.
Also with MERP, there's a retroclone that looks pretty good (if you like RM/SM/MERP/HARP mechanics, which I kind of do...): Against the Darkmaster.

More to the point, a game being considered dead or not makes zero difference to me, so if people want to define a game as being dead at a particular point, I guess they can, but I find the distinction meaningless.

It will if your players want corebooks.

 

[aramis erak]

This thread led to me googling Fudge last night. Is this thread a secret Game Necromancer's plot?

Steffan O'Sullivan uses FUDGE for his game designs; most recently that I noticed, Princess Bride RPG in 2019. Which made it a hard-pass for me. I first encountered FUDGE as a download in LaTex format...

 

[SableWyvern]

It will if your players want corebooks.

I stand by my statement. It doesn't matter to me.